* Your Adventure Begins 2.0

..but dimwitted warrior Lestor. He's very adept at the arts of war, but is not the brightest color in the spectrum. He doesn't always get what's going on, but then he doesn't even try because of his easy going nature. He's loyal and good to his friends and will defend them stubbornly til death if need be. He wears heavy iron armor and carries a standard long sword. He also carries a pouch over his shoulder that seems to contain everything he's ever acquired or need.

Standing next to Lestor is the gruff but honorable Sig Stoneforge. His graying hair is braided in the back but his beard flows freely. His well-worn but servicable reinforced splint mail seems but a minor burden on his broad shoulders. Across his back are his trusty dwarven axe and crossbow, but he carries a rune-encrusted warhammer in both fists. "The right tool for the job," he mutters.

Sitting in the tall grass next to the brave warriors sits a quiet, dark man wearing a hood. He seems to be lost in a large tome lying in his lap. Humming softly to himself his eyes follow the moving patterns of the runes enscribed within. Upon closer examination it seems that this shrouded individual is actually floating just above the ground.

After a few long moments Eibon (for that is indeed this mage's name) slowly blinks and then begins to stand. As he straightens he slips the book that had captured his attention into a satchel that hangs from his shoulder. From the same bag he pulls a gnarled staff of black oak. His feet gradually touch the ground as he stretches.

The hood falls from his brow revealing the man underneath. This is a young man, or so he appears. Dark hair cropped short and crystal blue eyes that seem to actually sparkle. A playfull smile in stark contrast to the rest of his person sits on his face, almost as if a game was about to begin.

Griff looked around at his new found companions. A bone-handled dagger twirled in his left hand while the other fingered the lock picks in the pouch hanging on his right side.

Slipping the blade into its shealth up his sleeve, he ran his hand through long greasy hair and scratched the days growth on his chin. He could use a bath. And a wench, some good wine perhaps.

He'd need some coin first, and hence his current predicament...

(me rules read gud. sorry)

Griff stands at 5' 7", appearing 5'4" slumped under his dark woolen cloak. A suit of worn leather armor serves as his only protection, his trusty boots allowing him to move quietly.

While he wears a short sword on his left hip, he prefers the bone-handled daggers he keeps strapped in each boot and left sleeve. A pouch slung to his right contains lock picks, a flask of oil, and a small vial of poison for special occasions.

Lestor:

>Draws long sword and stabs downward.

"Ahhh, they tell me to meet other warriors here! Not monsters!"

>Turns head to scan the edges of the field looking for a place to possibly retreat to.

"What we do? What is going on friends?"

"Oh good," smirks Eibon. "I was getting rather bored..."

Eibon tightens his grip on the dark staff driving the small thorns in its shaft into the flesh of his palms. His blood fueling the wood its engraved markings begin to glow a deep red.

The mage's dark eyes lock onto the three undead archers in the distance. He searches deep within the darkness of each skull, looking for a link, some meaning behind the dead's restlessness.

Finding nothing there Eibon flicks his wrist, the end of his staff twitching creating scarlet tracers in the air before him. At the exact same moment each archer lets fly their bone barbed arrow at the dark figure, seemingly unimpressed by his subtle lightshow.

The tracers in the air begin to weave and grow into an intricate web of blood red light. The shield growing larger and larger as the missiles near it.

As the arrows strike this web shield they shatter as do the skulls of the archers that let them loose! Their bones crumble beneath them.

The web dissipates like a mist as Eibon turns to see how his companions are faring.

Suddenly, being filthy, lonely, and sober didn't seem like such a bad thing.

Griff flicked the dagger from its wrist sheath into his left hand and quickly drew the blade from his left boot. They quivered in his hands and an audible ringing rose in his ears, drowning out the moaning of the undead that were beginning to surround them.

He'd been meaning to find a wizard who could tell him what enchantments were on the blades. He just needed more time, in case their original owner was still looking for them. He was starting to figure it out on his own anyways.

The snapping of bone drew Griff from his reveree, and not a moment too soon. A quick dive to his right saved his skull from getting smashed as the skeletal warrior brought down the bone with a heavy swing.

Bones creaked as the warrior lifted its weapon again and turned its cold stare on the thief. Griff lunged behind the creature, rolled, and sprung up before it could face him.

