<html> <head> <style></style> </head> <body class='hmmessage'> (Messing with formatting changes to try and make this come out correctly...)                            Sooo, here it goes.  My first story is somewhat of a "prequel" actually, showing my main character some years before he arrives at the Keep.   May 30, 703 CR <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             The ship’s heavy lurch hurtled Zyn’s bowl into his chest as he struggled in vain to try and keep it steady, spilling its sloppy contents all over his shirt and pants.  Zyn stared at the soggy mess that were his clothes and uttered a profanity before setting the bowl aside and trying to wipe it all off.  Of course, this failed miserably, for as much as the “soup” was gunky bland slop instead of actual soup, it seemed to soak his clothes just as well as if it were water.  Zyn let out a belated, exasperated sigh, sat sulking for a moment, then chucked the bowl across the room.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Damn amateurs!  He [i]knew[/i] that the sailors he and Lorian had decided to seek passage back north with were sloppy.  He [i]knew[/i] that they were captained by a third rate reject who spent his time picking his nose rather than doing useful things like, perhaps, not running headlong into storm fronts that’d toss them deeper and deeper into the middle of the ocean!  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Cursing, Zyn stood up and headed to the deck to find Lorian.  Perhaps it was to say “I told you so” or something along those lines, maybe it was to just grumble about the food, maybe to complain about how Eli had decided he hated them all!  On the dark, storm swept deck, he saw a short round man whom he had earlier learned was a mage standing by the starboard edge, presumably hurling his guts into the ocean.  Zyn tried as he might but couldn’t remember the mage’s name, who leaned over and held his head out, but he did so as the whole ship tilted right, dipping him down and seeming to threaten to toss him overboard.  This was averted when another lurch of the ship accompanied by a massive wave of water knocked them both back sending Zyn sprawling to the deck.  Now, this trip had just, in addition to all other inequities, forced him to sacrifice his dignity.  Just how much more of this was he expected to take?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “You told me so,” a boisterous baritone voice chimed in behind him above the roar of the sea, echoing his own thoughts before he could speak them.  Snapping around he saw a bearded one armed man holding onto to the ship with his good arm, and he had the gall to [i]smile[/i].  To smile!<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “You said that this trip was going to be no problem!” Zyn shot irately.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Calm down lad,” his mentor Lorian said, still keeping up his good natured smile, “I said that I’ve been with worse crews than this and survived.  Besides, it’s just a little storm, that’s all.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Are you kidding me!?” Zyn shouted so loud his voice threatened to go hoarse, “This ain’t no coastal shower, this is a damn typhoon!  I told you-“<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Yes, Zyn, you told me and you’ve just about told everyone else on this ship as well.”  Lorian’s face didn’t lose the good natured look, but he did raise the bar by letting a little iron into it.  “Now come on, quit acting so over the top.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “I’m not acting over the top!” Zyn shrieked hysterically, “I’m pointing out the blazing obvious fact that we can just about kiss our asses goodbye at this point!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             At this point even old Lorian’s patience showed its limits and he let out a sigh, though Zyn could only tell by seeing it rather than hearing as the din of the ferocious maelstrom that had engulfed them drowned out all but the loudest of screaming.  “Zyn,” Lorian began, but was stopped when the boat once again heaved heavily and they all had to grip something lest they be tossed to and fro.  “Anyways Zyn, this is probably the sixth time that you’ve come up and complained to me about this.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Fifth!” Zyn shouted trying to be heard above the tempest, “I’ve only come up to you five times; the time you came down to me in the hold doesn’t count.”  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Lorian brushed this aside with a dismissive wave of his stubbed right arm.  “Bah, details; you’re just getting combative about pointless stuff again because you’re upset.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             At this Zyn couldn’t help but sneer at the man even though he was his mentor.  “No, I’m the pinnacle definition of calm and collected.  Here, do you want me to share my calm tranquil inner peace with you so the whole world can be enveloped in warm ooie-gooie blissful happiness?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Any other man talked that way by someone he was mentoring as Lorian was Zyn would have likely slapped him or beat him fiercely.  However, that was not what Lorian’s way, and that was probably why he picked up Zyn from the streets all those years before in the first place.  Where other men would stammer or boil with indignation, Lorian just shook his head with those knowing eyes.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             In all likelihood, Zyn might still be just another wandering homeless reject who aspired to greater things but never had the education or training to amount to anything, wandering the streets of Korazin waiting for the impossible, or worse.  Or maybe not, maybe he would have found a life past that, but such was not to be as Lorian had found him first.  