Revelations

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Revelations

Post by DoS Archive » Fri Nov 19, 2004 5:20 pm

From: mannicohai@aol.com (ManniCohai)
Date: 16 Jan 2003 03:55:15 EST

It was the smell before anything else, the stony stench of death wafting to his attuned senses that alerted him to the presence lurking ahead. He stayed his course, the long shadow of his passing stretched far ahead of him on the pavement, flickering slightly in the glow of the street lamp behind.

He could no longer pass these long sleepless nights alone on the narrow pallet he called his bed. Though Sir Var has paid him handsomely, he had come to think of the sloping-walled attic as a sort of quarters. Free of the serving duties at the inn in lieu of the payment he could now afford, he wandered the streets with his thoughts. His kind had little need of sleep, though his ears were human enough to have dull curves. He had his mother to thank for that.

Still, he had found the streets of Rhydin to be anything but restful at night. So many creatures that could not lurk about during the day hours frolicked freely through the darkened alleys, though surprisingly, little mischief became of it. It was as if these demonkin were sated on the many sins that were readily available in this city. He was briefly reminded of the demoness he had faced for his captain on the beach a scant few weeks ago. She had seemed benign enough, though he took no small relish in vanquishing her. It was only meet, such was his sworn duty.

The scent that drifted lazily on this back pathway reeked of moldering graves though, not the heady, spicy scents of brimstone or the silvery reek of other planes. He had decided to alter his meandering track, even turned his boot soles the other direction, when a sound accompanied the drifting odor. He halted again, straining to hear, and as if on queue the small muffled squeaks of a struggling woman wafted toward him.

Never before had duty and honor so neatly pincered him. All this time, he dared not reveal himself. For months he had lain in secrecy, never daring to touch the power that would so readily mark him for what he was, shining like a beacon for those he sought to prepare himself against.

Yet he could no more walk away from an innocent in peril than leave his beating heart beside him on the sidewalk. With a heavy sigh, he loosed his thin, unnamed and unadorned blade from its scabbard, returning to his previous course.
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Post by DoS Archive » Fri Nov 19, 2004 5:20 pm

From: mannicohai@aol.com (ManniCohai)
Date: 16 Jan 2003 03:56:11 EST

The scene was simple, perhaps common in these lands; a brick alleyway strewn with refuse shifting gently in an eddying breeze, the slanting shadow cast by the corner of the building, and a bulky figure pressing a slighter, mewling body up against a wall as it bent to feed at her neck.

The woman's eyes had gone glassy and unfocused, her struggling slowly ceasing. To one such as Manni, the scent of death pervaded all. He could not dally.

"By the grace of he who spreads the dawn as a blanket cast upon the land," he began, lifting his sword. He grasped it not by the hilt, but by the blade just above the hilt, holding it so that the tip pointed toward the ground. In such a position, it strikingly resembled the holy symbol of his order, which bolstered both his faith and his resolve.

"By the power granted me from he who banishes night, by my faith in Him and his holy righteousness... " His voice grew in the narrow space between buildings until it cracked the very air like some forceful blow upon a pane of glass, his blade began to glow with an intense brightness.

"In the holy name of Lathlander the Morninglord, I command thee, creature of unnatural life!" His blood trickled down the brilliant blade, and the demon before him seemed to shrink, crumpling before Manni's presence.

"GET THEE HENCE!" The utterance struck as a hammer blow on a porcelain statue, shattering the cringing figure into flying flinders and a puff of ash. The woman slumped without any support, folding over like a discarded doll on the alley floor.
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Post by DoS Archive » Fri Nov 19, 2004 5:21 pm

From: mannicohai@aol.com (ManniCohai)
Date: 16 Jan 2003 03:57:37 EST

Though the alley lay behind him, receding in the distance as he paced away, tears coursed paths down his cheeks from wells he thought long spent. There was blood on his shirt, his brand new shirt, purchased from the kind seamstress he met at the Outback.

He had revealed himself, destroying the evil that had threatened the woman. Thus a spell of healing would do no further damage, but he was too late. Her wounds were such that he could not repair them, he could not stop the evil from spreading.

He had wiped the tip of his blade clean on his shirt after pulling it from her chest, marking himself with her murder, her savior. A third spell blasted what mortal remnants of both creatures remained into fine ash, left to the machinations of the chilly breeze looping through the alleyway.

When the sun rose again before him as he perched atop the inn, as he did every day, he wept once more for the one soul he could not save tonight, and the many he had failed to protect before.
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