Time Enough

[INDK]

(Closed)

There was something sour in the atmosphere, as if the air itself had become a bit too stale. The entire world seemed somehow thicker, as if the magic floating in Raiaera’s very air had begun to curdle with the self interested petty squabbles that defined Althanas’ ignoble strife. This was Eluriand, the city that Damon had once helped liberate. Now, the boy that had grown too old for his age just sat calmly outside of the wall to the center city, trying to ignore the thoughts of needless war that had soaked deeply into the air.

Nearby, a bard was singing.

“All things fade like the roses of May,
shriveling up in the winter’s sun.
All things change like children at play,
When their life’s work has begun.
Come December, will we remember the spring,
Things stay the same, but the people have changed,
Come December, what will the last sunrise bring,
When things stay the same, but the people have changed?”

The retired general tried to smile. The song was from the Slayer Songbook, and had been one of the songs that Damon had given to Istien University. He had come to the university only to seek a final peace.

It was a bitter irony that he would seek this peace as the rest of the continent was gearing up for war. Alerar had fought Raiaera a number of times, and in every case, neither nation had ceased to exist. Their actions brought only poison. Damon was merely an unfortunate bystander who had tried to help make Raiaera great in between the wars that tore it apart.

Now, as the city frothed at the brink of its own oblivion, Damon wondered if it had truly been worth liberating the city from the undead, only to snap out of his self-pity just enough to remember that there was still little that had been set in stone. Time itself on Althanas could always be unwritten... and since that was what the mission required, Damon was ready to go back and rewrite time.

The final chapters of his story were about to be unwritten. All the stories of the retired general were going to change, but Damon was willing to sacrifice his legacy if it meant that Eluriand might finally be saved from itself.

Now, as the young veteran waited on the brink of oblivion and ignominy, he waited with a quiet impatience for the courier to arrive. It was an anxiousness that betrayed the last remnants of the former general’s youth. A more mature warrior would have known that time stood still on the brink of the journey of a generation.

[Call me J]

Jame moved through the city like a god. It wasn’t that he was particularly powerful, it was that good fortune and soft living had combined to leave the boy oblivious to any and all danger that surrounded him. He knew little of the oncoming war, or of any oncoming war for that matter. In fact, Jame knew little of those wars that had past.

Thus, as the young half-dragon moved through the streets of Eluriand, he was oblivious as to what the sudden appearance of a dragon winged stranger would mean to the elves as he passed by. Fortunately, even the most suspicious had held their ground when they saw the medallion around his neck, but Jame had no idea it was but by the grace of this token that he had failed to arouse suspicion in Raiaera.

All Jame knew was that he was performing an errand for his mother. He didn’t know why, but she had seemed doggedly insistent that Jame come here after a recent letter she had received. Jame knew it was from some Raiaeran bigwig, someone that his mother had happened to know. She hadn’t given Jame that much information, just told him that he was to seek out the Turlin school and ask for the “old general.” Someone there would know what to do.

However, Jame couldn’t help but feel like his mother had failed to understand what an inconvenience this had been. The sun was too hot, the air was too dry and fetching water from roadside vendors that only spoke elven was quite inconvenient.

For a moment, Jame considered giving up. It had been difficult enough getting through the exterior war of Eluriand, let alone the schools of magic. His wings always seemed to serve as an albatross, as if that little bit of dragon flesh made him that much more feral than most of civilized society. While Jame had long been oblivious to this discrimination, he had noticed the consternation it had caused at the gates to the city.

Now as he approached a tree shortly outside of the city walls, he noticed a boy not that much older sitting out by a tree with all the air of a veteran warrior. Jame couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable attraction to the strange man. Perhaps it was that they both possessed traits a bit beyond the normal, Jame’s wings and this man’s monochrome eyes.
“Can you help me?” Jame asked. The half-dragon didn’t offer any particular reason why this stranger should help him, he just assumed that the inexplicable attraction was mutual. “I have to speak to the ‘old general,’ my mother has sent me...”

This seemed to perk the stranger’s interest. “Who’s your mother?” the stranger asked.

“Genevieve Whitizard,” Jame replied.

The stranger smiled. “Damon Kaosi,” he said. “Sit down.”

Not seeing any reason why he shouldn’t accept such an offer from a complete stranger, Jame nodded appreciatively and sat. “I don’t suppose that you could help me...” he began, only to find that he no longer had the attention of this Damon.

(bunny approved)

[Karuka]

Karuka's Nihon staff gently tapped the ground alongside her as she walked through the capital of Raiaera. How funny, she thought, that she had been allowed to enter straight from the harsh deserts of Fallien, completely unquestioned. A month or so past, she had attempted to cross through the border from the side of Alerar, only to have been thwarted and forced to take a longer boat ride to Dheathain.

So much for takin' th' long, but land-most way, she thought bitterly, sighing and looking around the capitol of the Elves. It all looked calm and peaceful, with elegant buildings and towering trees interspersed gracefully, but beneath it was a gathering energy that the young rune-mage knew all too well. She'd felt tremors of it before, but never so great as when she'd stepped into the Elven nation. If she'd had to define it, she would have said, "Hagall Tir. A storm is comin'...and it brings with it war."

The events in Dheathain, and after that in Fallien, had shaken her faith. While she wanted nothing more to believe that somewhere, somewhere on Althanas there was still a place where the gods were living, where people had faith and a pure lifestyle. She was seeking, more than anything, a sign of proof that her gods still watched over humanity, and not just her. Why should they favor her? Wasn't she, whatever culture the deity originated from, dedicated to other, foreign gods? What was she to them?

Did they even exist?

She hoped to find her answers here, somehow, or soon, at the very least. Perhaps doubt was the worst plague to the faithful, and perhaps she had no business doubting, when she knew that by all rights she ought to be dead many times over. She ought have never survived her first month. She'd been very lucky, or very blessed.

Few faithful ha' seen th' things I've seen, though. An' those that called themselves faithful in Dheathain -- nae...not Dheathain. I can't believe it was what it was, but... Those "Christian" faithful were hypocrites, like much of their bretheren from when I walked Earth. Who wouldna doubt gods that condoned such a world?

Sighing, Karuka ran a tanned golden hand through deep red hair, rubbing over the fading red chakra on her forehead to clear her mind. She hadn't been asked to travel all this way so that she could reminisce on her confusing and tumultuous past. Events that confused her had shaped who she had become and who she had yet to become, and she'd firmly believed that her Dharma would lead her in the right direction.

She was still trying to believe.

Focus. 'Tis in sight.

Isten University rose in the center of the city, grand beyond any dreams the young Irish girl had had before she saw Radasanth for the first time. In her hand was the reason she was in Raiaera at all. She carried a small box that a stranger had asked her to give to "an old young man with black hair and eyes." She'd been told that he'd be at Isten University, and then given a little money for traveling purposes, just to get her there. It wasn't like she had anything better to do, anyway. She had no family, and her few friends were as nomadic as she, if the hardships of adventuring life hadn't killed them yet.

She was stopped once on her way by a guard. He was a typical elf with sandy brown hair and impossibly green eyes, both firm and formal as he demanded her purpose with a carefully articulated voice. She idly wondered if they were all like that, the Elves. The only real experience she'd had with a Raiaeran Elf before as an assassin who had come after her outside of Underwood without warning or reason. After that, it was only the ominous Svaltar, Kor.

"I'm deliverin' somethin'," she said simply. Something about the far-off tone of her voice brought the guard up short. She didn't seem to be making trouble, and he probably didn't have to worry about her, so he let her on her way.

She heard it before she saw it, voices and instruments trickling out from the walls in a melancholy and wistful tune. It spoke of things lost and remembered, and Karuka sighed, knowing that in the end, everything was lost. It was only the barest of hopes to believe anything different, and she was a fool to do so.

It was only as she approached closer to the inner city and Isten University that Karuka saw what she thought was her mark -- a man with black hair and eyes, his features young but his expression that of a man that had seen and done too much in too few years, backed with a grim determination and a steel resolve.

Beside him sat a young man with dragon wings, but that didn't surprise Karuka. She'd come to accept that Althanas was Althanas, and that there were things here beyond what she saw as "normal."

In a few steps, she approached them and held out the little box to the man. It fit easily into her slender hand, and was made of liviol and silver, with glyphs carved into the side and a vortex etched into a delicate whorl on top.

"Hallo. I was asked t' give this t' ya."

Right, so, Karu's accent is changing, forgive me while I work out the kinks.

>>>So much for taking the long, but land-most way,<<<

>>>Few faithful have seen the things that I've seen, though. And those that called themselves faithful in Dheathain -- no, not Dhethain. I can't believe it was what it was, but... Those "Christian" faithful were hypocrites, like much of their bretheren from when I walked Earth. Who wouldn't doubt gods that condoned such a world?<<<

>>>Focus. It's in sight.<<<

"I'm delivering something."

"Hello, I was asked to give this to you."

[INDK]

The piercing voice with the odd accent startled Damon slightly. The retired general had been reminiscing about Genevieve, a very old friend who had for a day been more than just a friend. Damon then picked himself up and scanned the girl appreciatively, impressed with the choice of messenger. “Not the kind of person Preylor would ever trust...” he thought. “Brilliant...”

“He’s a genius,” Damon said out loud. He offered a few pieces of gold to the girl. “Take this for your troubles," he offered. He practically threw the money at the girl, because he was so impatient examine the contents of the box.

Damon quickly opened the box, pulled out a note and began to read through it quickly. He held the paper close to his face so that neither the girl nor Genevieve’s son could read it. The words were scribbled in a relatively elaborate script, the kind of hurried letter that could only be written by someone educated. The language was sophisticated, and there was no doubt that it had come from an Istien professor.


Melda Damon,

It is good to hear from you, and of your conspiracy of light. You have gained the support of many in the schools, and the enchantments you have should help you along your task. The box contains a small golden orb, that when released will first create the portal you need, then offer you instructions along the way. I have picked a messenger that seems likely not to follow, but there is little reason to fear her either way. Should you need a companion, our divination runes suggest she would make an adequate ally.

The note was not signed, but Damon knew who it was from. The golden orb was from Preylor, a high ranking bard within the Turlin school well versed in a variety of magics -including time travel. Preylor and Damon had enjoyed a long and close relationship with each other, dating back to when a young Damon had first come to the schools of magic. There had been a number of memories, spells and battles between the two of them, and Damon couldn’t help but give the note one last appreciative glance before putting it away.

With that, Damon looked at Genevieve’s son. “Your mom sent you to help me?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, Damon opened the box and watched as a golden orb shot up into the sky and then fell to the ground, creating a black portal in the earth. “See that no one follows...”

Brief instructions were written within the portal in golden Elvish. “Move quick,” it insisted. “I will close soon.”

Damon didn’t flinch. He leapt into the portal without any hesitation.

