Raven's Revenge

[Therin]

He awoke. Or, more correctly, he opened his eyes. He had been awake for some time now, but the silence, all-encompassing, like the inside of a coffin, so out of place in his fragmented memory, had made him afraid to view what might be around him. What was around him. Bodies. In the cool, dry air, the stench of death had yet to permeate the darkness, but he could see the bodies, could see the death which sprawled about him. Had he...?

"Did I do this?" His voice, quiet, low, echoed back at him like a whisper from another plane, distorted into something unrecognizable.

Did I...-" No. No, now the memories came flooding back. He recognized that face, those eyes. It was- "No. No, it wasn't. It can't have been." Again, the distorted whisper answered him through the silence, It was, they died, it was, they died. That grin. That grin. That insane, manic, cackling laughter. It couldn't be...But those eyes. Burning red with hate, and malevolence. It was...

"Father..."

He knew. Somehow, he knew. His voice rose through the silence, echoing deafeningly across the bodies of the fallen.

"Father, what have you done!?" And the echo seemed to come back, to say He's gone, he's done it, he's gone.

"No. It can't be "but it is "No! I'll find him, and I'll find the truth. And if he did...if he is. I'll kill him. I swear it."

Your pact...accepted. "What? Who's there!?" Damion lurched to his feet, felt for his weapon, found the familiar cold steel ball, his hand traveled up, closed on the shaft-...it was broken. The angelic weapon, the caltaka, unbreakable except by the divinities themselves, had snapped in two. Suddenly, light filled the area. It was a cavern, illuminated by sickly, pulsating light, in the center a natural pedestal upon which had sat-

He had held the stone, as he stared them down, grinning as together they had come to comprehend the situation.

-the stone. The reason they had come to this cave in the middle of the snowy wastelands of northern Ryltar. Everything, the Lauralee, Prince Forrailo, all of it had been for this. But the pedestal was empty now, as was the small, hemispherical stone cavern, devoid of all life but his. Or was it?

For something indesputably sat in the center of the pedestal. Damion went to it, navigating between broken, blasted bodies, using his wings to aid in balance. Something was there, alright. It was black, whatever it was, a blackened, burnt-seeming rod which thrust three inches straight up. Guided by some inner instinct, Damion grasped it. Blackness descended, utter and complete.

When it lifted, and sight returned, obsidian wings unfurled and stretched their breadth in the confining room. Eyes which had once been emerald green shot through with bloodred specks opened and were jet black. His hands grasped the hilt below three feet of jagged blade, mirror smooth in the undead light. An inscription ran up both sides of the blade.

May the claws of the Raven pierce the skin of my enemies.

May the wings of the Raven shroud their keening souls.

May the eyes of the Raven blind them evermore.

The onyx eyes shut once more and a grim smile flitted across his lips.

"I am Damion Mythral no more. From this day, until the completion of my quest, I am Raven Evermore, Avenger from the Dark Abyss. HEAR ME, FATHER AND KNOW THAT I AM COMING FOR YOU!"

The wings snapped shut. The dark sword slipped soundlessly into its sheathe, which now rested at Raven's hip. Raven turned to the doorway through which he had come unknown hours, days, or even weeks before, and walked out. No longer was he trying to finish what his father had started. His quest, and his alone, had begun.

[Azurel]

A large, seemingly empty cavern in the vast network that lay beneath the nameless mountain was being flooded with a pure, white light. Were somebody to look at the source of this light, they would be blinded and then instantly healed. The brilliant radiance began to pulsate and eventually dim. The source was no longer blinding and it could be seen that there were actually two sources of light. They were equal in size and brightness, each was held by a hand of a figure who's features cast shadows on himself. Rayne's head was tilted back and thus his chin silhouetted his face. The light shone on his body, revealing innumerable cuts. As the light pulsated, the wounds closed up, barely leaving scars.

The light eventually faded from his hands as Rayne healed himself. His face dropped to view the cavern which he had crawled into. Even without light, Rayne could see perfectly in the dark as if the sun was behind him wherever he went. He was tired, healing always drained his energy as it was not a magic that he practiced often.

