Tamaranis

It never occured to Tamaranis that whatever spell Peredhil was casting could be dangerous to the general population of the Ball Room. It would be rude, to cast something that threatened them, afterall. But as the magic Peredhil was casting merged with Guido's spell, he felt something decidedly unpleasant press into his mind. He didn't show an outward sign of strain, but simply closed his eyes and focused inward, on repelling whatever it was. Tamaranis brought the void to the surface of his mind. And intruding mind pushed forward, either an overconfident or very poor psychic, it was easily tripped into the gaping nothingness and became no more. The attack did not stop, however, other minds pressed the attack. Several more were unmade before Tamaranis encountered something more sinister. Tamaranis became aware of two things. The first was that whatever this new attack was, it possessed a level of hateful power that rivaled his own. It fed on death, with one with death, and so could not be destroyed by the void as the others were. The second thing was that this power was not only trying to get in, but something else was trying to pull his own mind out. Tamaranis focused, anchored himself. He managed to mumble a few phantasm spells, but he was a nether mage by specialty, and this presence darted around them, unceasing. For several moments he struggled against it. He opened his eyes, searching for some physical point to attack, but could find nothing. Slowly he began to lose mental ground, and his thoughts were filled with static. Then everything was clear, but he wasn't standing where he had been. He was much nearer the door. He felt something heavy dragging on one arm, and looked down to see that he was wearing a suit made of a darker material than he'd been wearing, and there was a briefcase in his hand. Tamaranis took a breath without thinking about it, which surprised him. There was a *very* strange look to the ballroom, and he noticed that his vision was being impeded by darkness and facilitated by light. That was surprising as well. Extremely surprising was when he looked over to the bar, where he and Salinye had been talking, and saw himself staring back. And Tamaranis realized with a start that he become one of the life insurance salesmen summoned by the haunting music of the flute. The life insurance salesman in his body seemed to be adjusting, rapidly to being a different sort of vampire. Shadows formed closely around him, and rotated a bit with a wave of his hand. Wasting no time, the saleman in Tamaranis' body turned to Salinye and suggested that with so many venemous snakes around, this was a good time to think about buying. Who would pay for her funeral expenses if something happened? Salinye stuck out her tongue, then made a hissing noise in response.

Under those conditions, I can't really say what my mental state would be.

In Robby’s past dealings with mercenaries he’d gotten a very different impression of them than he was getting now. In the first battle he’d ever participated in he’d been one of a very few non-mercenaries. They’d seemed a little friendlier then, a little more cohesive. The difference probably came of hiring a collection of individuals rather than a company. A mercenary company has to work well together, or they can’t accomplish what they’re hired to do, and no one hires mercenaries they expect to fail. Individuals skilled enough to be hired out on an individual basis, on the other hand, seemed to develop habits of trusting to themselves and no one else. There was no inclination among the assorted mercenaries hired by Urgarte to work together, or even to travel to Tel Reth together. So he travelled on his own. Not that this particularly bothered Robby. He’d get there in a few days instead of ten, this way. Rather than trudging wearily down the muddy road, or even travelling on horseback, Robby was running at a full sprint, only slowed a little by the poor condition of the road. A human in relatively good physical condition, pushing himself, would roughly equal Robby’s speed for a minute at most. Then exhaustion would slow him down. Not so for Robby. He’d been running since he’d set out last night, and he intended to keep on running until he reached his destination. It wasn’t a sense of urgency that motivated his pace, just the ease of maintaining it. Of course he wouldn’t have anything to do in Tel Reth when he got there but wait around for the others to show.

