[ 72] Crelius: A Prologue. Sat Mar 6 18:24:10 2010To: all Necrucifer imm ( story line )--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The feral and pandemonium yelps and grovels of a deep jungle chimed in wanton disparity. Heat as sickly as Dragoth himself weltered and embellished everything it touched. Moisture as constant as a lingering sore reminded the rain forest of its futile eternity. A vine entangled ground was the threshold to a hardly shaven path. All of the wood's mandibles managed to find a way onto the primitive road, ever promising discomfort and hardship to the fool that might try and traverse it.

A lone foot-soldier clad in naught but a tattered and fetid robe tramped weakly through the wilder path. He shakily swathed an ashen saber through the brush and rasped a leper's breath as he pressed forward. Horde's of thimble sized insects created an aura about him, and he stumbled now and again upon the jungle's veins.

He gritted his teeth through sanguine lips as he fell upon an unexpected pool and with a wretch pulled himself upward. The hood of his robe fell back in the flurry, and he sheathed his sword in the belt about his robe.

The tall, raven, man stopped with a sigh, allowing the vile humidity of the forest to drip upon his pale white scalp. With utter care he raised his hands. Those hands, scarred in their circumference at the wrists, quaked as they reached to a knot at the back of his bald head.

Taking it carefully he tightened a blue-red stained fold that covered his eyes. Accomplishing such a feat, he sighed heavily and withdrew the saber at his waist. He continued through the small deluge, and up over a muddy and vegetated rise.

Harping calls of raptor birds and reptilians bellowed through an open space. Lofting the rise he stopped and replaced his hood. He heard a voice.

"She's through here, Atennim," Spoke a confident and lazy voice through the pathway ahead.

A vine ravaged temple of warped marble was his destination. The knights of Gogothath had taken this impossible place. Knights of Gogothath, a motley gathering of questionable servants, they were not what many would expect as warriors of Crelius' province. Murderers and cutthroats of the most fatal kind, Crelius had recruited many of the older blades left without work from Gaar Volen. They did the job, and they did it well.

Never the less they held respect for him, and he paid handsomely. Here served his noble structure for Storm Keep and Verminasia, but for those that would protect his land and further his personal agenda he employed only the most unscrupulous and capable.

"I'll open the way," Mathan spoke as he tapped a hand against a high stretched stump impeding upon the gate's closure.

Crelius remembered Mathan of Mathan's band through his blindness. He was a man known for taking the wives of his victims and defiling them without relent. A wily-looking little man, with a sharp nose and a laughing mouth and a shock of straw-colored hair. He usually dressed with a pre cataclysmal sort of costume of orange, red, and brown.

Through they walked into an overgrown courtyard. A hand signal was issued to a door man at the center. Swelling doors of beach and sweat did not but at first as a mercenary put his shoulder into its keyhole.

Walking down Crelius moved slowly by the guidance of his hired knights, through whatever halls they wandered he could not perceive. At last they arrived to the underchamber.

[ 89] Crelius: Prologue ( continued )Wed Mar 10 20:36:02 2010To: all--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Here she is," He heard Mathan snake as if just slithering through the gallows.

The room was barren accept a female yaenni strewn up in shackles of guttering chains. Her stoic visage peered upwards towards Attenim and her temperament was strong. Her white fur dampened by the uncomfortable heat of the underground chamber. She was covered by a simple brown robe. Little did she gasp and little did she tremble.

"You trespass and your attempts will be meaningless," The shackled Yaenni spoke plainly.

"Oh believe me I intend to attempt never the less," Crelius responded. He motioned to one of his vagabonds with a lithe hand. A burly man smirked and produced a well crafted chair from the corner of the dusky chamber. Crelius took a seat, minding to fold his haggard robes despite their dereliction.

"Such a place of mysteries this temple has been to me over the years, Quintana. For so long I simply sought to take a closer look, but the forest always seemed to get in my way," Crelius spoke casually, the single bright burning torch in the room casting shadows over his robed form. He let his ivory fingers dangle over the edge of the chair's arms.

"These are the ruins of a Shinalstin reliquary, and what you could ever hope to gather here is beyond any comprehension left upon this world. More ancient then you, more ancient then that little dragon you once rode around upon," The white yaenni spoke with a clear and unimpressed voice.

"Perhaps you are right," Crelius languished with a half-hearted sigh, gripping the oil stained arms of the chair.

"How you even found a way into this place confounds me, but it matters little. What is here shall remain, sealed by the ethereal," The ivory Yaenni glowered, casting its stare towards Crelius intensely. A strange power fluttered unseen but tangibly about the female monk's shackled form.

"It was not easy, I had to consult a balanx journal," Crelius spoke dryly, moving his lithe hands up the oiled arms of the chair.

"Impossible. No mortal can comprehend the texts, and not to mention the prospect of them giving over such knowledge willingly," The monk snapped, showing her first sign of agitation.

"Oh indeed it seemed impossible at the time," Crelius grinned weakly, standing from his chair and reaching his hands behind him towards the knot of his blindfold. "And it was a trying task," Atennim spoke as he began to unravel the knot.

