Out of Character:
Every post here will help to decide what is considered solid canon for the FQ. Be sure to link to your threads somewhere in your posts. There will also be a prize/bonus for the Best Post of the thread. Don't worry about whether or not your thread has been completed; anything incomplete right now will just go into judgement for Chapter Three of the FQ. Bonus points if you actually work your recap into a side-scene/outtake from one of your RPs (ie Joe Bob is in the middle of questing for Shiny Thing X and when the call comes, he's on guard duty gnawing on a chicken leg and just can't help but to remember the time when...)
tl;dr Clipshow thread, GO.
-Hear Us Now, We Weary Few-
Tirinost, Eluceliniel, Raiaera
Dusk
Tirinost was not as it had been. Where there had been a mere villa surrounded by a small, relaxed village out in the wilderness, now there was a fortress at the heart of a tent city in the middle of a carefully reshaped forest.
The woods had moved, as if they'd uprooted themselves in the middle of the night and packed together tightly enough to create great walls out of nature's own will to survive. Their branches had reshaped into solid battlements, and their bark had thickened and hardened around eldritch scars. Each one bore musical notes etched into it at some point in the past, flowing together in a tune that would have been beautiful to hear on any instrument. There were few roads in or out.
Beyond the wood were the beginnings of a full city: Crops being grown, a lake so deep that not even magic could measure it, and tents. Everywhere, tents. Big tents, small tents, filthy tents, but no clean tents. Some of them till had blood stains or mud caked into their lining. Further in were crops, and a few actual houses that had, once upon a time, been homes. They now bore signs of war: A makeshift hospital, a smithy, several farms and just the one auction house at the center of an improvised shopping district.
Elves were everywhere, comprising the vast majority of the newfounded city's population. Their men and women broke their backs in the fields. Their children played the war-games and sang the plague-songs of innocence lost.
"Ashes, ashes..."
Fighters dominated the scenery. Heroes in Bladesinger armor sometimes stopped to demonstrate for the refugees, to perform, and to teach. The Wanderers spread their gospels of eldritch lore to the masses; imposing, almost alien figures who harkened back to a time when the Elves were wild and the race not yet split between the fair Raiaerans and the endarkened Drow. Rangers prowled about, their swords sheathed and their bows idle and arrows rested, but their nerves on edge and their eyes accusing and their faces grim and listless. Soldiers patrolled, neither heroic, imposing, or mysterious. Just the men and women of a tattered nation, taking up arms and armor to defend what little remained of it.
Further in and there were real walls. Stone ones, dating back to the first era, when Tirinost wasn't a resort village but a cold-blooded fortress standing against the fury of gods and men alike. Huge and archaic and very much a work in progress as labourers toiled their days and nights away to restore it brick by brick, cobble by cobble, spell by spell. All who could be spared from the fields and the sword worked the wall, and not even children and the wounded were fully above recruitment.
Beyond the wall, there stood the original fortress-villa, long since returned to its roots. Sleek and organic and altogether mystical. Gone were all the flimsy bits that had been passed down from owner to owner over the centuries of peace. Cold iron replaced much of its artistic architecture. Flimsy furniture and timeless artwork, priceless just a few months ago, had been chucked out of the windows and salvaged for anything that could be burned or turned into a weapon. Gone was the polish, gone was the gleam, farewell to that old Elven glamour. What remained was a fortress, its floors bare and its rooms lit by secure torches, and its walls covered not in art but in six foot long Elven runes of protection and faith.
At its heart, this new fortress -- this old Tirinost, standing at the center of the tent city Eluceliniel -- bore a great and terrible pipe organ. Bigger than any of the houses, bigger than any of the trees. It ran so far underground that it was probably bigger than the building that housed it. Tir-Eltharin vol Istien: The Lord Harbinger of Song.
In the room where it was to be played, the floor had been cleared and covered in musical notes and the lines connecting them. Only candles now stood, aligned to nine of the twenty-seven points of the Raiaeran Compass -- the Earthly points, to be specific. Just as there were nine points, there were nine Elves -- nine and one more.