This was probably some sort of damn trick or something. A mysterious invitation to a party of a mysterious nature on hallow's eve. It was probably some damn hooligans playing some elaborate joke. Jim hadn't been planning to go at all, but had decided at the last moment that since he wasn't doing anything else he might as well go. On the way over his distrustfull nature had taken control, however. He clenched his fists. Whoever was responsible for this odd joke wasn't going to get much amusment out of it. He had his doubts when he came into view of the site of the supposed party. It seemed a well enough kept place, not the sort of run-down shack where unsuspecting victims are suspended from the ceiling and used as pinnatas. Still, when Jim walked in the door he was prepared to give whoever leapt out at him a good knock on the head. No one leapt out, and the place was as impressive inside as out. Just as confused to the nature of this party now as he had been in the beginning, Jim wandered the building until he encountered the "Party Room."

"I don't suppose you dance?" "Not in living memory" Tamaranis answered. "That's not an answer!" Salinye accused. "I suppose it isn't." Tamaranis said, "I'll try and dig up some very old memories for the occasion, and I'll let you know how it turns out." Just then a small bluish creature, perhaps an inch tall attached itself to Tamaranis' sleeve, seized a thread, and began working furiously to pull it out. Without seeming to acknowledge it he lowered his other hand to the creature, curled one finger against his thumb, and flicked it away. Unharmed, it careened through the air, forgetting all about Tamaranis, and selected Daryl as it's new target. "Celes should keep a tighter reign on those, I think" He commented. Salinye looked a little startled by his rough treatment of the Sylph. "Takes a little more than that to hurt them" Tamaranis added. There was a very brief stretch of silence, in which the fact that Tamarnis was not a very good conversationalist, even with familiar people, was readily apparent. "So where did this sudden change come from, anyway?" Salinye asked. "I thought it would be an appropriate retaliation. And I might as well practice social situations incase it ever becomes important." "I almost thought you'd decided to have a good time" Salinye allowed a little sarcasm in her voice. "Not quite." Just then the sound a single flute penetrated the air. It didn't nearly match the regular entertainment in volume, but it seemed to drown it out anyway. "I think perhaps we should not dance to this." Tamaranis stated.

I already said so in IRC, but I'll just note here that I'm in.

I've got it. I'd improve the weather around here at the expense of some other populated area, which would suffer permanent winter.

I honestly couldn't say.