Bringing the daggers down on the warrior's skull produced a fierce burst of blue light. Griff was thrown back, landing with a thud at Lestor's feet.

The headless warrior collapsed once more into a lifeless heap of bones.

For a moment, Lestor was oblivious to the world. At times, he focuses on something and nothing else seems to matter until it somehow managed to catch his attention. Moments ago, he had severed the arm of the undead creature that had caught ahold of him and what caught his eye was the gauntlet that was attached to it. It seemed nicer and stronger than anything he might have owned before so he knelt down and tried to take it off the arm of his advisary.

His concentration was broken as Griff landed in front of him and reminded him that he was in a battle! He quickly grabbed ahold of grif to help him to his feet as he looked around. The mage seems to be doing ok. Now where's the other warrior guy he wondered as he glanced around.

Sig moves his hands up on the grip of his warhammer and waits as the horse and rider turn towards him. The skeletal horse turns to face him as its rider slowly surveys the terrain around it, the ongoing battle. The rider turns and fixes its empty gaze from under its helm squarly upon the dwarf in front of it.

The zombie-knight pulls on the scraps of the leather reins, and the skeletal horse raises itself on its hind legs and throws its head back in a silent scream. Its rider draws a notched and rusted bastard sword from a sheath under its rotted saddle.

Sig stands silently as the rider charges. The hooves clatter against bone and stone.

As the rider closes, it raises its sword arm and the horse drops its head for the decapitating blow. At that instant, Sig grips the hammer and holds it behind his head as if preparing to drive an iron spike into stone. He pauses for a moment, then hurls the hammer end over end. It strikes the horse's skull, which shatters into countless grey shards. The horse tumbles into a broken heap at Sig's feet and its rider unceremoniously slams into the ground.

The undead knight tries to raise itself under the weight of its ancient mail. Sig steps forward and stomps on the neck of the zombie, driving it face-first back into the ground. There is the faintest hint of a smile as he raises his axe and strikes off the knight's head in one smooth sweep.

He stands upright, and the hammer is back in his hand.

(Sorry for the late post. Yeah, this is gonna rock! )

Sig gauges the distance between himself and his comrades and the approaching hordes. He would never mention it, but he feels fortunate to have found a crew of fairly capable fellows at his back.

Like the rest, his attention is momentarily caught by the flyer, but is quickly brought back to the threat on the ground. He unstraps his crossbow, quickly draws the string back with an iron prong, and pulls a heavy twin-tipped bolt from a pouch on his thigh. He drops it into the crossbow's chamber, lifts the weapon to his shoulder, and gazes down past the front sight.

One of the foremost skeletons is carrying a medium-sized shield in front of its chest. Sig drops to one knee, exhales, and squeezes the trigger. The bolt hums across the distance to its target and punches a fist-sized hole in the skeleton's pelvic bone. The entire bony frame collapses and shatters.

Without rising, Sig smoothly reloads, takes aim, and fires again. Another skeleton falls, but many, many more remain.

Sig stands, crossbow still in hand. "Me best scufflin' be done nice and close," he says. "You got anything that works better at distance, mage?
Maybe more o' that pretty red elf magic?"

"Save it, Stumpy. Twinkle-toes is a bit distracted."

With a flick of his wrist, Griff lifted the flint from Eibon's pack. Two quick strikes were enough to light a piece of dead wood at the theif's feet.

Griff pulled the flask of oil from the pouch at his side, uncorked it with teeth. He spit the cork to the ground, took a second to eye his target, then cocked his arm and hurled the bottle at the marching skeletons.

The bottle exploded in a spray of oil off the skull of the front-most skeleton. Picking up the torch, he hurled the flaming brand into the coated front ranks of walking bones, producing a spectacular fireball. Several undead shatter and collapse in tattered pieces.

"There's some red magic for you." Griff sticks the flint into his pouch, and draws his daggers.

With a bemused look on his face, Eibon glances from his companions to the approaching shape raining fire down upon the undead horde.

"That could be a problem...", he mutters to himself. "One thing at a time I suppose."

In disbelief, the two warriors and thief watch as the he slowly lowers himself to the ground. As he sits his eyes are searching for something among the high grass.

"This will do nicely," he says as he plucks a jagged stone from the grass surrounding him. Grasping the rock in his fist he begins to squeeze. The sharp edges of the stone dig into Eibon's fingers and the palm of his hand, puncturing his flesh.

