Unfortunately things just didn't work out for Sguro so I deleted him. Normally I wouldn't post the demise of a level 21 character but I had a lot of interactions with people who probably would like to know he's dead. Here is the role, I warn you its a bit long.
ROLE PART ONE
I am not a mage, at least, not in the traditional sense. I know no magic, no spells. I am not a shape-shifter by choice but by force, by enslavement.
I was a simple trades merchant from Galadon making my living by transporting goods between there and the encampment of Felar south of the frozen wastes. I was traveling with a large caravan to deliver a new shipment and this time was accompanied by my family: Griipha, my wife, and our two cubs, my daughter Monjaen and son Siraht. As my cubs were now eleven I felt they were old enough to make the journey. A decision I shall regret the rest of my days.
The journey from Galadon was uneventful. Our stay in the encampment was profitable and my cubs made many friends with the locals. It was good to see them playing with their own kind. We stayed for three days and prepared for the journey home, packing the many goods and foodstuffs we had accumulated through our trades.
We made our way back north through the treacherous frigid wastes being careful to stay upon the trails. Many in the caravan began to notice how quiet the forested foothills had become and a sense of unease grew through the travelers. Upon cresting the mountain large beasts who appeared natural but which had eyes filled with cunning and evil intent attacked us. They slew all the hired guards and any else who fought. Terrible were the cries of the abominations but more terrifying were the shrill screams of the dying as they were torn apart. Holding my family close to me was all the protection I could provide as my children buried their faces into my tunic and wept. I am no fighter and the beasts seem to know this as they circled us, blood stained maws seeming to sneer in victory.
Worse still the beasts' masters emerged from the mists to the east. Sorcerers from the accursed towers of Thar Acacia. Their spells and enchantments removing the will to fight from the survivors, ensuring our compliance and binding us to one another with mystical devices about our necks and ankles.
They marched us into the deep mists and as we marched I noticed that they had taken only the Felar and none else, even the unarmed females of the other merchants had been slain. All too soon we found ourselves approaching a massive gate that was opening to allow us to be forced within.
An excitement seemed to grip the many mages as they viewed us shuffling up the main street. They murmured with one another, many nodding approvingly. A few even approached their captives and checked their eyes and teeth. One shrieked and drew back whilst holding his bloodied hand, apparently having been careless and been severely bitten. Despite his wrath the one responsible was not harmed and the guards pushed us forward, grinning to one another at the careless mage's misfortune. I felt a small bit of hope that we were to be too valuable as slaves to be harmed. Again I was wrong. So very wrong.
ROLE PART TWO
After our capture and humiliating parade through the main street, we were all herded into a central square with very high walls and thick gates. The guards began separating us based on age. Mine was not the only family of Felar as a few had journeyed with us to the encampment and even more traveled back with us hoping to make a better life in Galadon. I counted nine Fela, six Felar males, and twenty-two cubs including mine own. Again and again it was the same as cubs were torn from their mother's sides as both reached towards each other yet the distance between them grew. Those that resisted the most were burned with lances whose tips glowed as flame and the smell of flesh and fur stung our sensitive nostrils and to assail our keen ears the stone walls echoed with our lamentations.
My wife clutched at my tunic her claws scratching my chest but I cared not as I held her close. She peered at me with her emerald green eyes, tears flowing freely down the obsidian black fur of her face, her ears laid flat. I could see the desperation in her eyes that matched that which gripped my heart. We both looked back upon our cubs as they clung to each other now sobbing. My son Siraht whose glossy black fur, so much like his mothers, was matted with dirt and some blood though unlikely his own. He looked up at me then with my eyes, the ice blue all the colder for the fear they displayed, yet he held strongly to his sister Monjaen. Her own snow white fur was caked with reddish mud and her mother's emerald eyes did not leave Griipha's. That was the last I saw of my cubs for a moment later I heard a strange word and the world faded entirely.
I awoke to what I have always thought must be a Felar's greatest fear. Enchained. The shackles of bondage. Enslaved. I surveyed the room to see it was enormous and round. It smelled of musty copper. All the but two of the adults were here and similarly chained to the wall around the perimeter and none close enough to touch another. All were muzzled. Many mages were also in the room and they were crowded around a central dias where the smell of blood was the strongest. Upon the dias were the two most elder of us. Their bodies were twisted into wretched forms not wholly themselves. Bits were Felar yet others were like the great cats of old and still others were somewhere in between. They had been cut open down the middle and our captors appeared to be examining their entrails, nodding and clucking to one another in excited whispers.
