Ranger v. Shadowed

The town of the Red Hand was still, eerily so. A single light was left flickering alone along the streets, the flames that would normally be filling the glass lanterns having been blown out by the wild winds. It was not common for the area of Corone to receive such vicious gusts. The tree line that split the town from the mountain was still though, causing the prophet to worry even more. In soft leather boots he started his stride towards the one light, searching the darkness with his elven vision. Not a soul wandered the night, the waning moon his only companion.

“The Thayne guide my steps,” the prophet murmured to himself, his voice low and stoic. The pathway to the gods of Althanas had opened before the drow as he had grown and developed, and through the Red Hand and his own personal studies he had become enlightened to their wills and their sway. The night, however, was one that was not like one he had ever felt before. He wrapped his hands around the cracked leather hilts of his swords and continued his deliberate gait through the streets. “Be my light in the darkness; guide my steps in this forlorn world.”

Ranger turned down a street and saw the source of the malcontent weather that tore through the town. A chalice of meager design, tall enough to come to the drows waist, rested alone in the middle of the prophet’s path. The silver goblet was roughly brushed, dented and worn from countless ears of existence. The lackluster artifact was the least of the drows concern. Behind it blackness deeper than any he had ever seen lingered like a portal, beckoning him into its void. Hesitation was lost to pure curiosity and the will to remove whatever dark powers were at work within the Red Hands new strong hold.

With a steady hand the prophet lifted the chalice, the weight of the artifact equal to one of common size instead of the behemoth that waited for him. As soon as the base was lifted the winds died, the silence was intrusive and unbearable. Ranger turned to view the world behind him, hoping to see even a single pair of comforting eyes watching as he was pulled into the void. But not a soul wandered the night.

~*~

Darkness flooded his vision, a supernatural darkness that his cautious, silver eyes could not pierce. A slender, calloused hand rose to his face. Long fingers ran over a sharp jaw line, down a short but piercing nose, and to a pair of thin lips. The chilling stroke of his hand felt as if the emaciated hand of death itself was moving across his facade. A chill found its way down his neck and arms, the resulting shiver forced the discomfort deeper into the inner sanctum of his mind. The sleek eyes of the drow closed and he searched his mind for his peace, his serenity, only to find that the connection with the Thayne was severed and forgotten. But soul and body were disjoined within the devious world he had been sent to, the feeling of being incomplete and empty grated against his thoughts. “Where is this place where not even the gods of Althanas can see into?”

The words echoed through the void. Tangible words were lost to the whims of the void that consumed him and his surroundings.

It was seconds later that the feeling of nausea and separated soul diminished and the prophet felt whole once again. His hands feel to his chest, grasping the silver goblet that had shrunk to a mere inches and was attached to a necklace that he had never worn before. Without looking down to the object he knew that it was vital to his further existence, though how it was vital to that aspect was unsure even to the seemingly all knowing drow.

Cautious steps, like those taken towards the void, were again assumed. This time they were removing him from the place that he had been so abruptly assigned by whatever fates dictated his pathway in life. All around him a grove of trees thicker than any he had ever seen on Althanas stood as silent watchers, their boughs stoic and unmoving as if giving no sign that they welcomed Ranger. Overhead the moon that had been watching him with the winking eye of N’jal had fallen quite a bit, giving the prophet ample proof that he was no longer in Corone, or anywhere close to the island nation.

Out of Character:

I was told to make an ooc note that I am using the full-power version of my character.

The silence of sheer terror cast a damp cloth about the village. The inhabitants, a typical smattering of farmers and shopkeepers, women and children, stayed within their homes, trembling in fear at the demon that walked among them this night. It had come without warning, a dark mountain of flesh, concealed by the darkness of a moonless night, silent in its march through the abandoned streets. None save the demon itself knew of its purpose here; for none could face the terrible thought that, perhaps, this abomination had come to steal them away, for some crime etched into its tireless memory.

For indeed, it was the task of Honuse Relaiyent, Lawmaker and Elect of the gods, to procure the damnable soul seeking refuge in this humble smattering of buildings. A man who saw fit to steal from a god, contemptible in every way, had taken shelter here, before Sol fled from the sky; for the crime committed, the thief would be cast down to Hel, to quench her eternal thirst. Such was the task given by Thor, of whose household the thief had robbed, taking in his flight a sword from the armory of the house.