Like the many of the other members of The Pen, Tamaranis found himself in a situation more pressing than he had expected. Whatever had scared off his first attacker, he still hadn’t gotten a good look at it, had buried claws, or teeth, or something in his back. His armour was far from sufficient to protect him. He was being swung about from side to side with such violent force that hanging onto his sword was a challenge in itself. Immediately he discovered that trying to hold himself in position only gave his attacker a force to work against in trying to rip pieces out of him. Dislodging it was proving difficult. It was physically stronger than him, and despite the stupid brutality to its fighting style he hadn’t been able to unbalance and throw it. Nor had he been able to tear himself free. In fact his efforts to escape had earned him punctured lungs which added to the problems inherent in properly casting spells while being shaken around like a rag doll. Trying to draw the things life force out had been similarly unsuccessful. Either it was warded or it had a natural resistance, and Tamaranis didn’t favour the idea of letting it tear at him and just hoping its resistance would collapse before he was in several pieces. That left the darkness. Tamaranis usually used it to fend off unfriendly spells, but he was quickly running out of options. Nearly invisible against the natural darkness of the night, the protective shadows around him closed in until they had no effect on the light around him. Then blackness began oozing from the wounds on his back. At first the creature mauling him only noticed that this strange prey that stubbornly refused to die was suddenly much more slippery than the suspiciously small volume of blood escaping its wounds would account for. As it seemed to get harder to hold onto, it got colder. And then the somewhat physical shadows poured from the wounds in a volume that blood could never match. They caught against claws and teeth as they moved, pushing them out. As soon as Tamarnis felt himself free he lunged forwards and away, spinning to get his weapon between himself and his opponent. As he moved he choked out a force bolt spell, making up for poor articulation with a little extra power behind it. Normally a silent but overwhelming shove, the inefficiency to this casting gave it a deafening bang and brilliant display of multicoloured light as well. Tamaranis had never seen anything quite like what he now saw that he was facing. If it were to stand erect, for it seemed vaguely humanoid, it would have cleared twelve feet in height, but instead it walked on all four limbs, each of which ended in odd claws of varying lengths. It’s head was oddly shaped, beastlike, but human attributes were distantly apparent. It seemed as if either whatever twisted force had created this monster had simply gotten lazy towards the end and only given it half the skin it needed, or else it’s abundant muscle simply refused to be contained. The exposed muscle and tendon twisted and writhed visibly, occasionally attempting to swallow up a patch of skin, or threading up through it. The patches of skin were mobile as well, however, flowing about it’s body, merging, dividing, and generally evading capture. As Tamaranis watched, the monster’s jaw dropped an impossible distance from it’s head, revealing an outward facing array of mismatched teeth that waved almost gently back and forth, nearly as undefined as the rest of it’s body. It emitted both a low roar and an ear-piercing shriek in the same breath. Tamaranis was very sure that if he had the opportunity to study the creature at leisure he could learn something useful. Whatever magic flowed through it’s veins, he didn’t recognize it. Unfortunate that the monster was so disagreeable. It waited there, confused by it’s prey’s lack of screaming and death. Its eyes changed shape, literally narrowing into slits as it considered how best to go about killing it. Tamaranis was glad to wait a few moments, the damage it had inflicted on him was being stubborn about regeneraton. They stared at each other. Silence, then the creature gave another of it’s shrieking roars. More silence. Tamaranis considered taking to the air, but reasoned that would probably provoke an attack, and it looked a very fast monster. Now Tamaranis took his turn to break the silence. He decided it was worth the risk to try a fairly complicated spell in his current condition, something that would end this immediately. Unfortunately his opponent recognized magic and surged forward, moving much faster than the enchantment could be completed. The combination of the creature’s mass and momentum with Tamaranis’ considerable strength pushed his sword through it’s flesh nicely. The thrust was parallel to the creature’s body, entering just below the neck. The entirety of the blade disappeared into it, and the hilt collided so powerfully with it’s body as Tamaranis completed the attack that another shallow cut was produced. The sword refused to come free however. The monster raised itself on it’s hind legs, howling as much in anger as in pain, and Tamaranis released his grip, not wanting to repeat the process of being batted around by it. Instead he cast a much shorter, simpler spell, one that sent a bolt of lightning into the center of the creature’s body without producing any light or heat. Its body jerked in response, then it lunged, leading with it’s bizarre mouth. Tamaranis twisted out of the way, throwing a punch not at any part of the creature, but instead at the hilt of the sword embedded in it’s body. He connected, and was rewarded with a tearing sound and a claw that caught him in the chest and sent him tumbling. Even before he righted himself, for the creature would be upon him by then, Tamaranis began casting another spell. Flames appeared in one hand, and rather than dancing upward like mundane fire, they reached out towards his opponent. He released the spell and it found its own way to its target. The thing stopped mid charge, took the time to direct another of it’s strange cries at Tamaranis, and began tearing at its flaming flesh. Tamaranis had seen numerous beings tear at themselves when exposed to this flame, and it tended to end in their demise, but he wasn’t taking chances on this one. He took the time this had bought him to cast a modified version of the eagle-eye spell. Rather than increase his ability to resolve objects at a distance, it amplified his sensitivity to the magical spectrum, revealing to him the complicated flow of magic through the creature’s body that prevented him from siphoning off it’s vital force. The creature pulled chunks of flesh across it’s body, smothering flame in them as it merged and displaced the tissue that was already there, filling the holes that resulted. The writhing of the muscle over its whole body increased in intensity, and slowly it accomplished the near impossible, and extinguished the flames. Tamaranis switched tactics. Using his limited ability at metamorphosis, he turned his hands to claws and produced his fangs. He launched an attack against the monster that seemed to equal it’s previous efforts at mindless brutality, but didn’t. The attack was fast and unrelenting, but it was not savage, it was calculated and precise. And for just a few seconds it worked with the advantage of surprise and put the creature on the defensive. As Tamaranis had suspected, the monster had been actively holding on to his sword, and distracted as it was, he was able to pull it free. Kicking off the creature, he again called on the natural abilities possessed by vampires and ascended out of its reach, managing enough speed to avoid snapping jaws that probably would have cost him everything below one knee. For a moment, Tamaranis thought that in managing to take to the air, he’d put himself out of his opponent’s reach. But the creature underwent a startling transformation. It remained standing on it’s hind legs, and the dimensions of it’s torso began to change. Muscle flowed down it’s arms, more than doubling their size, then they split into two different sets of limbs. The smaller arms rotated forward a little, more or less to where the original arms had been. The larger set moved backward and down a considerably greater distance, flattening out as they did so. Within seconds the larger set of arms had become an obscene pair of wings. The creature launched itself after it’s opponent. Tamaranis retreated upward, chanting yet more magic. The creature was actually gaining on him, and he didn’t have time to cast the killing magic he’d initially hoped to use from the air. The spell he used instead might have killed anything else, but by this point he was sure it wouldn’t do much more than stun when cast against this. Even the second choice magic took too long, and Tamaranis had to alter his casting pattern at the last instant, adding precious seconds. The spell become completely verbal, and he parried several sweeps of the creature’s claws before it deliberately swung an arm so as to impale it on the sword. It underestimated the vampire’s strength, and he was able to pry the weapon free, which nearly severed the limb. It was far beyond reacting to injury however, and thrust its grotesque jaw forward. The spell’s final syllable was completed. Tamaranis thrust his free hand into the centre of the monster’s body, activating it at point blank. A shimmering beam of force thrust the creature away, but this was not a simple force bolt. Forces that would have reduced a man to a bare skeleton in seconds tore pieces small pieces of flesh from the creature, spitting them away at terrific speed. Tamaranis kept his hand extended, investing mana to maintain the spell. The creature sped across the sky like a bloody comet. But while considerable, Tamaranis’ mana reserves were not infinite, and he had not slept that day to regenerate them. He was beginning to feel the effects of the heavy magic use. The mana flow trembled and the spell lost potency. Tamaranis abandoned the spell for fear of using so much mana that he wouldn’t be able to cast something guaranteeing the creature’s death. It disappeared into the forest canopy. The creature was proving not to be as stupidly savage as it had initially seemed. He’d be able to snuff out it’s vital force from here if he only had a line of sight. It occurred to Tamaranis that he was probably never going to get a clear line of sight and a long approach out of this thing. Formulating a new plan of attack, he catiously descended to meet his foe.

