Champion of the Broken.

[Tobias Stalt]

I dreamt the dream that time dreams.

No less subtle words could convey his thoughts as he put quill to paper and scrawled it out. It began with a single sentence, but the sentiments began to pour out like the dam had burst. In the months since his return from Salvar, Tobias lost touch with his friends. He distanced himself from the people he most cared for, and on jobs that lasted longer than planned, he neglected to stay in contact...

Events of the previous week.

His face grew rugged from weathering the harsh elements. The ever present grim mask evolved into something solemn, tired, and almost exhausting. In days forgotten, Tobias yearned to see the world. He craved excitement and new experiences, and he longed for the opportunity to do something grand. The Tobias who swayed along the trodden dirt path toward the Red Forest now held little love for that life.

"My father was right," he lamented quietly. The essence of ale clung desperately to his ragged and tattered clothes, saturated in a blend of the drink and his own perspiration. His fingers traced the baft of Blackheart with the vaguest notions of sentimentality, but for Tobias, the majesty lay dead at his hip.

Blood drenched his chest from a still open wound, smiling defiantly at the world inches from his throat. Tobias fumbled with an ornate looking dagger in his right hand that drooled thick crimson from tip to hilt. His amber gaze flowed from the weapon to its owner, a crumbled corpse discarded several meters behind him on the road. "With time, everything gets boring."

Tobias let the weapon clatter to the dirt unceremoniously. His fingers shivered as he moved slowly toward the only home he knew, a victim of his own lost enthusiasm. "I wonder if they still remember me," he rapsed. His throat was a desert, cracked and arid with hot breath that roiled oved a dry tongue. "I wonder if they still care."

He let out a mirthless chuckle. "That would be ironic."

I dreamt of death.

Tobias clambered toward his destination with brazen nonchalance as blood flowed from his body and his strength whispered away. Light waned as the sun crawled away over the horizon and his eyelids dipped in turn. Does time get tired of counting? he asked himself as his hand found a stump at the roadside. The splintered wood scraped his hand, but the Mercenary seemed not to notice. His knees dug into the charred earth and he panted for air to fill his lungs. It must. Time dreams of ending, just as I do.

I am so tired.

[Tobias Stalt]

Slow, dragging steps carried his battered body toward home. Home, his face scrunched up as if the thought visibly pained him. Another deluge of crimson spewed from his chest. Aye, I suppose it was, once. The heat of a Raiaeran day was far more modest than a trek through Fallien, and the cool breeze far kinder than any blistery Salvic gale. What set this land apart from the others Tobias visited were the most somber memories.

From Corone, the Mercenary sailed west and took the old road south, through Eluriand and past the lesser, burnt out settlements that stood testament to the Corpse War. Tobias reflected on the droves of reanimated dead as they crashed against the bulwark just outside the once glorious Elven capital, ragged and greviously wounded infantrymen struggling in vain to ward them off. Once vibrant, golden eyes now sank beneath darkened eyelids like tarnished bronze as scenes of the damned gorging themselves on still living flesh danced through his mind.

Tobias let out a discontented grunt as he continued forward. Raiaera offered lessons to those willing to listen; a glorious empire in the olden days, magic lent borrowed might to the so called High Elves in their quest for supremacy. As the infighting between Elves grew rampant and dissension between schools of magic slowly evolved into a xenophobic hatred, Raiaera slowly lost its grip on power. Those with power fear losing it, Tobias reflected on the words of his father, still clear as they day he said them now ten years past. And in that fear, Tobias, they destroy it themselves. Do not seek power, my son. Seek happiness.

"But what is happiness, father?"

The words croaked from his throat in a mocking, cynical voice that almost surprised Tobias himself. "I looked," he muttered as he leaned against a tree for support and brought his arm to his lips. With his teeth, the former soldier ripped off a long strand of his cotton undershirt. "I looked the whole world over and found none of this happiness of yours."

With a few careful tosses and catches, Tobias managed to wind the fragment of cloth around his shoulder, then he tied it off. He felt the pressure on the wound and let out a sigh, the closest he ever came to a real pain response anymore. His gaze wandered toward the path ahead, straighter and more narrow now as he approached the perpetually curse-reddened canopy that heralded Lindequalmë, the Red Forest. Home, he tried to reiterate the sentiment, the way Vincent once had. Tobias spat as though he tasted poison.

"At least the bleeding is stemmed," he stated flatly. "Some luck is better than no luck."