The Yinn monk looked forward incredulously, "You tell lies, Atenum," "Oh you know my name? How fitting. It was a pleasure meeting your acquaintance, Quintana," Crelius spoke before withdrawing an antique saber from the seam of his robe.

His retinue gasped as Crelius moved with unexpected fervor. The blade at his belt flashed quickly and severed the Yaenni' captives head at her shoulder.

[105] Crelius: Prologue ( continued ) Tue Mar 16 19:27:15 2010To: all--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Azure wisps of energy began to funnel from the beheaded Yaenni. Power in a raw form plumed about the chamber in an absolute maelstrom. The knights of Gogothath were cast aside like sand to the wind within the small cataclysm.

The chamber shook violently and amidst the whorl and wrath Crelius stood resolute. His robes were eviscerated in the swirling ethereal current. The ire stained blind-fold that had protected him from his own vision whipped into the torrent. His sabre dropped to the ground as he extended his arms and finger tips wide, embracing the energy with welcome rapture.

Snakes of violets, blues, and grays danced with primal ferocity about his footing. The ethereal power focused upon him and churned up his body. His blue white eyes were wide, and his mouth agape at the transference of essences. With immeasurable speed the warp like energy channeled into him through his orifices.

His jaw dropped, and he quaked as the he felt the building blocks of his existence and those of all mortality stack in perfect and comprehensive understanding. The scar riddled plane that was his mind cleared and grew with diamond like clarity.

He closed his eyes, and opened them again. No longer was he the slave of the Balanx Journal's pages. No longer did he only witness their truth. He was not forced to live the book, and he had tucked it away safely within his subconscious. He heard the clanking of a chain. He knew it was his mind again. His mind.

Crelius looked about the tormented chamber in utter elation and awe. The quickened maelstrom had gone and settled within him. Suddenly he felt a strong tremble beneath him. Quickly it roared into a raging earthquake. Dust and debris dropped like bothered bats from the ceiling and stones began to loosen from their mortar. Atennim glanced about in stoic contemplation.

"I suppose I'll need a new commander, Mathan," Crelius spoke, his eyes-seemingly human once again- staring at the beheaded corpse of Quintana. White fire began to shine upon her ivory coat and, like a spark to a page, enveloped her corpse. Within a few instants her remains were reduced to ash.

Indigo, ethereal, fire encapsulated Crelius as he spoke and looked down upon his fallen mercenaries.

"I no longer require your service," Crelius glanced at the stunned form of his commander. The wiry man twitched slightly from the still lingering shocks of the ethereal transference.

A pin prick of gold light formed within the air and drew itself into a mansized circle of glassy energy. Crelius stepped through the gateway without a second glance, the ruins crumbling behind him.

[ 99] Nymaya: Prologue - Infernal Directive Sun Mar 14 22:17:51 2010To: all Crelius ( story line ) imm Necrucifer---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

It was in the wind.

The whisper that brushed through her hair, that soothed her senses and set the disquiet at deceptive ease. It was only then that she realized - she could hear nothing but that whisper.

The wind that had been gentle, carrying her through the depths of meditation and prayer, became something else.

Something that resembled a thousand voices jumbled into one incoherent sound. She was becoming familiar with the sound of dissonance in its various forms. She tilted her head back to gaze into the roiling shadows above. They moved with a live essence, as if someone had captured hundreds of uneasy souls and bound them above the altar.

You will join them one day.

The dulcet tone moved through her like a shadow. It had an essence of its own and it recognized her. She was certain that she should have feared it, but she could not.

But you know that now. Its what you wanted, isn't it.

Not a question - a statement. She wasn't surprised. Her limbs felt as light as feathers, it was hard to focus but centuries of merciless training of body and mind worked in her favor.

"Have you come to state the obvious" Her own whisper seemed to echo hollow in the dark of the church. "Or shall I call you Curious."

I come to collect a debt. It responded, failing to rise to her baited words.

A strange touch, emaciated fingers perhaps, trailed a tainted caress across the scar upon her throat and down her left arm, clearly outlining the individual scars that marred her. Her blue eyes shut as she fought back a shudder of revulsion.

While the cat is away, the devils will play.

The whisper was so close to her ear that she might have jerked but she was bound before the shadows. A deep, sinuous laugh rolled over her then, forcing the shudder she had suppressed to slither up her spine. The emaciated touch settled upon her shoulders then, burning, and as the first serpentine tendrils of fear began to arise in her she realized - she was back in the Sands of Sorrow.

Fallen upon the ground, she gazed down upon her still form and saw for the first time just how close she had come to the mountains. She also saw what arose behind her and all the questions that had begun to plague her since that moment, all the things she could not remember, came back.

cont.

[100] Nymaya: Prologue - Infernal Directive Sun Mar 14 22:29:00 2010To: all Crelius ( story line ) imm Necrucifer--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She burned again, as never before.

She saw herself upon a plain cot that served as a bed, held deep within a mountain cavern, her delusional and fevered cries resounding even in that dark place.

Your impact upon this tapestry was not to end so soon, I'm afraid.

"I did not ask...for your aid." She gasped through the fiery pain that had not diminished, even though she had returned to the altar.