Tamaranis definitely did not look himself. His regular attire, consisting of a dark cloak over light mail armour rounded out by the general lack of light that followed him around had been abandoned. Instead he was now dressed in finery more typical of a wealthy and powerful person, such as an archmage, who prefers not to get his hands dirty and keep well away from anything resembling conflict. His usual colour scheme of black and more black had been utterly reversed. He was all white and silver and a little bit of gold now. In fact, magically malleable metal had been woven into his coat along with thread. No where on his person was any sort of weapon. He was exerting considerable concentration towards preventing the formation of the darkness that usually followed him about, lest it dull his appearance. Rather than sucking up the light, he was almost shining. He was breathing continously instead of only when speaking, something he didn’t typically do, and had his blood flowing a bit, which served to add some colour to his normally deathly pale skin. Not being sure what to do about his hair, he’d had it cut short enough that it was simply “there” and wouldn’t be able to assume any unwanted configurations. It had been somewhat problematic, to obtain appropriate garments on such sort notice, but Tamaranis hadn’t dropped the usual menance until several just now, that seemed to have helped. “Sorry about earlier.” He said as he walked between the mostly recovered but now much better behaved doormen. He wasn’t sure if they recognized him or not. Tamaranis worked his way across the ballroom, moving with definite purpose, but without particular hurry. Occasionally he stopped for to deal with a variety of important matters. He nearly caused another awkward situation by nearly stepping on the intrepid Mr.Bunny, who responded with a “...” that might have been either a friendly greeting or a curse. He gave a nod to Yui Temae, who he was able to notice skulking in the shadows half there and half not. Dodging a few of the more energetic dancers also occupied a few moments, and he stopped to consider how a book titled “Murder at the Fall Ball” had made its way into his possession. The final distraction of note involved stopping to greet Lady Celes and pet the ever-present cat, though the cat didn’t seem to appreciate it. Finally he reached his objective. “Told you I wouldn’t be forgetting about this, Salinye.”