[Tobias Stalt]

Even the air felt heavy. Tobias walked like a god pressed down on him with full strength, and he held the fist aloft with all the futility of Atlas. The Forest greeted him with a looming silence that only broke when a murder of crows burst from the cluttered, autumn leaves and screeched in disapproval at his intrusion. Despite the mere inches they strayed from his face, the mercenary seemed only vaguely interested.

Her presence lingers here no longer. The flat assertion echoed through his mind while he gazed across the once damned gem of Raiaera, the corruption of its perverted mistress now gone from even the smallest leaf. Tobias could feel her there, still, in the smallest fonts of dormant, lingering magic. His time sequestered away in the doctrine of the Sway gave him an acute sense for the supernatural. Even these smallest of motes are wretched.

Tobias traced the bark of a gnarled, twisted tree with calloused fingers. The ancient oak had no voice, yet he could feel its timeless scream. "She is gone from this place," he murmured, "yet her spiteful grip persists the grave."

In this place, Leona Stevvains once chose to lay her head. The collective of her group amassed, and in the so-named house of cards, they wove their web of influence and established strength. In this gods-damned place.

If Podë ever had kindness in her soul, Tobias felt no trace. The will to crush life and form it into an abomination teemed from every ounce of magic she left in her wake. "It would take five lifetimes to undo what she did here," Tobias knelt down as he found a quickly flowing stream, "perhaps longer." Only the Raiaeran elves would believe the errand worthwhile. He ruminated quietly about the task. "Only if the pay were decent," he decided after a moment.

He dipped the tips of his fingers into the pristine water, and it felt cool to the touch. When he removed them, his flesh came coated with an inky black, viscous fluid. "Even the beauty is an illusion, now. Everything in this place wants me dead." His jaw set in a deep frown.

I can see what the others refuse to.

Lush, beautiful and red, the Red Forest appeared as a monolithic expanse of Autumnal trees. Even in the throes of summer, it appeared to be in the last, most gorgeous stages of death. Tobias pierced the illusion and tasted the rot that wafted across his tongue. The trees are bereft. White like bone, and black like death. The leaves are a formality. Life comes into this place, but it is changed. It does not leave. The curse only takes; it can never give back.

With a soft sigh, Tobias Stalt drew his black blade. "And it wants me dead."

[Tobias Stalt]

You are not welcome in this place.

Her voice echoed disjointed through his mind. Tobias narrowed his gaze, dimly aware of the Forgotten One's proclivity for illusions and trickery. His fingers brushed the signet of the All-Seeing Eye hanging from his neck reflexively. "You are dead," he uttered, "and this world has no place for those who are gone."

The world always has a place for the damned. Xem'Zund before me found a path back; I am his better in every conceivable way.

Deep breath flooded his lungs as the world writhed and contorted into a blurted haze of red. Leaves danced like flame and twisted into images of beautiful women with faces familiar to Tobias. Certainly you remember them? the Red Witch asked.

Tobias stared straight on, unflinching. Beautiful blonde hair and eyes of deepest brown and brightest blue moved over him hauntingly. Fingers brushed his body, and the sensation of true touch caused his flesh to tingle. "Tobias," Camille crooned in his ear, her warm breath against it like a gentle breeze. "You came for me, at last."

Slowly, he closed his eyes. Heat from within his chest boiled over as he focused inward. "Brother Stalt." Her voice tasted like the sweetest honey, but broke his heart. "I missed you."

"I have no time for your games, witch." Tobias spoke rigidly, but with absolute authority. In a game meant for wizards, he alone was King. "You are a memory. A hated memory, and one that refuses to be forgotten." His eyes opened as the two women who had died in his arms closed their hands around him. "And I will abolish you."

His hardened face remained stoic as Camille and Erica clutched his throat in a deathgrip. The feeling of panic seeped into his body, but his fear of pain remained long dead. "Your wretched lies..." he panted as his mind rejected the foul magic, "have no power over me."

Both his arms hung limp. In the face of torment and of death, Tobias stood fast. "You would accept death to spit in the face of my power?" the words spilled from the lips of Camille now, rather than a world beyond. "My, my, Tobias Stalt. You are a proud boy."

"Not proud," his lips pricked upward into a faint smirk. Oxygen slowly ceased to flow to his lungs as his body sank into the belief that his airway closed. Reddened, his face still mocked Podë. "I lack your vanity, witch."

