Ashgan

The Prophecy

At the end of it all, Jillian returned his gaze with moistly shimmering eyes and pale, parted lips somewhere between awe and dismay, partly hidden behind the outstretched fingers of her hand. What did one say to that? She thought he might have rebuked her apology, or accepted it and moved on. Never would she have thought that he would voluntarily force himself through all of this very vivid and visible emotion in order to explain to her just how and why he despised his step-father this much and which things had made him the monster he was. It must have been painful to have every accomplishment robbed from oneself by their mere name. Jillian had never thought about the disconnect between an individual and their title and could not truly blame those who would have accredited each of Gerald’s triumphs to his name. It was the natural order of the world to assume that those with meaningful names did impactful things and it was all too easy to forget about the person behind the name. Perhaps she could consider herself lucky to have been born into the situation that she was: prosperous enough to have wanted for nothing, but still part of an artisan’s family, wholly separate from the ranks of nobility and power. Nobody whispered her name in hushed tones or with wicked tongues, unless they were of a jealous kind of folks less well off. If it had only been about recognition, however, Gerald’s fate would not have seemed so terrible. What he told her about Remdal was… disturbing, to say the least. A cynical thought in Jillian’s mind wondered if destiny had played a cruel trick on Gerald by making the old man right; if his wife had been killed by mortal hands, then her soul would still exist today, unclaimed by the Withering as it were. She choked the thought in its infancy.

“No, don’t be,” she asserted vehemently and placed a slender, comforting hand on his bony shoulder and the other on her chest. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I had no idea, Gerald. I just opened my dumb mouth without thinking again.”

“I…” she stammered, unsure what to say. “I’m not sure how to make up for it. I won’t speak that name again, I promise. You know what?” Jillian moved the hand on his shoulder to the other, essentially wrapping her arm around him. “That’s enough opening old wounds for tonight. Let’s calm down and speak of nicer things, yes?”

She affectionately rubbed his shoulder before letting go and placing both of her hands in her lap. Looking into the fire, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames with the same obsessive wonder as when she had first seen something burn, she wondered what to shift the conversation to. Except, there it was, right before her.

“Fire is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? It gives light and warmth, but get too close and try to touch it and you burn yourself. It’s like pricking yourself on a rose.” She snorted an awkward chuckle. “Reina, I sound like some good-for-nothing poet. But I just can’t stop being fascinated by it.”

She remembered being a young girl and instead of playing with her myriad dolls, standing by her father and staring into the heat of the forge and helping him light it when she was a little older. She remembered standing there mesmerized when the Gallard’s home burnt down. She remembered setting fire to Hanna’s bouquet of Daisies when Jonathan gave it to her instead of Jillian. It didn’t matter what you put on fire. Once aglow with the blaze, everything burned equally beautifully.

Firewall: Post-Apocalyptic Horror

Yo Jace. I once took an interest in Eclipse Phase by chance because I wanted to use its rules system for a personal setting. I never really got anything going out of it, other than an almost fully automated excel character sheet. That said, the original setting for EP seems interesting and ticks most of the things I like in my sci-fi. Since I haven't written any sci-fi in years, maybe it's about time. Will keep an eye on this and see where it goes.

Oy. This is what I get for not closing tabs ;'D

The Prophecy

Eyes wide with confusion narrowed into an angered glower in reaction to Gerald’s threat. Jillian could not fathom the hatred that the name Remdal brought up within her ally and was caught by surprise just how vivid his response was. Surprise that had quickly turned to irritation when he promised to kill her if she did it again; the mere threat was enough of an affront to her dignity and well-being to cause a veritable flood of uncontrolled fury wash over her inside like a heat wave. Yet she too kept a hold of herself, the two sorcerers awkwardly staring at one another with stony faces and stiff hands. The moment was short-lived, mercifully, and Gerald was the first to slump back into a mellower mood, suddenly appearing quite drained. It took a few heartbeats before Jillian, too, relaxed and calmed her nerves. Perhaps they were both still too stressed out after the day’s events, and in face of those to come. Talking about their troubled lives had perhaps not been the most prudent decision on her part.

“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” she mused softly, averting her gaze and lazily looking into the fire pit. “We’ll make it.”

After a handful of quiet moments, she turned her attention to Gerald once more: “I’m sorry, Gerald. About calling you that name,” she apologized reluctantly, uncertain if she had anything to be truly sorry for. “And about bringing up all these things in general. We’re all quite on edge I think. Maybe I should’ve waited.” Even if she hadn’t, it was a good way to repair the infraction caused by her earlier blunder.

