Post by warraven on Jan 5, 2008 2:08:09 GMT -5
When the first of what would doubtless be many more blows landed Eonthane reminded himself that in some way, he deserved it. He’d chosen this path. He’d purposely antagonized Uja and when he saw the troll’s allies closing in he’d chosen not to run through sheer stubborn pride. And the knowledge that there was very little they could do that would actually hurt him. All his fears and pains had been locked away, kept in a dark recess of his mind where he held sway and it would take a very powerful priest to unlock those secrets. Physical pain was nothing. Besides, in some way, he deserved it.
Still. He rolled onto his side, trying to shield the more vulnerable parts of his body from their blows. They’d come at him as a group and although he had dropped spell after spell on them they only retreated, healed, and come at him again. His power was not limitless… and in his haste to see them suffer – damn them all, he would see them suffer! – he had overdrew on his shadow power and leeched off his own life in the process. This was his doing. He heard their laughter dimly, like the baying of the jackals they were, and then Uja’s voice. Something.
Agony flooded his body in a sudden burst and he screamed, unwilling, and jerked against the pain that held him captive. It only grew worse and he felt blackness taint the edges of his vision. He fell silent, forced himself to focus on his breathing. In. Out. Slowly. Sweat trickled down his forehead, cold sweat from exhaustion and suffering. Even here, in the hot sun, feeling his own blood slide along his garments, he was cold.
“Dere,” the troll leered, “Not talkin’ now, ‘thane?”
Uja ripped the sword free and Eonthane convulsed again, no longer pinioned like an animal by the weapon. The movement brought a fresh wave of dizziness and he clung to consciousness by sheer will alone. He’d survived worse than this. He knew this could be endured… he’d done worse to others. Closing his eyes he saw their faces, contorted in agony as he stood over them and debated on the best moment to release them from their suffering, that sick feeling in his stomach fighting against the sense of relief it gave him to transfer his own addiction to another in the form of his shadow-tainted magic. He deserved this, surely.
They were talking about taking him somewhere. Eonthane forced himself to focus, trying to clear his vision. An island. They had the mage open a portal and someone grabbed the hem of his robe – that Forsaken wench. The grip was firm but there was a tenderness to it, as if she didn’t want to break a favorite toy. He recognized the gesture and silently swore to himself that when he was free – when the situation was different – she’d receive no gentleness in how he exacted his revenge. There was cruelty on so many levels and when this one died by his hand it would be by brutality alone.
The place they brought him was a roughly furnished room with a number of bunks. They drug him along on the ground and he cursed at them. The pain meant nothing. He could heal it. What mattered was that they suffered in some way. That they remembered he had hurt them and would do so again the instant they let their guard down. He’d repay them.
“Do what you will, traitor,” Eonthane hissed between his labored breathing, “I’ll repay this. Word for word.”
And then the Forsaken whore cracked the back of his skull and the blackness that threatened at the edge of his vision consumed him.
The banks of the river again. The forest. Somewhere in the distance the city he loved and hated, the city he had grown up in. And across the bank the twisted bodies of the Wretched. Dead without a mark on them. The dream was always in the same place, the same scenario, but it had slowly changed as time went on. At first it had just been replaying the events… then it shifted. He had sat on the bank and listened to their screams as shadow lanced through their nerves, an unending agony that brought wonderment to his mind as he realized that this could be a way of fighting the addiction… by forcing others to feel it. By making it go away. Then it had shifted again, replaying the events, forcing him to watch and remember.
That these Wretched were so indistinguishable from what they were before they fell that the bodies of his own family could be over on that side of the bank, dead by his own hand. And he’d felt something like a watchful gaze over him but each time he’d turned around it had been gone, just evading his eyesight, and for the first time in many years he had felt sickened by what lay on the other side of the bank. This had been after encountering the spirit of Uther Lightbringer and the Naaru and the betrayal of the Scryers… when everything had started to crumble around him.