Camille shrieked. Her face split into a banshee wail as he flesh unknitted and grew pale. Gaunt, ghastly, and teeming with rage, the emaciated vision of a lifeless Podë revealed herself to Tobias.

His mind numbed at the sound of her outcry, and both his eyes welled with water. "There you are," he whispered.

"You did all of this to draw me out?" she demanded. "When you could have accepted blissful oblivion, your last days beside those who your heart died with? You are a fool, Tobias Stalt."

His palm rested on her exposed breast. With a gentle smile, Tobias leaned close, face to face with the avatar of enmity. "No lie is worth dying for," he choked out the words. Podë writhed beneath his touch, pained.

"What is this?" she demanded. "What are you doing to me?!"

"Offering you peace. True peace, like you have never known. Fitless sleep." Deep stygian violet and midnight black billowed from the nexus of their touch. Ghoulish green and vibrant red erupted from the lifeless witch as unimaginable powers waged war with one another in a microcosm between them.

Then the world went quiet.

Her body shuddered for the last time as it spilled onto the leaves. When the corpse hit the ground, it burst into a plume of reddish orange that came to rest among their kin. The last echo of virulent power expunged from Tobias' chilled body, he fell to his knees and sucked in a mighty breath. Blackheart sank into the dirt, offering only a modicum of support.

"Such a prideful bitch," he rasped, "I did not come here for you."

[Tobias Stalt]

"You broke her." The accusation came almost sadly from Erica, who watched with an expression of mild annoyance. "You truly are bad with your toys, Tobias."

His empty amber gaze moved to the gorgeous young girl, life still drooling from two open wounds on her stomach. "What, you remember this?" she asked fondly. Her fingers dipped into the stream of blood and came back coated slick. "You remember when you gave me these as a parting gift?"

Tobias reached slowly back and released one of the Mithril long knives from his back. The blade shimmered a pale, opaque color as he ran a finger defly across the edge. "I remember," he replied curtly. "Do you?"

Erica pouted. "You are no fun at all," she scoffed. "The Forest is right. There is no place for you here, alive or recycled." Tobias grit his teeth at her assertion, but no other sound came from him. "Turn back."

"I have business here," he told the shade. "And you will not interfere."

The somber look on her face transfigured into a deeper sadness. "I wanted to spare you, Tobias," she whispered. "You are giving me no choice."

"Begone, witch," he spat back, "leave Erica to rest in peace. You know her from my memory, but you did not know her heart." He took a bold step forward, and Erica flinched.

"Come no closer," she implored him. "Please, Tobias? Please go back?"

He raised the blade. It danced through air and stopped short of her neck. She raised her head and pushed the flesh toward the weapon. "Please just do it," she gasped. "It would be a kindness. Kinder to feel release against the cold steel of your blade than to meet the oblivion you promise this place."

Tobias held Calm steadily. "This place is no more alive than you," he hissed. "The death throes of your wretched curse."

"You can feel the hatred," Erica gulped, "but it is not for the living. It is for you alone." Her deep gaze matched his and he felt his heart crack again.

"You wear her face like a damned mask. Take it off. Take it off, damn you."

"I cannot." The words were melancholy, almost morose when she spoke them. Tobias shivered as the realization struck him. "She lacks the power to raise herself," Erica whispered. "She lacks the power to stop you from undoing this place, the only thing that ties her yet to this world. But she had enough to try the one thing that might stop you."

"Erica." Tobias staggered forward a half step and brushed her cheek with a disbelieving hand. The cold touch rocked him as he cradled her face. "You know I can't stop."

"I know." Her words mangled together with fitful sobs as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her eyes knit shut. Tobias pressed his lips softly to hers for all of two seconds.

Her eyes blossomed wide with surprise as the report screamed through her chest. "You seem to forget, I killed her once," Tobias stated in a grim monotone. The body lay strewn in a visceral heap on the ground for several seconds before it appeared to sink into the forest floor. "And I can sense the difference between spirit and body. Your illusions are magnificent, for a corpse. But they are still a poor substitute for the genuine article."

Smoke billowed from the barrel of his gun as Tobias fought to fill his lungs with clean air. The sound rattled the grip that this sinister shape took over his mind. Coupled with force of will, Tobias finally broke free from her influence. Now, with his determined gaze on the Red Forest itself, Tobias watched as the trees began to shed their leaves.

Shivering like winter's breath washed over them, long trunks brushed off their plumage and bared themselves. Like a sacrificial altar, the forest floor ran red.