[Call me J]

Jame had barely been able to process Damon’s words by the time that the veteran soldier leapt into the portal. The young half-dragon was not foolish, but at the same time, his mind often wandered. With it being too late to respond to Damon, Jame stood in between the messenger and Damon.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be following him,” Jame said, hoping that he sounded somewhat threatening. Because of the comfortable life that the half-dragon had lived, he had never needed to intimidate anyone. He didn’t know if what he was doing would intimidate the girl, or for that matter, whether or not she had even intended to follow Damon.

While he hoped he looked intimidating, in truth, Jame was not all that invested in the fight. He was irritated that he had come such a distance to do a favor for his mother just to serve as a bouncer for five minutes. He wondered if his mother had known Damon had this little use for him whether she would have sent him.

“And to think Ashley didn’t want me gone,” Jame thought irritably. It had been good for him in Salvar. The travel had been arduous, and now it seemed like a complete waste. “To think that mom practically begged me to come here... what the hell was in that letter...”

Jame let out a visible sigh but kept his position. His hands remained folded across his chest, and his wings began to lower ever so slightly so as to begin to encase the half-dragon defensively. Jame made no effort to grab a weapon, and his focus concentrated singly on the girl messenger.

A sudden sound behind him caused Jame to turn around quickly. It was nothing more than a rustle of a few leaves, but it had caught the half-dragon unawares. As if to make for his mistake, Jame turned his back to the messenger and began to scan the rest of the area for some semblance of an enemy. Finding none, he exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Well that could have gone badly,” he muttered aloud to no one in particular.

[Karuka]

She'd done her part in whatever this man's quest was, and now she didn't have anywhere to go. Every life she touched brushed by hers for the merest blink of an eye, and then moved on. There was no one waiting for her anywhere, and no direction that was really more interesting to her than the other.

In an action that had once been so common as to be reflexive, Karuka pulled her pendulum from around her neck, intending on letting its swing dictate her direction. She hadn't pulled it from her neck since before she'd come to Raiaera, taking her own way or the way that had been asked of her.

Normally, the polished chunk of lodestone swung around lazily, but this time it acted as if there wasn't even a second to waste, pulling almost out of her hand toward the half-dragon that towered over her. No, not toward him, through him and into the portal.

Karuka shrugged, slipping the pendulum around her neck once more. Whatever was happening, she'd give Fate another chance.

"Lead me on t' dharma," she muttered, before whipping her staff around hard to trip Jame at the ankles. Unfortunately, this caused the young man to fall backwards, and Karuka stepped into the portal before it closed.


~*~*~*~

Karuka couldn't say whether it was her second or third experience with time travel, but it was definitely different than the last times she'd gone through portals. The first time, from Earth to Althanas, had simply been a tunnel between caves. She'd passed through and hadn't been able to get back. The second time, in Dheathain, had been a wave and a jolt.

This time was different. It was like she was rushing down a tunnel of light without moving her feet. All around came flickering images and sounds. The most prominent were the yells of agony as soldiers died, yells of challenge as battle was met, and the wretched weeping of mothers whose sons would never return to them. She didn't know what this was about, exactly, but supposedly she was supposed to be here.

When the light finally faded, Karuka looked around sharply to see just what it was that she'd gotten herself into this time.

[Call me J]

Jame barely realized what had happened before he had fallen into the portal. The half-dragon was so utterly surprised and confused he had barely taken stock of his surroundings. If he had, he might have recognized that he had come back to Peligrino Island, the place of his birth. This place was different from the Peligrino Jame knew, and it would have been a welcome sight. For as long as he’d known it, Peligrino Island smelled of death and decay and the dark black predator that had roamed the land mercilessly.

However, Jame’s embarrassment meant there would be no recognition or confusion over Peligrino Island, the young half-dragon was both disoriented and ashamed. He didn’t have particularly strong feelings towards this Damon Kaosi, but at the same time, Jame didn’t like to think that Damon would now consider him an incompetent fool.

“You tricked me,” Jame hissed at the messenger girl when he had finally recovered his bearings. “You tricked me...” He knew he really had little reason to be angry at the red head, she had moved quickly and purposefully while his back was turned. It had been his own foolishness, not hers, that had caused him to fail. Still, Jame couldn’t admit that to himself, or especially not out loud before the Damon Kaosi that his mother had spoken so highly of.

“At least Ashley’s not here to see this,” Jame thought bitterly. He would have hated for her to think he was not only lazy but incompetent. His girlfriend had been quite critical of a number of decisions he had made recently, and had bemoaned what seemed to be his never ending lack of drive. Jame had always defended himself by saying that he could be just as powerful and competent with the sword as a Salvic warrior if he put in the efforts, but now he was beginning to doubt in his own abilities. After all, if he couldn’t keep a slender girl from tripping him up into a portal, what good was he?

That was a question Jame didn’t want to answer.

It was only now that Jame realized that Damon wasn’t looking at him. In fact, it seemed that no one was paying them much attention. The group had landed in the woods in the center of Peligrino Island, an area sparsely inhabited by the natives. It was fortunate, for just as Jame was coming to grips with his surroundings, a golden ball in the air flashed bright light and began to write in the near sky with a golden flame. The words were in Elvish, a language Jame couldn’t understand, but nonetheless he was intimidated by their presence.

“Maybe this is telling Damon what he should do with us...” the half-dragon thought ruefully. He put a hand near the hilt of his sword, knowing that even though he was not much of a fighter, he might now need to defend himself. Without realizing what he was doing, Jame bit his lip and uttered a spell, and watched as suddenly a crossbow appeared eight inches from Damon, aimed directly at the veteran soldier’s head.

Jame saw this and smiled. Perhaps his luck hadn’t completely deserted him yet.

[INDK]

The sounds of two more people following Damon had not lost his attention, but the veteran soldier did not act immediately. He was of two minds of what to do, his logical side suggested that he kill both Jame and the messenger immediately, especially considering that the nature of his very mission was to unwrite time in the first place. If he killed them now, they would probably reappear in their timeline when everything was set straight. “That was, if they ever appeared again,” Damon thought solemnly. For a moment, the veteran reconsidered his actions. He had taken for granted that his actions would likely affect his legacy. Either someone else would end up saving Eluriand or it would never be saved. Regardless, Damon had accepted that, or even his life, as an acceptable cost for stopping war between Raiaera and Alerar.

However, the living cost to others now stared the general straight in the face.

Before Damon could make a decision, his thoughts were suddenly punctuated by the appearance of instructions in the sky. They were brief, but seemingly cognizant of the fact that there were two new strangers in the area. He didn’t know what kind of charms had been placed on the golden orb that Preylor had sent to guide him, but they seemed to be particularly advanced.

“You have nothing to fear from the two that now accompany you,” the orb had written. “Neither is your match as far as might is concerned, and neither has the inclination to attack. Fear, but no inclination. Take them with you, they may help. Fear any other strangers that appear from your time.”

Damon nodded, but was suddenly surprised to see a crossbow materialize between his face and the words. It hovered in the air without an owner, probably the spell of one of the two people who had followed him through the portal. Damon thought it most likely to be the messenger, he was inclined to trust Genevieve’s son.

“What is your intention towards Jame?” the crossbow asked sternly.

“Well now we know who sent it,” Damon thought. He looked behind him to see Jame starring at him sternly. It wasn’t a trick of invisibility.

Skeptically, Damon answered the crossbow. “Nothing in particular,” he replied. The crossbow, seemingly satisfied with the answer, faded back into nothingness.

“Well that was strange,” Damon said. He spoke in the direction of the golden text, but his words were clearly directed at Jame. “I haven’t been questioned by a floating weapon in quite some time...”

Getting no immediate response, Damon began to read the rest of the message written in the sky. “Move quickly, there will be a scouting party entering the forest, one that includes important people you should meet. Find a place to hide and don’t move until these people have passed. Everything else should be explained. You are now on Peligrino Island...” Damon paused in surprise, before continuing with a bit of trepidation. “Roughly seven years ago.”

There was one last line of script that Damon did not read out loud, so instead he turned to Jame and the messenger and offered a few terse instructions. “Hide with me somewhere,” he said. “Find a place even trackers wouldn’t find.”

The last sentence was one that Damon had chosen not to repeat out of shame. “You’ve been here before,” it had said. Damon had read over it bitterly. There were parts of his past he wanted little to share with complete strangers.

[Karuka]

Even though he had specifically stated that he didn't want to be followed, the man with the pale green skin seemed to take the fact that he had two unwanted companions in stride. It probably had something to do with the golden words flashing in the sky, made of flowing letters she'd never seen before.

In th' past, is it? I can nae e'en tell what that means, as far as Earth is concerned. I dinna know when it translates t'. An' why go back?

She took the thought with a shrug, listening to the rest of what he had to say with half an ear as she scanned the forest for a good niche to hide away. It was a fairly dense wood, but had sparse undergrowth, meaning that the one or two thickets she could see would probably be obvious places for trackers to check. On the other hand, there were a myriad of rock formations that would provide a good vantage point while providing fairly decent cover for the three of them.

It didn't take her long to pick out one she liked, and she slipped out of her boots as she did so, grabbing them and letting her bare feet grip the island's rich soil. She felt an almost instant connection to and with the land, something that had been missing with her feet encased in leather, something she hadn't realized by virtue of having purchased the boots in Radasanth. She didn't have time to reminisce, though, so she turned to Jame and Damon.

"I found an ay good spot," she said, her fairly thick accent lilting her soft-spoken words. "But ya ha' t' take off yer shoes. Feet dinna leave scuff marks, shoes do."

Once that had been accomplished, Karuka led the haphazardly formed group carefully over logs and through trees, and finally nestled them in a large crevice of grayish white stone. She hadn't realized up until now how much she'd missed the air caressing her bare feet, the soft crunch of leaves and grass, the rough grip of bark, or the grainy smoothness of stone where she could feel and know them. She resolved to go barefoot when she could, if she survived this trip through time. Granted, the tough leather boots prevented the abuse her feet had taken before, but she'd lost so much in gaining them.

Shoes are really only fer winter an' bad ground, anyway...

As they settled into their hiding place, Karuka noticed the increasingly grim look Kaosi cast upon the trail. Maybe he'd been here before, on this very day, and was getting them out of the path at a specific time for a reason. Maybe he just knew about the group that would be passing through, although it didn't much matter. The red-headed diviner had jumped headlong into the portal without asking questions like she normally would have.

After they'd been settled in a smothering silence for the better part of fifteen minutes, the hushed murmurs of a group started carrying over to the outcropping, and finally heads and bodies started passing by them, not even a hundred feet away. They were partially hidden from her sight by the branches the forest's abundant trees had placed between them, but it meant that she and the two men were hidden that much better.

Most of the travelers were Elves, identifiable by their pointed ears and piercing glances. A few were human. Towards the middle, though, there seemed to be a man made completely of ice. That was something Karuka had never seen, and supposed it was a smaller sort of frost giant that the Viking legends told about.

