Lunar Eclipse (Alea Davenport)

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Fall 90, 513 AV Valerius Nitrozian was dreaming. Recently not a single night passed where he didn’t dream. These dreams were always different from his real life. He was never just Valerius, the spoiled grandson of Sitanos Nitrozian who had yet to prove himself to the world and to his god. He was always different, more, as if his dreams offered a hint of what was yet to come. Sometimes his dreams were disturbing to the man who had spent his whole life under Rhysol’s watchful eye. In some of them he was living on the White Isle, among the Konti, a peaceful, but ultimately useless life. Sometimes he was a teacher which was not as disturbing, but still strange to him. In some of his dreams he was even Ser Valerius, a knight of Syliras who had turned against everything he had believed in and fought the evil of Ravok with an intensity that few matched. Those dreams were the most disturbing of all. That night his dream followed the usual pattern though, with only a few subtle differences. It took place at night. He was in a palace made of black marble that was so luxuriously furnished that the Nitrozian Estate looked like a beggar’s dwelling in comparison. The floors were covered with expensive carpets. Tapestries hung on the walls, and the gigantic rooms and endless hallways were lit by the light of a thousand silver candelabras. Everyhwere his servants stood, waiting for him to give an order. This time they were not human, but Nuit. He furrowed his brow briefly as he noticed that, but apparently he had already been to Sahova. He remembered that he was interested in the home of the undead, that he had once wanted to study immortality so that he could keep himself from aging. He stood in his private quarters. The wall in front of him was made completely of glass so that he could see the city that surrounded his palace, a city that might or might not have been Ravok. The moon could hardly be seen, but the night was not dark. There were lights in countless windows. He looked at the city in front of him for a few moments and admired its beauty before he turned away again. His gaze was drawn to a mirror on the wall. He could see himself in it. At least he thought that the man was him. He was dressed elegantly, in black and silver, as almost always in his dreams. His red hair shimmered like a flame, and his pale face was flawless. Gone were the little imperfections he possessed in the waking world. His eyes were white though, as if Rhysol had already touched him and owned his body and his soul. Was this really him? Or was he the teacher, the healer, the warrior that fought for good and was free of Rhysol’s touch? There was a moment of doubt, an then he pulled his gaze away from his reflection. No, he was Rhysol’s, in his dreams as well as in the waking world, and everything else he sometimes was, was just a lie. This was what he should be, what he had meant to be all along.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea was feeling not entirely comfortable as she meandered through the disturbingly black halls. Perhaps it was the fact that she was surrounded by the walking dead. Under normal circumstances she would have expected to be afraid of them, as they forced her to confront a concept that she had not found a way to be entirely okay with... But at the moment she just found them sort of off-putting.

On thing she did know, she did NOT like being trapped inside walls like this. If there was something she needed to get away from, she wanted to be outside where running had a chance of being effective. Her discomfort did not turn to outright panic until she wandered into the room of the red-haired man.

His back was to her, but she could see his face through the mirror. His eyes were inhuman, pale as death, and though she had no concept of demons, he filled her with a sense of underlying wrongness and evil. She wasn't sure if he'd seen her yet, but she did not plan to wait around to find out. She immediately took off running in the opposite direction, looking for an exit of any kind, but mostly trying to avoid getting caught. The dead which had seemed relatively harmless and only mocking her before were now potential threats, any one of which could try to grab her and slow her down.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

As Alea ran, the great black doors that marked the entrance to Valerius‘ quarters opened automatically. Outside she could see the Nuit, with shadows under their eyes, gaunt faces and black tongues. Like their master they were garbed in black and silver, but unlike him they were dressed in floor length robes so that their feet could not be seen, and they almost seemed to float in the air. They gathered around the door and kept her from fleeing the palace. No, they did more than that. They were trying to push her back into the room where the man with the white eyes was waiting. Valerius turned around as he noticed the commotion at the door and furrowed his brow, slightly irritated. He was not expecting any visitors, at least not right now. The woman with her brown hair and hazel eyes did not look as if she belonged here. She was not one of his servants or slaves, and she did not seem to bear the mark of Rhysol either. What was she doing here, in his home? Had she come to offer herself to him? Had she come to kill him? He studied her for a moment, colly, without saying a word, and then he extended a gloved hand and gestured for her to come forward. „Come to me“, he spoke to her. In this dream – or was it a different kind of reality? – he had mastered his emotions. He was stronger and spoke with more authority than he had in the waking world. His voice was firmer. Here he had real power, and his threats were real threats. „Come to me and watch, child. Have you ever seen a moon like this? They say that the eclipse is sacred to Rhysol, but a lunar eclipse must be almost as important to him.“ He nodded towards the undead, and they made another step forward so that she would have no choice but to follow his invitation.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea reeled back when the dead blocked her path. If they caught hold of her she'd be in trouble, but as long as she kept away from them she had a chance. She backed away from them, looking around uncertainly for another escape route, or something to hide behind. Luckily, it seemed like the creatures were pretty slow. She could probably keep away from them without too much difficulty if it came to that. That just left the evil man....

