Valdar and Astralis

That's called politics, 'vark. And you know what we do with politicians!

Holy 10k, floaty man! And we missed it!

Like being the guy downstream of a burst dam that used to be a tiny creek that is an idea. With a bucket. Scoop the waters of the flood, and chuck them in your field of creativity to nourish the crop. Question is, will you be there to catch the flow, or will you let it pass on by. Or if the water sufficiant to grow the crop. --That is all. . .

All done, thanks for the feedback. The story behind this was; a few years back I used to do a bit of RPing in the grey tower. After a while, I sort of dropped out (this was sort of during my writing slump in 2001). When I came back, we tried to carry on a while, but RL came in the way. The next time I dropped by, she was gone, and AIM held no trace of her old SN's. Both of us were marked as 'gone', and I wasn't really inclined to correct that, since the last WOT book pretty much dropped my interest in that world to zero. *Shrugs* didn't make too many friends there, aside from her. Maybe a couple random RP's, but Cathal's largeley forgotten. Then the poem popped into my head during an idle train of thought, and I decided to share.

I once used to know a girl, Shalmistra was her name, Her hair would blossom twany gold, On a balmy autumn day. In the twilight of mountain's mist, And under tower grey, Our stories mingle, dance and twist, To wield our powers fey. Our tale, a simple sad one, Of happiness and pain, Of power and forbidden love, And old shadows come again. One day I turned my back, And on looking, she was gone, Long and hard I cried her name, But her spirit, gone astray. I see her ghost from time to time, Flitting in the dark, And I'd see her smile at me, For our spirits, never part.

I cannot but hate my life, So I'll just write another, In place of what is, write, Of dreams and moon-whisper. In these dreams and fantasies, I revel every day, Are these dreams bad for me, No one can say. Forget the world, say, To blind one eye, For until reality bites, The mundane fades. It's my place, My dreamaway, Little hidey hole, Escape to my fairy land -Edit: Block sequencing

^ What Peredhil said. If or when you ever feel inclined to return, we'll be here.

er, not quite, but you're priority now!

BUMP! MWAHAHAHA!

Z was right. . .you ARE an evil, evil woman \^_^/

Ack. . .I'm gonna get nightmares tonight \>_</

Once a jolly ranger, ported to the plane of hate, Under the shade of a friendly guild's raid, And he sang as he watched and waited 'til the pulls came in, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?" Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til the pulls came in, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?" In came a miniboss, pulled out from the upper floor, Up stepped the ranger and tanked him with glee, And he sang as he stuck an emerald in his rallic pack, "You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me". Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til the pulls came in, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?". Up came the maestro, bringing down a massive train, Down went the clerics, one, two, three, "Whose is that jolly emerald you've got in your rallic pack?" "You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me". Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til the pulls came in, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?". Up jumped the ranger, weapons twirling snaring three, "You'll never take me alive," said he, And his ghost may be heard as you port up to the plane of hate, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me". Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited 'til the pulls came in, "Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?"

I can feel them watching me And creeping in the dark Lurking ever close to me To seek my secrets stark Many shadows in my heart I allow myself to bear Which one do they truly want, What's hidden away up there? I do not trust your slimy face But they'll just send another At least I know now who you are And I wont trust any other. Look over my shoulder see Always standing there Big brother is watching me Should I have a care?