Drawing her eyebrows together, she craned her neck to get a better look at it.

>>>In the past, is it? I can't even tell what that means, as far as Earth is concerned. I don't know what it translates to. And why go back?<<<

"I found a good spot, but you'll have to take off your shoes. Feet don't leave scuff marks, shoes do."

>>>Shoes are really only for winter and bad ground, anyway.<<<

[INDK]

As Damon waited in the hiding place, he thought of the symbolism in once again stepping foot on Peligrino Island. Peligrino Island had housed the refugees from Surat, a northern island in Salvar that had become overrun by vampires. Surat had been Damon’s home as well. With time Peligrino Island had become a home, right until a single-minded search for revenge had turned the people of Peligrino to destroy everything they had built just to get back at the vampires of Surat. Damon had tried to stop them, but it had been to no avail. Within a year from this date, Damon was to have been banished from the island and the town all but destroyed.

“Jame probably knows that too well,” Damon realized. “I wonder what he knows about the enchantments that are at work here.” If he’d had time enough, he would have stopped those enchantments as well. However, he had to focus on stopping a war. As much as it hurt to think about, the fates of the people of Peligrino were going to have to be determined without his involvement.

In fact, the veteran soldier had begun to wonder about why he had been brought to Peligrino in the first place. However, his speculation was soon interrupted by the arrival of a few members of the White Thorn and an ice elemental. Damon cringed. He hated the White Thorn. It was their quest for vengeance that had had destroyed the island. The White Thorn had used their power and legitimacy as veterans of the vampire wars to wage a campaign that destroyed the very people they claimed to protect.

The White Thorn seemed to be conspiring with the ice elmental, their voices hushed, and had it not been for what Damon already had known of their plan, it would have been difficult for him to follow along.

“So,” an elder half-elf began. “I like this idea. It’s time we made those cursed bloodbreaths pay...”

“Patience,” replied the ice elemental. “All of Knife’s Edge was not built in a day...”

“But all of Surat was destroyed that fast,” interrupted a particularly wizened human. This man’s voice was particularly rude and hostile, and even from a distance, Damon could tell that the fire in his eyes had been dulled by far too many deaths. The harshness came not from righteous indignation, but from a genuine sense of sadism.

“As it well may be,” the ice elemental replied, speaking with a surprising evenness and calm. “However, the monster can not arrive in Surat ‘til tomorrow. One must come to Peligrino Island as well...”

“Wait...” the half-elf interrupted. “There is a monster coming HERE? I didn’t hear anything of that.”

“We thought you too cowardly to accept that...” the old human shot back. “We can not kill without sacrifice. It will kill one of ours for one of theirs. The numbers are in our favor. If we fight our monster, even less of our people will die...”

“Even so,” the half-elf replied. “What about the cost? Will EVERYONE accept?”

“Everyone need not bother,” the ice elemental interrupted. “This need not go beyond those of us here.”

The rest of the White Thorn members that had been mostly silent during the discussion now nodded in agreement.

“Well then, it's settled,” the old human concluded. “It is a secret between the government of Salvar and the White Thorn.”

“But I’ll find you out...” Damon thought confrontationally. Had the impatience of his youth not been curbed by experience, Damon would have leapt up from his crouched hiding place and attacked all three of them. Now, he merely looked at the instructions that were written discreetly on a leaf near him.

“Send someone to follow the old man, the half-elf and the ice elemental,” the orb instructed. “Each has information that you need.”

Damon thought it odd that the orb couldn’t merely just offer that information, but he intended to follow its direction anyways. “Girl... messenger, whatever your name was, go after the half-elf. Jame, take the old man. I’ll go for the ice elemental...” Then, Damon used his powers to envelop both himself and his happenstance allies in a sheath of invisibility. “You’ll have this with you for a while,” he said. “If they have magic though, they might sense the disturbance, so be discreet. When you fall out of my range, you will return to normal... Be careful.”

With that, Damon darted away to follow the ice elemental, moving adroitly and with confidence.

[Call me J]

Jame had not paid much attention to the interactions between the ice elementals and the two other men, and it had taken him as a matter of surprise that he was now asked to follow the old man. “This Damon trusts me even less than some weird messenger,” he thought irritably. The young half-dragon wondered if he wasn’t still being punished for letting the messenger girl through. With a sigh, he obliged Damon, thinking that everything else was moving far too quickly.

Glad that Damon had provided him with a sudden bit of cover, Jame moved after the old man. The young half-dragon supposed that he was moving stealthily, but twigs snapped underneath his feet and lower branches brushed underneath his tall wings. However, the old man seemed to show little concern, and Jame took that as a sign that he had little to fear.

As the man lead Jame out of the forest and onto a beach, Jame realized that he no longer had Damon’s magic protecting him. The half-dragon wondered how long he hadn’t noticed this, but even now, the old man gave no indication that he knew he was being followed. Jame darted behind some brush, dried leaves rustling as he moved, but at least, the half-dragon was concealed again.

Jame maintained his position as he watched the old man move into a house nearby. It was a fairly sparse house, not particularly impressive, especially to someone like Jame who had been bequeathed a small cottage in Knife’s Edge. “Not even an inch of paint on the place,” the fortunate half-dragon thought. “You’d have thought an old man could have saved his money better. If I already have a good place, you’d think everyone else would...”

The beach was a bit more populated than the rest of the area, but Jame moved out of the foliage once the old man had walked into his home. Jame barely noticed the way that a few children stared at him with their mouths agape, and didn’t consider that anyone would find it suspicious that he was walking into a home that he wasn’t invited. “I should be able to take care of this here,” Jame thought. “The old guy is probably so old that he doesn’t have hearing anymore. Once I find him in here, then I’ll come back to Damon.”

Jame couldn’t help but feel proud. He barely considered what his original objective was, now he just wanted to return to Damon and the red-haired girl with a feeling of accomplishment. While Jame had never considered himself to be the best in combat before, nor did he ever aspire to be such a warrior, the half-dragon didn’t like the idea that he was thought of as any less than he was. In perhaps no mind but his own, there was nothing Jame couldn’t accomplish, and trailing the old man would be yet another example.

When Jame opened the door to the house, he realized it was but a one-room home. By now, if the old man hadn’t noticed him already, Jame would soon be found. There was a white cloth separating the room into two halves, and there was a silhouette behind it.

“Found you,” Jame said triumphantly as he unsheathed his short sword and headed straight for the curtain. “You’re going to tell me everything you know...”

Suddenly, Jame heard the sound of a flintlock hammer being pulled back. The young half-dragon turned around to see the business end of a flintlock pistol, with the old man pointing the weapon straight at him.

With a sour voice, the old man uttered only one phrase. “You have to be the stupidest person alive.”

[Karuka]

It was fair to say that Karuka was much better equipped than Jame to travel stealthily in the woods. After all, she'd been forced to survive on her own merits for better than a year now, and much of her time had been spent in forests of various description. On top of that, she'd grown up in a forest bordering a meadow. There was nothing unusual about this terrain under her bare feet, and so she made no more noise than traveling through it than a whispering wind would.

She wondered what the point of all this was, and why was she even here? She'd been asked, simply enough, to deliver the box. She'd done that. Why more on top of it? What was the point? Seven years in the past she hadn't even known about Althanas; she'd still been under Calhoun's roof and hating every moment of it. At least, that was seven years in her past.

She didn't know what that meant for Althanas. Maybe Althanas didn't even exist in time, at least not as she understood it.

She felt an odd tingling on her skin as she moved out of range from Damon, and she made herself focus, keeping the dense trees between herself and her quarry. As they drew ever closer to the beach, the soft dirt was dotted with more small rocks, and the mighty oaks and hemlocks gave way to slender young pine. A scent wafted through the air, one she recognized all too well as the ocean. If she strained her ears, she could hear it, too.

The man she was following had gently pointed ears and a slender body, and he walked the forest with a sort of aloof confidence. Through the trees, Karuka was able to keep track of him often by sight of his thick golden hair alone. He traveled swiftly, as though he had a destination and was more eager to get there than make certain he wasn't being watched. Then again, how often did someone come out of the future to follow you around, especially if she didn't know you?

The sound of waves crashing on sand got gradually louder as the thick, salty smell got more and more distinct. Finally, there was a break in the trees, revealing a flat grey sky that still held no hint of precipitation, and flaxen sands buffering against waters so dark they could be purple. From what she'd heard of Homer's Illiad from an old Jew back on Earth, this was a "wine-dark sea."

The half-elf left the cover of the forest and made his way to a tiny hut that stood against a particularly large boulder. It seemed to have been made of unfinished driftwood and tacked together almost haphazardly, but the Irish lass could tell that it had been securely caulked and was probably weatherproof. She hadn't noticed it until her mark had approached it, so well did the weathered grey of the wood blend with the slate blue of the rock. Through the small window, she saw him grab a large roll of parchment, likely a map, and she started lowering herself to the ground to get a better look at him. There were a few more huts near here, but Karuka didn't see anyone about, and she'd rather not be noticed by her quarry.

A sudden "POP!" from behind her caused the red-head to whirl around sharply, lowering her staff into a defensive position. Looking back at her was a raven-haired Elf with dark eyes and an open book, looking just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

"Excuse me," he said after a moment of tense silence. "You are not Jame, but I suppose you shall suffice. My name is Tura Preylor. May I have a word with you?"

[INDK]

Damon followed after the ice elemental carefully. The veteran soldier was an experienced tracker, and as he followed the ice elemental deeper into the forest, he was practically silent. Damon was so experienced, it seemed as if the foliage moved away from his body so as not to make a sound. Still, there was need for caution. Powerful magicians could often sense the presence of other magic in the air, and Damon knew that his efforts were using a substantial amount of magic.

Still, the ice elemental seemed to have no knowledge of Damon, though the wary creature did look over his shoulder a few times. Every time, Damon was nowhere to be seen and as quiet as a mouse. The veteran soldier had done such a good job, he hadn’t even left behind a drop of sweat, let alone a footprint.

Eventually, Damon watched from the branch of a tree as the ice elemental darted into a cave. “Shit...” Damon hissed lightly. He wondered if he had been detected. Caves represented one of the classic ways of capturing a spy. All the ice elemental would have to do was wait in the darkness and jump Damon from behind. Still, Damon knew he couldn’t afford to wait. The cave might have been a tunnel, in which case he would have to follow. It was a classic, but effective trap. That was of course, if it was a trap in the first place.

Since he knew that caution would be necessary, Damon hummed a song for panoramic vision quietly, so that he could check the exterior outlay of the land. There was no indication that there was any way out of the cave but through the entrance the ice elemental had taken. The outlay of the land offered a suspicious picture, the stone cave was one of the few areas so elevated on the entire island, and while the small mountain was high, it seemed suspiciously low enough so as to be able to blend in with the trees.