He spoke to her, so obviously she had been noticed. Nothing terrible had happened immediately, so she was probably okay for the moment. From the looks of it though, there was no obvious escape. She was stuck, pretty much at the mercy of her captor. The only way out was through him...one way or another.

When he told her to approach him, she balked instinctively, and not just because he was clearly evil. She rejected being told what to do, and anything an evil man like this wanted her to do was probably not in her best interest. She backed toward the far wall, trying to keep her eye on the walking dead and the back of the evil man. She wondered if she could break through one of the walls before they could catch her. ...Probably not.

Struggling not to panic, she wracked her brains for the best way out of the situation, but it was completely unfamiliar to her. Negotiation was probably her only option at this point, but she had no idea what would appeal to the barely-human man. She tried to speak, and managed it on the second attempt. In a fairly level voice that betrayed only a touch of tension, she asked, "How can I convince you not to kill me?"

OOCFun fact: I used that line in a dream once

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Unfortunately there was no other escape route. Alea could only try to get past the undead in front of her or follow the order of the man that stood in front of the window, and it did not seem as if the undead would step aside for her and simply let her leave. They just stared at her coldly, emotionlessly. They had stopped caring for mortals, for her kind centuries ago. Besides, did she really want to find out what awaited her outside the palace? What if there was an evil that was worse than this here? Valerius‘ gaze followed her as she moved towards the far wall, as if she were afraid of him and tried to get as far away as possible from him. He frowned as he noticed that. Once there had been things that he had been afraid of as well, people, but he was long past the point where he felt such emotions. In his dreams the Ravokian had conquered all his fears and become comfortable with Rhysol’s chaotic nature. There was only the barest hint of the man that he was in the waking world left, and that hint was fading quickly now. As she asked him how she could convince him not to kill her, he met her eyes for a moment. There was no sympathy, no understanding in them, only emptiness. „You can’t“, he replied. Once he might have balked at the idea of committing murder – he had killed Kelvic in his experiments, but never humans, never his own kind – but not anymore, not here. Here he was the only one that mattered. „You can only try to let go of your fear, of that useless emotion and do as you are told to delay the inevitable a while longer“, he continued, and then he waited, for her to come forward or try to run after all.

[Alea Davenport]

A sort of hostile grin formed on Alea's face. So, negotiating with this thing was out of the question. In that case, the next option was fight for her life. If he was going to be a jerk about things, then she was perfectly justified in causing whatever harm to him was necessary. Just then she happened to notice a tall pole holding several candlesticks at the top, standing a little to her left. She grabbed it in both hands, and prepared to defend herself with it.

"I'll be petched if I let you be the thing that kills me," she said tauntingly. She ran toward the walking dead and swung wildly with the candle-staff. A hint of the bloodthirsty instinct that normally scared her rose in her now, but these things were already dead--destroying them now would be doing the world a favor. Two of the slow-moving creatures went down on the first swing, and with the second swing she'd cleared a path big enough for her to slip through. For good measure, she swung one more time to knock out the rest of the dead withing reach.

With her weapon in hand, she felt much more powerful, so she took the time to turn and say, "Fear is not entirely useless, if you know what to do with it." With a saucy wink, she turned and fled down the corridor, cackling like a madwoman. This time though, she wanted to be chased. Now that she had chosen to fight, the evil man was more and interesting challenge than something to be avoided at all costs.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„And how do you intend to keep me from killing you?“ Valerius asked. „With a candlestick?“ For the first time since the dream – or was it a dream? - had started a smile was visible on his face. The situation strangely reminded him of an incident in the Kelvic Research Institution. It had probably been years ago if you took the fact that he looked much like a Druvin now into consideration. A swan Kelvic had tried to fight him om a similarly foolish manner. In the end the beast had been put back into his cage. But no, this madwoman did not seem to want to attack him. As she charged at the undead he wondered if he should intervene for a moment, but no, watching how she dealt with him was much more interesting. His slaves could be replaced, she on the other hand would provide him with a bit of entertainment. He wanted to know how far she would get before she would inevitably be defeated. The Nuit went down, but there was no blood, and they didn’t scream in pain. They only bled a strange, black liquid that stained Alea’s clothes before they fell. They stayed on the ground just long enough for her to run past them before they rose again, seemingly unaffected by whatever she had done to them. Apparently they were much harder too kill than humans … They looked at their master, but he shook his head. He would take care of her himself. „Nothing can be done with fear“, he replied. „It only weakens you.“ With that he followed her, through endless hallways that were decorated with precious tapestries and carpets, past huge windows through which the strange moon could be seen, and finally down a staircase. „You can run if you want, but you cannot escape. In the end you will return to me.“