Through gritted teeth the mage shouts over the din of bones clacking together and flames crackling around the four, "I highly recommend that you stay close to me for the next few minutes. The sky is falling!"

And indeed it does! As the blood seeps from the self inflicted wounds on Eibon's hand and flows into the stone he grips, his arm quivering from the effort, a large boulder falls from above several yards in front of the party, completely crushing two skeletal figures. The ground around them shudders from the impact. With a loud crack, as if from thunder, stones of various sizes begin to fall upon the wave of undead.

A pebble, no larger than a marble, shatters the skull of one skeleton as it passes through it to wreak havoc on the rib cage of another. What look like shards of obsidian behead several others then explode in shards that then take down several more. Two rocks, each the size of wagons, pulverize no less than ten of the mindless bone warriors each.

The mind numbing crashing from stones colliding with each other in the air and the crunching of bone beneath rock fills the air.

Eibon's fist, glowing blood red, slowly begins to fall to the ground. As it falls the raining stones bewgin to taper off as if the storm was waning. By the time it touches the dirt the stones have stopped falling. Eibon slumps over, exhausted. His fist falls open and glistening red sands sifts from between his fingers.

"Magic enough for you?", the blood-mage murmers.

"Well, I'm kinda impressed." Lestor says with a thin smile. "I thought we would have trouble, but it looks like this is going to be the easiest money I've ever made, thanks to that trick you just pulled there, mage." Lestor puts away his weapon and is immediately calm. The memory of the battle is already far from his mind and he's wondering what's going to happen to him next.

"Well, I say we go back to town and collect our booty." He doesn't really know what kind of people he's been fighting with, and frankly he's not the best judge of character, but Lestor does believe that this is a good band of guys to ally with for a while and wouldn't mind working with them again. But for now, he's ready for some good natured fun as a reward for a hard day's work. Good nature fun being plenty of libations and wenches at the local inn.

Brother Zaran touched the talisman of the Goddess with his left hand. The silver circle brought him a sense of peace only slightly greater than the leather wrapped haft of the mace in his right hand. He surveyed the carnage and whispered a prayer for the souls of the fierce combatants waging war against those abominations below.

The wind picked up and plucked at the hem of his robe revealing steel greaves. His mail hauberk could be seen through the robe's neck opening. His grey eyes slitted against the rain that began to plaster his black hair to his skull. He prayed that his faith would hold and that he could be of some aid to these men.

He lifted his hands in supplication revealing steel bracers and chanted his prayer in the ancient language of his priesthood. He prayed for the Goddess to reclaim these poor restless husks to Her bosom. The ground beneath a group of four zombies and the Warlord they flanked, opened up and swallowed them. Satisfied with Her answer, he settled the conical helm on his head, gripped his mace tighter and waded into the fray.

It was a few hours later when the noises of war seemed to finally be at an end. There was still a mist of kicked up dirt in the air, but the battlefield was now oddly quiet except for the creaking of bones of those undead warriors incapacitated, but still struggling to move.

Lestor thought quietly to himself as he rested on a large rock. He should've become more versed in magic as he was quite impressed by the power of his companions to control the world around them.

Our group of warriors now slowly came together to watch the remnants of the undead army retreat off into the distance. None among the group knew who or what they were, except perhaps for the mysterious priest who had shown up out of nowhere during the course of the battle. All were certain, though, that they would see these monsters again.

There was a sense of something much larger at hand now. This was much more than simply a job to protect a small town from demons. The undead look to be a force that could threaten the entire world if not stopped, but who are they and where did they come from? What is their goal and who is their master? The feeling among the group was clear, they were set upon a path that would lead them to many more battles with these creatures and ultimately lead to either doom or glory beyond their dreams.

"The prophecy is coming to pass, the usurper has returned and will wreck havoc upon our world." The priest was speaking softly as lifted his head and looked at each person in the group. There was a fairly large tome in his hands from which he seemed to be reading as he continued, "the dark figure we all witness is the Usurper Oadacer. 100 eons ago, the righteous king Belisarius defeated his armies at the 300 day battle of Skinoroth and his shamans banished the demonically powerful Oadacer to a nether-realm. Unfortunately, Oadacer was too powerful to be held eternally so the shaman settled upon a spell that would contain him for 100 eons and no more. After which time, he would return to gather his minions and move to take hold of the lands that he has sought for so long."