Norrath Valdar was tempted. The gods knew he was tempted, therefore, he could not act. Well, not directly. Staring into the sky in fustration with his ears sticking out in worry, the reborn planewalker weighed his limited options. Attempting to leave Norrath in his current state was more or less out of the question, weak as he was. Possessing a Terran was equally risky, and even more futile. An emmisary?--he had none strong enough yet. . .or did he? A grin spread across his face. Grasping a forearm, Valdar channeled a thin stream of mana into an almost forgotten and faded symbol. It resisted for a moment, sending a wave of fammiliar pain through him. Increasing the flow to nearly detectable levels remedied the problem as the rune burst to life, burning it's way back to the surface with a black-green flame. Terra In the crypts beneath the Pen's foundations, an ancient tomb rumbled and cracked. Thick clouds of carbon dioxide poured out from the grave and filled the catacombs. . . Norrath Ears flat against the side of his head in concentration, Valdar felt his servant wake, and completed the link. "Protect the Pen" A brief scream of rage escaped the rune, mingling with the chill of undeath before fading into the cool night air. He released the grip on his forearm, basking in the thrill of subsiding pain for a moment while the skin mended around the rune. Waving away a concerned guard, Valdar made his way back to his room. *** On Terra, the scream of rage and pain continued unabated, until the tomb shattered, leaving in it's place the skeletonized remains of a long dead warrior. For a time, at least, Mad Jedi returned to terra.

Please Read this thread first

Spoken by Peredhil I amar prestar aen. The world has changed. Han mathon ne nen. I feel it in the water. Han mathon ne chae. I feel it in the earth. A han nostron ned wilith. I smell it in the air. All that now is, will be lost And none shall live to remember it. It started when the world was young. Seven seals were forged in the sun by the great creator, to bind earth to sea and sky. Through the power of the seals, the lands of terra were born. Eight lands in total were made, mirror images of one another. Four bound to order, four to chaos. When this was done, the seven created the eighth seal, the seal of souls To bind the first of the Archmagi to the lands. And so life came to terra, and with it the gift of reincarnation. In those days, the gods delighted in the world, and walked amoung men entrusting them with their secrets. But their trust was betrayed, for amoung the Archmagii, many strove for power. Thinking they could become gods themselves, a number of the post powerful Archmagii rose up to break the seven, thinking that in the eighth, the power of gods would be theirs. Instead, Terra was destroyed. In the darkness, the seals were re-forged, and the gods swore an oath to never again speak of the eighth. The lands of terra healed in time, and life returned And all knowlege of the eight passed into darkness. Again and again, the Archmagi broke the world Again and again, the gods crushed those seeking the eight Until now. The eighth seal has been broken The world felt the Sun god die Terra will be lost. . .perhaps forever. Already the madness is gathering *** We must flee, or be consumed by this final Armageddon Seven hundred years ago, the entity known only as "The Dreamer" brought us a gift from the void, a partial map of the Astral realm. A suitable world has been chosen, and the construction of a gateway to bring us there is well underway. Our enemies will know of this, and will attempt to wrest this gate from us. The council has been deceived, and think our portal is some sort of superweapon. Already, vast armies are on the march. The pen cannot stand alone. We must unite, or the Pen will be forever lost.

LOL that Elf Only Inn place is neato! \O_o/!

\O_o/ congrats!

I'm planning to take over the world All the cool kids are doing it! Buncha EQ one's www.wtfcomics.com www.gucomics.com

. . .Or you could hire the four horsemen to do a show. Our planet's too dull anyway! Rock it!

Thank you, but the ideas were not my own, since I borrowed heavily from the late Douglas Adams (Did I mention the show was on a thursday?) and the rest from old Terran lore.

Deja Vu on occation, had an ESPECIALLY heavy bout of that just after moving to Melbourne. Now that was scary, wandering around in a supposedly alien city that I somehow knew. . . The matrix has you! On the authenticacy of fortune tellers, I dont know, but the question rises: Would you behave any differently if you were forewarned?

