Reflections

Pillar at on the heavy chair, whittling with a tiny pick and block of sandstone. The chair creaked, barely holding his massive frame, as the unsleeping warforged passed the night by creating intricate carvings on the stone. Most warforged liked to be creative in their spare time, as that sometimes had far too much of it. Pillar thought about war, about missions, and about his new squadmates. The two were what others called half-breeds, an elf-human mixture and an orc-human mixture. They were brave and dogged, and very loyal to those that were loyal to them. Pillar knew that they were on some mission, and that he was useful to them for expediency's sake, but he hoped to find acceptance. He needed some meaning to his life, and he had been created to have that meaning through comradeship on the battlefield.

The warforged paused to consider what they had found earlier in the day. The prison in the dungeon with the vandalized dargonmarks on the wall, the tunnel in the floor from which the - thing, Pillar had no better word - had risen up from. The screaming in the most inner parts of his mind that had sent him and the half-orc reeling, but that the half-elf had somehow withstood. Castille had dispatched the thing almost all by himself with powerful magicks, until the pressure was off of Pillar's mind and the warforged was able to pierce what was left of the thing's body with his blade. Its body had - well it had shattered, then the shards had dissapated, almost as if the thing was long dead but hadn't known.

Pillar took a tiny brush and brushed away the grit fromt he carving he was working on. Noting that the had placed the concentric spirals perfectly he allowed himself a sense of satisfaction, and his faceplate fexed in that tiny fashion that only warforged or those who knew them well would realize was a smile.

The House Vadalis people had rewarded them all nicely, and taken care that the shifter cleric would get a nice funeral. Now the three heros were resting at the inn - well, Castille and Kaspar were resting, Pillar did not need to. Tomorrow some of the House Orien earth sleds would be hauling cargo, and teams of merchants with horses would be departing in all directions, but Kaspar and Castille would be riding on a swift new vehicle run by House Orien called an earth skiff. Their destination was a far one, and they had invited Pillar along. The warforged wondered what lay at the end of their road.

Viewer Discretion Was Advised

The Orc squinted at the dark forest pond, for even with a thick canopy of branches overhead sunlight still glanced and flickered off of the pool, daggers of blindness to his sun-sensitive eyes. Squinted yes, but he did not flinch. The Gatekeeper known as Eldest had faced worse difficulties in his long life. Some of those difficulties were on their way to him now for a meeting.

"Come now, come now!" Eldest whispered softly, tightly watching the three figures in his scrying pool. The half-orc figured out how the aberration hunted and dudged it, but the thing's spike poisons drained strength from the half-orc, and astonishingly from the warforged as well. "Spirt encased in stone and metal," the Eldest whispered, fascinated as he always was by warforged. "Alive, and yet built. Will you be the one to solve this riddle, or will the shame of House Vadalis be still covered?"

The hunting bird that was the companion of the Eldest gave a soft cry, telling his master that shame and honor were pointless pursuits, it as hunt and live or fail and starve.

"But this is a hunt," Eldest informed the bird, the orc's sharp eyes never leaving the pool. "A hunt for Destiny." The Eldest continued to watch as the warforged, who was long used to repairing the damage to his own stone and metal, examined some of the dungeons architectural features and discovered thats ections ahd been added. Between the half-elven spell-wielder, the cunning half-orc warrior, and the living construct that fought beside them, they realized that the palce they were in had been attacked and weakend some 50 years previous, and that the aberration had been placed there to safeguard it. Deducing that those who placed the thing there likely had an emergnecy stash of potions for the eventuality of the beast escaping their control, Kaspar found the hidden panel and the trapped chest that contained potions that returned life, strength, and vitality to the three heros. "Well done, half-son of my race's blood," the Eldest whispered, pleased with the cleverness of the young man. The heros then took their next find, a set of odd metal pieces that together formed a sphere, and used it as a key on the great byshek door that imprisoned one of the most dangerous things in this part of the world - a memory of a memory that had taken form and shape due to the carelessness and arrogance of certain Dragonmarked Houses.

The Eldest let the magic in the pool flicker out. No scrying of any kind, by wizard, druid, or otherwise, had ever managed to penetrate the innermost chamber. Either the heros would perish there, or they would come out. And if they came out and they had discovered the shame of Vadalis they may very well be killed by the people that hired them. But the Eldest had faith in them, and in the prophecy. It would soon be time for the meeting. He walked over to the tallest tree in the clearing and sat with his back against it.

A few minutes later a wind blew, counter to the general wind direction of this area at this time. The wind swirled, bringing up dust, then mist, from the ground, and resolved into the figure of a gaunt human who was wearing torn skins decorated with cravings of insects and pincers. This was the Winter's Voice, as he styled himself, a powerful druid of the Children of Winter sect. The Eldest's lips sneered at the unnecessary theatrics on the part of the nihilistic fool. The greatpine Olian's edict allowed all druidic sects to flourish in the Eldeen Reaches, so the Eldest would take no action except in self-defense, but more than a few of the fools who sought to hasten the inevitability of death had died at the hands of the orc who was now called the Eldest many decades ago when the Children of Winter had foolishly tried to gain a foothold in the Shadow Marches. The gaunt human smiled at the old orc, and nodded with tight teeth. There was no love between the Gatekeepers and the Children of Winter.

Within seconds of the Winter's Voice's arrival and non-greeting, a humanoid form grew out of the ground a few yards away, roots and branches clearing away for the mud and shale replica of an elven druid. Moments after arising the earth shifted and refolded, and Wahl, the elven representative of the Wardens of the Wood stood with his shortspear pointing toward the Winter's Voice in a none-too-casual fashion. "Eldest," said Wahl respectfully, his eyes locked on the gaunt human who grinned at him in a distinctly unfriendly manner.

"Wahl, my good friend," Eldest chuckled. "It has been many years since we hunted with one another." At that the Winter's Voice stopped grinning. "Are you well?"

"Well enough," Wahl said, still staring daggers at the Child of Winter druid. "I will be better when certain bugs are squashed."

"So arrogant," sneered Winter's Voice. "The elves are too long-lived by half!"

"Is that a threat?" asked Wahl, taking a step towards the human who was now grinding his yellow teeth and preparing to cast his magic.

"The peace of Olian has been declared on this meeting!" the Eldest said sharply. The old orc could not afford the distractions that would come if he could not defuse the coming explosion. "Wahl, please!" The elf frowned, but took a step back. "And Koerl, now is not the time for grandstanding!" Winter's Voice's head whipped towards the Eldest, his eyes suddenly large. The human had thought his birth name, and thus his record as a serial arsonist in Aundair, to be a long-buried secret. "We wait for another -"

"I am here," the gnome said, rising out of the water. The Eldest frowned at the gnome druid who released the watery form that he had been hiding in. Leaftracer Belimda was the representative of the Ashbound, and had been exiled from Zilargo many, many years ago for trying to sabotage the Khyber dragonshards that held the bound elementals that moved so many gnome inventions. "I am here in this beautiful place that is protected from the evils or technology, arcane magic, and other unnatural -"

"Everything is natural so long as it dies," hissed the Winter's Voice, a.k.a. Koerl the Child of Winter druid.

"We didn't come here to have a philosophy debate," grumbled Wahl. He glanced towards the Eldest. "We came here for a meeting."

"Yes," the Eldest said, eyes still on the smug Ashbound gnome, wondering if Leaftracer had been watching Pillar, Kaspar, and Castille as well. "I asked you to come because this involves the prophecy, and what it means to all of us..."