He searched through the back of his mind for memories of what had happened. This was something Rayne did often because it augmented his dark powers to view the faults in his actions and furthered his hatred for whoever was involved. Rayne's mind was a special place, it had to be--he had a roommate. When Rayne wanted to view a memory, he would walk in his mind to a white room with shelves scattered everywhere. The shelves were filled with books, each was it's own set of memories from a specific instance in Rayne's life. There were books in a pile to one corner of the room, layed unorganized with most of the books opened. Azurel, while not in control of the body, studied Rayne's memories. Azurel had only been brought into reality a few years ago and wanted to further his understanding of why he came to be by studying the man he existed within.

Rayne didn't have to walk far, recent memories are always created towards the entrance of the room, for convenience. Rayne stood in front of the most recently created shelves, running his finger over the titles on the spines of the books. The Lone Journey to Ryltar, Upon Arrival, The Nameless Peak, The Maze of Tunnels. The bookshelf and everything in the room disappeared except for the next book that he had run his finger over, The Gemmed Massacre. The book floated in air and started to move away from Rayne, who's hand was still pointing to it.

The book began to change shape and grow larger. It began to form into a humanoid shape, this was odd for a memory book. Normally, Rayne would open the book and read the details with a magical window floating above the book, replaying the images of the memory as Rayne reads. The book finished it's transformation, it had become Lews Therin Mythral. Rayne's first instinct, as his hand was already raised, was to blast him with an energy ball. The ball of darkness passed through him. The image of Therin shook and glowed as the ball went through, and returned to normal seconds after it left his body. The image didn't move, nor did it say anything. It just sat there, teasing Rayne as he could do nothing about it.

Rayne was getting angry as time was going by and, try as he might, he could not rid himself of Therin's image. It dawned on Rayne at that moment that he had not met up with Azurel since the fight. Azurel was not in control of the body, so he would be there, in their mind. Rayne walked around in their mind with Therin's image floating near him, always in his view even if it was just out of the corner of his eye. After searching most of the void that represented their shared mind, Rayne walked into the section that Azurel kept to himself. The room itself was no different from any other, but Azurel's mental possessions were kept there. There was a bed, specially designed for someone with wings to sleep in. Rayne had never needed a bed in his mind, his mental power fed off of his hatred and darkness that could never be fully consumed. The room had a sky to it, rather, the walls were meant to look like a sky. There was no need to actually fly in the mind. Books layed scattered and opened, most of which dislplaying images of a certain girl.

Rayne walked around until he saw him. Azurel was floating in mid-air with his face and stomach towards the ground. His long, black-and-purple hair as well as his arms, legs, and wings were all hanging limp towards the ground. Azurel's body bobbed in a rythmic fashion as if he had just drowned and his body floated to the surface of the water.

Demon! Azurel!

Rayne shook the limp body--no response. Azurel had fallen into a state of unconciousness, most likely from the battle. Rayne checked with himself, he was still too weak to get up and look for the exit to the cave.

Hours went by and Rayne began to go insane. The image of Therin was still there, silently laughing at Rayne--or so he thought. Rayne was rocking back and forth against a wall, staring at Therin, trying to get rid of him. Rayne screamed as loud as he could both mentally and physically, the veins protruded from his neck in both places. He then suddenly stopped screaming, tilted his head in a very quick and mechanical motion, and began to speak to the image.

The only way to get rid of you is to take your life, and to do that, I must be stronger.

Bookshelves immediately surrounded Rayne. Books started flying at him, all of previous fights and encounters with Therin. Rayne studied them for hours, an eternity in his mind. The growth in his power was concealed in the dark cavern. Rayne began to walk, actually walk. His body was tipsy from the encounter, the healing, and the hours of inactivity. Through Rayne's eyes, the path to the entrance was clear. He could sense a hole in the wall where no shadows existed, that must be the entrance. Rayne emerged into the sunlight for the first time in what seemed like ages in that tunnel system. The light showed Rayne's eyes to be completely black, as if sunglasses had been melded to his eyes. He was ready to find Lews Therin and kill him.

[Therin]

He navigated by memory, through the network of tunnels, following the route that Tobias, his friend, had shown him that first time he had asked.

