Post by vhaeryn on Jul 29, 2006 13:44:47 GMT -5
I could feel the blood pouring from the broken ribs caused by the blow from the morning star Azal had struck me with and a deep rasp in my breath that told me my left lung had ruptured, quickly I focused what little mana I had left and stopped the flow of blood around the wound, but I knew the damage was to extensive for me to survive and there was still my uncle to contend with. He stood over me smirking, holding his morning star loosely in his left hand. He looked down at me and the mindless rage that had overtaken him seemed to fade, I think this frightened me more than anything...
Azal took a slow shaking breath before tightening his grip on the star.
"I hope you've enjoyed your game Vaer, I suffered the Vlos'Chath to forget, yet you felt it necessary to make me remember my past. For this death is to kind of a fate for you. As you forced me to remember my past, I will return the fate in kind and give you time to contemplate yours."
He reached down with a clawed hand and wrapped it around my throat; I could feel the magic pouring from his grip, healing my wounds that he had just inflicted. The ribs knit and I was able to again take a long breath, but the grip of his hand kept me from speaking. He lifted me from the ground until my feet dangled off of the floor and walked toward a tall mirror that dominated one of the walls of his chambers. My eyes widened in fear as a wicked grin crossed his indigo features.
"You will have all the time in the world Vaer, until the moon shatters and the sun burns twice over, until you forget your sanity and find it again countless times, as you have made me suffer, so shall you a thousand times suffer worse."
With that he cast me toward the mirror, but instead of shattering it, I felt as if I had been plunged into arctic waters as I passed through it, into nothingness.
I tried to call a gate to return myself to the foreign quarter of Neriak, but found I had no voice in this nothingness that held me. I tried to turn my head but found I could not move so much as an eyelash. So there I remained suspended in nothingness, slowly a scattering of light became visible to me as if I floated in the night sky, faintly from each point of light I could almost hear a keening as if something had gone mad and forgotten even how to scream. It seemed time passed erratically at times some of the lights would fade and others would appear to take their place. Eventually I began to scream until I lost myself and became one of those keening lights in the eternal night sky that held me fast. Years or minutes may have past, as I lost myself and remembered my sanity countless times until something new happened in this dark place that never changed.
I heard a voice, perhaps only in my mind or my madness had taken a new form, but it was new so it was a comfort to me.
“So Little One, Have You Learned Anything From Your Time Here In This Place Between Norrath and The Realms Of The Gods?”
The voice sent a shiver down my spine, it was feminine, low and sultry with an edge of steel to it, a voice used to commanding instant obedience. I had no voice to answer but She seemed to hear my unvoiced agreement that screamed in my mind.
“Would You Feel Again Then Little One ? Any Sensation At All After This, Or Shall I Leave You To Contemplate Your Arrogance That Brought You Here, To Seek To Play A Game You Could Not Win, With One Far Stronger Than You.?”
The voice seemed to wait for me to say something, and I struggled to remember speech after so long in this void. All I could do was scream “YES!”
Then I heard Her laughter, like a blade slicing into my skin.
“Tell Me Your Name Little One If You Can…After So Long Here Can You Even Remember It ?”
I tried to answer but with dawning horror I realized I couldn’t even remember my own name, again I heard her laughter, both comforting and terrible.
“I Will Give You A New Name Then, For Your Arrogance I Will Call You Vhayn, Since It Was Your Vanity And Arrogance That Brought You To This Place.”
Again she laughed and I felt myself falling, after only a moment I felt pain, it was stunning after so long without sensation. I smiled because even pain can be bliss. I heard her voice fading in my mind as she said
“Come To Me Vhayn And We Will Sign Your Pact In The Only Way That Matters.”