I warned you, Tobias Stalt. And now, your fate belongs to the Forest.

[Tobias Stalt]

Red leaves danced in the silence that followed. The wind through the trees died and Tobias stood stoic in the midst of a melancholic pause. Around him, the expanse multiplied in scope, inches becoming miles and filling with a haze of blue and gray. Reds, golds, oranges, and yellows swirled around him as the trees shed their autumn cloak and the Red Forest succumbed to death.

If only for an instant.

Tobias clutched his head as shrieks broke the silence. Blurs of dark color raced across his line of sight and he became acutely aware of small animals amassing around him. Steamy breaths escaped him as the cold world tightened its clutches around him, and the beat of his heart drummed in his ears. Lindequalmë unleashed its fury all at once, a torrent of thoughts, feelings, and memories from a thousand different lifetimes sent to destroy the mind of the one man who threatened to undo the magic that lingered there.

"You will not survive the night, Tobias Stalt." It was not any voice he had heard before. The forest itself spoke to him in a voice that defied reason. Unnatural and poisonous whispers traced his flesh as Tobias swayed to and fro, eyes distant and flesh pale. "You are already dead."

"Long before I came to this place," he agreed.

The ground split beneath his feet and roots spiraled up his legs like ivy. Tobias lurched, shaking his head violently. Free from Podë's magic, he now stood at the mercy of what she once wrought. "Here, child. I will bury you, safe, in a place where you will do no harm."

Tobias tried to close his eyes and reopen them, but the colors all bled together. Sounds blended into euphoric, discordant symphonies. His flesh no longer told hot from cold. His body seemed to slip naturally into oblivion. The roots that entangled him dragged ever downward, and his body sank slowly into the forest floor.

Darkness took Tobias before he ever accepted it.

"Now your tragedy ends."

[Tobias Stalt]

Stalt...

Tobias!

Damn it, Stalt...

"Wake up!" The exasperated shouts of Daire Chance as she shook him violently reached him, in the dimness of his mind. Tobias stared out at a black world through unseeing eyes as his psyche clawed desperately back toward reality. His flesh felt frozen as she prodded him, skittishly attempting to rouse any sort of response. He recognized her voice, separate, far away, but familiar. "God, why were you out here alone?"

His body twitched. Daire pointed, shouted, and in seconds five others were around them. They checked vitals and frowned, unsure of what had caused it. "The curse doesn't actively attack people," one man muttered, "it corrupts over time. He hasn't been in the forest long enough for anything like that."

"Is he alright?" Daire asked breathlessly. "Is he going to wake up?"

"Easy, Daire. He's fine. The shock just caused him to black out. His heartbeat is steady." Tobias listened to the words because he could hear them now, even though he could not speak. "Whatever magic accosted him, it wanted to kill him. It is deeply wound around his consciousness, like poison."

His fingers fidgeted. "We need to report this to Vincent," Daire shuddered. "To Alyssa- to anyone. They need to know that the forest did this. The Major Arcana need to know what this place is capable of!"

It's dangerous. I've always known that.

"It's fine," the elder man reassured her smilingly. "They're more than aware. It keeps out enemies. It's a defense, just as much as it is a liability."

You're wrong. You can't control this. None of this is safe.

"We need to do something about it," Daire defied him. "Look at Tobias. Look at him! This is one of the strongest men we know, and it has reduced him to this... he's in a coma!"

No. I can hear you. I can...

"You're too worried about it. We have control of the magic. We can correct this. We can heal Tobias, and be sure this never happens again, to anyone."

You can't. You're a fool to think you can control this. You're insane to trust it. The power will consume you the moment you let down your guard.

"Someone get in touch with Alyssa," Daire pleaded. "She needs to know what's going on. She'll listen to reason!"

She might. They won't.

"We can hardly waste our Empress' time on things we can handle ourselves, Daire Chance. Come, help me lift Mister Stalt, so he can be healed."

He saw them now, little more than a collective of blurs against white light. His eyes had been open all this time, but out of focus. Whether they were aware of him or not, they seemed indifferent. He felt their hands on him, lifting him and moving him.

Get off me. I have to finish... what I started...

His body lurched in their arms. Healers panicked and screamed out orders. More hands groped his body and fought to steady him. Tobias felt a stream of drool from his open lips and spat. "Let... me... go..."

"Ah, Tobias!" The older man clapped as he heard the mercenary speak. "You are as resilient as ever. I was sure that coma would have held for at least a day."

Wrong. Just like everything else you've been thinking.