The priest's seriousness was conveyed to the group very effectively as everyone sat up and took notice of what he was telling them.

"It was no coincidence that we have come together. In a final bid to give hope to future generations, Belisarius' shaman's blessed the six most powerful warriors in the kingdom with a spell which would see to it that their descendants would unknowingly come together 100 eons later and attempt to rid the world of Oadacer's threat. This is what we must do."

"Wait a minute now," Griff ever clever immediately noticed something that didn't seem right. "But there's only five of us here. You said six right?"

"Yes" replied the preist who seemed to be unsure himself. "Fear not, the prophecy will come to pass the when we are joined by the sixth, we will be complete."

By now, the group of adventurers was sitting in a semi-circle and discussing over a fire what the priest was telling them. Dusk had fallen and they all had started eating from thier provisions. No doubt, their minds were moving as fast as they could to try and understand exactly what was going on.

Sig spoke up next. "And how do you know this? What is that that you're reading?"

"Yeah, what is that?" Lestor chimed in. "I'm not sure I'm up for any world saving here. I just want to get paid and go home." He was clearly becoming agitated and wanted to leave now, but he decided he would stay to hear the priest out.

"This is the book of Archon, which contains the relevations of the Earth shaman Herodotus. Nearly all the prophecies in this book have come true and so shall this. We would do well to heed its advice."

"Ok then, what's it say we do?" said Griff as twirled his daggers. "I mean, we're just five or six guys. We may have won today, but you say that this guy Oder is gathing minions. How are we going to win against an army twicw what we saw today? or one even more powerful?"

"The prophecy has this passage to offer:

The five shall journey,
and these who seek peace,
will travel the domains of Antioch,
the lands of the east.

There they will scour and seek the last,
the sixth of yore,
they will find the powers of the past,
and resist the lure.

For the sixth is what binds them,
and there reside great powers within he,
the group will find them,
and his strength will set the world free.

And so the discussion continued into the twilight hours of the day.....

(Sorry if I got over enthusiastic, but I wanted to get some dramatic elements going here.)

(Also, apoligies for changing your character from a monk to a warrior priest Scott. I felt your character would be a good one to tell the story.)

(No problem. I dig on it.)

"I know this Oadacer.", Eibon said softly. "Belisarius paid the ultimate price to have him banished. Even his shamans couldn't prevent that."

The mage looked up at the stars that were emerging in the darkening sky above. In the crackling firelight his face no longer looked as young as it did during the light of day.

He continued, "I know this tale, Priest. I know it well. What your book doesn't relate are the details. Herodotus spoke in riddles, as do all of you of faith. It is irritating."

"Faith is such a passing thing. You represent the Goddess now. The shamans of before are gone, replaced by these newer Gods. Who knows what another 100 eons will bring, if anything?"

"Yes, we must travel east to what was once Antioch. But that damn shaman never explained what these 'powers of the past' we seek will be. Our past? His past? My past? I've seen things in my travels. I've searched for these 'powers' to no avail. I'm beginning to believe that they will not reveal themselves or become uncovered until the Six have joined forces."

The Blood Mage stands and begins pacing a circle around the campfire burning amidst the men. His fingers leave tracers of crimson light as he gestures.

"Most of the Old Ways are long forgotten and we are left to trudge through the muck of revelations left to us by a doddering old fool!"

Eibon's eyes flared bright red for a moment reflecting his frustration.

"I am tired. I have been waiting for this conclusion for too long. Providing this night is uneventful I hope that we can begin our journey east in the morn. I seek answers and a means to rest."

"Oadacer owes me a debt and I mean to collect it!"

(if we've overstepped to far we can always do a rewind. Should we continue apace or stop and wait for direction?)

(Can the moderator delete these last few posts?)

Sorry about that...

yeah, it was my fault for going off like that. It's just that no one posted here for like 2 days and I kinda wanted to keep this going cause I enjoy it so much.

Still, Logan's right. I shouldn't have stepped outside of my character. Hopefully version 3.0 will go much smoother.

This is gonna take some time, but once we get the kinks worked out this should roll smoothly.

Yeah, post be-otches. We were off to a great start.

Work has been kicking my ass to the tune of 12 hours a day for a about 8 straight days now.

I get a chance to breath, I get on the board and read for a minute. I'll get in there today, tomorrow at the latest.