I managed to stand and look around after a few minutes of remembering how to breath, I swayed on my feet and look down at myself, my skin was as I remembered it, a dark indigo and my hair fell in a white curtain around my face. My once immaculate robes was in tatters as if hundreds of years had past and my silk boots had rotted away completely. I looked around, blinking against the harsh light that blazed in the sky and all around me as far as the eye could see there was only an endless desert of shattered rock, I reached down and picked up one of the yellowed stone shards and rubbed my fingers over its smooth surface and flinched as a sharp edge cut into my palm like a razor.
I nodded to myself as I dropped the piece of shattered bone back to rest with the countless others and started to walk toward the distant sun as if called by a voice. Each step cutting into the soles of my feet until I could look back and see exactly where each step had landed on my walk towards that voice that was both my damnation and salvation. Countless times I fell cutting my knees and hands on the bone shards of those who had made this journey before me and failed. Eventually the sun took its toll from me as well as my skin blistered in the harsh light and my lips cracked and bled.
I would like to say that days passed on my journey but the sun never moved in the sky, so I have no way of knowing for how long I walked, I slept when exhaustion made me fall where I stood only to wake and start walking again. I had traded one hell of oblivion for one of pain and blood, but each step and each cut reminded me I was alive again. Finally in the distance I saw a hall of black obsidian that rose from the ground as if it had grown there in the blink of an eye. It was without seam and the only opening was a door that faced me as if it had been built to receive me.
I stepped into the blessed shadows onto the smooth stone floor and reveled in the relief from the pain of the shattered bone as the cool stone seemed to sooth me, I looked around at the unadorned walls perfect and stark and began to wander through the twisting halls before me, as I came into a small receiving room I heard the sound of trickling water and realized how thirsty I was, I walked over to the small fountain and drank my fill before washing my hands and face in the gathering pool beneath the fountain, as I stood up I noticed a plain black robe sitting on a small table next to the fountain that I would bet my soul hadn’t been there a moment before. I quickly stripped off the rags of my silks and pulled on the soft cotton robe, again I smiled to feel the cool fabric against my abraded skin. I turned back to face the room only to find that instead of the small receiving room I now stood in a grand hall, with a raised dais at the far end, upon the dais was a barbed throne of adamantine and bone that seemed to have one been a living thing.
I walked toward the throne and again felt the soles of my feet begin to bleed, the path to the throne was strewn with broken glass and bits of metal, I walked without flinching to the throne and knelt, cutting my legs until a pool of blood began to form around me. And there I remained until I heard again her laughter, this time with my ears instead of my mind and I dared to raise my eyes and look up to the throne, she was just rising from it and starting to walk down the stairs toward me. Her skin that I could see was as black as the darkest night without stars, and her hair was the white of new fallen snow. The rest of her form was a perfection that only existed in men’s dreams. And clad in leathers that existed in their nightmares. She wore leathers tight enough that it seemed a miracle that she could breath, but then again perhaps she didn’t. each wrist bore a spiked bracer and each of her boots bore the same gleaming spikes. I dared to look fully into her face and found myself staring at a dark reflection of myself looking back at me from the glossy black leather of the mask that hid her face from my view. Her laughter rang like a bell, clear and piercing.
“You Are Still Vain and Arrogant, But This Pleases Me, Come, It Is Time For You To Sign Your Pact With Me.”
At her words I stood and started to follow when a flash of my old arrogance found me again and I dared to ask her name, She turned back to face me, her hand resting lightly on the whip at her left hip, her posture at once frightening and sultry.
“I Am Saryn, But You Will Call Me Mistress.”
Without another word she turned and walked from the room and I followed her with my head bowed, trying not to stagger from blood loss. She led me to a smaller chamber that was dominated by a large adamantine table, plain save for a deep blood grove carved into its edge. She turned towards me and gestured toward the table with an elegant hand.
I nodded and let the robe drop to the floor as I lay down upon the table. She reached to a sheath on her left thigh and drew out a delicate knife.
“First My Vain One We Must Write Out The Terms of Our Bargain, So You Will Never Forget That You Are Mine.”