A small, subsidiary issue. And it waved her concern away. Your soul belongs to the Abyss now and I decided to intercede.

Against the weakness infusing her she clenched her fists but did not object.

"What do you want." The question was asked with considerable calm.

I want you to continue your quest. It remarked with infuriating evasiveness though she knew it was playing with her.

Instead of answering, she opened her eyes - and was beset with a sudden wash of terror. Its monstrous visage was before her; empty black eyes, grinning teeth and every nightmare that had ever afflicted her mind.

Its next words were not playful as they echoed down through to her very soul, ringing true and setting into motion a new directive.

I have seen a future that I dislike greatly and the one I wish to thwart will not expect this.

Her ears rang at the sound of the words and she half imagined they began to bleed. What happened next though tore a sharp cry from her that ended as abruptly as it started when the shadow passed directly through her - leaving behind an image that etched itself into her mind.

Someone awaits you in the Abyss. The whispery sound of the wind had returned, though it was a scream now and she knew who voiced it.

Should you fail, know that your eternal tormentor's name is Uvall and I will relish every instance of your agony.
---

She awoke to the sound of the wind whistling outside the eaves but in it, she detected a lingering ominous laughter.

Her heart beating a hard staccato, she slipped from bed to pad to the water basin but stopped abruptly when she saw her reflection. Ashen white made the blood across her throat stand out vividly. She didn't need to see the scars along her left arm to know they had bled as well.

Centuries of patience were set aside then as she dressed quickly and left to find Crelius. She couldn't wait any longer.

[ 73] Reklah: The Gods Have MercySat Mar 6 21:24:20 2010To: Crelius Nymaya Shadow all--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The holy weapon slid into his left breast, and he slumped forward. A blast of manatonic power burst out from him in a coalescence of dark energy. He looked at his opponent dispassionately, the chestnut brown eyes gazing daggers into the paladin who had felled him. His face was expressionless and he made no sound, the helm shielding what emotional sins might have been committed in its absence.

"You can still live," the immortal said mercifully. "I do not seek your death. "

"Thank you," he murmured, weakened. "But no. "

His body was stripped of its armors by Kulinar Atennim and the rest against the congregation of Storm Keep's knights who had observed the battle. His gloves were peeled off his fingers, his shield offered to him to hold, his arms sliding over the crest of the onyx dragon depicted in the rusty painting. A black knight rode atop the great wyrm bearing a sword blessed by the wargod Raije.

He waited to die.

He opened his eyes. Nothing. Nymaya.. He thought. And Crelius, he was no longer with them. How he sought his friend's advice, how he needed to ask!

Murky blackness surrounded him, seeping into his pores. He could feel the itchy needles prickling his skin as it took his body, raising him into the air. And then the obsidian hue slowly shifted into a dull blue. He could make out the silhouette of a golden statue, spanning hundreds of feet in the air, each piece of molten hot metal formed in the shape of men. Tiny skeletal figures crawled on it, shifting their bony heads to watch the newcomer. He stared back at them, feeling a dull fear in his body.

"Reklah.. " they whispered to him with their fiery skeletal grins.

"Reklah has come to join us.."

He felt himself fall on the top of the statue. He clambered to stand up. He looked down at his body. He still possessed the armor that had been granted to him as a shadowknight, still had the wargod blade in his hands. The skeletons began to climb the body parts, bony fingers outstretched at him.

His face set into steely resolve. The skeletons climbed to the top of the statue and he murmured a prayer to Necrucifer. They walked towards him, one by one, and he began to swing. His movement was precise, his footwork elusive.

He had kept his prowess through purgatory. Raije's sword glowed with each fuelled blow, the weapon shattering the bones.

And then there was nothing. A black screen of death. He stood not atop a statue of parts, but instead a room with an infinite space of darkness. He wanted to ask Crelius so much of this underworld, but it was too late. He wondered if he had gone blind, wondered if Crelius had traveled a different route of death. He felt a voice spiral downward into his ears. He felt a force crush his shoulders downward.

"Reklah," a familiar voice said.

"Crelius, is that you?"

He opened his eyes, blinking for the first time in what felt like years. He could make out the blurry vision of two figures infront of him. One was Crelius Atennim. The other was his wife, Nymaya.

[129] Crelius: The God's Have Mercy ( continued ) Tue Mar 23 22:44:09 2010To: all Reklah Necrucifer imm ( Story Line ) ( Religion )--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For three days he fasted and knelt within the confines of the Shadowknight's inner Sanctum. Seldom was he bothered by its inhabitants. The knights of the Sanctum had learned over the years not to trifle with Lord Atennim when was in this state. He had been known to lash out, often violently, when he was stirred prematurely from his trance. Many a younger and inexperienced Sanctum Knight had learned this harshly, stepping out of the sanctuary with broken bones or worse.

His mind swam deeply within the dark roads and undercurrents of the ethereal. Before, his delving mind could only touch the surface of infinite planes. Limited only to where his god permitted. Things had changed, and his awareness spanned the breadth of existence and non-existence. He saw strange realms devoid of any rational sense, and he saw truer realms of absolution and purity. For days he sent his mind out and beyond. He gathered knowledge that he, in so many years, could never fathom.