"Do you feel anything strange about this place? Can you give me a direction?"

"I can do better than that. I'll show you right where it is."

His friend...now dead. Killed by...someone. Father, what have you done?

He saw, even in that pitch blackness, as though it was late afternoon. Late enough that the shadows had dissappeared, and the world was illuminated by the everpresent light of a good day come to a peaceful end. He saw no shadows, for in this place there were none to see. He strode determinedly through the darkness beneath northern Ryltar, planning his route, his destination. He crossed the massive entrance cavern, paused beside the headless body of the dead gorm, and emerged from the unseen darkness into unseen light. He saw no shadows, only the ambient light of a dying day. The sun was high, the sky cloudless, and the snow would have been blindingly bright, but he was blind to light. What he saw in brightest day was the same as during the darkest night.

The omnipresent, undying visibility of dying day. He saw eternal twilight.

He headed south, for to the south was...the world. Ryltaran territory was the north, and only the north. All roads went south from Ryltar.

His father was to the south.

[Azurel]

The pain was instant, Rayne had to close his eyes. The sun bore down on Rayne's eyes as if someone had put them in a clamp and tightened it. Slowly, he tried to open them. It took him a few tries to finally open them all the way. With a new headache, Rayne looked at his surroundings.

Rayne saw mountains stretching to the horizon on both sides of him. Looking down, he realized that he was leaving from a different tunnel than he had originally entered. He was standing on a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, there was crater already covered in grass and foliage. From the oddly shaped cliff wall, Rayne could guess that he stood at the top of what used to be a waterfall.

He continued to survey the land. His black clothes were attracting the heat of the sun, which was refreshing as well as annoying. Suddenly, his head whipped around to look at a specific part of the mountain. He sensed a great power, it was less than his but the hatred that drove it was unmatched. Rayne could not physically see what he was looking at, but he could sense the power's shape. In his mind he could see the sihouette, or rather the pure darkness, of a humanoid with feathered wings. Therin's image was still plaguing Rayne's mind. Therin's image stood beside the image of the winged darkness. This caused Rayne to notice an unmistakable familiarity in the darkness' power. The silhouette flashed with a white light and was replaced by the image of Damion. This lasted a good three seconds before Damion was encompassed in darkness once again. Rayne realized that, for once, he and Damion had a common enemy.

"I'll follow him. He'll want to confront Therin. I can kill Damion, he's weaker than I am. Therin will be broken down, fueled by hatred and rage, he'll go beserk--more than usual. This will be his downfall, he can only fight well when he has a calm head."

Rayne clenched his fists and strained. His face and neck began filling with blood and turing a rosy color. He let out a breath and stopped straining.

"He'll know I'm following him, I can't supress my energy."

Rayne returned to the cave and three seconds later, came running out. He jumped off of the cliff, diving towards the ground. He put his hands to his side and straightened his body, picking up speed. Rayne got within mere feet of the ground and dissappeared. He had flash jumped into a nearby tree. Now he was in a new tree. Branches were disturbed and broken off in the forest, leaving a path towards Damion.

EDIT:Because Therin's bitch ass decided to make the northern area cold and I didn't want to go erase the last three or four paragraphs, I wrote this.

...Or at least, that's what Rayne thought was going on. Ryltar, being far north of the arctic circle, was a wasteland of snow, ice, and mountains. Rayne thought he felt the heat of the sun soaking into his black clothes, but his fingers were actually going numb from the cold. Rayne thought that he saw luscious plantlife as far as the eye could see, in reality he would be able to see no farther than a mile or so due to the snowy fog of the northern territories. Rayne thought he was flash jumping from branch to branch in a thick forest, to any observer, however, he was merely flash jumping from one spot in the air to another. Rayne's body was taking a beating through the harsh, cold weather, but he was so insane with thoughts of Therin that his mind chose to ignore it. Nothing would stand in his way.