Then there was the dream after he’d delved into Nastin’s mind and held the demonic fire at bay long enough to allow the paladin to heal himself. Some part of Nastin’s holy magic had bled off into him as well and Eonthane had dreamed he had not made it to the other side of the bank, that he was in the river, drowning, and the only thing that kept him from being swept away in the tide was someone’s grip on his arm. Calloused, strong hands, that refused to let go even as the cold of his shadowform sent tendrils of ice around their fingers. He did not know whom it was that held on.
Now he dreamed of a landscape soaked with blood and as he looked he realized it was his own. The Wretched were not dead. The stalked the bank, hissing. No. That wasn’t how it had happened. He tried to stand and found he was unable to, too weak. Far too weak. His magic deserted him and here he was, standing in a pool of his own blood. And as he watched, the Wretched paused in their stalking and he saw their faces flicker and become familiar. Father. Mother. And somewhere in this blood-soaked forest, a place he had once called home, something beckoned him. Begged him. And it burned like fire and he hid his face from the presence, just as he had fallen in fear of the Lightbringer’s radiance…
He woke. His robes were gone, along with every scrap of enchanted armor he owned. His rings. His bags. Only his rough vest and pants were left to him. The bed he lay on stank of dried blood and he was afraid to move, lest the wounds reopen and bleed. There was magic in his veins again, just a little bit, and he considered using it. But the voices were too close and he didn’t have enough to heal and protect himself. They’d notice and just redo the damage already there.
Besides, wasn’t this repayment in some form? Did the forces of Light really have mercy for something like him, or just saw that justice was done in the end?
“-why isn’t he tied?”
He recognized the voice. The brute Irogrim. Then a hand roughly wrapped in his hair and pulled him down to the ground. Eonthane stared up at the orc, measuring him. Brutal. Intimidating. He knew this type well.
“Orc,” Eonthane hissed, “Doesn’t shamanism require some wits of some kind? Or have the spirits made an exception for your charming personality?”
There. The orc roared for him to be silent, spitting his race at him like a curse, and struck him across the jaw. Eonthane spat up blood while Irogrim yelled at his followers for not having the smarts to tie him up. There was a hand in his hair again. That Forsaken bitch again.
They drug him to a chair and bound his hands behind him. And Irogrim, true to his brutal fashion, marked him. Punctured his ear like one would a prized cattle and left a brand on his foot. The pain was little compared to what he’d already suffered but it was the meaning of the act – the symbolism – that mattered. And he swore he’d repay them for it.
After that Eonthane swam from consciousness to darkness, that small strand of fear that had always accompanied him weaving in and out of his thoughts. That delicate balance was going to be destroyed. They’d break him eventually, get him to talk and betray his friends. That one anchor he had that kept him from slipping into depravity would be gone.
Mentally, the priest started calculating up what pieces of information he could give them to buy time before he had to betray the entirety of the Remnants. What games he could use to turn their methods against them. For he had to buy time as he knew without a doubt that if it came to it he would rather see the Remnants betrayed then himself broken and useless.
Whatever hand it was that held him against the river’s tide would just have to let go. Eonthane didn’t have the strength to fight the pull anymore.
The memories came and went. They used cold against him and he finally admitted defeat, whispered that he could just let go of his ties to life if he cared to… and the Forsaken girl untied him long enough for him to heal himself. He called up the holy magic and for the first time it seared his veins. In the past he had always felt it burn, the holy radiance of it fighting with his contested soul. Now, it felt like liquid fire and the sudden impact of it took his breath away. He was easy to tie up again, even though his wounds had been closed.
Time passed. No one bothered to question him. And then he heard Uja.
“Come to hit me some more?” he asked, staring at the wall, “Traitorous dog. Your new friends suit you well.”
But there was no reply from the troll. Instead, a voice said his name, and Eonthane twisted in surprised. Nastin stood there, a strange expression on his face and behind him was the pompous Lokyate, holding Uja in a deathgrip around the neck. Someone else he didn’t recognize. The troll reeked of fear. And Eonthane had never seen Nastin so dangerously quiet.
‘No’ was what he wanted to say. ‘No, you’re not the one that’s supposed to do this to others. That’s me.’ But somewhere along the way a line had been crossed.