Immediately, Damon realized that he had not been detected. This cave was meant as a hiding place, perhaps it was even artificially made. Given the black magic that he knew was going to be taking place in Peligrino Island, it seemed quite likely that all the spells would be taking place here, far away from the populated perimeter of the island.

Damon quickly descended from the tree and moved into the cave silently. The layout of the cave itself was not conducive to hiding; other than the darkness there were few stalagmites or rocks under which he could hide. However, the ice elemental still didn’t seem to notice him, Damon could tell by the way that the strange creature had settled down at a makeshift table and had begun a ritual that was a precursor to a spell.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Damon closed the gap on the ice elemental, and with a well placed punch to the temple, knocked his foe unconscious. Grabbing ropes that were likely going to be used in the ceremony, Damon tied the ice elemental's arms to his legs, thinking it was unfortunate that he lacked anything to tie his captive to. With ice magic, Damon didn’t know how long the bonds would last, but he knew it was a risk he needed to take. There was information that he needed.

The golden orb suddenly lit up the sky. “Kill him,” it said. “He plans to destroy Peligrino Island.”

Damon shuddered. Immediately, his gaze began to flit between his instructions and the ice elemental before him. The veteran had obeyed every command up until now, but suddenly, the orb was asking him for something that he felt he couldn’t deliver.

“I need answers here...” Damon thought. For a moment, he hesitated.

“Kill him now,” the orb insisted. “Use fire!”

Damon, unsure, merely held his ground.

[Call me J]

Jame could practically feel the cold steel of the flintlock barrel on his skin as he spoke. There were a rush of emotions running through him- embarrassment, anger, confusion, fear, but the young half-dragon knew he needed to block them all out. He had gotten into the mess he was in now because of how he had let his emotions get the best of him, and if he didn’t think fast, he would return to Damon a failure- if he returned at all.

Nervously, Jame found his voice. “You... you want something?” he managed. Jame hated the way his voice sounded. It was weak throated and it squeaked. It was unbecoming of the situation.

“You can tell me what you’re doing here,” the old man replied. “A genius like you doesn’t do something without orders...”

Staring at the edge of oblivion should have made Jame cautious, but the fact was, the young half dragon was too stupid to be careful. He should have thought about all the things he still stood to lose, but instead, remained focused on what he had already lost- and hoped to regain. “If I get through this... Damon will know I’m tough,” Jame thought. “He’ll have regretted sending me after the old man...”

“I- I can’t....” was all Jame muttered. Though he was brave in his head, the rest of his body wouldn’t comply.

The old man sneered in a vile way that suggested that he was pleasantly surprised by that response. “I could torture you kid...” he said. “People would hear your screams, but they wouldn’t come to save you. They like me too much in this town. You’ll just scream and scream till your friends come for you, and then I’ll know exactly who they are. Save yourself the trouble.”

“N-n-n-no,” Jame stammered, his lip quivering with fear. His eyes had begun to water, and the complete helplessness of his position was beginning to sink in. Just about lost for ideas, Jame could barely find his knees as the old man tied his hands behind his back. The young half-dragon hoped desperately for some kind of intervention, up until that point every danger he had faced had been accompanied by a savior.

This time though, no one came for him, and nothing intervened. “Turn around,” the old man said. Jame complied. A moment later, he was kicked between his wings and fell down to the ground. The half-dragon tried to struggle, but soon enough his hands and legs were tied to each other right between his wings. Using his firebreath would have been meaningless because his face was pressed up against the ground.

“Want to answer questions now?” the old man asked. The tone suggested there was only one right answer.

Still, Jame didn’t know how to reply.

[Karuka]

Preylor led Karuka through the woods at a rapid march, his motions in his dull pants and shirt awkward, as though the fabric restrained him from a more flowing gait he was wont to adopt. He seemed to have a definite knowledge of where he was going, for he never paused nor stopped to regain his bearings. He spoke to her rapidly, with a precise and cold voice that nonetheless retained a melodic quality.

"I have little time here in the past, Karuka Tida, and much to explain. You will walk and you will listen, and if you have any questions remaining after I leave you, Damon will have to answer them himself."

Karuka was about to ask Preylor if Damon was the name of the man whose mission it was to come to the past, but she was given no chance to speak, for the scholarly Elf spoke again after ducking under a low-hanging branch.

"Damon believes that he was brought here by one of my portals. He was not. An Enarlin mage asked you to deliver his portal, instead, in order to destroy the universe."

He glanced over at Karuka, seeing the confusion sparkle in her bright blue eyes.

"I see that you do not understand. Into this grove."

To their right was a thick cluster of hazel trees, and hidden within the center of the grove were a pair of small boulders. Preylor sat on one and directed Karuka onto the other, resuming his tale.

"You saw the ice elemental pass by with the young half-elf and the old man, did you not? You were sent after the half-elf, Jame Whitizard was sent after the old man, and Damon Kaosi took it upon himself to follow the Elemental. This Elemental is one of a few beings for whom time does not have meaning, for he does not exist within time, merely within space. From what you perceive as the present, he could next appear a thousand or a million years in the future, or in the past. His destruction would have such an impact upon the chronology of the universe that everything as we know it would cease to exist. Do you understand?"

Karuka blinked a couple of times, trying to process everything that had been said. Preylor spoke in terminology that she had never encountered before, and she was having difficulty translating it into words she could understand. Her lips scrunched up and slid to the side, and her fingers tapped against her knees. Preylor had despaired of ever getting his message across to the girl before he had to return to his own time when she spoke.

"So, th' ice creature can be killed, but 'tis ay important that he is not, because if he is, everythin' will be destroyed."

Preylor sighed in relief, standing and starting to walk with her again.

"Close enough. Tell that to Kaosi, and tell him that Preylor sent you. Perhaps you may yet do good after all, for one that was never to be here in the first place. Now, do not bide any time, one second wasted might change the fate of the universe."

He reached into his vest, pulling out what appeared to be a small golden watch and placing it in the palm of her hand.

"This will lead you directly to him. Hurry, Karuka Tida. It is in your hands now."

As Preylor withdrew his hand, his tall, willowy frame faded, and then slowly vanished, leaving the red-headed Irish lassie alone. She opened the cover of the watch to see that it was more a compass, although instead of pointing north, it pointed somewhere to the northeast.

An airde tuath ear...'twould be hard going. Faster to go tuath and then swing ear.

That decision made, Karuka started running north, the long legs she'd inherited from her mother and the height she'd inherited from her father coming together to give her the advantage of speed. Each stride took her over more ground, and as she ran, she reflected on Tura Prelyor's words. One sentence in particular stood out to her.

You were never supposed to be here in the first place.

If I was ne'er to be here, then how am I here? Why did th' pendulum swing this way? Chance? What if th' gods really did make a mess here? It is right t' fix it?

She stumbled slightly as she crested over a hill, and stopped short as she caught sight of people. She had come to a place where people lived. The device pointed to one particularly shabby hut, and Karuka walked casually toward the window. Although she was a strange sight, no one seemed to pay her much mind. She was still human, after all.

Through the window, she could see the old man pointing something threateningly at a prone figure on the floor, a gleam of dull sadism in his eyes. She couldn't see who he had on the floor, but she figured it was probably the young half-dragon, and cast her eyes around for something she could use. Picking up a rock, she took a few steps closer until she was within a stone's throw of the elderly man and hidden from any potential eyes by a large tree.

Finally, she answered her own question.

Ay. If th' gods ha' made a mess, 'tis best t' fix it.

With that, she threw the rock, aiming for the old man's head.

Translations

"So, the ice creature can be killed, but it's very important that he isn't, because if he is, everything will be destroyed."

>>>A north-easterly direction...it'd be hard going. Faster to go north and then swing east.<<<

>>>If I was never [meant] to be here, then how am I here? Why did the pendulum swing this way? Chance? What if the gods really did make a mess here? Is it right to fix it?<<<

>>>Yes. If the gods have made a mess, it is best to fix it.<<<
((right, like always, you want it changed, PM me. If it's good, feel free to bunny Karu freeing Jame.))

[Call me J]

Jame didn’t see the rock. His face was buried in the floor. The dust tickled up his nose, making it hard to breathe, especially as his lungs were panting as if they wanted to get what little use they would still be afforded before a bullet stilled them forever.

Faced with death, all the sense of entitlement and bravado melted away from the young half dragon like snow in the summer heat. He was bare, wounded, sore and defeated with nothing he could do but pitifully plead for his life.

“Just please... don’t hurt me.... please,” Jame managed, only to have his desperate cries answered by a sudden thud. Jame cringed. A second later, the pistol went off.

It was a long time before Jame realized he was alive and mostly unhurt. Next to him now lay the old man. There was blood dripping out from the old gray skull, dripping down the face as the result of the throw of a rock. The pistol, once pointed at Jame, now lay smoking in the old man’s unmoving hand.

Relief passed over the half-dragon like a blanket, and he suddenly felt uncomfortable within his own body. The entire experience had been indescribable; he had been tested to the limits of what beliefs he had, and after everything but a primordial desire to live had been stripped from him, somehow managed to maintain.

The experience had been the kind of ordeal that would have given a veteran warrior reason to pause, and thus Jame was clearly without the wherewithal to handle the situation. His chest suddenly filling up with a swelling desire to persist, the youth realized that the gun shot might attract others and then began struggling with his bonds.

“Help me dammit...” Jame muttered through gritted teeth, assuming it was either Damon or the red haired girl that had saved him. “Just fucking help me so we can get moving...” The tethers were too tight for him to wiggle out from them on his own.

Now that he’d survived one brush with death, he had no interest in facing another.

[INDK]

Damon’s hands began to hum with the sound of excited particles of light around them, but the veteran soldier’s eyes remained fixed on the ice elemental. He spoke in a tone of smoldering rage, one that was merciless, but restrained.

“How could you destroy this, everything around here...” Damon demanded. “Everything that they’ve worked for... what’s in it for you? Why give these people that magic that’ll just destroy them? How much of a bastard can you be?”
The orb, seemingly impatient with Damon’s behavior, hissed as it vibrated in the air. In increasingly sloppy writing, it reiterated its request.

Despite the commands of the orb, Damon did not cast the lasers that were forming at his fingertips. He needed answers. A bit of the veteran had died the day he’d failed on Peligrino Island, a bit of him that could not be restored. He had been hopeful when he’d come to the island, but bitterly sorrowful upon leaving.

Shaking his head, Damon fought back the slightest tear in the corner of his eye as he stared back at the ice elemental’s soulless leer.

“You can’t even imagine,” the ice elmental finally replied. “Your sensibilities would never understand...”

Damon’s gaze became fierce. He bit his lip, lest a sudden outburst of rage jeopardize both the fate of Peligrino Island and all of Raiaera as well.

“I understand you deserve to die,” Damon finally said. His voice was cold, almost alien to him. It was as if a lifetime of disappointment in the frailties of others had finally taken its toll. Damon had finally found a life he had no interest in saving. “Tell me what I want or I assure you... it WILL happen.”