Tamaranis sheathed his sword, which suddenly seemed a ridiculous affair, as discretely as possible While speaking briefly to Ayshela. To his surprise she didn’t seem particularly upset about his scuffle with the Ball’s guards, in fact, she seemed almost happy about it. Still, she probably wouldn’t be amused if they died. After exchanging greetings with the hostess he stepped outside and quickly made sure he hadn’t accidentally killed either of them. From there Tamaranis tried to discern his best course of action. He hadn’t made the best entrance, and he wasn’t sure which would be the worst way to follow it up, by hanging around or immediately leaving. Before he got through thinking out his options, he noticed a pair of voices coming steadily closer. “Hey, you know who I haven’t talked to in ages is Merelas!” “Merelas is busy at the moment Sal, you can talk to him later.” “Isn’t that Doom Gaze? He’s got really strange wings, lets go...” “He’s busy too, Salinye.” “Celes looks lonely, I should go...” “Now, Salinye” First Gyrfalcon, then Salinye, came free of the crowd and approached Tamaranis. In fact, it seemed that Gyrfalcon was almost dragging the wizardess. Upon sighting Tamaranis, however, she pulled her arm free of his grip and tried to act as if no such thing was going on. “Umm... Hey Tamaranis...” She began, looking at the floor. “Daryl’s pretty good a forging letters and he thought it would be funny if...” Gyrfalcon cleared his throat noisily. “Okay! I’m sorry I wrote you that note I thought you already knew about the ball and it was just my way of letting you know I thought you should come I was only joking!” Salinye gushed, trying to get the ordeal over with as quickly as possible. Tamaranis just glared at Salinye “This won’t be forgotten.” Then darkness enveloped Salinye. Complete blackness. Even her elven infravision failed. For a moment she had the panicked notion that the rest of the universe had been “turned out” and that the reason she could see anything was that nothing existed to see. The sudden cold was only partly the reason for her shiver. She began casting a light spell, investing a considerable amount of energy into it in order to re-assure herself that wasn’t the case. The blackness relented of its own accord at the same time Salinye finished casting the spell. Light exploded infront of her, burning her eyes which had rapidly adjusted to trying to see in the total darkness. Numerous party-goers looked to see what the commotion was, then looked away, shielding their eyes from the harsh glare. Salinye hastily dispelled the magic. Tamaranis was gone. She realized the blackness she’d been enveloped in had been nothing more than the result of being near him when he used his particular method of magical transportation. What did he mean, “This won’t be forgotten”?

Or They're just really bad at it But yes, you should write a story with them in it. We need some more Sci-Fi around here.

ditto

And Tamaranis scores a 9.6 on the oops scale!