Eonthane requested that Nastin leave for a few moments and let him face Uja. There was a debt to be repaid. His wounded leg and his wounded pride. And so Nastin turned and left without a word and Eonthane’s anger turned to the troll. He wasn’t supposed to leave! He was supposed to stay, to tell the priest to control his violent streak and let the troll be! But no. So Eonthane released his anger onto the troll’s mind, wrapping tendrils of shadow into the nerves that wracked them with agony. And though Uja screamed Eonthane’s actions were almost automatic, his procedure like a puppet rather than himself performing it. Shadow pain. Healing to keep him conscious. Shadow again. Until he grew tired and the sickness in his stomach grew too much. He wanted to go outside and vomit, then lie there and sleep until the world around him changed and all this had been wiped away by time…
Instead Nastin reappeared and Eonthane tore the nail that had been used to puncture his ear out and threw it on the ground. Summoned the holy magic to heal the wound and felt fire ripple through him again. The last thing he did was to destroy the corner they had kept him bound in, more to hide his own disquiet than anything else.
Everything seemed to be slipping out of his grasp. He could barely stand to look at Uja and the reception from the Remnants was as cold as he had expected. How could it be otherwise? Eonthane knew in his heart he would have betrayed them and so their mistrust and hatred was only justified.
All this, he deserved.
Something had to change. The wire had been broken at some point and that careful balance he’d established was gone. He could help destroy the Jackals, rip Uja’s mind apart for what he wanted to know, and pay back each and every one of them for what they’d done. He could become something monstrous then, reveling in the pain of those he despised and that sick feeling in his stomach would be gone. The holy magic would burn even worse than it did now. Or…
He wondered whose hand it was that gripped his wrist in his dreams. The water was so dark and the current so fast. He feared it. So he went without sleep, laying awake until exhaustion finally carried him away into dreamless oblivion. He turned in his bed, reaching for a pendant that wasn’t there and that he had not yet gathered up the strength to ask for. Molinu had it.
Thalassian words. Heal. Give. Renew. Protect.
A mockery that he carried just to remind himself of how he had failed that path. The balance was quickly dying. The Remnants no longer anchored him against himself. Something would have to change, quickly, before Eonthane lost himself to his addiction and the way he had chosen to combat it.
But what sort of Light could save him from his own doings?
Still. He rolled onto his side, trying to shield the more vulnerable parts of his body from their blows. They’d come at him as a group and although he had dropped spell after spell on them they only retreated, healed, and come at him again. His power was not limitless… and in his haste to see them suffer – damn them all, he would see them suffer! – he had overdrew on his shadow power and leeched off his own life in the process. This was his doing. He heard their laughter dimly, like the baying of the jackals they were, and then Uja’s voice. Something.
Agony flooded his body in a sudden burst and he screamed, unwilling, and jerked against the pain that held him captive. It only grew worse and he felt blackness taint the edges of his vision. He fell silent, forced himself to focus on his breathing. In. Out. Slowly. Sweat trickled down his forehead, cold sweat from exhaustion and suffering. Even here, in the hot sun, feeling his own blood slide along his garments, he was cold.
“Dere,” the troll leered, “Not talkin’ now, ‘thane?”
Uja ripped the sword free and Eonthane convulsed again, no longer pinioned like an animal by the weapon. The movement brought a fresh wave of dizziness and he clung to consciousness by sheer will alone. He’d survived worse than this. He knew this could be endured… he’d done worse to others. Closing his eyes he saw their faces, contorted in agony as he stood over them and debated on the best moment to release them from their suffering, that sick feeling in his stomach fighting against the sense of relief it gave him to transfer his own addiction to another in the form of his shadow-tainted magic. He deserved this, surely.
They were talking about taking him somewhere. Eonthane forced himself to focus, trying to clear his vision. An island. They had the mage open a portal and someone grabbed the hem of his robe – that Forsaken wench. The grip was firm but there was a tenderness to it, as if she didn’t want to break a favorite toy. He recognized the gesture and silently swore to himself that when he was free – when the situation was different – she’d receive no gentleness in how he exacted his revenge. There was cruelty on so many levels and when this one died by his hand it would be by brutality alone.