[Alea Davenport]

She heard the evil man behind her; he was kindly continuing to speak, so that she did not at all have to turn around to see how close he was, which made it easier to stay ahead of him. His words struck her as blatantly moronic, though. Had this man never been in a fight? Or in a life-or-death situation? Fear made your heart beat faster, made your reflexes sharper. Used poorly it could put you in a worse position, but properly channeled it sometimes gave you the edge you needed to survive. But if the evil man didn't know that, she wasn't about to tell him. She wanted to keep every advantage she could.

She ran down black corridors, taking random turns to limit his line of sight. He always seemed to be able to follow her though. She did not think she'd be able to get away from him for good, but if she could at least get out of his castle, he would lose the advantage of fighting on his home territory. Finally, at the end of a corridor, she saw a door. There were no more turns she could take without turning back, and the evil man was too close behind her to risk it. Without knowing what was on the other side, she gulped, turned the knob, and stepped through...

...She found herself in a vaguely familiar-looking room. It was filled with books on all sides. There was Louie, sitting at one of the tables studying Jamoura. At least, she knew it was Louie, but he looked like Groth, the Jamoura who'd helped her build her house. And there, on the other side of the room, was the door that led to the outside.

Alea slowly wandered over to one of the bookshelves. She didn't want to go outside yet. There was something bad waiting for her out there. She couldn't remember what it was, but it would be much safer to stay here in this room for a while.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

No matter how fast she ran, no matter which way she turned, he was always just a few metres behind her and just didn’t seem to get out of breath. From time to time Alea could see a Nuit, quietly watching her, but there didn’t seem to be any other living beings besides her and the red haired man that was chasing her in the palace. It was quiet as well. The only sounds she could hear were the sounds of their footsteps, unusually loud on the stone floor, her heartbeat, the sound of her own breathing. The door looked just like one expected a door in such a place to look like. It was made of black metal and covered with pictures that depicted scenes of torture, men and women in chains kneeling in front of beings with empty eyes, a city in flames and hordes of monsters covering the land so that nothing else was visible. This was one aspect of Rhysol’s chaos. Valerius slipped through the door just moments after her. He expected another long hallway to be on the other side – this didn’t look like it was the exit yet. But there were no black walls, no columns, no candelabras and no undead there. Instead he found himself in an almost comfortable room. He froze for a moment. For a moment he forgot that he had been chasing the woman because she had dared to defy them and looked at what seemed to be a gigantic monkey studying a book. „Where are we?“ he demanded to know. „What kind of trickery is that?“ He walked over to one of the bookshelves as well, took a book out and leafed through it. It was a normal book. It felt real in his hands. Most of the books seemed to be on harmless topic and not on some kind of dark magic. But still, the whole scene felt wrong. How had he gotten here?

[Alea Davenport]

The dream had changed; Alea appeared a few years younger than she had in the previous dream, and here outside of the black castle she has no fear of the red-haired man. She looked at the man like he was stupid and said in a rather bratty voice, "What do you mean? We're in the Academy, dummy! Don't you know your way around Denval?"

She kicked her feet idly for a moment or two, but within a few breaths she had become bored. She still didn't want to go outside yet, so she walked up to the Jamoura's table. It seemed...bigger than it should, but Alea shrugged it off as an unimportant detail. "Heya Louie, whatcha reading?"

The Jamoura did not look up from his book. Instead, he flipped the page and then painstakingly produced several syllables which might have been fluid and musical has he been speaking them at full speed with the right accent. Alea recognized them as an attempt at Vani, but she didn't understand what he was trying to say. Fortunately, he translated a moment later. "Do not disturb me child. As you can see, I am studying."

Alea pouted and crossed her arms. "Boooooring." Looking around for something else to entertain herself with, her eyes landed on the man who had followed her. "Hey, Mister! What are you doing? Anything fun?" She skipped over to him and peered at what he was holding, but before she could even read the title, she made a face that involved scrunching it up and sticking out her tongue. "Ewwww, books. Why'd I have to come hide in a petching library?"

OOCDid I break evil-Val's reality yet? ;D