Without another word she drew the blade across the skin at the base of my neck and began to carve flowing runes into my skin, ever touch of the blade like ice, but I drew on what little of my arts I remembered from my life before in the halls of the dead in Neriak and stilled my breathing and slowed my heart so I didn’t disturb her art. She worked Tirelessly carving what seemed to be an endless design into my skin. I think days or weeks may have passed as she worked, until I felt the absence of her blade against my skin and opened my eyes. She only said two words to me that sent a shock of fear through me causing my heart to miss a beat.
“Turn Over.”
And so I did, and she began again to carve that flowing script into my skin, every touch of that blade was agony and bliss. She left none of my skin unmarked, I stopped my heart when she began to work on where all men hold their pride. The terror was mind numbing and the pain exquisite, after a great deal of time she lifted the blade from my eyelids and I heard her step back from the table. I opened my eyes and raises my hand to look at what she had done, expecting to see deep cuts I was amazed to see only a faint tracery over my skin, almost like a tattoo, a few shades darker than my indigo skin. Slowly I sat up and looked down at my body, marveling at the intricate pattern that had been carved into it. I ran my hand across my chest and was amazed to feel only smooth skin, instead of ridged scars. I turned to look at Her and she laughed when she saw my _expression.
“Pain Is My Art Vhayn, And You Have Much To Learn.”
As she said these last words to me, I felt the world spin as I passed out. The next thing I knew I was laying on a beach with a mouthful of sand, wearing that same black robe. There was a guard with a puzzled _expression looking down at me with a sword bared in his hand that bore the symbol of Freeport on its cross guard. And so I found myself on Norrath at the outpost of the overlord, and the moon had shattered just as Azal had said it would before I walked upon Norrath again.
I rose to my feet, trying to look arrogant and composed while spitting out a mouth full of sand, I looked at the guard and smirked, he had no idea who he was dealing with...but then again I had no idea who he was dealing with either. I raised a hand casually and spoke words that were as familiar to me as breathing; the spell to call bumble was one not even 500 years in the void could make me forget.
My thoughts flashed back to an instant in the past when I first met bumble, he was a gnomish assassin who was attempting to rob me blind, after I had made a rather hasty escape from my masters at the academy and found myself in the Steamfont Mountains trying to adjust to the harsh sun and elude the pursuit from Neriak that I thought I was important enough to merit, being a bastard of the Thex bloodline. Little did I know that as soon as I left Neriak my master shrugged and assigned my room to another student. But I digress. The gnome who was talking endlessly as he searched through my backpack while spinning a rather deadly looking stiletto around his freehand introduced himself as Gareth Bumblegears, Master of assassins and lover of all things female and tinkered, he said to call him Bumble as all his friends did, and since he as going to kill me as soon as he finished off my travel rations I might as well call him Bumble as well since there is no one closer to you than your killer. For some reason he found this insanely funny and fell over backwards laughing, unfortunately for him he fell back onto a passing serpent which promptly bit him on the ass, which caused him to jump forward in startlment, since he worked so closely with poisons the snakes venom could do him little harm. He promptly tripped over my bound form and fell onto the stiletto he had been toying with, which as a matter of luck …for me, pierced his ribs nicely and left him paralyzed as I worked myself free of the bonds he had tied while I slept. It turned out the stiletto was a coated in a poison of his own invention that he hadn’t developed an immunity to yet as he had only created it just that morning. Well, never being one to look away from a gift from Saryn I went about filling a few basic needs that I had been neglecting since running away from Neriak…..harvesting bone chips. I picked up the gnomes own stiletto and set to work, whistling softly as I turned toward bumble and set to work. After a revitalizing meal of gnome kabobs with sage and a skin of Thexian red the gnome had in his possession I decided to return to sleep for the day until the sun had set and it was a more fitting hour for a Teir’dal to be awake. I cast the spell to call my servant to me and almost fell back off the rock I had been using as a makeshift chair as a small gnome sized skeleton rose from the earth, cackling in glee. Before beginning to shriek at me.