A particularly loathsome looking magi gripped a wand with a boney fingered hand, pointed the wand at one of the corpses and muttered a word in a language I do not know. A sickly green glow enveloped the body and faded. Slowly it began to rise off the dias, a tormented moan escaping from it that was so disturbing that to this day I still wake screaming should I dream of it. Moments later it shuddered and ceased to move. The dark magi cursed and waved his wand as both corpses burst into green flame and burned til nothing was left.
ROLE PART THREE
Five months passed with a slowness only agony can prolong. Every waking moment a testament of pain that made the seconds seem an eternity. Sleep gave little reprieve as the pain made finding a comfortable position nearly impossible. Every bone, muscle, and sinew ached as the magics used upon us began to cause changes in our flesh. Our bodies were no longer what we remembered as snouts and limbs elongated, fangs and claws grew thicker and longer. Slowly we were becoming more like the great cats from which our race first emerged. Many of the oldest did not survive, especially if the process were hurried as it was with the first ones.
It was the dawning of the fifth day after the fifth full moon that the loathsome magi returned to the chamber for the first time since I first saw him. His stride was purposeful and his tongue quick with curses for those too slow to his liking. The captain of the guard did not expect the loathsome magi and questioned him briefly. I had learned that this wicked magi had been banned from using his methods upon us. The process of our transformation was taking too long however, so he had been allowed another attempt and presented the captain of the guard with a writ authorizing it.
Slowly the loathsome magi looked about at the broken Felar still left. All avoided his gaze but my wife Griipha, who had not spoken in at least a week. I quietly hissed to her to turn her eyes downward but reason had long since left her and she starred weakly back into his eyes. With a cruel grin he pointed at her and motioned for the guards to chain her to the dias. The icy fingers of dread which had enclosed about my heart when we had first entered this room now clenched so tightly as to nearly stop it from beating. My weak protests were stopped at once as a guard brought the hilt of his mace down upon my temple dropping me to the ground in a state of half consciousness and I could do nothing as she was chained to the dias. A few moments later the loathsome magi brought the tip of his wand to Griipha's forehead and commanded her to change.
At first there was no sound at all but then slowly, and with growing speed, her muscles began to tremor and tear themselves apart, her bones broke with loud pops with her limbs splayed in awkward directions. The entire time she made no sound but a faint mewling. The tremors stopped then, for a moment, and she struggled to turn her head and look at me upon which her flesh tore asunder, he entrails spilled forth and little was left to recognize as Fela but for bits of fur here and there. My wife had been turned inside out.
ROLE PART FOUR
I rose to my knees, numb with shock. I took little notice of the loathsome magi as he cursed yet another failure and with a wave of his wand Griipha's remains turned to ash in the midst of green flames. The captain of the guard addressed the magi as Anuk Ptan and asked if another Felar was needed. Ptan then pointed in my direction and ordered the guards to bring me to the dias. Anuk Ptan. So that is the name of my wife's murderer.
A swelling rose in my heart that I had never experienced before, my fear washed away and a deep seated rage overtook me. The moment my guard had released me from the wall shackles I tore at his throat and he fell back as blood gurgled from his wound. I growled the name Ptan and that loathsome magi shrieked as a wave of mystic light shot forth. I pulled the other guard in front of me and he took the brunt of the blast. The great chamber faded in brilliant white light and I found myself lying prone upon a thick blanket of moss.
The sky was a brilliant blue, the air was chilly in a way we felar love the most. I could hear birds singing and a stag moving through the trees. The smell of the moss and pine, of freedom, would have brought me to tears if I had not been in the thrall of grief and weepy uncontrollably. Oh my sweet Griipha. As time passed and my eyes dried and my sobbing ceased I sat up and tried to orient myself. To the west I could hear a waterfall and further to the west the unmistakable smell of charred flesh as the wind carried it east. That smell I knew as coming from the ruins of Ostalagiah and thus I must be in the Dwarf Forest.
My cubs. Perhaps they live still. The mages of Thar Acacia began with the oldest. Perhaps my cubs have not been changed. Hope stirred within my heart for the first time in months Ostalagiah, where the mage haters make their village. If anyone would take up the cause to strike at the mages of Thar Acacia surely they would. And why not? If Thar Acacia attempts to create an army, surely they must be wishing to strike out and who first but the Village. Yes. I must try to persuade them though I know not how they will look upon me having been changed as I have. Still. I must try for I cannot abandon my cubs and if somehow I am able to find them again I must rescue them or if they are too far gone, deliver them to paradise.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2008 05:53PM by quezzumpliet.