The cave suddenly seemed silent. For a brief moment, the sound of water drops falling from stalactites was audible again. Damon waited, gazing the icy eyes of his enemy and seeing nothing worth redemption.

“You wouldn’t kill me...” the ice elemental shot back. “You care too much about the world.”

Damon shook his head. There was nothing but anger simmering within the veteran’s chest. He could have cared less about Peligrino Island, and even less about the war that he was working to stop. For all his accomplishments and accolades, Damon was now the same furious boy who had been ripped from his home by vampires. The only difference was now he was powerful enough to make the target of his vengance pay.

“I hate you...” Damon said. The lasers that had been humming at his fingers suddenly shot out towards the ice elemental.

[Karuka]

((bunny approved via AIM))

I hit 'im. That realization almost made Karuka laugh. She'd never had good luck throwing things at targets, especially with a life on the line. The last time, she'd been on a slave ship not far away from Corone with Seth Dahlios, and the potatoes she'd hurled at the slaver had merely been sliced from the air. Apparently a target caught off-guard was that much easier to hit, but the Irish lass didn't spend too much time reflecting on the success. Something much more important was happening.

In a heartbeat, she was at Jame's side, nimble fingers picking rapidly at the rough cowhide thongs restraining the half dragon's motion. Within moments, the knots unraveled beneath her slender fingers, and Jame was free. She helped him to his feet.

"C'mon, we d' not ha' much time, an' none to lose!" She stood with long legs stiff and straight, ready to launch her from her standing position into motion. Jame's sense of haste, however, clearly did not match that of the impatient red-head. He slowly dusted himself off and examined his limbs to make sure that he hadn't been hurt in the brief scuffle with the old man.

Karuka, not willing to waste a single moment, grabbed Jame by a wing and started lunging off, only to stumble to the ground as he flicked his wing and dug in his heels. "Stop pulling at the wing, lady!"

The brassy red-head bolted up, her little compass in her hand and an ever growing tension in the air. It was a feeling she'd had a couple of times before - once on the morning she'd been pulled to Althanas, and again when she took the Heart of Scara Brae into her hands for the first time. Everything was about to change forever, and if Tura Preylor had been right, everything changing forever was bad.

"Fine, then, stay here t' be d'voured by wolves." With that pleasant thought, she bounded off, long legs propelling her over the leaf-blanketed crests and troughs of the forest floor. Every now and again she would pause, but only for a brief moment before the compass regained its bearings and led her off again.

Without warning, the tension in the air burst. White doors similar to the portal that had brought them back in time started popping into and out of existence all about her. She could catch snippets of what was happening within each one, but none of them mattered save in that she feared the worst. Loud tramping behind her told her that the sudden strange phenomenon had startled Jame into following.

It wasn't even a quarter of a mile more before Karuka burst into a cave and saw Damon standing before the rapidly melting pile of shattered ice, amidst all the chaos that was beginning to happen. A dread chill ran through her body. She had tried her hardest, but it hadn't been good enough. If she'd left Jame to die, she'd have been in time to save the world from the General's folly.

If wasn't good enough now.

"Damon K'osi," she said slowly, holding onto a stitch in her side and breathing heavily from the long, hard run, "y've just broken th' universe."

>>>I hit him.<<<

"Come on, we don't have much time, and none to lose!"

"Fine, stay here to be devoured by wolves."

"Damon Kaosi...you've just broken the universe." <-- best line ever

[Call me J]

Before Damon could respond, Jame spoke up terrified. “What… what… you mean the universe is broke?” He shuddered at the thought. He turned back to Karuka, just to confirm. “You mean the universe is broken, like we’re not going to be around for much longer….”

He could tell from one look on her face that she was serious.

Jame really didn’t need the confirmation though. The way the world was changing around him was evidence enough. The white doors that had been popping up and around everywhere were becoming less and less refined, as if the barriers between time were disintegrating within themselves. From white doors, they had turned gray, and now they were withered, almost translucent. Jame could look all around him and see the future, the past and the present.

He shuddered. Everything around him was falling apart. Even the parts of the cave that were not covered by the portal had begun to look unnatural. The rock had begun to vibrate, giving off a hazy hue, as if the material within it was unsure as to whether or not is should exist. Jame could even see his hand changing. His body itself felt different. It was as if his body was calling him back to a different time and place.

For a moment, he wondered where he should be. There was no time in his life that was all that memorable. It had been a hedonistic rush, good times with Ashley, good times with drinks and good times with money. Perhaps he’d somehow be sucked into the future, a future that he’d never have now that the universe was falling in on itself. He desperately wanted that future now, he hadn’t lived nearly enough.

“Come on!” he shouted, now turning towards Damon. He looked at the green skinned half elf with both disappointment and hope. “Come on… you broke the universe, you’ve gotta know how to fix it…”

As if to illustrate his point, Jame reached down and grabbed a bit of the dirt on the cave floor. “Feel this…” he said, shoving it towards Damon’s face. “Feel it dammit… it doesn’t even feel like dirt…”

He shook his head in disgust. Jame couldn’t help but wonder now why his mother had sent him to help Damon in the first place. “If I’d have known he was going to destroy the world, then I really wouldn’t have come…” he thought bitterly. Already, he had survived one brush with death, and he knew that he didn’t want to have to deal with another. However, this time, there was no escape, no way to fix it. Karuka might have been able to come in to save him from an old man, but Jame knew that there was nothing she could do here. She looked just as terrified as he was.

“Come on…” he said, thrusting the dirt towards Damon again. “Come on… You’re supposed to be a hero… do something!”

As Jame spoke, the dirt in his hand was suddenly being sucked out of his grasp. A portal had opened directly above him, and it was without a door. This was the most powerful portal yet, and it was beginning to work to destroy time where they were. It had begun to suck the air all around them, the dirt in Jame’s hand, and even small plants and rubble, out into its time.

There was no doubt about it now, the universe was broken and Jame didn’t know what to do. All he knew was he didn’t want to die.

[INDK]

Damon was completely disheartened. His rage had begun to dissipate, and he found he didn’t like what was left. Bitterly, he bit his lip, and began to realize what was happening. “That bastard said I cared too much about the universe…” he realized. “He was a portal or something…” The now shamed veteran couldn’t help but wonder what had brought him into this situation. He had been sent to the past to stop a war between Raiaera and Alerar, but all he’d succeeded in doing was destroying the world, nowhere near neither Raiaera nor Alerar.

The veteran soldier had felt like this many times before, but for the first time, the universe was literally crumbling around him. He has spent his entire existence trying to protect life, and now he was going to be the one who destroyed it. A lifetime of hard work, selflessness and dedication was going to be erased by one brief moment of revenge. He now understood the anger, the rage that the Order of the White Thorn had felt when they’d summoned their monsters to destroy both the vampires of Surat and the people of Peligrino Island.

This was the end of the world, and Damon had nothing to say for himself. For a moment, he wanted to apologize, but he didn’t know to whom. To Jame, the young kid who had somehow gotten mixed up in an adventure far beyond his years, to the red haired messenger whose name or business he didn’t know, or even to the thousands of people beyond the portals in different timelines, each of them just as confused as he was. Damon could barely look towards the portals and see them. Now thousands of cries of confusion and panic echoed throughout the world. Every one of them was one of Damon’s victims.

“I- I can’t make this better,” Damon told Jame, speaking as if he was a child. Damon remembered that was what the village chieftain had told him after his father died. It had been no consolation to him then, and he knew it wouldn’t be consolation to anyone else now.

However, before Damon could have said anything more, he suddenly found his body being moved. He could barely utter a thought or draw a breath before he was suddenly sucked through a portal back into Raiaera. He was back in Eluriand, not in the Eluriand from which he’d come, but a much darker, more desolate time in its history. The sky was black, it was nighttime. And the undead were still in control of the city.

Damon gulped. Flying wraiths dotted the sky, howling out to the moon as if to declare their dominance over all they saw. Skeletons roamed meaninglessly, while corrupted elfs and zombies attacked buildings at random, fighting over each other for the few pieces of flesh they could gather from unfortunate students from the schools of magic or adventure seekers that had passed through the city’s gate. Every last building in the city was decayed, both from natural damage and the work of the undead. The air contained the distinct smell of dead dry blood. It was in the air that he inhaled.

Both the red haired girl and Jame were with him. Damon unsheathed his favourite weapon, an axe with a stake on the bottom called Respite. “Stay behind me,” Damon called. He was practically shouting so as to be heard above the din of the chaos. If they were all going to die in the middle of Eluriand, Damon was not going to let them die at the hands of the undead. “Jame… cover the back.”

However, before Damon could have asked the red haired girl if she knew any way that they could have restored time to its proper place, he realized just exactly where he was. He was not just in the past of Eluriand, but his own past as well. Less than fifteen feet away from him, a younger Damon Kaosi was warding off the undead from a chariot with flaming bottles of wine and steadfast dedication. Damon’s two fellow passengers, Hazaar T’Lorelime and Taliel Escabre, were helping him as best as they could.

Damon realized what he was going to have to do. For the future of the rest of the world, he was going to have to kill himself.

“Stay here,” he barked out, before darting forward in a mad rush. He paid little attention to the zombies and corrupted elves around him, knocking them off their feet as they swarmed around the chariot. All he knew was that he had to prevent himself from killing the ice elemental.

(bunny approved)

[Karuka]

All Ragnarok had broken loose. That was the only possible explanation. Damon had killed one of the frost giants and triggered Ragnarok, the end of the world. It would make sense, too. He was an Elf; the Elves and Giants were enemies in the old legends she'd learned from the Crone when she was a girl. Maybe it hadn't been Damon's intention to start Ragnarok, but one couldn't fight one's dharma.

Denizens of Hel itself screamed out in the dank night air and walked through the darkened streets of a city black as despair. A monolithic structure stood starkly against the moon, but all that came from it were more screams from the damned and dying. The whole scene made the hairs on the back of Karuka's neck stand on end, but not as much as the realization that she was a witness to the end of the world made her heart sink into the pit of her stomach.

An' even th' gods are t' die.

That thought put a new element of terror into the night for her. If the gods themselves had perished or were perishing, she had no one to call out to for power; she'd lost her most effective method of fighting such creatures. She was outmatched here with no hope of redemption.

Everything was coming to its final end.

She didn't notice Damon calling out to follow him, nor did she notice him wander off towards himself, of all people. She was too busy pondering her own situation; a lone, powerless human girl stuck in the middle of the end of the world - Armageddon, Ragnarok, the Kalki Yuga - whatever any culture wanted to call it. All she had was a sturdy staff and a sense of hopelessness trying to overwhelm her typically brassy attitude.

'Tis th' end of the world. Can't fight it. Th' gods themselves haven't th' power t' stop it. Th' gods themselves are dead.