The darkness of the night melded against his raven leather armor; every inch of skin was covered, save a small opening at the bottom of his executioner’s mask. Even his vast array of weapons was blacker than the night he found himself striding through, his bulk, twice the size as a regular man and several heads taller, was still invisible as he stalked the prey. Though the darkness the darkness would hinder a normal man – as it was so pervasive as to allow nothing but the outlines of buildings to be seen – it did nothing to stop the confident gait of the Lawmaker; for the pits of his eyes were darker than the blackest of nights, having been removed many centuries ago.

Instead, Honuse Relaiyent’s vision was filled with a perpetual grey haze, discerning the shapes around him only at a relatively close distance. Such was his first advantage on this dreadful night; the cold winter air grasped any sound his passing might have made, holding it tight in its grasp the instant it came to exist. The dampness of the invisible fog muted the soft rasp of leather upon leather, granting the abomination near-total silence in his approach. Yet despite being invisible to nearly every sense available to man, the villagers still knew his presence; the inexorable pull upon their spirits, the perception of faint whispers just beyond reach of their ears, the quickening of their heartbeats, all were signs of the Lawmaker’s dreaded passage.

In the face of the paralyzing fear that gripped the innocent of the village, it was always those whom the Lawmaker truly hunted that managed to overcome the terror; they all attempted to flee. As was quite expected, a young man, clutching a long sword gilded in silver, ran from one of the houses, his legs carrying him perilously through the darkness. A whisper of motion came from the Lawmaker, as the demon pulled a pair of small knives from their sheaths along his ribs. With the sigh of steel parting air, the blades launched into the night, striking the thief behind each knee, sending him tumbling to the ground in a heap.

Desperate, the robber tried to crawl away, doing a credible job of ignoring the pain he had to be experiencing; loose dirt rose in clouds at his sides, as the stillness of the night attempted to suppress the sudden advent of noise. But for all his struggles, the thief did not manage to elude the attention of the hunter; with a sure step and a whisper of motion, a black steel blade cleaved the head of the man from his shoulders. Reaching down with his left hand, Honuse Relaiyent picked up the head, while his other hand sheathed the sword it had drawn. Stooping once more, the giant lifted the corpse onto his shoulder, before setting off down the path, to return to the halls of Valhalla, having completed his task.

Several days passed before the Lawmaker stood once more before Odin, lord of all nine worlds. He deposited the corpse, which had since become quite foul, before the elegant throne; in its hand was still clutched the sword stolen from Thor, which Honuse Relaiyent now retrieved, ensuring it was not stained with the blood of the thief before offering it to Odin’s son, who stood to the side of the hall. With the barest of nods, the god acknowledged the return of his property, and the punishment of the man who had stolen it.

“As ever, young Honuse Relaiyent, thy service is to be commended. And thy return is most aptly timed; for I have need of thy service once more.” Odin said, his deep voice filling the grand hall. “One who is not of this world has found his way within the borders of Asgard. He is not invited by the gods; as such, thou art to slay him.”

The Lawmaker bowed, before turning to leave the fortress of the gods. Though it were as likely as not to be an adolescent, having made some error or another in his travels, he would be slain as if the gravest of threats to the Aesir; trespassing upon the land of the gods was a crime not easily forgotten, should one even survive long enough to escape. It would be a simple task, to hunt this wandering fool.

The giant strode calmly into the deepening night, unconcerned at the task he was given. His footsteps fell lightly in the thick forests, the distance and blackness of the night failing to be an inconvenience; for here, in the heart of living plants, Honuse Relaiyent was truly a god in his own right. His lordship over life granted him perceptions through them, and the inherent recognition of the patterns of life before him. He knew without seeing where this intruder walked, and knew that his power in such a verdant forest was nearly without limit.

It did not take long for the abomination to reach the small clearing where the intruder was; without hesitation or a taste for the grandiose, the Lawmaker simply strode out of the trees, his hands removing the pair of short swords kept alongside his calves. Both blades were held in a traditional style, his left arm leading, with the right held close for defense; aside from the swords in his hands, a thin blade protruded from the top of each arm, extending several inches past his fingertips. Without preamble he struck, his leading weapon making a short, probing thrust at this unknown foe, followed by a vertical sweep of the right-hand blade.