A strange thing happened when he fixed his perception upon the Abyss he knew all too well. He had avoided glancing over such a nefarious place. His experiences there had been far too profound and dangerous already, and he did not seek to trouble the denizens of the infernus. Never the less he could not help but cast a glimpse upon the forbidden apple. Like a delicious drug on an unoccupied autumn morning it tempted him. He had to take a bite.

And he did, and he was a fool for not anticipating the visions that assailed him. It occurred in flashes of wrath and heresy. At first it was the flaying of his colleagues flesh, the insertion of blunt hazards into his eyes, and then the hooks through his bones. Always the hooks.

The visions then took a more insidious theme, offering him a loathing of inevitable failure and loss. From solid excruciating pain to horrific clothing and doubt. It was the way hell played at a soul. He saw himself upon a pedestal among the knights of Gareth, an axeman raising his blade. He saw the ruins of his kingdom, burned to the ground by his ignorant error.

Gritting his teeth he pressed a bit deeper, and he found a sight that struck his trance pause. A burly demon whom he could not name. It took turns over a man that was his brother in oath. It glowered at Crelius with white-fire eyes accompanied by the wail of a thousand thousand deaths.

"You will only return when we decide," it proclaimed. He saw a return to flesh, and a flash of steel. Reklah he retaliated.

He focused his control over the ethereal fiercely then to have it beaten away. With the rage of a void his mind was shaken back into his prime consciousness. He blinked his eyes, and the sand from within the chamber rose with a gust. He gripped his hands together.

"Could it be?" Crelius spoke into the wind.

With a stygian roar the winds writhed once again and were silent. Crelius breathed deeply and considered the implications. He thought of what he saw and what he felt. The winds seldom visited him in these latter days, and the sight of his old comrade was no mistake. It must be of substance, he thought. Alas he was no longer of any welcome to that world below. Nor would the Dark Lord volunteer any of his present warriors. There might be a way, but it would be through another.

Nymaya.

[151] Crelius: The Gods Have Mercy ( continued )Wed Mar 31 17:21:40 2010To: all reklah imm ( story line ) ( religion )--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crelius barely heard the lithe and careful footfalls that stepped into the vast chambers he stood within. Upon a marble slab he waited, overlooking a gaping and almost viscous void. The darkness he looked upon was so great to be almost tangible, and it radiated an aura of pure and absolute evil. Sticky hot with malevolence and the unknown, his spine shuttered as he peered reverently over the ledge.

The gaping void of his master's threshold reached and probed at him. Intoxicated by its lure, he escaped its promise by a tonal elfin voice. Shaking his head slightly he turned, looking towards his fellow pilgrim.

"You've brought what I asked?" Crelius spoke through his robe, eager to see if she could find what he required.

"I have," The slender elf replied, reaching into a small satchel and producing an unimpressive ebony holy symbol. "It was important to him in his life," She spoke, handing the small periapt to Crelius.

"Good, what we attempt would not be possible without this," Crelius nodded, taking the symbol and examining it in the volcanic light.

"Come, have a seat," Crelius motioned to place near him close to the edge of the promontory.

"The place we are in is a holy place, one kept secret by the knights of Shadow. It is a threshold, a threshold to our lord's domain, and other domains. A prophecy says that when Necrucifer returns to Algoron he will do so through this path," Crelius began, waving a hand towards the endless blackness.

"It is an honor to be allowed entrance," Nymaya returned.

"Save the pleasantries for our success, as there will be nothing pleasant about what we attempt," Crelius rebuked sternly. He grasped Reklah's periapt in two hands, and began to focus upon it.

"First we must locate him, and this will not be a simple thing. Should he have valued this trinket as much as you say it may be able to lead my mind to him. What you see here is forbidden to others outside of the Sanctum, and whatever you do do not disrupt me at any cost," Crelius warned, he knelt and began a guttural chant.

Methodically it began as Crelius gripped the periapt tightly before him and focused his eyes upon it. With a slow fervor his gait progressed from curious to problematic. He swayed to a fro, his body writhing and varying from his original pose. Through it all he held the periapt within his vision.

Much to Nymaya's dismay he rumbled in what would be quite a fit. Mumbling intolerable and unintelligible words, he held the periapt aloft with his back to the ground. His voice seemed to harden and his mouth scowled as he sat straight up. "Malstryx," He uttered with unforeseen clarity.

Then Crelius sat and swayed as he looked upon the ether. He had apparently returned to himself, as far as Nymaya could gather. After a few hallowed moments of silence Crelius blinked his eyes almost audibly. As he did so they paled over in a brilliant sheen of azure-white, and an wispy ethereal book manifested open before his eyes within the air.

His gaze burrowed upon it, and the pages flapped with a ghostly speed. "Where where where!?" Crelius spoke unearthly. The pages fluttered in spectral frenzy before stopping.

"We've found him," Crelius spoke.