Brown hands gripped shining red wood tightly as this realization finally hit home, and Karuka's head bowed under a sense of crushing despair. The gods themselves were dead and powerless. And with the dead and rotting walking the night and attacking frightened people, it seemed that the true power here was not in the hands of the living, nor of any power that wanted to call itself godly. The night belonged to Death and Death alone.

Chaos reigned as Death's mad jester, dancing on the bodies of Karuka's childhood gods - gods that couldn't even protect the order they'd set up since time immemorial.

"So damn 'em."

The words came out with a vehemence that startled even her. But how often had she been able to pull herself through? How often had her gods really intervened for her? She couldn't recall a single instance.

"So damn them," she said with a sudden clarity drowning out all but the very last of her Irish lilt. "Damn them and let us all die."

Hefting her staff once more, Karuka started walking forward, into the swarm of damned creatures. She was damned. They were damned. They were all damned; it was Ragnarok. And she was going to go down faithless and fighting.

"Let us all die, and the universe with us! Let it turn to ASH, and let it be reborn godless!"

>>>And even the gods are to die.<<<

>>>It's the end of the world. Can't fight it. The gods themselves haven't the power to fight it. The gods themselves are dead.<<<

"So damn them."

[Call me J]

All of a sudden, Jame’s body began to tingle. He wasn’t sure if it was an adrenaline rush or just pure fear, but blood was coursing through his veins at a rate that he never would have imagined before. Every nerve in his body was pulsing, every thought in his brain was exploding, and all he could do was listen to the instincts that compelled him. They let him act quickly, and quickness was the only thing keeping Jame alive.

“YOU stay here!” Jame shot back at Damon, but it was too late. The general had given his order, and expected it to be followed. However, Jame was never one to listen, not that he would have with his life on the line. With the dull roars of undead surrounding him and the howling cries of banshees in the air above him, Jame couldn’t help but feel compelled to run after Damon. He did so swinging wildly, paying little attention to where Damon or he were headed.

The undead, surprisingly, seemed to care little for Jame. Perhaps it was that he was out of his time that scared away the undead, or the dark magic that was destroying the universe had soaked into him to the point that the zombies mistook him for one of them, perhaps it was just random luck, Jame barely noticed it as he swung wildly at any creature in his direction. The undead, however, were practically parting the way, and it was fortunate for Jame. The way that fear was coursing through his body, he would have had little chance to survive otherwise.

Suddenly, Jame stumbled and hit the ground hard. Jame cringed, not because of the fall, but because of the smell of the ground beneath him. There was dirt, but it was practically covered in a layer of old blood, dried up on the ground and stagnant. Jame could feel its taste in his mouth and nostrils now, and it felt too scarily real. The boy panicked, first afraid that it was his blood, before coming to the realization he’d fallen because of his own clumsy feet. His body vibrated with panic, as Jame sensed the undead had changed their plans, and with a terrified look, Jame looked up to see a sinister creature looking towards him, waving a battered flamberge like a wand. The creature held the weapon in both hands, blade pointed downward like an execution. Jame shuddered, wondering if there was somewhere he could roll out of the way for time, but he was practically being trampled upon by the zombies that were madly rushing after the chariot.

A fiery cocktail thrown from the chariot suddenly landed, hitting Jame’s almost executioner squarely on the temple. Dumbfounded by his luck, Jame had barely managed reaction when the creature fell down right beside him. With zombies practically moving over him, Jame wondered how this creature was so different. It carried a weapon, and seemed to have more of a mind than the zombies running madly for the chariot and its contents.

“AAAACH!!!” Jame screamed, his thoughts punctuated by the foot of a zombie on his back. He wondered if he was now in the end of the world, and this was some kind of rapture that he was going to have to fight his way out of. “Perhaps the chariot is salvation,” he thought, suddenly thinking beyond mere momentary survival.

With that, Jame grabbed the corrupted elf’s flamberge, picked himself up and then began waving it madly as he moved towards the chariot. As he grew closer, he could see that Damon was caught up now in fighting someone who looked exactly like a younger version of the general.

[INDK]

Damon was barely aware that anyone was following him. The retired general, frustrated by his failures, moved with the kind of purpose that had been alien to him for far too long. Now, once again, every movement he made was towards a supreme sacrifice, the flame that burned in his heart had risen to the point it was prepared to engulf his entire body in fire. He muttered a few incantations he had learned over the years to keep the zombies from his path, and with a surprising burst of athleticism, leapt from a running pounce right into the chariot, barely needing his arm to pull him up to make the distance.

It was only when he landed with a thud did Damon realize he had practically jumped up eight feet into the air. His past self now stared at him, dumbstruck, as did the others in the chariot. A last molotov cocktail was thrown, and then there was dead silence.

“I- you- what…” the younger Damon spoke, somehow conscious of the fact that with all the years separating the two Damons, the same soul lived within them.

The older Damon shook his head. “Sshhh…” he whispered, forgetting for a moment that he had never liked being asked to be quiet.

Because of the indescribable gravity of the situation, the younger Damon complied. Tears began to well in the eyes of the retired general as he saw his predecessor, the younger Damon who had known so much pain, but yet pined so desperately to transcend it all. It would not be until later that he would discover that evil was just other people.

There was silence in the chariot for a moment too long. The older Damon knew exactly what he had to do, but as he fumbled around for an appropriate weapon, he couldn’t help but think about everything that was going on. His eyes welling with tears, he glanced at Hazaar for a moment. Despite himself, the grizzled veteran wondered if the boy would reach the Schools of Magic after all. Deeply, Damon exhaled. He had no choice but for his legacy to be the good left undone.

“You have to listen…” the old veteran said, with a voice that was as calm as he could muster. “It’s time to save the world.”

“I- I- have to save the boy…” the younger Damon muttered, very much confused by the entire scenario. “This child… he’s the future…”

Suddenly, it was as if the entire battle had slowed to a still. The zombies were having much more success now that the younger Damon was occupied, and they began to rock at the chariot, hoping to make its contents spill. However, neither Damon could feel it.

“The future was destroyed, you- I… WE destroyed it,” the older Damon replied. He looked in his hand to see that his favorite weapon had been in his hands all along. It was fitting. “I have to do this- to set things right.”

The younger Damon nodded. There seemed to be an unspoken bond between the two Damons, almost as if the rifts in the universe had spilled a new understanding into the petulant young slayer.

With a sickening thud, the fateful blow was delivered. The only Damon left standing suddenly began to feel his body dissipating in a warm, but reassuring, white light.

[Karuka]

The end of time has come now
And you are at its center,
The giants have killed all the gods,
There'll be eternal winter.

Karuka didn't notice Jame and Damon making their way off; they could meet their ends however they best pleased. Her runes were now useless, she was beyond the help of the gods that lent their power to the little clay tablets. All she had to her name was a powerful anger that the world was damned after she had worked so hard to try and save it, and a sense of resignation to her fate.

Karuka Tida hadn't feared death since her mother had died, and since the day she'd come to Althanas, she had been through so much battle and stared death in the face so many times that it didn't even hold mystery anymore. She didn't have regrets; she'd taken what she could out of life, and she was determined to die in a blaze of glory, taking as many of the damned abominable creatures down to the icy plains of Hel with her.


Tell a tale of fire,
One final burst of light;
The whole world is your pyre
As starts never-ending night.

As she made her way forward, rage coursing hot through Celtic blood, the zombies swarmed upon her, seeking to gain whatever vile sustenance they could from her living force, from her blood, her flesh, her very soul. But she wasn't going to take that; she wasn't about to die without a fight.

A freshly fallen Elf had jars of oil topped with cloth wrapped around his waist, and in his hand was a flint and steel striker. In the style of the dying hero Damon Kaosi, many of the Elves had started throwing flaming grenades of their own, and it seemed the best deterrent to the undead creatures. Why not? In her experiences with lighting things on fire, it worked on almost everything but stone.

Gripping her staff tightly, Karuka battled her way ever closer to the Elf, each swing battering the vile creations as they sought to consume her and turn her into part of their horde. She might not have much skill with her staff, but it was enough to beat the slow mob that had only food on its mind. Even reaching down to get the jars of oil and the striker would have been suicide, save that there were still three living Elves battling in the midst of the horde.

As she reached them, covered with the ichor of their enemies, the exhausted Elves welcomed her aide with brief glances, even if a new face was merely a small boost to morale in the face of such certain damnation. They gave her the protection she needed to grab the oil grenades and striker, and as she straightened up, lighting one, she let out a blood-curdling war cry, the Berserker's blood of her grandfather coming out in force for the first time in her life.


Scream out, little lost child,
Battle like a storm.
Living blood dost rage wild
As the world doth lose its form.

[Call me J]

As Damon was engulfed within the white light, Jame reached out towards it desperately. He had managed to climb up into the chariot despite all the zombies around him, and with his entire body shaking in terror and anticipation, Jame stuck his hand into the white light.

Suddenly, Jame’s entire body began to glow all over, his skin twinged and hissed as if it was being fried. His muscles twitched and changed, knotting up within themselves, expanding. His wings had begun to shrink. However, the young half dragon felt no pain. He had no knowledge of what was happening to him. While it looked like he was burning, Jame felt as though comfort itself had wrapped him up in a warm blanket. He had practically fallen asleep when he found himself back in Pelegrino Island, in a different time and age.

Damon was standing beside him. The two were translucent and incorporeal. It was simultaneously awesome and humbling. Jame looked at his hands and reached out to touch Damon, but he couldn’t. Damon was considerably different. The former Raiaeran general had become as old as his soul. Damon’s jet black hair was now a peppery gray, his skin was wrinkled, and while the veteran soldier stood up with all the dignity that could be expected, even Jame could sense it took a good amount more of Damon’s faculty than it should have.

“What… what’s happened…?” Jame asked, dumbfounded. He wondered if he’d become a spirit, if the white light had led him to heaven. The transformation, as strange and scary as it had been, had left him feeling light, feeling strong, but now, he was confused.

There was nothing about the room that made Jame feel like he’d been returned to heaven. He was not only back in Surat, he was back in his old family home. He could see his mother lying in a bed, panting heavily, and the town doctor and midwife standing over her. Jame’s grandfather was wiping down her forehead. Warily, Jame looked on. Was this where he’d been born, he’d had no brothers or sisters, and since his family had moved from Surat, there would have been no other child. “Why here?” he thought confusedly, “Why now?”

Jame was suddenly confused again. He looked back towards Damon, who seemed to be paying rapt attention to the birth. The young half dragon thought he heard Damon mouth the word “Genevieve…,” the name of his mother.
Seconds later, Jame was born. His mother collapsed back in relief. Glad to be finished with the ordeal, she clutched her father’s hand appreciatively.

“Should we tell Damon?” the grandfather asked.

“No,” Genevieve replied with a tired, but happy sigh. “He has enough other things to worry about…”

“But this is his child,” the grandfather replied. “He has a right to know.”