The place they brought him was a roughly furnished room with a number of bunks. They drug him along on the ground and he cursed at them. The pain meant nothing. He could heal it. What mattered was that they suffered in some way. That they remembered he had hurt them and would do so again the instant they let their guard down. He’d repay them.
“Do what you will, traitor,” Eonthane hissed between his labored breathing, “I’ll repay this. Word for word.”
And then the Forsaken whore cracked the back of his skull and the blackness that threatened at the edge of his vision consumed him.
The banks of the river again. The forest. Somewhere in the distance the city he loved and hated, the city he had grown up in. And across the bank the twisted bodies of the Wretched. Dead without a mark on them. The dream was always in the same place, the same scenario, but it had slowly changed as time went on. At first it had just been replaying the events… then it shifted. He had sat on the bank and listened to their screams as shadow lanced through their nerves, an unending agony that brought wonderment to his mind as he realized that this could be a way of fighting the addiction… by forcing others to feel it. By making it go away. Then it had shifted again, replaying the events, forcing him to watch and remember.
That these Wretched were so indistinguishable from what they were before they fell that the bodies of his own family could be over on that side of the bank, dead by his own hand. And he’d felt something like a watchful gaze over him but each time he’d turned around it had been gone, just evading his eyesight, and for the first time in many years he had felt sickened by what lay on the other side of the bank. This had been after encountering the spirit of Uther Lightbringer and the Naaru and the betrayal of the Scryers… when everything had started to crumble around him.
Then there was the dream after he’d delved into Nastin’s mind and held the demonic fire at bay long enough to allow the paladin to heal himself. Some part of Nastin’s holy magic had bled off into him as well and Eonthane had dreamed he had not made it to the other side of the bank, that he was in the river, drowning, and the only thing that kept him from being swept away in the tide was someone’s grip on his arm. Calloused, strong hands, that refused to let go even as the cold of his shadowform sent tendrils of ice around their fingers. He did not know whom it was that held on.
Now he dreamed of a landscape soaked with blood and as he looked he realized it was his own. The Wretched were not dead. The stalked the bank, hissing. No. That wasn’t how it had happened. He tried to stand and found he was unable to, too weak. Far too weak. His magic deserted him and here he was, standing in a pool of his own blood. And as he watched, the Wretched paused in their stalking and he saw their faces flicker and become familiar. Father. Mother. And somewhere in this blood-soaked forest, a place he had once called home, something beckoned him. Begged him. And it burned like fire and he hid his face from the presence, just as he had fallen in fear of the Lightbringer’s radiance…
He woke. His robes were gone, along with every scrap of enchanted armor he owned. His rings. His bags. Only his rough vest and pants were left to him. The bed he lay on stank of dried blood and he was afraid to move, lest the wounds reopen and bleed. There was magic in his veins again, just a little bit, and he considered using it. But the voices were too close and he didn’t have enough to heal and protect himself. They’d notice and just redo the damage already there.
Besides, wasn’t this repayment in some form? Did the forces of Light really have mercy for something like him, or just saw that justice was done in the end?
“-why isn’t he tied?”
He recognized the voice. The brute Irogrim. Then a hand roughly wrapped in his hair and pulled him down to the ground. Eonthane stared up at the orc, measuring him. Brutal. Intimidating. He knew this type well.
“Orc,” Eonthane hissed, “Doesn’t shamanism require some wits of some kind? Or have the spirits made an exception for your charming personality?”
There. The orc roared for him to be silent, spitting his race at him like a curse, and struck him across the jaw. Eonthane spat up blood while Irogrim yelled at his followers for not having the smarts to tie him up. There was a hand in his hair again. That Forsaken bitch again.
They drug him to a chair and bound his hands behind him. And Irogrim, true to his brutal fashion, marked him. Punctured his ear like one would a prized cattle and left a brand on his foot. The pain was little compared to what he’d already suffered but it was the meaning of the act – the symbolism – that mattered. And he swore he’d repay them for it.