“BAD INKIE! SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT TO BUMBLE, BUMBLE WAS ONLY GOING TO KILL THE BAD INKIE BUT NO THE BAD INKIE HAD TO MAKE THINGS DIFFICULT FOR BUMBLE BY SETTING A SNAKE ON BUMBLE THEN DOING TERRIBLE HORRIBLE THINGS TO BUMBLE WHILE HE WAS TESTING OUT HIS NEW PARALYSIS POISON, BUT THE BAD INKIE HAS ANOTHER THING COMING, BUMBLE WAS A FAVORITE OF BRISTLEBANE, BRISTLEBANE LETS BUMBLE GET EVEN WITH THE BAD INKIE, THE BAD INKIE IS CURSED WITH BUMBLE FOREVER.”
At this point he stopped yelling and his eye sockets seemed to narrow slightly, as he thought.
“Wait a minute, that means Bumble is stuck with you forever too!”
He stopped down and beat his bony little fist against the ground and yelled at the dirt as if it would hear him.
“HEY! No fair, Bristlebane isn’t supposed to cheat bumble, bumble is one of Bristlebane favorites”
To this day I swear I heard laughter like the grating of stone upon stone rise up from the earth, Bristlebane does have a twisted sense of humor.
The little gnome skeleton promptly sat down on my backpack and started eating the last of the gnome kabobs, unaware that the pieces were just falling out of his ribcage. He turned to me and sighed theatrically before asking if the bad inkie had any cookies.
Its odd how quickly a memory can pass through your mind, in about the same time it takes to cast a summoning spell coincidentally. I smirked as I looked at the guard, waiting for bumble to rise from the earth, his dark bones and red glowing eyes should convince the guard that I wasn’t to be bothered, but after a moment I frowned instead of the earth splitting open and issuing a burst of brimstone and fire all that appeared was a rather pitiful puff of smoke that materialized a coughing bat. I blinked in confusion as the bat turned in mid air and squeaked in a piping voice that was still recognizable as bumbles.
“What has the bad inkie gotten us into this time!”
The guard nearly dropped his sword he was laughing so hard, but at least I showed him I was no one to be trifled with …didn’t I?
Azal took a slow shaking breath before tightening his grip on the star.
"I hope you've enjoyed your game Vaer, I suffered the Vlos'Chath to forget, yet you felt it necessary to make me remember my past. For this death is to kind of a fate for you. As you forced me to remember my past, I will return the fate in kind and give you time to contemplate yours."
He reached down with a clawed hand and wrapped it around my throat; I could feel the magic pouring from his grip, healing my wounds that he had just inflicted. The ribs knit and I was able to again take a long breath, but the grip of his hand kept me from speaking. He lifted me from the ground until my feet dangled off of the floor and walked toward a tall mirror that dominated one of the walls of his chambers. My eyes widened in fear as a wicked grin crossed his indigo features.
"You will have all the time in the world Vaer, until the moon shatters and the sun burns twice over, until you forget your sanity and find it again countless times, as you have made me suffer, so shall you a thousand times suffer worse."
With that he cast me toward the mirror, but instead of shattering it, I felt as if I had been plunged into arctic waters as I passed through it, into nothingness.
I tried to call a gate to return myself to the foreign quarter of Neriak, but found I had no voice in this nothingness that held me. I tried to turn my head but found I could not move so much as an eyelash. So there I remained suspended in nothingness, slowly a scattering of light became visible to me as if I floated in the night sky, faintly from each point of light I could almost hear a keening as if something had gone mad and forgotten even how to scream. It seemed time passed erratically at times some of the lights would fade and others would appear to take their place. Eventually I began to scream until I lost myself and became one of those keening lights in the eternal night sky that held me fast. Years or minutes may have past, as I lost myself and remembered my sanity countless times until something new happened in this dark place that never changed.