Tamaranis broke the seal and read the letter he’d just received, immediately recognizing Salinye’s handwriting. Tamaranis. There is something you must know. I’ve discovered a conspiracy going to the deepest roots of The Pen. You’re one of the only ones I can trust isn’t involved. The flow of words became jagged, as if Salinye had not been able to hold her hand steady when penning it I can’t do anything to stop this alone. I can’t suppress my fear of this thing. You’re presence is needed... A horrible fate awaits us all if we should fail. Meet me in the old ballroom when you receive this. Best of luck. Salinye. Salinye had been through enough not to exaggerate the extent of a threat. If she said something threatened all of The Pen and that he should act immediately, then it was probably true. Moving by darkness, Tamaranis reached The Pen’s keep in minutes. He didn’t shadow directly into the ballroom, if Salinye had been discovered there could be an ambush waiting there. He stalked through the halls quickly, ready to either draw a sword or unleash magic as the situation demanded, magical senses extended, searching for any sign of hostility. Even for evening, the halls of the mighty keep were strangely absent of activity. As Tamaranis neared the ballroom he was dismayed to find the doors shut him out completely. Neither sound nor any supernatural sense revealed to him what was inside. All he was able to detect were a pair of seemingly human guards at the door. Something must have gone wrong. They shouldn’t be there. Already quite shaken by their encounter with Elladan, the doormen were none to enthused to see a figure that the light refused to watch rapidly approaching. Ayshella's warning was clear in their minds, but this guy definately didn't have the look of some one who just coming to a ball. They wanted to make it up to themselves, prove they could guard a door properly. Nervously they held out their blades and began to demand to be shown an invitation. Tamaranis showed no sign of stopping to converse with them however. He seemed intent on walking right through them as if they weren’t there. One of them pointed his blade so that the vampire would impale himself on it if he continued on his course. Tamaranis’ own sword swept out, propelled by inhuman strength. The drow steel bit into the guards blade, and the power behind it carried his weapon from his hand. Suddenly the guard found that his sword was sliding down the hall away from him. At the same time Tamaranis’ free hand grabbed the other guard around the top edge of his ceremonial breastplate. He tightened his grip, leaving an impression in the soft metal, and he tossed the man in the direction opposite the way the sword went with the same seeming lack of effort. After coming painfully to a stop the guard decided to stay where he was. The only man standing in his way being safely disarmed, Tamaranis did indeed walk straight into him, allowing just enough energy flow to knock him to the floor. His body attempted to deal with the unnatural injury the way it would exhaustion, and he found himself gasping for breath, but not recovering his strength as a result. It occurred to Tamaranis that he’d overcome his only opposition in only a few seconds, and that was far to easy for something that was threatening the whole of The Pen as he stepped over his incapacitated opponent. Opening the ball-room doors, he discovered the answer to why that was. He’d just stomped the token guards for the first ball to be held here in perhaps ever. He felt something akin to embarrassment for the first time in nearly as long.