The Prophecy

I don't have a quote on hand but I thought I remembered that she did ask in some form, and he simply chose not to. Either way, I imagine he will get the hint with the way she keeps stressing his last name(s) in a sort of provocative tone.

The Prophecy

Curious that Jillian would persist to refer to Gerald as "Remdal", rather than "Glass" (given his apparent distaste for the man, and obvious preference for his "real" surname.)

@Shienvien

It's both a solidifying of her better understanding of his identity, as well as a petty jab at his own habit of calling her by her surname, which she wants him to stop.

The Prophecy

“My wife is gone,” Gerald lamented, attempting to hide his grief from the prying, ever-attentive eyes of the red witch. She felt the impulse rise within her to gently touch the necromancer, to lay a comforting hand on his own or his shoulder, but she knew that he would want nothing less and that it would afford him no consolation. She thus settled for a mellow gaze in the others’ eyes. This was one of the rare glimpses of emotion that Gerald would afford her, for he almost immediately – and abruptly – continued by recounting the things he’s learned about necromancy, how resurrection was possible, if not necessarily by humans, and how at the very least communicating with the dead was a very real option to the trained necromancer. But then he imparted one last detail that changed everything: it was the Withering that had taken his wife. It took a few instants to dawn upon her, but she had realized the implications that this death carried before Gerald explained them. It was her turn now to hold her composure and Gerald would find her eyes gently widening in horror as her breath remained trapped in her lungs for a few, eternal heartbeats. Her unflinching eyes were absorbed by his stony mien to the point where she did not notice Omni’s pulsating light.

He indulged her earlier request and spoke of his goals in life, admitting that not all of the things he wished to come true would be at all possible. Even so, his words reflected a stern determination that, while intended to do good, was borne out of anger and grief, to Jillian’s eyes. She wondered how long he would keep it up. Essentially, he wanted three things: make the world a better place. Return his wife, if such a thing were at all possible. And, lastly, to survive. His motivations were awfully altruistic for somebody who acted out of negative feelings, someone whose successes brought him no joy and only eased the suffering. How long could he keep doing this until even that would subside? This world they lived in was impossible to render perfect. Judging by its current state, it might even be impossible to make it “good”. He would never reach a point whereupon he could come to rest and behold a world of peace and prosperity. How long could a man chase the impossible until his will would falter? How long could the rage against injustice keep on burning inside that stone-encrusted heart of his?

Would he ever rediscover the taste of untarnished happiness?

I’m sorry burned on her lips. She took the breath to speak the words, but didn’t. Again, she knew he would only hate her for saying it, because her pity likely meant nothing to him and he would be loath to indulge in an emotional moment any more than he already had. She respected it.

“Thank you, Gerald,” she finally produced, no longer resisting the temptation to move her hand from Omni onto his own feeble hand. “You’ve been very honest to me when you didn’t have to be and I’m glad you were. I’d rather we were open about ourselves.”

She rather hastily removed her hand from his again, realizing that she had virtually subconsciously put it there. Her voice remained unperturbed, hoping to gloss over this misstep. “It’s easier to trust and depend on someone when you know who they are, isn’t it, Remdal?”

The Prophecy

It made no sense any way the young witch looked at it; how could there be a seal in place that kept the strongest necromancers locked away, but gave free reign to the lesser ones? If that was indeed the case, she had to imagine it working like a kind of sieve that kept the largest pieces out while being too coarse to catch finer grains. But then again, Gerald had said that Pelgaid’s guard consisted mostly of men-at-arms and walls. Was the tribunal just biding its time? Could they leave at any moment and they simply chose not to? Just how they chose to leave Gerald in possession of Omni? It was all very ominous and frightening. Feeling suddenly reminded of the impending marriage between Pelgaid and Zerul, she could hope that this union would at least bolster Pelgaid’s defenses with more knowledgeable mages, at least. If nothing else, they would reinforce the illusion of control and safety. It just dawned on Jillian just how many catastrophic dangers were looming over Rodoria, a fact that she had been quite ignorant to when she had still been a regular citizen. There was the Withering, of course, which had turned out to be the ploy of none other than Kreshtaat; there was Hazzergash who, even in a weakened state, could obliterate a majority of Anaxim, and only the Spirits knew where the other generals of the Grand Master hid; and now she was being told that the Black Tribunal was not nearly as convincingly quarantined as one might wish. Any one of these threats, and she was sure there were many others now that she was still unaware of, could be enough to plunge the entire human world into darkness and chaos. All the more reason to justify leaving behind her old life and becoming an active participant in shaping the fate of the world she knew.