I heard a voice, perhaps only in my mind or my madness had taken a new form, but it was new so it was a comfort to me.
“So Little One, Have You Learned Anything From Your Time Here In This Place Between Norrath and The Realms Of The Gods?”
The voice sent a shiver down my spine, it was feminine, low and sultry with an edge of steel to it, a voice used to commanding instant obedience. I had no voice to answer but She seemed to hear my unvoiced agreement that screamed in my mind.
“Would You Feel Again Then Little One ? Any Sensation At All After This, Or Shall I Leave You To Contemplate Your Arrogance That Brought You Here, To Seek To Play A Game You Could Not Win, With One Far Stronger Than You.?”
The voice seemed to wait for me to say something, and I struggled to remember speech after so long in this void. All I could do was scream “YES!”
Then I heard Her laughter, like a blade slicing into my skin.
“Tell Me Your Name Little One If You Can…After So Long Here Can You Even Remember It ?”
I tried to answer but with dawning horror I realized I couldn’t even remember my own name, again I heard her laughter, both comforting and terrible.
“I Will Give You A New Name Then, For Your Arrogance I Will Call You Vhayn, Since It Was Your Vanity And Arrogance That Brought You To This Place.”
Again she laughed and I felt myself falling, after only a moment I felt pain, it was stunning after so long without sensation. I smiled because even pain can be bliss. I heard her voice fading in my mind as she said
“Come To Me Vhayn And We Will Sign Your Pact In The Only Way That Matters.”
I managed to stand and look around after a few minutes of remembering how to breath, I swayed on my feet and look down at myself, my skin was as I remembered it, a dark indigo and my hair fell in a white curtain around my face. My once immaculate robes was in tatters as if hundreds of years had past and my silk boots had rotted away completely. I looked around, blinking against the harsh light that blazed in the sky and all around me as far as the eye could see there was only an endless desert of shattered rock, I reached down and picked up one of the yellowed stone shards and rubbed my fingers over its smooth surface and flinched as a sharp edge cut into my palm like a razor.
I nodded to myself as I dropped the piece of shattered bone back to rest with the countless others and started to walk toward the distant sun as if called by a voice. Each step cutting into the soles of my feet until I could look back and see exactly where each step had landed on my walk towards that voice that was both my damnation and salvation. Countless times I fell cutting my knees and hands on the bone shards of those who had made this journey before me and failed. Eventually the sun took its toll from me as well as my skin blistered in the harsh light and my lips cracked and bled.
I would like to say that days passed on my journey but the sun never moved in the sky, so I have no way of knowing for how long I walked, I slept when exhaustion made me fall where I stood only to wake and start walking again. I had traded one hell of oblivion for one of pain and blood, but each step and each cut reminded me I was alive again. Finally in the distance I saw a hall of black obsidian that rose from the ground as if it had grown there in the blink of an eye. It was without seam and the only opening was a door that faced me as if it had been built to receive me.
I stepped into the blessed shadows onto the smooth stone floor and reveled in the relief from the pain of the shattered bone as the cool stone seemed to sooth me, I looked around at the unadorned walls perfect and stark and began to wander through the twisting halls before me, as I came into a small receiving room I heard the sound of trickling water and realized how thirsty I was, I walked over to the small fountain and drank my fill before washing my hands and face in the gathering pool beneath the fountain, as I stood up I noticed a plain black robe sitting on a small table next to the fountain that I would bet my soul hadn’t been there a moment before. I quickly stripped off the rags of my silks and pulled on the soft cotton robe, again I smiled to feel the cool fabric against my abraded skin. I turned back to face the room only to find that instead of the small receiving room I now stood in a grand hall, with a raised dais at the far end, upon the dais was a barbed throne of adamantine and bone that seemed to have one been a living thing.