It was difficult to classify exactly what Shesh-Oling, so named by its inhabitants, was. The dominant view among mortal scholars was that it was another plane of existence, but was much farther away from the prime material than most known, and that was why the whole of the plane seemed to contain no physical matter, or even space. Others considered it to be state of mind rather than an actual location. Other theories were abound, such as Shesh-Oling being one of the elemental component planes of hell, or the mind and will of some immensely powerful dark god. Whatever the case might be, its inhabitants weren’t sharing the answer. And the inhabitants were just as mysterious. Somehow they existed with a complete lack of anything. They were powerful minds that existed without any sort of physical or even magical body to support them. They varied in intensity. Some were god-like, and would crush the unshielded mind of a mortal if they were to so much as turn their attention on it. Others were of only animal intelligence. The lot of them carried an unceasing hatred that seemed to encompass everything. To fully expose oneself to Shesh-Oling would bring about madness if the experience didn’t prove fatal. Millions of mental voices howled chaos at Tamaranis’ presence, but he remained much closer to the material world than to Shesh-Oling, and they could not reach him. If he were to expose himself any more even the powers of an archmage combined with the presence of the void would not have been able to save him. There was no movement here. There was nothing to move through. For an entity used to the concept of a physical location this made searching the place nearly impossible. The particular mind Tamaranis sought, however, was not similarly limited, and found him easily. The trick here was not to try to move into communication range with the mind he sought. Any mage who attempted that would be drawn into Shesh-Oling and snuffed out by the madness that filled it. Instead Tamaranis’ body began a summoning ritual, his voice fractured into several, and each one of those again fractured. Each began casting component spells that progressively bent reality, creating within this plane a point similar to Shesh-Oling. Some of the runes that had been painstakingly painted on the floor in his absence now twisted and shifted in response to a rapid series of intricate gestures he made. As the mind he had been seeking was brought nearer the prime material plane, or just made more relevant to it, depending on your school of thought, Several of Tamaranis’ now multitude voices switched to casting spells that would sever all connections between here and Shesh-Oling. In the same instant that the target mind was brought close enough to communicate with, but not fully summoned, the severing spells were completed, and vital components of reality were restored, preventing more of its kind from following. Instantly the creature threw all its mental might against its summoner, trying to manifest fully. The majority of the runes, those that had not yet moved, now began weaving about Tamaranis in response to the attack, preventing the brunt of it from ever reaching him. The thought-stream fractured and flowed away in all directions. The soldiers and servants resident to the tower experienced a brief moment of confusion which quickly faded. A portion of the attack slipped through. Tamaranis brought the void to the surface of his mind and most of what actually reached him was swallowed up and ceased to be. The fraction of a fraction that got past both the runes and the void burned through the vampire’s mind. His own thoughts were blurred together and for a moment it was a struggle both to keep focussed on what he was doing and why, and to keep the various spells at work in place. Can’t blame me for trying In order to be heard through all the wards, the presence Tamaranis had summoned directed those thoughts at him with nearly the same intensity as the attack it had just launched. There was no chance Tamaranis would put his guard down just because its initial escape attempt failed. “Cute.” Tamaranis commented. “I need to track some one down. Some one who thinks too quick to be caught by a dragoon.” Speaking aloud greatly simplified the delicate process of sending thoughts back without overly exposing himself. You’ve always got such interesting problems It mentally hollered back, I can find it. One thousand “I thought you would have noticed the end of the mage war” Tamaranis responded, “I can’t just make a thousand people disappear without anyone noticing anymore. But I‘m sure by the time this is over I‘ll have had the opportunity to banish a few mortals to Shesh-Oling.” I am not in the business of helping prime undead with petty problems for token-pay! This time its thoughts were fully as “loud” as its attack had been. “You’re presence here can be terminated at my leisure.” Tamaranis pointed out, “Now what I’m offering you could be as high as a few dozen...” Another mental assault was his answer, this one continued on, unlike the first. Tamaranis’ multiple voices collapsed on themselves, becoming one as his mind became disordered. The presence continued to press the attack. Unable to bend his mind into a banishment spell powerful enough to deal with this particular creature, Tamaranis turned manna into thought and responded in kind. The presence retreated slightly, and the runes painted on the floor switched fully into offensive mode, spinning in a pattern that seemed chaotic but was instead just immensely complex, picking away pieces of the alien mind. The presence turned it‘s attention from Tamaranis to the runes, and they became genuinely chaotic, then ground to a halt. It was an uncharacteristically heavy-handed and clumsy spell that Tamaranis managed to cry out that flung the mind back to it’s home dimension. He expended nearly thrice the manna it would have taken him to use the same magic under normal conditions, and the excess energy coursed around the room, eating through the stone as it went. He had fairly yelled the magic, and Tamaranis actually spent a moment catching his breath. He was usually a fairly good judge of demonic character, and generally knew which could be summoned and manipulated, and which would be doing the manipulating and should be avoided. He been underestimating the power of that particular creature for quite some time however. That had been much too close for comfort. His best shot at finding whoever had disturbed his dreams, it seemed, had become a non-option. Tamaranis banished the spells that sealed shut the only door offering admittance into the summoning spell he occupied. Immediately it opened and a handful of soldiers entered, ready to aid their master in dealing with whatever had gone wrong. “The summoning failed,” was all Tamaranis told them as they took in the damage that had been inflicted on the resilient stone. Having regained his usual composure, he stepped out of the summoning chamber. Spells were normally in place there to tightly control any supernatural movements. They might well have been damaged and he didn’t want to attempt any supernatural movements from that room. Now free of the summoning chamber, he began intensifying the darkness around himself in preparation to travel back to Salinye’s hostel. She had requested everyone spend the night there, and since he felt no inclination to sleep with the coming of darkness, Tamaranis might be able to catch their mysterious dream-attacker in the act. If not, perhaps Ozymandius had figured something out. The darkness around Tamaranis became deep enough that he was disconnected from his specific location, allowing him to reconnect just outside the Hostel. As he did so, however, he became aware of something very familiar. Mass-necromancy.