And she wasn’t the only one doing the shaping; curious eyes fixated on her companion, she questioned how it came to be that the Black Tribunal had trusted Gerald so readily, even sought him out on their own volition. He revealed that, essentially, he did not know why they did what they did. At best, he had figured, it was to set him up as a competent necromancer for when he became the new dean at the academy. It began when he clumsily attempted to learn the art on his own, in secret, and they learned of this in spite of his precautions. Apparently they had simply offered him membership in the tribunal, and agreed to teach him. Jillian guessed that the necromancers must either have been very desperate for new blood or very naïve. Or perhaps Gerald was lying; she still found it hard to believe that he had just woken up to find Omni one day. He was either hiding part of the truth, or the tribunal was vastly less competent than she would have expected. Or, as she had guessed before, he was being played and did not know the truth himself. She wondered if the staff could be used to spy on him in some form and if that was what kept them docile for the time being, given that he was involved in a great many interesting affairs. In the end, though, Jillian decided to ask about something far more personal.

“Is your goal still the same, Gerald? About your late wife?” she asked softly, almost cautiously. Jillian knew that it was almost certainly a sensitive topic to ask about, especially when considering his taciturn nature when it came to personal things. She had suspected that this might have been his reason for seeking necromancy ever since the Grand Master had mentioned his beloved’s death and wondered if this fancy of his still held true. There was no way he could bring her back in a way that would not be a grotesque mockery of who she had been in life. Gerald had to know this, surely? Or was he privy to some elder lore that whispered promises of true resurrection?

The Prophecy

Jillian’s eyebrows perked up almost in the same instant that Gerald’s body twitched seemingly involuntarily the moment her hands made contact with Omni. He said nothing, no protest against this uninvited touching of his belongings – in fact, the most valuable of all of his possessions, barring perhaps the demon prison – but the witch could tell that he hadn’t expected nor wanted it. He must have harbored strong feelings of possessiveness over the object which she so gently caressed now, unperturbed by his reaction. After all, he had chosen not to bring it up and she wanted to play along, pretending she hadn’t noticed. Only, a part of her grinned with devious glee inside, reveling in the knowledge that she could extract such a visible and strong reaction from him with but the gentle stroke of a finger.

Gerald explained that he had never been to Pelgaid, let alone the dark, beating heart of it, before. Apparently, the tribunal had come to him instead, which itself was surprising to her, not only due to the fact that they had chosen him of their own volition, but that they could leave their cursed realm at all. She thought the very reason Pelgaid’s capital was located such as it was, was to form an impenetrable barrier to the necromancers and their ilk. If they could leave and train apprentices in the outside world, then what purpose did the city even serve now? Perhaps it still kept the worst of horrors at bay, but even that seemed more speculation than fact now. The witch was no proponent of the ban on necromancy (or other outlawed schools of magic), but she was very willing to believe that the things locked up in the realm of eternal night were better of remaining that way. Magic was only ever a tool that could be used to accomplish both good and evil, but Delian and her followers almost certainly had less than the good of Rodoria on their minds. Especially now, after their lengthy imprisonment, if indeed they still were prisoners at all.

“I wasn’t aware that the tribunal could leave Pelgaid,” she looked and gestured towards the city’s silhouette, “I thought the very purpose of the capital was to keep Delian and her tribunal safely locked away.”

“But if you didn’t go to them,” her gaze swept back to him, her voice now suspicious, “then why did they seek you out specifically? I imagine you had to make some kind of promise to them? I very much doubt they would go through all that trouble just to do you a favor. Aren’t you a little wary of them? You say you gave them nothing in return, whilst receiving your training and a powerful artifact. Surely they’re either planning their revenge, or you are playing into their hands unknowingly. Either way I’d find that concerning.”

Or, she thought of a third option, he was lying to her. Perhaps he didn’t want to tell her the extent of his involvement with the tribunal, or simply didn’t think her ready. She didn’t want to assume this, but it was a possibility she had to be aware of. Gerald had proven to be very deliberate in how he treated her and what he told her. There was no telling just how much he was still hiding from her, and why.

Heirs of the Dark Lord

<Snipped quote by Legion02>

Eh, it was a couple hundred years ago probably, it wasn't exactly a recent thing.

@Zeropathic

Yeah it's like it barely ever happened. And who knows how many people died? A few thousand? Maybe only a few hundred? Or a few dozen? Eh :'D

Heirs of the Dark Lord

<Snipped quote by Aristo>

Who, these guys?



Short version: they are vampire/flesh mages who worship a lovecraftian monstrosity known as the Conqueror Worm and they were allied with Daigon back in the day, using their unique magical expertise to help create slave races like orcs and beastkin.

@Flagg

Inbred swine... more creature than man. Diseased old mystics. Worthless, diseased, rotten... corrupt.