A Morning of Toil

[DoS Archive]

From: dukeuziei@aol.com (Duke UzieI)
Date: 15 May 1998 17:47:40 EDT



Adonai lay dreaming the dreams of a god.
In his minds eye, a star fell out of the sky, rocketing across the RhyDin sky in a wild blue streak, spitting and hissing its defiance as it cursed the universe in its fall.
Its arc of descent lowered...slamming through a vale of trees and slamming into a mountainside, causing a small explosion of rock and dirt and fire as it collided with the grand peak.
Then....his view pulled back, leaving a vision of what could have only been Mount Bane.
He woke suddenly, clear eyed and more awake than usual at first waking, the dark was still upon the land as he looked out the window with an undeniable feeling of omen.
He rose quickly and dressed, pulling on a loose fitting black tunic and a pair of black leather pants, stepping into his boots, he opened a rift in front of him and quickly stepped in....
....To suddenly stride into the foothills of Mount Bane. Walking past the evergreens, he came upon the crater he had seen in his dream, the area around it still scarred and burned from the passing of the fallen object. The whole area showing signs the invasion of this object was fairly recent.
Adonai looked around and then eased himself down the side of the crater, heading for the center of the depression. There was a keening sussuration in the air, something he could only truely hear in the center of his will. A quiet, jubliant song that tickled across his awareness and gently touched his mind.
He tried to shake the feeling off..but was drawn forward to the center of the crater, he dropped to his knees and forcefully plunged his hands into the dirt, digging downwards in massive pulls ands strokes of his arms, piling the dirt to each side as he gouged a hole in the center of the crater.
Minutes later, he held in his hands a large mass of warped and twisted ore, melted and slagged from its trip through the ionosphere of RhyDin, the sussurating song in his mind was louder now..the tenative touch on his mind now a gentle wave of exultant feeling. He hauled the mass of ore up out of the crater and opened a rift and stepped in...
...and then appeared in the smithy of the Estate, dropping the mass of ore on the work table, clear instructions of what he was to do ringing through his mind. He turned to the forge and drew in his will, quickly releasing it at the logs and rocks of the firepit.
"Hot..." He said, the logs roaring instantly into white hot flame and the rocks beginning to turn an ocre red within minutes. And then he took the mass of ore and threw it upon the firepit, and then sat back to wait.
His eyes widened as the ore went white hot immediately, something about the arcane metal helping the process, Adonai came to his feet quickly and pulled on a leather apron, and then grabbed the hammer and thongs and seized the metal from the fire and began beating it into shape on the anvil in front of him.
The heat of the forge and the metal in front of him was immense, sweat beginning to roll down his forehead as he slammed and beat and bent the metal into shape. Slowly before his eyes, the white hot metal formed, and the shape of a wide bladed flachion was becoming evident.
After finishing the first blade in a one piece fashion, hilt and all, he tong tossed it into the cooling trough...a steaming hiss exploded from the trough as the water went near to boiling the minute the metal hit the water, nodding to himself...Adonai turned back to the anvil and grabbed the remainder of the metal, slightly amused at the metal itself as it seemed to stay red hot much longer than any ore he had ever forged.
After several more minutes, a smaller blade started to become evident, machete like in shape, almost a smaller version of the flachion he had formed the hour before....after a few hours of forming and filing and pitting, another one piece blade, smaller in stature than the first was finished and joined and joined its brother blade in the cooling trough.
Adonai wiped his forehead and went to the other side of the smithy, taking down a large piece of black dyed horsehide from a stock shelf. Grabbing the cutter....he quickly fashioned a few long strips and then cut several sheath pieces out of it, quickly riveting them together as he waited for the metal to finish cooling and soon he had sheathes for the new blades.
After wrapping both hilt handles in horsehide, he took a steel buffing wool, and began polishing the blades down, bringing them both to a brilliant smooth shine, and then worked the guards over....polishing them as well. Then when he reached the steel orbs he had formed as the pommels...he stopped, again....suddenly knowing what he had to do...he dropped the buffing wool and closed his hands around the orbs.
A sudden sound, like a resounding bell peeled through his mind, and a small flash of light flashed from his left hand as it held the pommel of the second, smaller blade, a light of brilliance with the warmth of a thousand suns emanated from it when he opened his hand....a swirling mass of white fire was there, seemingly contained in the pommel of the small blade, its warmth gentle and its light soft as he looked upon it in awe and
reverance. He opened his other hand....and the pommel of the large blade was dark as night....a swirling mass of stars within it as if all the starry universe was contained therein. Adonai looked upon both blades with a quiet happiness, taking both in hand and testing their feel and weight.
A spin of one, a turn of the other, both seemed to counter balance each other on opposite ends of his body, the ease of movement and the grace of the heavy ended blades flowed in his hands, he smiled slowly to himself, looking around the dim smithy, knowing these blades were well wrought.
"Deus...." He said looking at the larger blade, speaking a name that had just suddenly been there when he looked upon it.
"And Despite..." His eyes falling on the smaller blade in left hand...the names feeling right in his mind as he spun about the smithy...sweeping the blades through the air as they sung an eerie song in the midmorning air.
Adonai stopped for a moment...and turned to the work table and grabbed the finished sheathes and sheathed both blades, then attached the sheathes to his belt, one on each side, so they could be cross drawn by their respective hands, and then turned to step out of the smithy.
His eyes fell upon his armor...and for a moment...he considered grabbing it...but then looked down at his apparel and the new blades, the loose fitting black linen shirt, the swords belted at his waist and the black leather pants over his boots and shook his head...the time of armor had passed. And he left the smithy, and the armor...to gather dust for a time, in search of a test of the new blades.

[DoS Archive]

From: mydknyghtx@aol.com (MydknyghtX)
Date: 20 May 1998 19:33:41 EDT

He had been within the Study, reviewing the map of Rhy-Din he had spread before him, selecting.....Choosing....working his plans......when the meteorite collided with the outer reaches of his territory.....

Though he was not greatly distracted by this, he was completely torn from his work when he felt the intrusion of an unknown entitiy into his lands.....

Closing his eyes, he Looked through his mind to the point of the disturbance, noting the strange figure digging in the crater......a muttered word escaped his lips....

"Insolent.....or foolish. None come here without invite and live....."

He toyed with the idea of confronting this being for a moment, but as he watched the stranger pick up what must have been left of the meteorite and depart the narrow line that had appeared in his forehead smoothed......

A second comment escaped his lips, but was lost in the rustle of his robes as he returned to his work......