...wait Shouldn't Salinye be the one going in the straight jacket?

This was the complete opposite of most spells cast by archmagi, which were painstakingly rewritten and modified to make them as near to unbreakable as possible, and to have earth shattering effect.. Instead this spell had been specifically engineered for weakness, and didn‘t actually do anything beside exist. A novice mage with the same degree of natural power as a garden slug could have extinguished it with hardly a thought. But it was a very stable spell. All of Tamaranis’ spells operated on logic, remained in his control, and were as free of elemental chaos as possible. That was particularly true of this particular spell. It was the very embodiment of the term “static” Left undisturbed the tiny magical mote, hardly visible even to mage-eyes, would be unchanged a million years from now. Surrounding it were spells a little more common to the powerful archmagi who inhabited Terra. The constant war between beings who could call meteors from the sky had given rise to some particularly potent defensive spells, typically called barriers. The mental and spiritual stresses these wards placed on their casters were often prohibitive, but a sufficiently motivated archmage would be able to overcome those stresses and intercept all but the most powerful of destructive magic heading his way. The need to conduct an isolated experiment had been very motivating, and Tamaranis had overcome those stresses, and centred the barriers on this point. A direct attack by another archmage would have no effect on this location for several minutes, at which point he would surely be aware of it. No one on Terra, not even a god, could affect the spell he had crafted here without his knowledge. He stared at it intently, willing the spell to remain in place. Tamaranis’ suspicions were confirmed when it winked out of existence. Nothing had come through the barriers, and no one was present but himself to break the spell. But he hadn’t acted, and the magic was no more. The last time Tamaranis had seen this phenomenon something had been deeply wrong. The fabric of Terra had been unravelling. How many others knew this was going on then? How many had bothered to observe the specifics of the near-apocalypse that had threatened Terra decades ago and now observed the similarity? Not the council, if they were aware they would be trying to correct the problem instead of gathering the archmagi of the world to attack The Pen, which as far as Tamaranis could tell was the most non-threatening organization in existence. But perhaps this was the answer to the question of what The Pen was really building. The council’s notion of a guild of writers and artists constructing a super-weapon for aggressive purposes was absurd. Mages nearly as powerful as, and far wiser than, those in the council held membership in The Pen, and they had the background to know what was happening. Either they were trying to prevent the end of Terra, or they had determined that to be impossible and were trying to escape to another world. One way or another, Tamaranis realized, if he allowed himself to be pulled into the council’s war effort, he would ultimately be on the losing side.

Hmm... Saturday seems pretty good too.

There's just so much food here right now... It's beautiful.

And from Saskatchewan... A political party that names itself after the province it's running in, and a couple feet of snow that always takes us by surprise some time in May.

I like the effect it gives when the title is repeated at the end. It works well here. With apologies to Billy Joel: The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems. I should make that my sig or something. I hated highschool with every ounce of my being, but things picked once I got clear of that bloody mess. I'm really bad at encouragement... especially when it's only over a message board... Thought I'd give it a go anyway... It's not working too well... I hope things start looking up for you though. And to answer Arwen's question: Biology.

"am go home now?" It's like I've got a built in engrish translator sometimes. I like the death run over one, though.

Two nuns are driving down the highway when, suddenly, the devil appears on the hood of their car! The nun who is driving begins to swerve back and forth in an effort to dislodge him. "Quick, show him your cross!" shouts the other nun. The nun who is driving rolls down the window and yells "Hey, Devil! Piss off!"

Ooh, neat. I especially like the title, I nearly never pay attention to this forum, but that drew me in. I have to read it a couple times to get the full sense of panic, though. 'Course, that might be more a comment on me than the poem.