A low mournful chant drifted across the sands for a minute, and a bolt of lightning connected stage with clear sky, leaving four hooded figures in the spotlight. The cheers redoubled as they threw off their cloaks as one, and took their instruments to the tune. It was an all time favorite, a dirge for Aalmanata, whose proud kings refused to surrender to the last even as the thin fingers of famine played out the wailing cries of a hundred million starving citizens. The cries of the hungry were slowly supplanted by the groans of the dying, as pestilence and decay swept the globe. Through it all, the sickeningly triumphant war drums of the Vangyr thundered in the background, until Death's cold voice was heralded the start of planetary bombardment after half a decade of siege. The sky rained fire, and the earth shook, but no quarter did the kings ask. Oceans died, and the air turned toxic. The strings of decay painted a landscape filled with only bloating corpses, while the proud imperial march of the Aalmatan continued unabated. Death spoke again, and the atmosphere boiled away into space, and it the proud kings. And again, while their sons died spurning the Vangyr demands from their underground palace, until but one remained choking in the ashes of his brothers and fathers. "And he raised his head from the grime Cursed his foe one last time . . . Then came only darkness." Wyvern shook his head to clear it of the vision, and looked around in confusion, from the tearfully cheering crowd, to the now thoroughly wrecked Khalez desert. Massive plumes of smoke rose from all around, where nearly a hundred 10 Kiloton planetary bombardment warheads had landed during the course of the song. Beside him, Bob wiped a teary eye and clapped proudly for his children. "I was there, you know--horrible business. The Vangyr have absolutely no idea how to demolish a planet. . ." Before Wyvern could respond, they were washed away by another torrent of sound and god-dreams. 01:30 The almost lizard whimpered. The hate in the last song had nearly unmanned him, even as the slow seductive theme of the next started to overpower his senses. 00.40 Millions of miles away, the display on a small digital clock changed from 00:00:01 to 0:00:00. A dozen systems noticed this by powering up, illuminating the bridge like a Christmas tree. The black spaceship, which had been slowly spiraling towards the gravitational well of the sun, rotated and brought its engines to full power. Building up speed rapidly, the behemoth dived towards the sun . . . A small red light caught Ieiunitas's eye, and he coughed softly. Letum glanced at him, and nodded slightly as they began their final song, only half a second behind schedule. LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN FROM THE STARS! 00:20 Entering the outer corona, powerful heat shield slicing a neat path for the ship through the superheated gasses. She came on down from the sky one night Long ago on that fateful night Men will shiver remembering The pain death and suffering As it crossed the threshold into the inner corona, however, the shield burned away, blasting the hull with nearly 4000 degrees of raw heat. The cloaking towers promptly vaporized, but the hideously expansive main body held together long enough for the huge spaceship to smash headlong into the surface of the sun. LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN FROM THE STARS! Splashing like a stone thrown hard into a pond, a great column of fire, half the diameter of the sun shot into space, while conflicting ripples from the sinking ship clashed with the plasma tides. Within the space of several minutes, over a hundred major solar flares had taken place. The destabilized magnetic field ejected the outer Corona into space. No quarter she gave No questions she asked She had no mercy And her heart was hard Ruler of the Terran Pantheon of gods, Lord Sun, was just finishing his opening address to the younger gods when a fragment of the black spaceship crashed through the wall behind his throne, and embedded itself into the his back. LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN FROM THE STARS! The sun god stiffened, and fell on his face. How many taken the books don't tell Slain and hunted by the hounds of hell Slaughtered like sheep, they turned and ran Into her bosom by her guiding hand! LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN FROM THE STARS! The psionic shockwave from the deity's death reached Terra long before the light did. Thousands of Archmagii on every terra stopped and turned their eyes to the hevans in horror. Wyvern twitched in midsong, even as the mid-day sky fell dark. The hooks and chains she used so well The men she bound to drown in hell Her whip drove 'em to the edge of light Pushed them down to eternal night! LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN LEATHER CLAD, KILLER WOMAN KILLER. WOMAN! 00:00:00 A moment later, a massive black shape partially eclipsed the sun for a moment before crashing into the star. A hundred solar flares burst from the surface, and the corona exploded outwards in the wake of a giant shockwave half a second later. On the stage, any semblance of harmony melted quickly into chaos, as the performers attacked their instruments in a blood frenzy. Morior and Letum hacked savagely at the nearby amplifiers, sending sparks and pyrotechnics flying into nearby amp-blocks, while Ieiunitas overpressured his organ, sending smoking tubes rocketing into the air. Debello, once again in a battle trace, pounded an insane war song on ruined drums. The desert heaved with every beat and hum, throwing tons of sand into the air, while the crowd cheered wildly. Satisfied with the destruction, Letum raised her broken instrument into the air one last time to wave at the crowd, then vanished with her brothers before the entire complex of city sized speakers exploded in an atomic conflagration. "Bravo! Bravo!" Bob was on his feet again, applauding loudly over the groans of the earth. He nudged the partially comatose almost-dragon with one foot. "Wakey wakey! show's over, told you it would be a blast!" He returned to his standing ovation. Wyvern could not but agree, but other things were happening. Without Sun's guiding hand, the core reactions of the stellar body spun out of control as the surviving gods tried to find some equilibrium. Surface fission rates immediately jumped a hundred fold, causing the star to burn whiter and hotter. It would forever remain a mystery who it was who first cried "SUPERNOVA!", a cry which was taken up with a great deal of alarm. That, of course, settled the matter, and a wild stampede for the teleporters ensued, bowling Wyvern over Bob ("Oh dear!" he said). The two went down in a heap, and Wyvern felt something crunch under him. "How rude of them. . .still, that was a nice show, wasn't it, Mister Wyvern?" Bob was saying, absentmindedly dusting himself off as the crowd vanished into the teleporter. Wyvern wasn't listening. He was staring in horror at the eight shattered beads.