[Therin]

Tylan. Bustling metropolis atop more metropolis, normally busy, lessened only slightly by the snow on the ground. Carts and other wheeled contrivances were a rarity this far north; they served mostly as an impediment due to the everpresent snow which blanketed the city. People got round mostly on foot, climbing stairs from this shop to that one, shoving through the thronged streets from the back to the tailor, a milling, thriving multitude beneath the cold northern sky. Raven walked tiredly through the streets, surrounded by people yet remaining alone. He was apart from the hustle and bustle through which he strode. But most of all, he was exhausted; he had come straight south from the mountain, stopping to rest once, and for mere hours before taking to the air again.

The Inn was called The Northern Pride, and having spent most of his time in Miniopia, Raven habitually checked the common room for familiar faces before tracking down the innkeeper, a scrawny, sour-faced man who eyed his nightlike wings for a second or two, and booking a room for the night.

[Daijaga]

"Now theres something worth noting..." Daijaga thought to himself as the winged darkness strode through the tavern. His mastery of the game was flawless, however, and within seconds the crowd's attention was back on the fall of the colored dice form his hands. His eyes never strayed from the gaming table as they saoked in the details of the room. Details were what Dai was good at. They seaped into him like water in a dry rag, he had only to let himself dry out in a room and the little things simply flowed in...

Tylan was a great place to make some gold, he had surmisssed, having spent a few weeks in the chilled city. Great for busness, though. The slim whimiscal magic of luck and ill was his forte, a craft learned from a pitiful dying witch whom he'd cared for in his younger days. The craft took care of him as he took care with it, a dabble of fortune there, a bit of ill luck there. Dealing out fate was a craft both deliate and dangerous, and excellent with which to earn money from gamblers, he'd learned. Thus did he come to Tylan, but he had enver so much wanted to leave a place in his life.

The weather was number one on his shit list. He'd grown up in humid, muggy weather, requiring little clothing. This fridigd waste land had to have a negitive humidity index. Hed invested in a black cloak to stave of the nippy air, but even then a heavy green cape over that only made the chll bearable. He even kept his light brown hair back in a hevay green gypsy like cloth the sales person had assured him was "in style". Besides the cold was the boredom. Tylan seemed to have a small amount of fate teathered to it. The way the lay lines in power flowed, it seemed like this was the place fate forgot, yet he stayed here, sensing something deeper...

"A third nine, Tellamose, sorry friend, thats your fate." Dai said with a shrug and collected a few of the man's earnings back to his side of the table. The men gathered all gave a fake moan of dissapointment followed by bellowing lagughter and a call for ale. Dai had ran a game of colored dice in the town, in fact at this particular table, for some weeks now, and had his regulars, his dead beats, and his hostiles. All in all the gaming was good, and the locals has already adopted several small variations into the game.

It was among the hustle and action of the game that the afore mentioned "something worth noting" walked in. Dark, myserious, and with a curiuos blade and damn curious wings. Dai made his notes and cast the next round, resulting in another outpouring of mixed moans and cheers from the gathered.

[Therin]

The room was spare, but so were his needs. Sleeping, although not a topic often discussed, was slightly more awkward for winged ones than for the more normally built sort of human being. Those few who mused about it mused that this was probably because beings of divine origin, the only humanoids who consistently had wings, had no need of sleep, and thus needn't worry about how to get into a small bed when your wings are either hanging off the side or crushed against the wall. After first acquiring his wings, and his earlier weapon, the caltaka, Damion had quietly cursed the bastardization of divine and human essences that made him who and what he was. Now, however, Raven was content to lay face-down on the bed and wait for sleep to come. He didn't feel wholly tired, merely lacking energy, but something his father had taught him rang true.

Sleep when you can, because you never know when you won't be able to.

His father had said a lot of things. Taught him a lot of things. But now...

Sleep never came.

He exited the inn, and headed for the docks, his breath misting in the icy sea air as he passed beneath empty shops and yet-to-be-opened stalls. A thick fog hung over the docks, making the place seem otherworldly, silent and isolated. He found the shipsmaster's hut, on the far western end of the docks, and rapped on the door with his knuckles. A voice called out angrily from within.

"I told you already, Antel, the roster's closed!"

Raven tried the door. It was unlocked. He entered silently, and waited for the shipsmaster to turn around.