Three Wanderers, Seers and a Bard. Three Bladesingers, old hands of Istien University. Three Rangers, defenders and knowledge brokers.
And the Lady General herself, Nalith Celiniel, sole survivor of the last High Bard Council. The Woman of Fire, who had almost singlehandedly kept Raiaeran civilization distantly intact. She wore her armor, she bore her sword, and she stood before her bow with an arrow in hand.
"Are you sure that this will work," she would have asked if she were anything but an Elf. Instead, it was more of an order than anything else.
"Absolutely," spoke the Seers, who even now danced a cautious, flawless circle around eight points of the compass.
The circle began to glow, and Nalith needed no further confirmation. She nodded sharply to the Bard, and he bowed in turn. He touched Tir-Eltharin's ancient bone keys with a reverence that transcended mere religious devotion. Gently at first, as if rousing a loved one from the grave. Then harder, but still slow. Beyond Tirinost's walls, the city of Eluceliniel began to shudder. Faster he played, the shudder became a low level earthquake. Faster still, and a tune took shape among the tremors.
Harder, and part of Tirinost's peacetime roof blew off in a geyser of raw emerald fire that stretched for a mile into the early night sky, tinting the stars green and casting shadows that stretched far as the mind could fathom. Music -- actual music -- came a few seconds later. It was an ancient song. Something so old and powerful that it resonated deeper than mere eardrums and braincells; it struck chords in the soul, and even in blackened pits where souls used to be or never were to begin with. The song was called, Sar vol Taerol, the Tap of Creation, because it was created when that primal force was shattered. And Tir-Eltharin was one of the only relics left that could touch it.
Once established, the song was not loud, nor did the fire burn so brightly. It played gently upon the ears, upon the mind, upon the heart and soul. It was the requiem and the wedding song; mourning and hope; the binding of broken hearts.
It was Nalith's medium.
"Now," she said, and the Seers stopped their dance and thrust open hands at each other from opposite sides of the circle. Space and time rippled between them, forming into a perfectly two-dimensional circle that only existed in front of Nalith's eyes. She took up her bow and blessed her arrow one last time.
Then she fired it into the circle, and into the Tap itself.
A few seconds later, the High Bard began to speak, and not a person left in Raiaera -- not a soul touched by its bloody struggle for survival -- could shut her out.
"Here me now, you weary few, for the call goes out this night. Hear us now, we weary few, for the will to end this fight.
"I am Nalith Celiniel, High Bard and Lady General of the Raiaeran Nation. I speak to you now, our allies and our friends, our lovers and our lost. You who have sacrificed so much, that so few may yet endure. Hear me as well, my blighted foes, for your time in this land will soon be at an end.
"We stand at a crossroads, you and I. Our blades are chipped, our wills falter, our hopes are dashed and our lands are desecrated. But we live. And while we live, there is hope. A new year comes, a new dawn will rise. Stay strong. The end is nigh. For in two weeks hence, we will gather our forces to mount an assault upon Xem'zund's own. It does not matter where. It does not matter how. It only matters that it will happen, and it will be decisive.
"Champions of Raiaera, I wish I could say more, but time grows short. Bind up your broken hearts. Raise your torches on high, and hear us now, we weary few. We are connected, in darkest night and sullen dawn. We are one, and our blades will sing and our minds will wander and our shots will be true.
"Stand strong. Stand proud. Never forget what we and you and all of us have lost in order to get to where we are now. The Stars are with us again, brothers and sisters in arms, and strange aeons lie in waiting."
The song didn't stop. The music of creation never stops. It merely faded away, taking with it Nalith's words and the brilliant flame that preceded them.
A few seconds later, the Wandering Bard dropped dead from his seat. Nalith sighed and clasped a hand under her chin. "Even death may die," she said to herself as she left the room, flanked by Bladesingers and Rangers alike. The Seers stayed behind to tend to the Bard's corpse.
They didn't have much work to do, of course.
It was hollow from the inside out.
Out of Character:
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