10:45 The Sun burned brightly over the Khalez the next morning, as though to scour out the intruders still sleeping in their air-conditioned ships. Unseen to all, the black spaceship engaged a cloaking device, and fired it's maneuvering thrusters a few times, pushing itself away from it's stable orbit, and into a slow spiral sunward. On terra, a spear of unease pierced Rosemary's cold heart, as she became aware of spirals not meant to be, and spirals unseen bringing a time of change to many. Reaching into a bowl of ashes, the vampire tossed a handful into the still air, where they hung in scrying patterns unreadable. 07:45 The press of bodies at the main gates was beginning to reach critical mass. The VIP bunkers had been given priority, of course, and the ticket hoarders that were not outright torn apart by the desperate crowd were amassing trillions of credits worth of profit, before being torn apart. Those that didn't usually escaped with only the skin on their back. With the lack of any halfway-decent law enforcement infrastructure, the crooked queue turned quickly to riot as the final tune-up sequence began. But not for long. The shockwave from the first off-key note of B flat lifted a curtain of sand in it's wake before slamming into the first row of Acoustic bunkers and demolishing the abandoned main gate like a dandelion in a hurricane. The rioters did not have a chance to regain their footing, however, as the mega-subtroic amplifiers kicked in to correct the key a moment later, bursting eardrums as the sonic boom passed overhead. The filled bunkers buzzed in anticipation. 05:45 Wyvern was very close to actually closing a deal with the govneor of the Ittirasi Empire regarding the sale of nearly two million nonexistent Nantuken-O's when the teleporter door swung out, admitting the old man Wyvern had met the day before. Ignoring the uncomfortable titter, he waved happily and sauntered towards Wyvern, whose customer fled. Delighted with the company, he began toying with his beads, all the while chattering away happily. But Wyvern wasn't listening, as he had noticed the beads for the first time, and his jaw dropped in awe. His companion noticed him noticing. "Not much to look at are they?" He said, holding them up. "Well, to a mortal anyway. You know what these are don't you?" Wyvern nodded. "The seven seals of the apocalypse." The old man explained extravagantly. "The little one's are bound to the land, while the big one binds your souls to this world. No one ever figured that bit out fully, I think. Whenever anyone got close . . ." The old man snapped his fingers in front of the lizard's nose and giggled while Wyvern tried to formulate some response. "Wh. . .who are you?" he finally got out. "Me? Oh that's right, I don't think we were ever properly introduced. I'm called Al`Kalla`deltarralta`lamadaa`radon, but most people call me Armageddon. You can call me Bob though, all my friends do that." Conversation more or less died at that point, as the crowd went wild at the stage lighting up, 500 miles away. Bob stood up and cheered loudly.

