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Journal - The Crown of Intelligence
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==The Land of Death== I felt a connection to its questing mind, but hesitated. I was worried that the place I had entered wasn’t wholly of Karmana, and I had felt another presence before being ripped away to this strange grey nothing. I focused on the image of the tower and the pegasus seemed to be asking without words: “There? Do you want me to take you there?”. I willed it to take me back to Sullinassauri’s Tower and almost immediately the grey mist was gone. In its place were the cold stone walls of the tower just a few yards in front of me, magical light illuminating the moonless sky. The unnatural darkness seemed unchanged, so there was no sense of how much time had passed. I reached out with my thoughts in a careful mental whisper: “Falcor, are you there? Arad, can you hear me?” I repeated the call several times but received no answer, whispering at first but gradually raising the power of the call. There was no sense of them nearby, though, and no response. “FALCOR? ARAD?” I tried one more time, throwing all my mental energy behind the thoughts. Almost instantly I knew it was a mistake – I didn’t reach Falcor or Arad but at the edges of mind another presence was there again. A dark and brooding mind, pushing at the edges of sub-conscious and looking for weakness. It was different this time though; before, I had recognised the mind of an Elvradrak but this was something different. It wasn’t the same mind that I had been in conflict with before, this was much more powerful and yet also more distant, more distracted, and less concerned with me. I knew that I was attracting too much of the wrong attention, so with an effort of will I calmed my thoughts and drew my mind back, no longer seeking the others. I felt the gently questing dark presence fall away from me, replaced once more by the curious mind of the Pegasus. In an instant, though, the dark mind snapped its attention to the Pegasus. No words were exchanged that I could sense but the intent was clear: ‘Come to me. Join me. You belong here.’ Before I could intervene, the Pegasus plunged downwards on a collision course with the base of the tower. I threw my arms across my face to brace against an impact that never came. The tower faded in front of me to be replaced by a bottomless crack in the hard packed ground beneath. The Pegasus lunged for the opening, briefly plunging us into utter darkness, before emerging once more from the base of the tower without any sense of having changed direction. For a moment I was relieved, finding myself wheeling away from the looming city walls as the Pegasus climbed rapidly once more. As the stones snapped back into focus, I realised that the magically lit darkness had been replaced by washed out shades of grey as though viewed under a bright moon. The tower and the city were intact and apparently unchanged but all light was gone and there was no sign of life or movement. I regained control over the Pegasus and forced it down low, under the shadow of the walls, heading for the relative safety of the trees. Even as I connected with its mind, I could feel the Pegasus slipping away from me, the magic seemingly drained or perhaps just exhausted. I flew as low as I could, urging the Pegasus to ever greater speed as I sought the sanctuary of the trees. When the steed finally failed, reverting in an instant to a lump of barely shaped rock, I was only a few hundred yards from the trees and well clear of the city walls. I landed nimbly, tumbling to avoid impact from the fall. Glancing anxiously over my shoulder, I realised that I was outside of bow range and hopefully out of range of anything worse. I sprinted for what should have been the relative safety of the woods, but they too were not all that they seemed. What had been a forest with many evergreen trees in full leaf was now little more than a graveyard for once mighty oaks. Even without any great effort of will I sensed that my connection to Karmana was missing or, at best, much weakened. I thought at once of Cernurros’ realm, knowing I would be safe there and also that I could probably find a path from there to Borarla. Yet something held me back – if this was a place of death then I should not bring it to Cernurros... and it was a world of death, lifeless and quiet as a grave. As I thought this I looked up and in the distance saw movement - an Elvradrak flew through the air quite some distance away but passed out of sight after a minute or so. Emboldened by not encountering anything yet, I approached the tower again. It was physically solid, with no sign of the crack that we had passed through before. I made my way around to the city side and heard some animal sounds from within the city, like a dog snarling. Nothing emerged, though, so I continued towards the tower entrance. I heard something different this time, like metal snicks from inside - something was moving then. I peeked in the archway to see a horribly deformed spider with spear-like "arms" and a human torso. Urgh! It lunged at me quickly, and I was skewered by one of the appendages, but hit back hard. A small appendage speared into my head, causing some shock but nothing else that I noticed. I struck back again, finishing it off with disgust, and also releasing a horrid stench. A howl went up from the city, answered by at least a couple of others, so I ran into the tower to get out of sight. There were no doors to contend with in this world, so I entered easily and found a small empty room. I kept moving towards the only exit on my right. It was dark inside, so I lit my lantern to see better. Stairs led upwards, and I took a look but there were just more corridors - any gate would be down, surely? I returned to the entrance and first heard, then saw a double-headed dog eating the remains of the spider thing in the courtyard. I backed off, moving around the stairs to look through another entrance, and this time found a stairwell leading down. Before I could decide whether to descend I heard a really loud howl from outside. I froze and listened, but nothing came, so I went back to look at the courtyard again. The dog had gone, but had left half of the spider thing's body which seemed odd. Could the others have come for me? I decided to look outside the tower to see what had attracted its attention. Once outside I could see a dog moving away towards the woods I had headed for earlier. I looked up nervously, but there was no sign of the Elvradrak. I moved to the corner outside and saw a bright light in the woods beyond, like a beacon shining in the sky, and there were three of the double headed dogs heading towards it. I shifted to wolf form and ran in the same direction, but the dogs saw (or perhaps smelled) me and closed to intercept my path. I was bitten, but tried to outrun them heading straight for the light. Surely a light in this dark place could only be good? There was a flash of lightning in the trees ahead, so something was going on. I kept running, getting bitten badly, but just managed to outpace the dogs... although I didn't think I could keep up the pace long enough. A weird disembodied hand floated in front of me, and I pulled up. I had to stop and face up to the dogs anyway because I was getting tired. I changed back to my normal form and blocked some attacks as the hand pointed at my face then waved a bit as if beckoning. Perhaps it wasn't actually trying to kill me after all! I killed one of the dogs, but was badly wounded. I had caught my breath a little, though, so I changed into a stag and ran again, much faster now. I was feeling better for a moment, easily outrunning the dogs, but then I was attacked by huge spider! I leapt away but was badly hurt again, only glad that I could finally see Falcor and Arad ahead in a glowing circle. I jumped inside to join them and suddenly we were all instantly transported back to some kind of shrine that Falcor had been constructing, and I found myself sliding on the hard stone before coming to rest against a statue of Malada. I changed back into my normal form, and Falcor rushed to heal my significant wounds as he moved me to rest against a stone. He said that we were back together thanks to the power of Malada. He briefly explained that she had sent them to that place to retrieve me, but that they had been unable to leave the circle to look for me for fear of breaking the connection back to Karmana. She ultimately wanted Protector of Life back with Karmana, and Falcor had that as his ultimate goal once the six (of which we were three) were united. This did mean beating Sullinassauri, which in turn would free the Queen of the Damned. That is why we needed the swamp staff, to counter the Queen's power once the Sarn was destroyed, otherwise the path to Death would be open again.
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