“What is my purpose in this land? What is it that the Thayne will of me?” The unanswered questions lingered like an unfulfilled promise, taunting the prophet as he quietly searched the night. Silver eyes as vivid as mythril were given no obvious threat to view; only the leering forests edge and a pervasive silence. With no wind every shallow breath was left before him, the light haze of his warmth clashing with the chill air. No birds sang their predatory nightly songs, no animals rustled uneasily, not a sound could be heard. It was almost as if he was dreaming and the world around him was an intangible limbo before he would be cast to the wills of the Cabal.

The only answer that came to any questions was the one he least expected answered. From the depths of the grove a heavyset figure appeared, as if the bringer of death himself. His steps were soft, silent even to the elves sharp sense of hearing, despite that the man stood the height of a giant. The prophet defensively stepped away from the monster of a man, fearing that he would be the Cabal’s first challenge. He wrapped his hand around the small chalice, a white knuckled grip tightly holding it before tucking it away safely behind his black leather studded jerkin. Whatever it was meant for, whatever importance it held over the drow, he did not want it to become entangled in the conflict that was to come.

No warning, no call to begin the combat, the heavy set man withdrew his blades and assumed a stance that was at best common for dual wielding. Ranger followed the example and removed his own two blades. The two swords were a blend of mythirl and an unknown black substance, deeply steeped in anti-magic enchantments. It was only fitting to go into battle with a beast wielding the blades of Hromagh, the beastly god of strength and wrath. Perhaps battling the beast was the call of Hromagh, the reason the prophet had been forced into the unknown world? It seemed that he was to be tested, prove his power to one of the seven Thayne that he followed without question.

Ranger was not given the chance to ask his sudden shadowy opponent about the meaning of his attack before the man charged forward, blades wielded deftly and quickly. With a flash of movement the first clash of blades resounded through the still air. The drow parried the thrust to the side and twisted his other hand to cause the second sweeping assault to catch the flat of his blade. Instead of carrying on with either blade and pushing them far away, forcing both his own arms and his opponents away from covering their chest, the prophet twisted his first hand. The blade in hand swept forward towards the inside of the man’s arm. If he could cut the inside of the beasts arm he could slow him considerably.

It was with casual ease that the Lawmaker slid into the flow of battle, relying upon every sense available to discern the movements of his enemy. His probing attacks, brought to a halt by the placement of his opponent’s weapons, were but the illusion that had led him to great success in the battles of his lifetime. The advent of steel to one trained in its art invoked many preconceptions of the rules of single combat, oftentimes prompting an unconscious change in the behavior and expectations of those who saw fit to challenge the abomination’s right to slay them.

It was these rules that Honuse Relaiyent had long ago abandoned, favoring the untamed ferocity of his natural inclination to battle; he had no use of common wisdoms, when instinct and the wide range of sensory information available guided his actions. His subconscious will to dominate was all that he relied upon, and as such, his disregard for the rules of others often brought an advantage, as he knew it would on this night. The unnamed warrior before him had taken a painfully obvious route, aiming a blow to the exposed arm of the giant.

With casual contempt, the Lawmaker rotated his right arm, sliding the blade in his hand across the flat surface of the opposing swordsman’s weapon. The motion allowed the sword attached to the top of his forearm to catch the brunt of the attack, robbing it of kinetic energy and depriving the intruder of a small victory. His left hand, which had rebounded from the deflection into a circular motion, came up to strike just below the elbow of the being, a solid strike with his gauntleted fist. Disengaging his arms, Honuse Relaiyent stepped backwards several paces, his swords returning to their previous positions to guard against a sudden attack.

Feigning a second thrust, the giant installed called upon the deep wellspring of electricity buried within his skeleton, beckoning the power to coalesce along the blade in his right hand. In the space of a heartbeat, a crackling aura surrounded the weapon, even as the sword was plunged into the ground; there it spread through the rich mineral deposits beneath the surface, invading dozens of square feet in the bare second it took to elicit a reverse-polarity charge through the blade. The effect was both immediate and dramatic; the earth exploded in a hail of electrically charged rock and soil, filling the air with flashes of deadly energy. Taking advantage of the temporary refuge it offered, the Lawmaker shifted his left-hand blade lower, leaving the first two digits empty.