On the ground, the Khalez desert now reassembled nothing so much as an intergalactic parking lot with no rules whatsoever. Haphazardly parked battleships leered dangerously over sleek corvettes and public shuttles rubbed shoulders with family transports, as fanatic traffic controllers shouted futilely in a dozen languages over the sub-ether network. Half a solar system away, An old man fiddled with his beads. Four were a malevolent. black, with runes etched deep into the side. Three more were broken, and the color of dried blood, while on the last was engraved a swirling blue-green pattern. The elderly man clicked and pushed the beads thoughtfully with a faint smile on his face as he watched Wyvern, who would have found the beads intriguing if not for the nearly naked woman strutting around in the studio outside. Ordinary men would have found her presence dominating, but the crowd loved her all the more for that. The general (male) population of the universe was slightly twisted in that sense. The old man was content to wait and play with his beads while his children did whatever rock-stars did before a show, which seemed to involve a lot of repeating harsh noises. Debello, his red faced eldest son was pounding a berserk tattoo on four massive war drums with his fists. His deathly pale youngest sibling paced up and down trying to tune her guitar with a finger in one ear, while a skeletally thin Morior plucked a complementary dirge on his own. Over it all, Ieiunitas's pipe organ shrieked a banshee wail on it's own, while it's owner tinkered with a brightly lit control panel. They were The Four Horsemen (Letum wanted Horsepeople but got voted out), a name retained from a time when they really did ride horses, and wracked destruction on entire solar systems every other week in their father's name. Over the millennia, their roles changed from 'Destroyers of Worlds' to 'Bringers of Apocalypse', though the difference was mainly lost on the planets they visited. They were truly gods, their titles not some vain self-appointed accessory. They were the noisiest, most destructive and over the top heavy metal band in the universe. Period. Disaster Area was but the pale shadow of a bug besides towering giants, slavishly copying and grubbing in the dirt of their glory. Entire libraries had been written on them, and the debris from their live concerts poisoned entire ecosystems for generations ever since they stopped wrecking the entire planet outright. Satisfied at the sound, Letum coldly ground a thumbnail into her Meguitar, releasing a painful neurotic screech from the unique axe-shaped instrument. The ruckus died at once. "I really wish you wouldn't do that in practice", Morior complained, shaking his handsome head while reaching down for a worm that had fallen out of his sleeve. "Don't even think abou. . ." Debello interjected as Morior popped the worm into his mouth. "Yuck" The other siblings said in unison. Skeletally thin Ieiunitas checked his console one last time, before pressing a large red button. The complicated display vanished at once, replaced by the digits 26:59 and no more. The group left the studio, leaving the clean up crew to do their jobs The old man positively beamed at his children as they filed into the room. "It's going to be a wonderful performance!" he exclaimed happily. "Did I ever tell you how proud I am of you all?" Debello's face blushed an impossible hue of red, while Ieiunitas reached for a donut. "And to come visit me at the end of my holidays too!" Letum smiled coldly, pressing her pale bosom against the table. "You have mister WYVREN to thank for that, dad--he was kind enough to rent us a site." At mention of his name, Wyvern, who had fainted dead away at the final note, sat up with a start. "Yes, of course! very blossomy-er" He tore his eyes away from the cleavage to look at the old man beaming at him. "Yes, yes, thank you mister Wyvern too. Would you like to sit with me while they play? I wouldn't mind some company. No one wants to sit with me, for some reason." The almost-dragon hesitated just then, still slightly disoriented from the blast and trying to refocus on the woman in front of him. "It's a once in a lifetime chance--and your ticket's free." Wyvern only heard the last word, which settled the matter for him. He nodded. Letum reached across the table to pat his arms, sending a shock of icy death into the almost-dragon's soul. He blinked and recoiled in horror, but the hand was gone with only smiling faces and the clicking of beads around him. "We'll see you tomorrow then."