Genevieve only smiled lightly before cradling her newborn son in her arms. “And he’ll know when it’s proper…” she said. “As for now, there’s time enough… we’ll be together again in the hands of God…”

Jame had been rendered speechless. Not only could his mouth not muster words, his brain itself was blank.

[INDK]

It took Damon a bit longer to figure out what was going on. His ears had perked at the mention of his name, and the idea that he had a son had overwhelmed him with so much joy that he could have cared less that the man standing next to him was his progeny. His entire body shook with excitement as he turned to look at Jame. This was a different Jame than the one that had been with him in Eluriand. Jame was older, he was also translucent and incorporeal, but Damon was shocked by how the boy had suddenly become so much older.

Unsure of whether he was looking at the real Jame or a glimpse of the future, Damon could barely keep himself from crying as his eyes welled with tears. He was overthrown with emotion. He had a child, but he’d killed himself in the past. Did that mean his child would no longer exist in time? Had he killed Jame along with killing himself? Did anything he’d done in Eluriand make a difference to the universe, or had he just destroyed the family he’d always wanted?

With all these unanswered questions swimming in his head, Damon turned to Jame. “I have a son,” he said, as if not believing it. “And its you… you’re Genevieve’s kid… muh-muh-my son!” Forgetting that he was incorporeal, Damon reached out to hug his boy, only to stagger into nothingness.

“I’m sorry about the world I’ve given you,” Damon said as got back onto his feet, more overwhelmed with emotion than embarrassed by his gaffe. “I- I can’t make things better… but I wanted to. I wanted to for you.”

Damon wasn’t sure if Jame was listening, or if he even cared. They were two generations standing together, unsure as to whether or not they were at the brink of oblivion. For a moment, however, none of that mattered to Damon. He had never been present at the birth of his son, but somehow the powers that ruled the universe had conspired to give him this second chance. It was just a shame that he didn’t deserve it.

For one brief moment, Damon wondered if everything he had done was worthwhile, if only to realize how his son had grown. It was only a fleeting moment, but it was a brief bit of comfort at the end of the world.

“Maybe I’m just in heaven,” Damon muttered. He smiled, it was an uneasy smile, but a smile none the less.”

It was the first real smile he’d smiled in ages.

The veteran barely cared that suddenly, everything around him was fading to black.

[Karuka]

The fact that she had suddenly been dropped in the middle of Ragnarok and was fighting for her very survival didn't stop the damage done from continuing to enforce itself upon reality. The end of world myths she'd grown up with had merely told of titantic battles and fairly vague destruction. What it really was was a tale of life turning to death and order turning into chaos.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The grenade she threw tumbled toward a clutch of corrupted Elves as though it was sinking through water. The explosion it made as it hit the necrotic bodies rippled gently, consuming them and sending a pungent blast washing over her, carrying the oily, nauseating scent of rotten, burning flesh.

Buildings and people seemed poorly defined, losing their individuality and fading into each other like chalk drawings did in a rain storm. Colors distorted, one color blurring to another and back. Whole patches of the world started fading abruptly to black, disappearing and not becoming real again.

Finally, all that was left were her and the three Elves that had been fighting alongside her, nothing left but the black void and a speck of light from the final, burning grenade. They turned and looked at each other, themselves fading away, too. Weary, begrimed faces looked at each other in a final grim horror as one by one, they faded. The grenade in Karuka's hand disintegrated until it was gone, and she was left in utter darkness...and she could feel herself slowly starting to fade to nothing.

At the last instant, a white light washed over her, pulling her back from the brink of non-existence, and she stood in a blank field of vast, cold nothingness, almost as though the universe were caught in the cold aftermath of an intense blizzard. All around her, she could feel...something. It was almost as though people...or "entities" were watching her, but she couldn't see them.

"Hello? Where are you? Is anyone there?"

Her own voice sounded strange to her without the accent that had followed her everywhere, her sole constant and faithful companion. She'd struggled so hard to keep it, to make sure she had at least that to remind her of who she was and where she was from. What was she without at least that?

What was she now that the faith that had driven her to keep trying had been murdered along with the universe and the gods that had created it? She was nothing, there was nothing. And though she was surrounded by light, it was a very dark feeling.

[Call me J]

(bunny approved)

Shortly after Karuka appeared in the blackness, she was joined by both Damon and Jame. Jame wondered if now that he’d been to heaven if he was to be subjected to hell. He didn’t say anything, but he managed a slight smile for Damon, more out of politeness than out of any genuine emotion. He felt quite uncomfortable, almost as if he had been placed in an outfit that was two sizes too big. Everything about the blackness seemed empty, but there seemed to be a force within it, an ineffable quality that kept the entirety of the universe hanging together. It was as if he was standing upon the fingertips of a God.

Surprised at himself, Jame gulped. He could see that Karuka was back with him. He was corporeal gain, but his body had changed. He could tell he was older. The wings in his back were gone, and he could feel his heart beating through a considerably more muscular body. He had no idea why he had changed, but given all the other uncertainties, his physical appearance was among the least of his worries.

“HELLOOOOOO…” he shouted, hoping someone would hear him and answer his questions. Jame doubted that either Karuka or Damon knew something he didn’t. They had all been panicking and afraid at the destruction of the universe. It was something that they couldn’t have planned.

For a moment, Jame wondered if he shouldn’t have disobeyed his mother and not have come. He wondered if she’d wanted him to find out Damon was his father. Or perhaps she had just wanted Damon to know that he was his son. Either way, Jame couldn’t help but feel that he would have rather never known about his father if it had saved him from being caught up in the end of the universe.

Suddenly, the surroundings began to change again. However, this time, nothing was fading. Things were coming in to existence, bursting into matter like the dawn of existence. There was a strange excitement surrounding the room, and inexplicably, Jame let out a laugh.

The entire setting was surreal. The walls had turned a stained mahogany color, an elaborate woven rug appeared beneath Jame’s feet. A large, dignified chair appeared in front of Jame, with three small chairs placed behind him. A large bookcase appeared to the left, and an elaborately carved clock appeared to the right. It was as if Jame had been transplanted into the study of an Alerian noble or scientist.

“What… where are we?” he asked, hoping somehow Damon would have an answer to this question. “What does this have to do with anything?”

Of all the things he’d expected in either heaven or hell, Jame had never considered the possibility it resembled a scientists’ office. The room was too gentle, too staid for the end of the universe. There was something so incredibly proper about it that didn’t fit the ordeal that he had been through.

It was the contradiction brought out from the universe’s enduring commitment to symmetry.

“Is this hell?” Jame asked, dumbfounded. “Where you go if you destroy the universe?”

Suddenly, a thin man dressed in black appeared in the regal chair in front of him. The stranger sat coolly. He was dressed smartly, in slacks and a silk shirt. With a wry smile, he took a sip from a drink that had appeared suddenly in his hand. “Well Jame Whitizard, if the universe were destroyed, would there really be a hell?”

Jame didn’t know how to reply. The appearance of the man was strange enough, let alone the question.

The man clad in black laughed. “It’s a real mindfuck… now isn’t it?”

[INDK]

Damon was surprisingly calm. He had dealt with the ethereal before, and this didn’t feel all that much different. Instead, it brought the veteran a sudden bit of closure. The appearance of a higher being, either good or evil, meant the universe had returned to hands greater than his. Whatever the fate of the universe now, it would not be only in his hands.

“I thought you had forsaken me…” Damon mumbled. He looked on the man in black with genuine gratitude.

The man in black’s face turned stern. “General Damon Kaosi,” he said. “Of all people… you should know that we’d never abandon you. You should have also known that the Universe intends to fold according to its own plan. You may have been reborn without fate, but you should have known better. War needs to happen.”

“B-b-but why?” Damon asked. “What good has ever come from war? Especially wars of brothers…”

“Nothing,” the man replied. “But what good comes from carving statues, fornicating with others, from drinking ale?”

Damon let out a melancholy smile. Everything he had done had been in vain. The universe would never have allowed him to succeed.

“However, you certainly did surprise us,” the man in black continued. “We expected you to fail spectacularly, but we didn’t expect you to destroy the fabric of time. It seemed we truly did underestimate you, Damon Kaosi. But this would have hardly been the first time someone has made that mistake, now would it?”

Perhaps sensing the confusion emerging from the other two, the man in black shot a smile in their direction. “Everything is fine,” he said, looking at Jame with a smile that seemed genuinely amused. “You’ll be returned to your world, no worse for your experience…”

“But General Kaosi…” the man continued. “Your adventure caused us a bit of trouble. Destroying the world was something we could have coped with, but using the destruction of the world to save the world by creating a time paradox became far too complicated. We had to restore the world to its natural form, when we return you back to Althanas, both you and Jame Whitizard will be going back to Raiaera. Miss Karuka Tida will be going somewhere more appropriate for her. No one will know of this little adventure other than you, and of course, us.”

Damon nodded. “I am old now,” he said. He could feel how feeble he had become ever since he’d slain his past self. “Will I be young again?”

“No,” the man in black said. “Neither will you, Jame. We have to obey the laws of the universe as well… a price had to be paid. Damon, you were going to pay it, but Jame just got caught up in it. It’s unfortunate, but you’ll see. The plans of the universe have been rewritten to fit your new roles. Damon, you will return back to Althanas tied to fate once more. You’re a bit too dangerous as a truly free agent.”

Damon didn’t say anything. The idea of suddenly becoming old had just hit him. He looked at Jame. They genuinely looked like father and son now. He was an elderly man, and Jame looked to be somewhere in his mid twenties, if human years were the correct measure.

“All three of you will find that you are equipped to deal with your new roles…” the man in black said. “And with that, I plan to leave. Unless, of course, there are any questions.

The man finished his drink and folded his legs over each other in anticipation. There was a benign, but mischievous smile on his face.

[Karuka]

"Who are you?"

The question popped out of Karuka's mouth before she could consider the nature of the entity to whom she spoke. There were just questions, so many questions that she couldn't begin to fathom them all.

"Has Ragnarok been undone? What...why...?" Her words faltered, and the questions that teemed so rapidly in her mind would not form on her tongue.

The man's smile merely grew.

"We merely keep the stage together, and occasionally re-tie the strings. For your other questions, Miss Karuka Tida...you must answer those yourself. Good luck."

The cozy chamber with its shelves and carpets faded away into black, and the next thing Karuka knew, she was standing by a still pool of water not far from a burnt out shed. On a nearby tree was an ogam she had carved when she'd been asked to take care of the corpse of Tarry Whealer. The clearing was absolutely calm, and Karuka didn't know why she was there at all, merely that she was close to Radasanth, and very far from Eluriand.

Reaching into her rune pouch, she pulled out a trio, looking down at them. She just wanted an answer as to why, but even as she looked on their familiar faces and tried to piece their meanings together, she found that she couldn't. She knew their names, but their meanings felt as abstract as they had the very first time she'd seen their faces.

She drew again, then once more, and no time could she make sense of the runes.