[ 93] Reklah: The Gods Have MercyThu Mar 11 04:40:12 2010To: Nymaya Crelius Verminasia Shadow all--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As fast as they had come, they had gone. He was in the darkness. He had heard them. His wife and his brother. The room began to distort into a luscious garden with several clergy present. There was a towering manor of great stature, profound in architecture and ivory on the precipice. It stood precariously in the Verminasian sky, seeming as immense and graceful as the pale orange hue of the sky. A congregation of elite soldiers surrounded the moat.

It was Iagothal, his province. He stood at the crimson door, purposefully adorned with the Kayen crest.

"Such a pity," an ancient voice spoke, laced with immortal venom. The figure was in an onyx-hued robe and bore flaming eyes. There was an old dagger at his waist, jagged and emanating the glow of the Abyss.

"Malstryx," Kayen spoke with fearful abandon. His face, already hollow from the years of torture, suddenly was bereft of color. "I thought I would see you no longer."

"I want to show you something." The demon lord laughed. His fiery gaze smiled at Reklah. The demon had no face, only contortions of darkness. His authority, his power, was derived only from the emotions in which he could instill. Reklah felt a foreboding secret.

The guard of Fatale motioned with his hand and the doors to the manor opened. He stepped through cautiously, his emaciated fingers clasping his claymore.

"You are naive, Reklah." He heard the demon voice. "Gifts of Raije have no power here. It is the soil of death." The voice paused and then he heard an absent laugh. "Not that it matters."

Reklah saw Nymaya. She was in their bed, resting with her eyes closed, the familiar silver-lined flame wrinkling in pleasure. He wanted to go up to her and touch her. He felt the demon grin. Underneath the sheets was a man, muscular and dark as he had been. The man kissed her neck lightly, teasing her. He went further south to explore her body, and she smiled. He heard his wife say the name of the man, but he put it away in his mind.

Reklah turned from the vision. He attempted to conceal his anguish, but the demon lord had already detected every little hint of what would torture his subject.

"Even if you returned to Algoron, there would be nothing for you."

"There is my duty to Necrucifer," Reklah said.

"You failed your duty. You died to a paladin, who has reaped the glory of your death. You are weak. "

"No," Reklah sounded crippled even to himself. He used a hand to steady his body before leaving his estate, but the doors shut. He was in the obsidian cell of his prison.

The room was a living entity. It tickled his body faintly and then wrapped around him. It broke him, closing around him slowly, mercifully, and then gradually tightening. His bones cracked and twisted.

He endured it every day. He let the pain wash over him, heard himself scream as he always did. He could feel the demon laughing. All that Reklah could make out through the darkness was two peering eyes of crimson fire.

Reklah heard the familiarity of the voice again. He thought he had dreamt it. That it had been some mirage he had concocted, but no - he could clearly make it out now. He blinked his eyes repeatedly. He could almost move. His fingers twitched.

The voice was there again.

"We've found him."

[153] Crelius: The God's Have Mercy ( continued )Wed Mar 31 19:37:06 2010To: all Nymaya Reklah imm ( Story Line ) ( Religion )--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crelius stood up from his penitent pose. With a raven grace he looked outward towards the stygian night beyond the precipice. For several moments he looked outwards, breathing deep and controlled breaths. With quiet discipline he settled himself over what he had seen. He uttered a word onto the viscous dark, "Nymaya," .

"I am here," She spoke with tempered resolve.

"Come here," Crelius motioned with a gloved hand towards the edge of the ledge, the edge of oblivion.

Nymaya nodded and stood parallel to Atennim at the ledge. The darkness that was before them was pungent and undeniable. She paused slightly as her elvish instincts erupted her with caution.

"Here we stand upon the brink of dominion. You have asked me of such a place before, Nymaya," Crelius goaded, still facing towards the depths.

"That I have, Lord Atennim, that I have," She gazed as Crelius did into the infernal night, her eyes wide and her will shaken.

"Historically this leap of faith was reserved for only the most promising knights of Storm Keep," Crelius noted. "Very few have returned alive.. Those that did were sworn into the Sanctum," Crelius continued.

"I understand," Nymaya returned.

"You might, perhaps. In preferable times I would make the leap myself. Alas I have outworn my welcome within the under fires," Crelius spoke outwards, his hand still upon the periapt.

"You've what? , " Nymaya began.

"I've taken the journey too many times. Once is typically too many, and those Sanctum knights of worth have done so only once. I've overstepped my bounds below with travelling there far too much, and surviving," Crelius explained honestly.

"Then what will we do?" Nymaya asked.

"You are going to take the leap, instead of me," Crelius remarked stoically, still holding on to the periapt and examining it.

"I've heard nothing but horror. How could I survive such?" She asked earnestly.

"You won't, unless you hearken to what I say," Crelius stated.

"I am hearing you," She said, staring off into the void.

"I've a new found power, one that is ancient and untold," Crelius began, glancing to Nymaya through his hood. "This coupled with my knowledge of the abyss may be enough to guide you to him, and out," Crelius spoke.

She looked at him skeptically through the amber fire that lit the back of the chamber. Nymaya held her hands at her side as she listened.

"I've placed a piece of my ethereal essence into this periapt," Crelius began as he held the trite thing before his eyes. "Through this I will far reach my will into the depths. No longer am I permitted there physically."