"I have to finish what I started." Eyes moved to Tobias as they let him go, in awe that he regained his strength so quickly. "Go. Get as far from here as you can."

"Tobias, what are you-" the man stared in horror as Tobias lit a match and it plummeted toward a pile of dried out leaves at his feet. "Tobias! Stop!"

The first leaf caught, smouldering instantly. Flames licked at those in close contact with it, and one after another, they became a sea of flames that fanned out. Smoke billowed in small plumes as the men and women who came to aid Tobias now stomped out small patches of fire.

"What the hell are you doing!" Tobias howled at them. "Stay out of the way! This forest has to burn! This magic has to die!

As dry leaves do, one after another on the forest floor ignited and the wildfire spread. Small bushes, then trees caught and the leaves screamed as Tobias took his revenge. "Tobias, you have to stop!" Daire grabbed his sleeve and tugged urgently. "You're going to kill everyone! Friends, too!"

"Stay back, Daire," he warned.

"Tobias Stalt, this is a flagrant act of war against the Hierarchy," the man hissed through gritted teeth. "Help us put out this fire, or we will have to take action."

"This forest answers to no one," Tobias responded coldly. "You have to see that. This magic is old. It is evil."

"You think that of all magic, Stalt! You're not fooling anyone. Bah!" The mage raised his hands, and forks of gilded lightning rushed toward Tobias violently.

Heat from the spell stoked the fires at their feet. Tobias scowled as the mage gave in to his hatred and endangered all of them. "If your fucking magic," he hissed, "is so damn precious..."

The shock wracked Tobias and his muscles hissed in agony. His body moved on instinct. Two powerful hands closed around the mage's throat and Tobias dragged him to the forest floor with his body weight. Electricity still crackled from his fingertips as flames ingested his body, and Tobias knelt on his burning form. No scream came from his lips, contorted in horror as he was deprived of air and burned alive all at once. "...then it will be the death of you."

Tobias watched his enemy's face melt away before he rose. He faced the others, half still fighting in vain to put out the flames. Tobias sneered at the diminutive scope of his fire. "Tobias, stop," Daire pleaded, "you don't have to do this." She sobbed pitifully when she saw her friend, dead in the heat. "You can stop. Come home with us. No one will tell anyone what you did, I can make them quiet."

"They won't learn, Daire," Tobias told her, "you can direct their minds, guide their hands, and inspire their hearts, but it will poison them in spite of your best efforts."

"There is good in people, Tobias! Have some faith!"

"I have faith in people," Tobias spat. He gripped one woman by her hair. A gasp escaped her, but drowned in a gargle as he drew a line across her throat with a deft motion. "But not the world that the Tarot wants."

Boiling blood dripped on his shoes as Tobias discarded the corpse. "I had hoped," Tobias muttered, "I could do this without making a mess."

"It sounds like you expected one," Daire frowned. "You intended this all along? To betray your friends?"

"Betray them?" Tobias asked sadly. "Oh, no, Daire. They may see it that way. They will see it that way. And they will miss the whole fucking point."

A shot roared from his weapon through the valiant charge of another man, a mercenary like Tobias. They had fought and bled together, paid with the same coin. Daire clapped a hand over her mouth as she watched her friends tearing at each other, and when the lifeless warrior slumped, she screwed her eyes shut.

"I'm saving them, Daire," Tobias spoke softly. "From themselves. They would continue to use this power, thinking it will avail them any amount of good."

Two more darted toward him. Their blades kissed, danced, and flashed. Tobias sank backward, away from a slice that came perilously close. His body twisted under another arc, then both his blades found home in two separate throats. Tobias glanced back at Daire over his shoulder, eyes ablaze like those of a demon. "Please tell Alyssa, and the others," Tobias asked as he withdrew his blades and the bodies sank into the blaze. "They can't do anything the way they are now."

He sheathed his weapons and turned toward Daire, who stared in disbelief at her dead friends and their home, going up in flames. "And tell them not to try to stop me."

He reached out and stroked her face with a gentle hand. Daire shivered, then spasmed as something touched her heart. She drifted into darkness, and Tobias caught her before she could collapse.

[Philomel]

Name of Judgement: Champion of the Broken (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?29744-Champion-of-the-Broken)
Judgement Type: No Judgement

Rewards:
Tobias Stalt (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?17202-Tobias-Stalt) receives:
925 EXP
80 GP

[Rayleigh]

All GP and EXP have been added.