Herald of the Storm

[Kitsunestume]

~The brightest lights cast the deepest shadows~

It was an awesome feeling. Within his hand was an weapon so ineffably evil that it had driven two of the Loyal Fury to the brink of madness. Even now, he could feel the permeating urge to place the blade to his neck and end it all. The man known to the locals only as ‘Araman’ chuckled silently to himself and turned his gaze to the massive dark scar in the land before him, an echo of the scars on his body and soul. He had slit his own throat before, and in doing so had gained more than he could have ever hoped for, but his life was not free to give. It had belonged to the Mistress since that fateful night, back in the sands of the Anauroch.

A figure, not much older than a boy, dashes across the starlit dunes, stalking a small gazelle. He had been chasing the creature for a few miles, intent to return to the tribe with proof of his ability. Crouching in the sand, the boy eases the shortbow from his back and let fly a shaft into the hill of sand opposite the gazelle, before dropping the bow quietly to draw his dagger. As the startled animal flinches in reaction, he bursts from the dune to plunge the blade through its eye. After preparing his kill, the boy wanders the sands back to the encampment, bowed under the weight of the game. Cresting a particularly large dune, he looks up and almost drops his load upon discovery of a hole in the stars. A quarter of the sky devoid of any light, the young man swears under his breath and jogs as fast as he can back to the tents.
Returning to the circle of camel-hair tents, the boy is greeted with silence. The camp is empty, save the crackle of the untended watchfires. Shaken, he drops his kill, before drawing his dagger and slinking between the structures, following a trail of disturbed sand. Hidden behind a dune not a hundred paces distant from the circle of tents lies the remains of a battle, and within it every male of the tribe capable of wielding a weapon. The boy stands stunned at the sight, shock slowly turns to rage, and he dashes across the battlefield to find a keffiyeh of the invaders. On the third corpse he checks is a scarf patterned with pale crescents. Clutching the coarse cloth, the young man collapses in the sand and turns to the sky, tears of anger streaming down his face.
In the heavens above, the great patch of blackness slowly slides in front of the glowing moon, casting an almost unnatural darkness on the lone figure. A moment after the last of the Tears are covered, the great mass bursts into a brilliant corona of violet fire. The boy watches in awe, crushing the scarf in a fist in his hand. In less than a minute, it is over, the dark miasma floating towards the nights horizon. He slumps his head forward, frowning at the keffiyeh oddly, where each and every one of the pale crescents on the cloth have been turned into a full black circle. The boy peers towards the blackness in the sky, before turning to the camp to connect his few remaining belongings. Minutes later, the camp is left to the spirits, while the figure stalks the floating dark. Few people received such blatant signs from the gods.

Surely the Mistress would appreciate the irony. The dagger was only now in his possession due to the misdirected intentions of a follow of Elah. The moonlover had supported, no, instructed him to ensure that the blighted weapon of the dark was taken to this blessed crater. He almost felt pity for Melissa and Darius, the paladin currently tortured by the demons of his past. Almost, for ‘Araman’ had eschewed such feelings long ago in favor of the clarity given by the Mistress. That same clarity allowing him to hold the blade, virtually immune to its malevolent nagging. He admitted to himself that joining the original expedition had been a hunch, but the rewards were grand. A weapon of this power would make an excellent power source for other enchantments. Sighing, the man remembered his purpose for obtaining the object from the others, and motioned to a pair of wraiths to join him on the trek through the Decent. He only hoped he could glean the method for making such artifacts before the Triad could determine how to destroy it and came looking. Perhaps they could use a new hazardous materials handling warden. The cloaked figure chuckled to himself; he'd need to look into that.

[Kitsunestume]

The man by the name Araman approached the lip of the great crater once more. Gone was the haughty aura of invincibility. Gone was the exhilaration of power and dominion. They were replaced instead with the hollow husk of a man whose eyes revealed an emptiness greater and darker than the landscape before him, similarly haunted by the lingering spirits of its former glory. The figure dragged himself to a small portion of the rim that was thrust forwards into the blighted scar. With a deep and mournful sigh, he dropped his staff into the dust and sank to the ash as though crushed by the weight of the world, coming to lean against the charred and fallen remains of a tree. At long last, the man gave into the sheer accumulated exhaustion that plagued his mind as his pale grey orbs fluttered closed.

Instantly, the visions burst into vibrancy, each vying for their brief moment of attention before whirling off to let another take its place, a never-ending dance, an endless assault on the consciousness. A view of Thultanthar from the desert floor. The arching subterranean buttresses of the Temple of Old Night. The first glimpse of the shattered remnants of the Abaddon. The sight of the backside of a youthful blond-haired Legionnaire through iron bars. Twice. He watched these scenes, well acquainted with each, mildly surprised by his own detachment. All were familiar, each in their place, until those that were formed most recently. He strides behind a trio, two heavily armored, one in robes pale as moonlight, all oddly faceless. They dash through a muggy swamp towards. . . Where? The memory fades into mist, only to be replaced by the next, almost a full breath later. He now followed two, one of the armored men had left. They were walking through a city, the remaining soldier obviously straining against . . . What? As the barest spirit of a question can develop, a new figment bursts through the last. He stands on this very spot beside the crater, surrounded by the palpable aura and pleasure of his Lady's will. He had power, he had plans, all that was left was to complete them before. . . When? The roar of the mental surf prevents any further thought before crashing. He sits on the edge of a rune tracing the perimeter of a cylindrical room surrounded by magical workstations. A trio of what were obviously mages conferred in the center of the room, the two faceless elves he understood to be companions, while on his lap sat a steel box, scribed with worn runes and topped with a folded letter. . . Why? The image dissipates into grey miasma. A few heartbeats pass, before the uniform mist is pierced by a bright light. A brilliant shaft blazing with holy fire, frozen in time and space, held at his face by an armored man. Those eyes burned with the calm fire of devotion. He had seen them and their faceless wielder before, he could just not recall. . . Who? The radiance fades, plunging the next vision into utter darkness. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, but instead becomes aware of a presence in the darkness. With a sudden realisation, he feels a strange depth of emotion within this vision: passion and devotion towards the presence and anger and wrath towards whatever was outside the darkness. There is an outside. He turns his minds eye towards the external world, startled to view stone walls. Alarmed, he swirls around to view from whence he came. Lieing on a pedistal is a small blade, adamantine with onyx veins. That had to be it, the key to these visions, to order. It could solve everything, no, it would solve everything, but. . . How? Who? Why? When? What? Where?

The man awoke with a start. Sweat beaded on the little exposed skin not covered by his desert garb, despite the cool of the night air. He glanced up. It was indeed night, and Elah was nowhere to be seen. It must be an omen from the Mistress. Moving with a haste and vigor in distinct counterpoint to his starting demeanor, the figure drew forth a folded parchment from his vestments, and using a twig broken from the remains of his pillow began to scribe his visions.