"This way I will go unnoticed through the spiraling mire," continued Crelius.

"I will appear to you in my ethereal, my spiritual, form," Crelius spoke.

"How?" Nymaya asked.

"My body will remain here, and my ethereal form will guide you through the trespasses," Crelius continued. "Should you lose that periapt I will return to my temple.. My body," Crelius glared upon Nymaya somehow through his hood.

"I understand," She said as she gathered the periapt from Crelius.

"Firstly you will travel through the borderlands," Crelius began with a dire tone. "Your spirit will be assaulted by beings beyond our Master's embrace," He continued.

"This will be the first of your challenges and it will be won by only yourself," Crelius remarked.

She gasped slightly considering the measure of what she sought.

"Then will come the fire and the borders of our Master's, and other's, realm's," Crelius regarded. "Should you make it there.. That is when you should call upon me," Crelius continued stoically.

"Do I just jump?" Nymaya asked.

"Yes," Crelius spoke.

[155] Nymaya: Stygian Descent (I)Fri Apr 2 13:58:46 2010To: All Crelius Reklah ( story chain ) Imm Necrucifer RP Religion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking down into the nearly viscous black of the yawning pit before her, she felt a calm descend. She had undergone the full gamut of unease, dread and shock while watching the venerable Shadowknight build up to this moment. Now, there was no more time for second guessing or fearful indecision.

She would be slain if she turned away, she would die if she failed any of the awaiting trials. She had been trained mercilessly to face death, had already tasted it in various forms, and not a modicum of those experiences failed her now as she sent a silent but terribly fervent prayer to Necrucifer. But she was wise enough to know that little of what she had accomplished in life would do her much good down there.

Amber light, volcanic heat and the oppressive, latent malevolence of the chamber set heavily upon her as the decision solidified within her soul and she looked up to meet Crelius' weeping azure gaze through his hooded countenance.

He remained silent, wrapped in his forebidding power. He'd said all he needed to say.

The dream arose within her mind's eye as she reached back to pull her hood over her long silver hair and with it, a tainted essence so corrupt and devastating, she knew it could consume her.

Jump, elfling.

And, aware she managed a personally impressive display of will and faith, she dove over the edge of the void without hesitation...

...and fell.
---

All sense of time and direction left her.

The world she had known became no more, blasted into nothingness by the urity of the dark that swept past her in unfathomable leagues. It was so complete - so terribly complete...

She felt her displacement keenly, the sound of her cloak snapping behind almost as deafening as the black that breathed around her, as if she were plummeting down the throat of a monsterous entity. With the wind whistling past her ears, locking her in a static state, she became aware of a gleeful pulse of fiendish delight shortly before the stygian deep converged upon her mind.

(cont.)


[163] Nymaya: Stygian Descent (II) Sat Apr 3 00:52:32 2010To: All Crelius Reklah ( story chain ) Imm Necrucifer RP Religion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Nymaya"

The voice was deceptively friendly and it struck a nerve. Icy hatred and aripple of pure dread washed over her. Confusion followed on its heels, cooling the previous rush of emotion and her eyes opened upon a surreal scene. A ghostly, azure-wrapped image of Verminasia spread out before her beneath an obsidian sky. She stood in a garden of translucent flowers, vibrant for all it lacked the purity of life.

...and across from her, face shrouded in shadows, stood the slight form of a dark elven Priestess.

Nymaya's hands fisted slowly as recognition took hold, the sound of her leather gloves stretching over knuckles gone white with a wash of ancient bitter rage, loud in the unnatural stillness. The figure smiled gently, calm and somber in the face of black vehemence.

"There is nothing to stop me from killing you this time." Nymaya whispered, her tone filled with all the animosity that she had once been incapable of channeling.

She reveled in the rage as the distinct ring of her long, slender blade left its sheath followed shortly by the harsh, resonant grind of the darkened sword she carried across her back.

"That won't return your son to you. " She proclaimed and though a dismal aura permeated the Devionite, a slow, devious curve of her lips shone through the shadows.

Nymaya converged then upon the woman and, wrapped in icy, terrible conviction she drove her blades forward - only to have them clang off the solid presence of two opposing daggers.

"You will have to go through him to get to me." The Priestess intoned, as if they had been discussing pleasantries. "Will you kill your own son to sate your misplaced hatred?"

Nymaya stepped back at the goad, a swell of trepidation stilling the need to kill momentarily, and looked upon the face of a grown half elf. Her mind would have refused to believe it - if the unmistakable flames above his left brow had been anything but what they were.

"You...said he was still-born" She breathed in disbelief - needing to disbelieve.

"I lied."

A crystal peal of delighted laughter rang throughout the ghostly realm, stirring the azure mists. The half elven man continued to stand protectively before the Devionite. As solid as a highlander, as graceful as an elf of the Vallenwood.

And the sudden sound of a blade slamming home through flesh, muscle and bone shook the very fabric of the realm moments later. The half elf slumped, eyes wide as he stared at the woman who had birthed him but had never had a chance to know him.