I walked toward the throne and again felt the soles of my feet begin to bleed, the path to the throne was strewn with broken glass and bits of metal, I walked without flinching to the throne and knelt, cutting my legs until a pool of blood began to form around me. And there I remained until I heard again her laughter, this time with my ears instead of my mind and I dared to raise my eyes and look up to the throne, she was just rising from it and starting to walk down the stairs toward me. Her skin that I could see was as black as the darkest night without stars, and her hair was the white of new fallen snow. The rest of her form was a perfection that only existed in men’s dreams. And clad in leathers that existed in their nightmares. She wore leathers tight enough that it seemed a miracle that she could breath, but then again perhaps she didn’t. each wrist bore a spiked bracer and each of her boots bore the same gleaming spikes. I dared to look fully into her face and found myself staring at a dark reflection of myself looking back at me from the glossy black leather of the mask that hid her face from my view. Her laughter rang like a bell, clear and piercing.
“You Are Still Vain and Arrogant, But This Pleases Me, Come, It Is Time For You To Sign Your Pact With Me.”
At her words I stood and started to follow when a flash of my old arrogance found me again and I dared to ask her name, She turned back to face me, her hand resting lightly on the whip at her left hip, her posture at once frightening and sultry.
“I Am Saryn, But You Will Call Me Mistress.”
Without another word she turned and walked from the room and I followed her with my head bowed, trying not to stagger from blood loss. She led me to a smaller chamber that was dominated by a large adamantine table, plain save for a deep blood grove carved into its edge. She turned towards me and gestured toward the table with an elegant hand.
I nodded and let the robe drop to the floor as I lay down upon the table. She reached to a sheath on her left thigh and drew out a delicate knife.
“First My Vain One We Must Write Out The Terms of Our Bargain, So You Will Never Forget That You Are Mine.”
Without another word she drew the blade across the skin at the base of my neck and began to carve flowing runes into my skin, ever touch of the blade like ice, but I drew on what little of my arts I remembered from my life before in the halls of the dead in Neriak and stilled my breathing and slowed my heart so I didn’t disturb her art. She worked Tirelessly carving what seemed to be an endless design into my skin. I think days or weeks may have passed as she worked, until I felt the absence of her blade against my skin and opened my eyes. She only said two words to me that sent a shock of fear through me causing my heart to miss a beat.
“Turn Over.”
And so I did, and she began again to carve that flowing script into my skin, every touch of that blade was agony and bliss. She left none of my skin unmarked, I stopped my heart when she began to work on where all men hold their pride. The terror was mind numbing and the pain exquisite, after a great deal of time she lifted the blade from my eyelids and I heard her step back from the table. I opened my eyes and raises my hand to look at what she had done, expecting to see deep cuts I was amazed to see only a faint tracery over my skin, almost like a tattoo, a few shades darker than my indigo skin. Slowly I sat up and looked down at my body, marveling at the intricate pattern that had been carved into it. I ran my hand across my chest and was amazed to feel only smooth skin, instead of ridged scars. I turned to look at Her and she laughed when she saw my _expression.
“Pain Is My Art Vhayn, And You Have Much To Learn.”
As she said these last words to me, I felt the world spin as I passed out. The next thing I knew I was laying on a beach with a mouthful of sand, wearing that same black robe. There was a guard with a puzzled _expression looking down at me with a sword bared in his hand that bore the symbol of Freeport on its cross guard. And so I found myself on Norrath at the outpost of the overlord, and the moon had shattered just as Azal had said it would before I walked upon Norrath again.
I rose to my feet, trying to look arrogant and composed while spitting out a mouth full of sand, I looked at the guard and smirked, he had no idea who he was dealing with...but then again I had no idea who he was dealing with either. I raised a hand casually and spoke words that were as familiar to me as breathing; the spell to call bumble was one not even 500 years in the void could make me forget.