A sense of dread fell upon her. Maybe the gods were dead. She'd been promised before that she would never be abandoned, but since when had there been a promise to her that had been kept? Never.

Sighing, she took off her pendulum, trying to find the way she was supposed to go next, but it merely swung back and forth lazily, in no particular direction. She shook it, but it still lacked direction, and with a heavy heart, she put it back around her neck and walked to the calm river to wash her face.

The cool water felt refreshing after all the fighting that had gone on, after all the running and the terror, and she lifted more to her mouth to drink, but dropped it as she looked at her reflection in a puddle.

The red mark that had identified her as her father's daughter and protected by Shiva had vanished, leaving her forehead completely clear. Her father had told her when he marked her that as long as she accepted him as one of her gods, the mark would remain.

It was gone, and she was forsaken. She had no more use of her runes, her pendulum...and nothing tying her to her gods. She was merely a young woman, homeless, friendless, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Althanas hadn't taken her fully into its bosom, Ireland had abandoned her, and India had prohibited her from coming to it.

She was nothing and no one, had always been nothing and no one, and that fact finally sunk into her. There was no longer blind faith to support her, no direction to go. She was just an orphan without a country, and what need had such a child for an accent?

She reached down to touch her reflection in the water, trying to come to terms with a lack of faith and finding herself foundering. But there was no going back. It was no use to believe in gods that she knew were dead.

Who am I? Where...do I belong?

Thanks for the fun thread!

Spoils: Karuka loses her divining abilities, both pendulum and runic, as well as her ability to cast rune spells.

Karuka gains the flint striker she took from the dead Elf and the compass-style guide that she was given by Tura Preylor. It can locate and guide her to any one ally within a ten mile radius.

[Call me J]

While Karuka was sent back wherever she needed to be, Jame and Damon reappeared in Eluriand. Jame smiled uneasily. Now that the danger was gone, everything suddenly seemed awkward. He had met his father, his father had destroyed the universe, and now everything was back to normal. The boy, now grown man, had never thought much about fate or purpose, but now he knew exactly how he was tied into the divine. The tie seemed almost stifling.

Jame wondered what his father would want now. He wondered if it mattered. The Damon Kaosi who had been there at the beginning of the adventure was no longer. The strapping young warrior had been replaced with an old man, his sleek green skin now old and wrinkled.

“I- I…” Jame began. Whatever his future was, he was going to need his father. He couldn’t leave without speaking with Damon. There was just too much on the table to be left unsaid.

However, before Jame could finish a sentence, Damon hugged him. “Take care of yourself,” Damon said. Jame could sense the love and pride within the older general’s voice. He didn’t know why, but everything suddenly seemed so completely peaceful, there in the middle of Eluriand. Somewhere nearby, the same bard that was singing when he had arrived was singing once again. The song was different, but eerily enough, it still carried the same tune.

“Sometimes it’s hard, drowning in pain.
We don’t know what to do,
But the winter cold fades into spring rain,
and we unveil a little of the truth.
Come July, will we still shiver in cold?
We’re all hollow, safe in the hands of God,
Come July, will we all feel old,
We’re all hollow, safe in the hands of God.”

“Do with yourself as you please,” Damon said to Jame. “Soon, you’ll have to come back to Raiaera. There are going to be things here that you’ll need to do. Someone is going to have to defend these people…”

“I can stay,” Jame offered helpfully.

“No don’t,” Damon replied, practically interrupting his son. “Right now, the politics here is poisonous. No one could survive it and end up the same. You need to be fresh, with your own ideals untainted by this place. When the time is ready, you’ll be here. You heard them, the universe unfolds according to its plan.”

Jame smiled, despite the gravity of the situation. The idea of returning to Raiaera to defend people he barely knew seemed a bit intimidating, but Jame supposed that he shouldn’t complain.

"Want to know how I know?" Damon asked with a smile. He gestured to the flamberge Jame had taken from a corrupted elf in their battles with the undead in Eluriand. "That weapon used to be mine..."

Jame looked at the weapon. He no longer wanted it. He may have to follow in his father's footsteps, but he was not yet willing to embrace it. However, there was little he could do. He was going to obey his father and enjoy what of his life was left before he was needed. As it stood, there was certainly cause to celebrate.

After all, for the first time in what seemed like forever, Jame could say with confidence that the world was not about to explode.

[INDK]

Damon said his farewell to his son and then walked off. He moved towards the schools of magic, wondering what his life would be like now. He was old, feeble, still possessing many magical abilities, but for a warrior who had relied on his strength and agility for such an incredibly long time, it was almost impossible to imagine that he’d ever be able to fight again. There would be wars coming, but they would not be his wars, they would belong to the young… people like Jame.

It would soon be getting dark in Eluriand, and Damon wondered if he shouldn’t just leave. He was going to pay his respects at the schools of magic and to the Cora’Lindstra, but as far as he was concerned, his days as a warrior of Althanas were behind him. He would close that book. He would retire, read books, learn new things, and perhaps even enjoy the childhood that he never had in these later years.

Being old was both a gift and a curse. It was something Damon never imagined would happen to him. He was going to be a slayer his entire life; he had never imagined that he would have a chance to become elderly. The rage of youth had subsided within him, and with his abilities all but gone, there was little he could do in the oncoming war.

Soon, he decided where he would go. Damon had never been embraced by any group of people so much as the Raiaerans, but it would have practically killed him to have to have to have endured the wars that were about to come. The powers that governed the universe had let him know of their plans, and the destruction that Eluriand was about to face was going to be heartbreaking. Damon didn’t know if he could witness the mayhem, especially in this enfeebled state which he’d be able to do nothing in Eluriand's defense.

For a few moments, Damon wondered if he should reconsider. Almost immediately, he realized he was being foolish. Eluriand would not be an appropriate place for old men. Instead, he’d head out to Dheathain, at least for the time being. He’d build himself a home there, use his magical ability to give himself a place where he could read and study in peace. When order returned, he would come back to Eluriand and work in the schools of magic. In the interim, he would stay hidden, enjoying retirement and moving quietly behind the scenes. His son would take his place in the war. Damon could tell that Jame had been nervous, but it wouldn’t matter. Damon had every confidence that Jame would come through in the end. The powers that governed the universe had made that much clear.

However, Damon’s fate was much less exciting. He would live a long time, old and able to finally take up the studies he had always wanted to undertake. There would be other heroes, other villains and other wars. Those would be the responsibility of the young. Damon’s biggest battles were over.

The universe would be fine without him. Everything was as it should be.

Once again, Damon Kaosi had faith. Retirement would be kind.

The End

[Sighter Tnailog]

Quest Judging
Time Enough

I apologize for the length it's taken on this judging -- it's been a long time to wait for not exactly the most detailed judgment I've given -- but my circumstances have just kept me away from internet access for a bit.

Anyway, forward. This thread was a lot of fun. From start to finish it sort of swept the reader along, which is one of the great talents of a writer. There were some flaws, however, namely in a sort of drop-off to the pacing towards the very end and a bit of reliance on some devices that tended towards being deus ex machinas. But even then, those flaws did not prevent this from being simply a fun thread.

It was also made more fun by the fact that I judged, so long ago, that quest where Taliel Escabre, Hazar, and Damon desperately charged through Eluriand surrounded by Corrupted Elves. So it was sort of a trip down memory lane for me -- something I judged in the Wild Card arena.

STORY

Continuity ~ 8/10. I could easily see Damon's and Jame's places in all of this, but I had a bit more trouble just at the very beginning figuring out where Karuka came into the picture. The understanding came into place later in the thread, but the story suffered a bit from this placement, as initially the reader is more confused than I think was intended over why Karuka is delivering the object and how she got involved in everything.
Setting ~ 7/10. Not a bad description of your environs at all, but more descriptions and better effort at making the scene come alive would not have been out of place.
Pacing ~ 9/10. This was superb. From the get-go, I was enthralled by both your work, simply pulled along by the story. At first I was interested in how going back in time would end the Alerar-Raiaera conflict, then desperately wanted to know if Karuka would make it in time to save the ice elemental, then became quite interested in how they were going to fix the universe. But, like I said above, there was perhaps a bit too much in this final bit, after the "last twist" the excitement of the quest faded a bit.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 8/10. I don't really know how to say it, but I thought the dialogue here was pretty close to perfect. Karuka, yours especially has a real touch of character in it. Damon/Jame, you're good, there's no doubt, but sometimes it's a bit harder to see the difference in the two characters from dialogue alone. It's a real minor thing, and hard to put your finger on, but continue trying to find ways to distinguish your characters from one another in your dialogue.
Action ~ 9/10. Rock-solid. Could always be better, but for the most part I thought what your characters did was wholly in keeping with who they were. Karuka's reasons for performing the errand, as with Continuity, were not explained precisely at the outset, and so a little bit was shaved off here.
Persona ~ 6/10. Your characters seemed not to have too many emotional responses -- and when they did, I wasn't always sure what the responses told me about the characters. Jame and Damon, for instance...I just wasn't sure how to read their relationship when they realized it, and I didn't get a whole lot of help in the writing in assessing their newfound position. Karuka was a bit better here, I think, but as "Ragnarok" unfolded I wasn't always sure where the rational center of her response was coming from. Probably the weakest area of this quest: work on how characters perceive emotion and cope with it.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 7/10. Damon, be on the lookout for how you use epithets. There were a number of times when you would say "veteran soldier" upwards of three times in a single paragraph, and over the course of the whole thread the phrase got a bit tiresome. There were a few others -- I think maybe "grizzled veteran?" -- that were used less often, but still enough to become noticeable and redundant. Here I would also bring up the problem of the deus ex machina. One thing that made the ending less pleasant for me was the fact that it was not the characters fixing things, but rather some sort of semi-angelic guardians who preside over reality. Not a bad idea, really, to have such forces and find ways to interact with them, but it comes across a little bit as "I don't know how to end this, so I'll have the gods make everything alright." I don't think that's what you intended, though, so in the future try to find ways to make this, if it even happens, less of a divine intervention and more a divine collaboration.
Mechanics ~ 10/10. I didn't see any mistakes. I probably missed a few -- most Althanas threads have them -- but my general tendency is to spot and take note of mistakes. If my mechanics-nazi self saw none, then that's a 10 in my book.
Clarity ~ 9/10. Michelle's character's reasons for being in the quest hurt you a bit here, but other than that it was readable and forthright.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 10/10. For a trip down memory lane!

TOTAL ~ 83/100. Excellent! I'll be nominating this for a Judge's Choice.

EXP Rewards

INDK gains 5300 EXP!
Call Me J gains 1875 EXP!
Karuka Tida gains 2950 EXP!

GP Rewards

INDK gains 365 GP!
Call Me J gains 365 GP!
Karuka Tida gains 332 GP!

[Witchblade]

EXP and GP Added!

Call me J welcome to level 2!

Movement pending Judge's Choice decision.