Nymaya stared at the Priestess over the body, blood dripping off the tip of the blade that had impaled her son's heart, and felt an absolute nothing. Emptiness consumed the raw emotion, consumed her.

The dark elf grinned benignly as Nymaya tipped her blade down further to allow the body to slip off and watched without fear as the bloodied sword approached.

"You have earned the reward of your convictions." And her smile was beatific as the darkened blade arced up in an underhanded swing, cutting through the air with an audible sound.

"But you will never escape what has been created in you, exile." The blade struck the elf's neck then and tore through...mist. The world began to disolve around her almost in the same instant and with the sound of many black wings beating the air, darkness took her.

[102] Reklah: Freedom of Choice Mon Mar 15 08:17:45 2010To: Crelius Nymaya all imm (RP) Necrucifer--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reklah felt Malstryx's dark chuckle. "I've enjoyed this meeting of the minds, Reklah, and perhaps if you fail again, you'll be given your due."

"But things are amiss in Algoron. An archangel has risen to lead its new horde, and soldiers are needed. In any other circumstance, perhaps you would stay here for eternity."

Reklah stared at Malstryx, disbelieving, his hollow face contorting in anger. "I don't believe you," he said with an incredulous voice.

"Your faith in me isn't necessary, Reklah. Just remember your duty, or you'll end up here again." Reklah felt the impending wrath of Malstryx in his mind, and then, sudden laughter.

He paused. His attention focused on something outside of the cell, and his shape seemed to take a more fiery form, the cloaked figure seeming to emit his Lord's flames.

"They're here, Reklah."

He felt the physical presence of the lord vanish. And suddenly, in the dampness of the cell, which was no longer living but dead, Reklah saw a portal open. He looked into it and saw time itself, a continuous spiral of windows and gates that led to other parts of the Abyss. This one was nodifferent, but something caught his attention.

Remember, the voice told him.

Your freedom is on the condition that you aid in the Pantheon's defense against Malachive and Azbogah.

If you fail your duty with either, we will take you, it threatened.

Reklah glanced down at his body. He was whole. He had all the glory of his physique again. He could feel the muscles of his body, of the nourishment that seeped into him. He glanced down and saw that the age-old obsidian armor had been restored, radiating with some unknown power. It had been Shay's last gift to him before his departure.

He hesitated.

And then, with a sudden movement, he leapt through the gate.

[165] Nymaya: Stygian Descent (III) Sat Apr 3 16:26:00 2010To: All Crelius Reklah ( story chain ) Imm Necrucifer RP Religion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her body was spiraling through the dark again, her mind trapped within a vortex of vertigo and black foreboding. Panic began to eat at the edges of everything. Her lungs struggled against the crushing sensation while she was enveloped in the swirling perfection of black, hellish nothing.

The fluxuations of heat and cold were such as she descended now that no part of her was spared the experience of thousands of unending, piercing needle points. She could feel her grasp of sanity tearing with the torment and it was in this she found some small saving grace - for the maddness felt familiar in an alien landscape of constant shadow.
---
Ravaged - physically, mentally and spiritually - she could only bow beneath the exceptional weight. The spark of life was slender, held aloft only by a thin shadowy tendril of faith and pure stubborn drive.

Her hand flexed around the periapt that hung down from her throat and through touch alone, she felt its baleful will. A faint pulse of malevolent urging followed, filling her head with a flash of crimson pain. It seemed that even Uvall was bound from this place.

She had no more strength to think beyond the immediate and, with a breath that rasped terribly in her chest, she forced herself up...

...to behold a sight that took that breath back from her. It seemed as if the whole of Algoron she could see had been reshaped.

The promontory she stood upon overlooked the vast spread of a forest she recognized, if only by its shape upon the blasted land now. The Vallenwood was burned to ash and all the land she could see near it looked to be in a similar disrupted state.

An agony, a loss, unlike any other gripped her chest and for a moment she wondered if it would kill her. Even in exile a part of her had been bound to this place - to her origin...

"There is no more hope for you." The voice was dark, serious but tinged with a perpertual hint of superiority. Keylan.

"Why cling to what has been lost for eternity?"

So convincing. The brush of magic, of a will that was both cunning and powerful, tempted her.

"Leave off, Keylan." She breathed, still trying to force her mind through the painful rejection of what was clearly before her. His chuckle was soft but belittling.

"Ah, I suppose that's what I always liked about you, sister."

He went on with amusement. "Dedicated and stubborn to a fault." -his pause was long and heavy while it lasted- "Come now, Nymaya. I don't want to have to kill you. Malachive is willing to overlook your sins."

A spike of cold alarm raced down her spine and she turned slowly to gaze upon her half-brother. He looked emaciated, gray and hollow but there was power radiating around him. He held out his hand. "Come. Your purpose doesn't have to end here. Reklah awaits."

She never got a chance to answer as a second spike of crimson pain filled her head at the sound of his name. Her knees hit the ground as she bent over it, aware that something had changed. A series of pure demonic screams barrled into her maybe seconds after, enraged, and she felt herself ripped from the Border realm. (cont.)