My thoughts flashed back to an instant in the past when I first met bumble, he was a gnomish assassin who was attempting to rob me blind, after I had made a rather hasty escape from my masters at the academy and found myself in the Steamfont Mountains trying to adjust to the harsh sun and elude the pursuit from Neriak that I thought I was important enough to merit, being a bastard of the Thex bloodline. Little did I know that as soon as I left Neriak my master shrugged and assigned my room to another student. But I digress. The gnome who was talking endlessly as he searched through my backpack while spinning a rather deadly looking stiletto around his freehand introduced himself as Gareth Bumblegears, Master of assassins and lover of all things female and tinkered, he said to call him Bumble as all his friends did, and since he as going to kill me as soon as he finished off my travel rations I might as well call him Bumble as well since there is no one closer to you than your killer. For some reason he found this insanely funny and fell over backwards laughing, unfortunately for him he fell back onto a passing serpent which promptly bit him on the ass, which caused him to jump forward in startlment, since he worked so closely with poisons the snakes venom could do him little harm. He promptly tripped over my bound form and fell onto the stiletto he had been toying with, which as a matter of luck …for me, pierced his ribs nicely and left him paralyzed as I worked myself free of the bonds he had tied while I slept. It turned out the stiletto was a coated in a poison of his own invention that he hadn’t developed an immunity to yet as he had only created it just that morning. Well, never being one to look away from a gift from Saryn I went about filling a few basic needs that I had been neglecting since running away from Neriak…..harvesting bone chips. I picked up the gnomes own stiletto and set to work, whistling softly as I turned toward bumble and set to work. After a revitalizing meal of gnome kabobs with sage and a skin of Thexian red the gnome had in his possession I decided to return to sleep for the day until the sun had set and it was a more fitting hour for a Teir’dal to be awake. I cast the spell to call my servant to me and almost fell back off the rock I had been using as a makeshift chair as a small gnome sized skeleton rose from the earth, cackling in glee. Before beginning to shriek at me.
“BAD INKIE! SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT TO BUMBLE, BUMBLE WAS ONLY GOING TO KILL THE BAD INKIE BUT NO THE BAD INKIE HAD TO MAKE THINGS DIFFICULT FOR BUMBLE BY SETTING A SNAKE ON BUMBLE THEN DOING TERRIBLE HORRIBLE THINGS TO BUMBLE WHILE HE WAS TESTING OUT HIS NEW PARALYSIS POISON, BUT THE BAD INKIE HAS ANOTHER THING COMING, BUMBLE WAS A FAVORITE OF BRISTLEBANE, BRISTLEBANE LETS BUMBLE GET EVEN WITH THE BAD INKIE, THE BAD INKIE IS CURSED WITH BUMBLE FOREVER.”
At this point he stopped yelling and his eye sockets seemed to narrow slightly, as he thought.
“Wait a minute, that means Bumble is stuck with you forever too!”
He stopped down and beat his bony little fist against the ground and yelled at the dirt as if it would hear him.
“HEY! No fair, Bristlebane isn’t supposed to cheat bumble, bumble is one of Bristlebane favorites”
To this day I swear I heard laughter like the grating of stone upon stone rise up from the earth, Bristlebane does have a twisted sense of humor.
The little gnome skeleton promptly sat down on my backpack and started eating the last of the gnome kabobs, unaware that the pieces were just falling out of his ribcage. He turned to me and sighed theatrically before asking if the bad inkie had any cookies.
Its odd how quickly a memory can pass through your mind, in about the same time it takes to cast a summoning spell coincidentally. I smirked as I looked at the guard, waiting for bumble to rise from the earth, his dark bones and red glowing eyes should convince the guard that I wasn’t to be bothered, but after a moment I frowned instead of the earth splitting open and issuing a burst of brimstone and fire all that appeared was a rather pitiful puff of smoke that materialized a coughing bat. I blinked in confusion as the bat turned in mid air and squeaked in a piping voice that was still recognizable as bumbles.
“What has the bad inkie gotten us into this time!”
The guard nearly dropped his sword he was laughing so hard, but at least I showed him I was no one to be trifled with …didn’t I?