"Bloody hell, Antel, I'm going to have to-...oh," the large man finished as he turned around and flinched involuntarily from Raven's hard, black stare.

"I need a ship to Gon."

The shipsmaster's blue, northern eyes blinked in momentary confusion, before he collected his thoughts and answered. "You...need a ship to Gon...in this fog? You must be out of your black-haired mind, southerner. Ain't a ship leaving harbor until this soup lifts, and there's nothing you can do about it. Go find an inn, and buy some warmer clothes, 'cause you'll probably be here for awhile."

"Is that the schedule?" Raven asked, pointing to a ream of papers on the desk which was backed against the right wall.

"Yes, but you've-"

"Show me."

"Absolutely not. That is my business and my business alone and you'll not-"

Raven's eyes flashed dangerously. "Show me."

The man took a step back and began to stammer another refusal, but Raven had already brushed past him and was examining the sheaf of papers on the desk.

The man's face went beet red. "Now see here! You can't just come barging into a man's place of work and violate his security! You've got to follow the proper procedures! You've got to-" The man froze as the tip of a sword appeared seemingly from nowhere under his neck.

Raven's eyes were narrow, his voice low, dripping with dangerous rage. "I have got to do nothing except find who I am looking for. Is that understood?"

The man's eyes widened, and he stammered frantically, "Y-y-y-yessir! H-help yourself!"

Raven returned to his perusal of the shipping schedule. Ah, here's one. The Lady Swordsman, setting sail even in these rather dangerous conditions. He smiled to himself. There was always a risk-taker. And a risk-taker was what he needed.

[Azurel]

Rayne walked silently into the inn and stood at the doorway, observing the patrons of the bar area. A good half an hour had passed before Raven went to his room to sleep. There was of course the bartender, eyeing Rayne's dark appearance--something Rayne was all too familiar with. Then there was the bar, men ordering drinks with whatever money they could scrape from the bottom of their wallets and pockets. There was also the section of the lobby that had tables and chairs. It looked to be like a restaraunt, had the inn not been such a rundown place. There were drunk men scattered everywhere, even more were huddled around one table and one man.

Rayne walked to a corner of the restaraunt-like area of the bar. As he passed the crowd of people, he tried to sense the man who was sitting on the other end of the table holding more money than anyone else. Rayne sensed a magic, an odd magic, it wasn't elemental or controled by the mind. It was a magic that was just kind of there. Rayne sat in the darkness, awake, waiting for morning to come.

ooc: Dai, you can interact with me as it hasn't turned into morning for us yet. Just an option.

[Daijaga]

"And then he said, "I have got to do nothing except find who I am looking for. Is that understood, wenchgirl!"" Antel finished with a flourish of his imaginary sword. The men burst into laughter, the pause before "wenchgirl" had been extraordinarily too long and he obviously added it for effect. Dai himself spared a grin at Antel's flourish. That wasn't all he'd added to the story, by tomarrow nights game Dai was confident the winged man will have leveled half ot Tylan and declared himself king of the Black Forest.

Another thing he was confident of was the ability of the man sitting none-to-far from the table. The man had brushed Dai's power when he'd entered the Inn, only a feather's breath, but even that was impressive for a passer-by. Let's see what sort of fates were tied to this new man...

"Hail stranger!" Dai called over the man, who all turned to look the man. Dai's mastery of the crowd was intuitive, their eyes were like his, moving under his mind's will. Not a product of magic, but a magic sort of its own, charisma. "What say you to a few casts of the stones? We can play for money or credit. I can even cast die to tell your fortunes as well..."

[Azurel]

Rayne didn't think too hard about the situation, he was eager to see this stranger's powers and he was certain that this game of dice was a part of it. Rayne checked the right pocket of his pants and found 200 Mesatakus, Azurel's money from working at Sakura's shop. Rayne got up silently and walked over to the table, sensing around for the man's magic. He watched a drunk man swaying left and right on his chair from his lack of control. The man fell on the floor with a push of Rayne's magic, he hadn't even lifted his hand to focus the energy--something he had almost always done. Rayne took the chair which sat on the exact opposite side of the table from the man with the undetermined magic.

"What's the game and how do I play?"