It was with those that the abomination grabbed three small daggers from the sheaths along his side, flinging them through the maelstrom one after the other. The dense metal sparked wildly as it encountered the electrical current flowing still flowing through the falling debris, adding to the chaos. As the weapons arrowed in towards the intruder, lightning shot before them in sheets; the blades served to redirect the current they passed through towards the next bastion of metal, the blades held by this stranger to Asgard.

Ranger felt the blades move in a precarious fashion, borderline recklessness drove his opponent’s attacks and made him move and act in a completely unpredictable fashion. Most would have allowed the blade to catch their arms, the intellectual and physical prowess necessary to deflect and in turn shift the momentum and flow of the battle not within the scope of most human’s minds. This thing was neither human, nor common. The drow new both as soon as the gauntlet struck him across the face with a blow that made his head snap to the side. A thin line of blood trickled from the already tingling point of impact. It was a feeling that made him reel, a feeling that forced him to stumble back like a drunkard after a long night. His normally sure footed, graceful stride was broken. Staccato, unsure steps and a half turn bringing his profile and a single sword to bear against his opponent.

The beast was hardly finished with his onslaught though. Even as the prophet recovered and turned his bloodied lip and readied weapon towards his opponent he was being assaulted. In the darkness of the night, with the waning moons gentle touch tenderly stroking the face of Althanas, Ranger could see the milk white skin of his opponent. The drows own white knuckled grip on the hilt of his blades mimicked the man’s façade, for completely different reasons. Clad in black he moved like the Harbinger of Death, a corporeal messenger of Björmund the Gate Keeper of the Antifirmament. If the keeper of the Death-Gate had sent a herald to the lands of Keribas as a message, the prophet’s enlightenment was assumedly that the Thayne, in all their infinite wisdom, willed for his death. “How am I to fulfill the trials of the Thayne, the tribulations of Hromagh, if the first foe I face is to be the one to bring me to my final peace?”

The man moved forward to strike yet again, unrelenting and fearless. His blade was thrust forward. Instead of parrying the attack as he first had, the prophet instead retreated from it. The sword found empty air to empty baseless hate into. Unlike Ranger, the air did not protest the sudden swipe. It gave a sharp and deadly whisper to report the efficiency and strength relayed through the thrust. Once again the deft command of a defensive and waiting stance was assumed.

A follow through did not come, but a charge of electric magic suddenly and nearly instantly took the drow by complete surprise. The mammoth like man had magic at his command to accompany his adroit skill with the blade. His weapon was plunged into the earth, and what followed was an eruption that shook the ground as effectively as a minor earthquake. Soil and soft loam with patches of emerald grass rained down on a shield of pure darkness Ranger focused on. The defensive struggle continued on further as a wave of electricity made contact with the shadows and forced the drow to a knee.

He placed both of his blades of Hromagh before him. The dual, crossed blades were a protection against magic, created to cut through magic as well as act as a shield against the raw offensive power. In front of both of them the powers of N’jal were his first hope, a bastion and shelter. To rely on the Banished Goddess was a power he did not wish to require. The manipulation of light was his primary power, originally a blessing of a false god which in turn was truly the might of the Thayne being worked through him.

“Hromagh,” he called out in his time of need. “Guide my hands and let me bring honor to you, not through humility but through your divine wrath and pure fury.” As he finished his short prayer he rose and let his shield fall. At his feet were three daggers, falling to the edge of the undisturbed land as if they had been suspended after being caught by the shadow wrought shelter. He paid them little heed, instead focusing his silver eyes on the depression his opponent had produced. All around him, scattered in every direction the still crackling raw ore and mineral deposits sizzled their disgust at the destruction caused.

“Brother of the Thayne, Ambassador of Björmund,” the words were spoken confidently, with a drawn visage of determination masking the disquietude the prophet had deep in his mind. “I am Ranger Nailo, Tel’Amrach – Soul Keeper, Prophet of the Thayne, Second to the great clan of the Red Hand, and devout disciple of Hromagh. You stand to gain nothing from my death, from my loss, but I have the promise of my Lord and a path to continue to follow which will bring the Rise of the Golden Age of the Gods. For that I cannot, will not allow you to take my life this night.”