After that Eonthane swam from consciousness to darkness, that small strand of fear that had always accompanied him weaving in and out of his thoughts. That delicate balance was going to be destroyed. They’d break him eventually, get him to talk and betray his friends. That one anchor he had that kept him from slipping into depravity would be gone.
Mentally, the priest started calculating up what pieces of information he could give them to buy time before he had to betray the entirety of the Remnants. What games he could use to turn their methods against them. For he had to buy time as he knew without a doubt that if it came to it he would rather see the Remnants betrayed then himself broken and useless.
Whatever hand it was that held him against the river’s tide would just have to let go. Eonthane didn’t have the strength to fight the pull anymore.
The memories came and went. They used cold against him and he finally admitted defeat, whispered that he could just let go of his ties to life if he cared to… and the Forsaken girl untied him long enough for him to heal himself. He called up the holy magic and for the first time it seared his veins. In the past he had always felt it burn, the holy radiance of it fighting with his contested soul. Now, it felt like liquid fire and the sudden impact of it took his breath away. He was easy to tie up again, even though his wounds had been closed.
Time passed. No one bothered to question him. And then he heard Uja.
“Come to hit me some more?” he asked, staring at the wall, “Traitorous dog. Your new friends suit you well.”
But there was no reply from the troll. Instead, a voice said his name, and Eonthane twisted in surprised. Nastin stood there, a strange expression on his face and behind him was the pompous Lokyate, holding Uja in a deathgrip around the neck. Someone else he didn’t recognize. The troll reeked of fear. And Eonthane had never seen Nastin so dangerously quiet.
‘No’ was what he wanted to say. ‘No, you’re not the one that’s supposed to do this to others. That’s me.’ But somewhere along the way a line had been crossed.
Eonthane requested that Nastin leave for a few moments and let him face Uja. There was a debt to be repaid. His wounded leg and his wounded pride. And so Nastin turned and left without a word and Eonthane’s anger turned to the troll. He wasn’t supposed to leave! He was supposed to stay, to tell the priest to control his violent streak and let the troll be! But no. So Eonthane released his anger onto the troll’s mind, wrapping tendrils of shadow into the nerves that wracked them with agony. And though Uja screamed Eonthane’s actions were almost automatic, his procedure like a puppet rather than himself performing it. Shadow pain. Healing to keep him conscious. Shadow again. Until he grew tired and the sickness in his stomach grew too much. He wanted to go outside and vomit, then lie there and sleep until the world around him changed and all this had been wiped away by time…
Instead Nastin reappeared and Eonthane tore the nail that had been used to puncture his ear out and threw it on the ground. Summoned the holy magic to heal the wound and felt fire ripple through him again. The last thing he did was to destroy the corner they had kept him bound in, more to hide his own disquiet than anything else.
Everything seemed to be slipping out of his grasp. He could barely stand to look at Uja and the reception from the Remnants was as cold as he had expected. How could it be otherwise? Eonthane knew in his heart he would have betrayed them and so their mistrust and hatred was only justified.
All this, he deserved.
Something had to change. The wire had been broken at some point and that careful balance he’d established was gone. He could help destroy the Jackals, rip Uja’s mind apart for what he wanted to know, and pay back each and every one of them for what they’d done. He could become something monstrous then, reveling in the pain of those he despised and that sick feeling in his stomach would be gone. The holy magic would burn even worse than it did now. Or…
He wondered whose hand it was that gripped his wrist in his dreams. The water was so dark and the current so fast. He feared it. So he went without sleep, laying awake until exhaustion finally carried him away into dreamless oblivion. He turned in his bed, reaching for a pendant that wasn’t there and that he had not yet gathered up the strength to ask for. Molinu had it.
Thalassian words. Heal. Give. Renew. Protect.
A mockery that he carried just to remind himself of how he had failed that path. The balance was quickly dying. The Remnants no longer anchored him against himself. Something would have to change, quickly, before Eonthane lost himself to his addiction and the way he had chosen to combat it.
But what sort of Light could save him from his own doings?