[166] Nymaya: Stygian Descent - The Last Trek (IV)Sun Apr 4 01:12:19 2010To: All Crelius Reklah ( story chain ) Imm Necrucifer RP Religion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was not aware as she was simultaniously flung and pulled down, down toward a tiny speck of crimson that grew at an alarmingly fast rate. The flames of the Inferno below - a blighted realm of fire - rose up to sear her and as she fell, the hood of her cloak drew back.

Silver hair flowing around her, she regained consciousness as the sky opened up. Suffocating in the hellish conditions, her mind refusing to make any sense of the horrors she was seeing in the sky, in the air, on the ground... she gripped the periapt in desperation.

Call him, elf.

She opened her mouth, needing to take in a breath and in the same moment, her body struck something. A demonic screech filled her world and she lost her grasp on consciousness again. It was a second incorporeal impact, directly against her sternum, that forced her back. Her world filled with crimson, a corruption that stole every aspect of who and what she was.

Breath was compelled back into her lungs and as the entity departed, the name came forth in a rush.

She kept a hold of her senses long enough to see ebony flame erupt around her. To feel its protection cool her, to take in an acidic, metallic tasting breath and then - nothing.

She drifted in an accursed oblivion, for an eternity and more it felt. She would have been happy to stay there, it was better than the hell that awaited beyond.

"Awaken, Nymaya"

The command prompted her aching eyes to open and she found herself lying upon a mound before a series of twisted arches. Each construct was made of varying material, be it flesh and innards or pure gold. She was panting, short and terribly wet breaths. Blood colored her nearly gray-blue lips and trailed down her chin. She didn't want to think any further about any of it as she pushed her excruciated body up from the ashen ground. She even managed to subdue a portion of the alarming realization that she was surrounded on the outset of the arches by all manner of fiends.

"You should have called me sooner." She was rebuked by the etheral voice and, having not the strength to glare at him, she turned her pained gaze upon the azure image of Crelius. "But you have done better than I thought you would."

She couldn't answer but she felt a deeper reserve of strength innundate her...just in time to watch the form of Reklah fall through an arch of such soul-sucking black that to look upon it was to experience true and utter hopelessness.

He hit the ground with such force that it was a wonder to see his armored chest rise and fall with life. She thought that her first sight of him would prompt her to linger mindlessly but she was moving in the same instance of his appearance.

"Guide him." Crelius ordered. "The way out is not far."

And, kneeling beside the man she had risked everything to free, she lifted one of his arms over her own damaged shoulders. It was only with a forceful invocation of her Lord's name that she got him to his feet, but upon speaking the mere word, she felt her spirit pulse with the power it inspired - and the last trek began.

[175] Reklah: The End is the BeginningSun Apr 4 22:07:12 2010To: Crelius Nymaya Shadow all--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reklah fell through the vast vortex of swirling oblivion into the chamber. He was surprised to feel solid ground beneath him as he leaned back against the crux of the obsidian gateway. He vaguely noticed Nymaya beside him and reached for her, pulling her to him.

He pressed his head to hers and murmured something. As soon as he had said it, he had forgotten. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he felt himself losing consciousness, and then he steeled himself and urged himself to wake up. He would not lose himself to it again.

He had escaped the Abyss.

"I need to stand," said Reklah through shivering teeth. He noted absently in his delirium that his manatonicism was gone.

He stood with his wife's aid and turned to observe the ancient relic in Storm Keep. Any other time and he would have found its properties impressive.

It was foretold that Necrucifer would pass through this room in His final victory. The gates led to the beyond that all the philosophers had discussed for centuries. They would discuss it for thousands of years more. Reklah was in good company, and yet all he could consider was thetorture that he had endured.

"Get me out of here," he said after a moment.

Together the two made their way out of the room with Crelius observing and ensuring no relapse. Reklah was taken to his old chamber. With the aid of his two companions, he was left to rest in the bed. Before he passed out, albeit on Algoron soil, his thought was only of one thing.

He was out.

-

The next day, Reklah arrived at Storm Keep with only a cowl drawn over his pale face. Crelius accompanied him, ensuring there would be no relapses in his temperament. He was welcomed to a small congregation of knights who were to escort him to his chambers. He nodded without seeing, his face shadowed by doubt, still a vague memory as to where he was.

"Tell them I've arrived," he said without palaver.

He passed by the architectural ambitions of his fellow knights, the statue of their Lord that Verias Wa had commissioned some years earlier, to arrive at the library. He bowed his head reverently and, after a pause, he entered the room and observed it. It had expanded more since his absence and remained impressive in all its antiquity.

He moved to his old table where he had studied previously and took a seat, drawing one of the blackened tombs of text to him and opening to an onset of writing. He read.

By Malachive's power, Hsiu drove his own dagger into his stomach, and Reklah was consumed in torturous flames. Thus saw all the tall price of failure and foolishness, yet it was not to be enough. Necrucifer himself came before them, angered by their pride. He cast them out from Storm Keep, the creation of Shay.

After he finished, he set the book aside and stared without staring at the wall straight ahead. His teeth gritted audibly and he brought a gauntleted fist down on the table.

Those suspicions, the night of the Exile, had been for naught.