The grizzled one-armed fresco painter already had quite a name for himself, but instead of picking someone to carry on his work and legacy he had picked up Zyn, not as an apprentice, but simply to “show him the world,” among other things.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden diming of the available light.  In the near pitch black, storm thrashed night, the only illumination other than instantaneous and sporadic lightning strikes was a crudely concocted witchlight, seeing that somehow this incompetent crew had already lost all its deck lanterns during the storm and didn’t have enough replacements.  It was this witchlight that began dangerously fizzing out in a heavily stuttered fashion like a fat drunk sailor, threatening to cast the deck into utter darkness.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             This fortunately was at least noticed by the incompetent crew in question, and Zyn could hear who he believed to be the quartermaster, Grumiah, shouting something in a heavy Southlander accent.  “You!  Mage!” he pointed at the slightly plump mage that Zyn had seen hurling earlier, who now perked his head up.  “Get over hear and recharge this witchlight of yours!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Zyn couldn’t see much because of the ever decreasing light and the storm’s fury, but it seemed that the mage in question was quite exasperated by the request even as he hurried over.  “Thi-this really is not my specialty,” he tried to say in a voice dripping with aristocratic accent.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Don’t really care, just make it so we don’t have to grope around in the dark or this storm will get [i]really[/i] bad up here,” Grumiah said.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Looking out past the deck, Zyn could see that it was just so.  Beyond the pitiful light on the boat it was pure inky blackness, dark enough it seemed to swallow them all up like a floating ember and snuff them out.  Staring out into what for all intents and purposes was an eternal void, he couldn’t help but wonder… wonder how such a small thing as he could exist in the midst of a colossal force of nature as this maelstrom.  It didn’t make any sense; how such insignificance and such significance coexist?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             The light on deck momentarily increased before sputtering and then resuming its previous intensity.  The quartermaster looked over the witchlight that was held fast to the deck by some kind of magical placeholder and nodded his head and then spun around to do whatever it was quartermasters did in such a storm.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “You know, for such a buffoon captain that we’ve got that guy seems remarkably competent,” Zyn said, pointing at the fading form of the quartermaster as he distanced himself from the pathetic glow of the light.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Lorian shrugged.  “In my experience such positions as his are filled by the sort that usually knows what they’re doing.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Zyn could only snort in response.  “How the pagan hells do people like our esteemed captain get into their positions then, the most [i]senior[/i] position, the one that should be the hardest to get?” he asked derisively.  “Guy probably got in through some family connections or some other crap rather than anything he deserved.”  Zyn’s negative assessment wasn’t helped by the fact that he had seen their esteemed captain flagrantly ignore the advice of just about anyone who talked to him, including Grumiah who as ship’s quartermaster should have had much more influence on the ship’s heading.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Probably,” was all that Lorian said in reply.  A long period of silence followed, excepting the constant din of the storm of course.  Zyn eyed his mentor, noting the one armed man’s calm demeanor that stood in blatant contrast to the surrounding squall.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Damnit old man, how can you do that?” Zyn asked with a small heaping of irritation.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “What?” Lorian asked nonchalantly.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “That!  It’s storming like the end of the world and you’re just standing there like... like... you’re just standing there!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             The graying painter probably would have stroked his beard if he hadn’t already been using his own hand to still himself against the constant rocking.  Of course, he didn’t say anything, something that Zyn figured he would but it stoked his temper even more.  “I don’t see a reason to get all worked up about all of it?”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Well just why not?” Zyn demanded.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Lorian gave another of his damnable shrugs.  “Because I’m just used to it, I guess.  Sacrificing a bit of my peace of mind really isn’t that tall an order in the grand scheme of things.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             The younger man gave an incredulous look that was impossible to mistake even in the meager light and battering constant rain.  “You can’t possibly tell me you’re not at all unfazed by... this,” he said, pointing at the storm around them.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Eh, a little bit, but peace of mind is an easy thing to give up once you’re used to it.”  Lorian smiled, “Unlike, say, that little incident at the docks two weeks ago.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Zyn had no patience or desire to revisit that incident in the slightest.  “Hey, that was [i]your[/i] fault; I made it clear I didn’t want to go anywhere near that guy and his ‘collection.’  You were-“<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Making a point that I’m able to make again now,” Lorian interrupted.  “And that’s the difference between your reaction then and my reaction now; it’s a difference of how much peace of mind either of us is willing to give up.  Your problem, much as it seems otherwise at times, is not that you complain too much but that you [i]think[/i] too much.  Quit dwelling on why something happened and how and all that; your problem is you wear yourself into a hole.  So what that we’re on the middle of the ocean?  We’re here, and there’s not really anything that’s going to change that.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Flabbergasted and frustrated with this pointless argument that was going nowhere, Zyn spun around and walked away, cursing again as he nearly lost his footing thanks to the heaving deck.  Again, his gaze was drawn off by the tumultuous ocean that surrounded them on all sides, leaving them likely thousands of miles from another human being.  He couldn’t help but ask himself why he was out here.  He nominally knew the answer, though that still didn’t account for where they were at this particular moment.  If all had gone according to plan they would have be much farther north at this point, somewhere near the coast of the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Desert</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Dreaming</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> or Ainador.  But no, thanks to that fat puss bag of a captain and his dimwitted crew of jack offs, they were Eli knew where in the middle of the freaking ocean!  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Zyn was about to complain again to Lorian when a burst of lightning briefly illuminated the frothing sea around them, and in that brief instant Zyn thought he saw something.  Squinting his eyes, he tried to catch it even though it was pitch black again.  However, his scanning was rewarded when another burst of lightning showed a mountainous wave coming right at them.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “...Oh hell no.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “What?” Lorian asked, undoubtedly convinced it was something trivial.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “That!” he shouted, pointing into the darkness, “there’s a huge wave coming right for us!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             His voice was loud enough that it caught the attention of much of the crew on deck.  “Are you sure?” one of them, Bresan if Zyn remembered his name right, asked.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “What, you gonna doubt me or are you gonna get ready for wave the size of a mountain to hit us?” Zyn demanded.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             The plump mage had been drawn over by Zyn’s exclamations and tried to get a good look himself.  “I don’t see any...” he began.  In that moment, however, another flash of lightning clearly lit up the oncoming wall of water that was rapidly approaching from the port side.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             “Shit!”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Panic grabbed hold of everyone present as they all ran screaming and yelling off in separate directions.  Zyn’s breath quickened and his heart raced as he tried to think quickly about one thing: survival.  But such thoughts didn’t get far when the entire vessel was slammed and Zyn was bashed and immersed by the wall of seawater, casting everything into darkness.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> *          *          *<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             It was the same; it always was.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             It was a cosmic battle that was no cosmic battle, but carried itself on as one, with the blatant exception of refusing to define itself.  No matter how hard Zyn tried, he could never catch what was going on.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             To his left, a knife; to his right, darkness.  Or sometimes the darkness was to his left and the knife was to his right.  Occasionally one was above and the other below or even in front and behind.  The one thing that remained consistent was that they were on opposite sides.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Were they coming at him?  Squinting, he tried to discern the vagueness of motion that should not have been there, but then it seemed to stop.  Wait, was he heading towards it?  Zyn looked down at his feet only to realize he wasn’t standing on solid ground.  That certainly wasn’t normal, but oddly enough it didn’t seem terribly relevant either.  Instead, his pondering was left to focus on the two choices before him.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             They were choices, right?  That was what this was, right?  This wasn’t the first time he had seen this, and it was unlikely to be the last, so what was he supposed to do?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             [i]What are any of us supposed to do?[/i]<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             Zyn snapped around, but as he figured, nothing was to be seen.  Just... grey, indistinct grey in all directions.  He didn’t know how, but he knew that he wouldn’t find the source of the sudden interjection.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             He had been here before.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             But what was he supposed to do?  In this surreal netherworld it pretty much happened the way it decided it was going to happen.  If this were reality, he could truly ponder the significance of it, analyze it, figure it out. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>             But of course this was a dream, and as soon as he realized this, it all vanished.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> !DSPAM:4af0c3d1207161804284693! </body> </html>