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Asherons Call: Throne of Dark Destiny by Storyteller - Chapter 2
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"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."
~Author Unknown
"My debt to you, Belovèd,
Is one I cannot pay
In any coin of any realm
On any reckoning day."
~Jessie B. Rittenhouse
Then again the rats hadn't been killed by cosmic forces unleashed by a ritual designed to tear down the barriers between realities. Instead, they had died from the swift motion of a rather heavy boot. The difference probably wouldn't matter that much. Besides, even if Ilumini's body regenerated
with an extra arm, or an eyeball on his tongue, no one would notice right?
CHAPTER TWO: THE TOMB OF SECRETS AND THE MERCENARY
Two days later the makeshift tomb of the dead griefer Ilumini surrendered the remains of its fell occupant to an exausted Zero Night. Housed within its stinking, fetid interior it was found: A chorizite funeral vase unlike anything Zero had ever seen. It was easily half his height, faintly
translucent, and covering in a variety of etchings and charcoal writings that had been placed on it before it had been disposed of.
Zero Night squinted in the moist darkness of the funeral pit trying to read the writing.
"Noobishly lived, poorly died, thrown in a hole and no one cried." There were several more...
"PWNED!"
"Rosebud."
"Gaerlan was here."
"Stay dead this time."
This was it! Zero Night could barely contain his excitement.
"Ridix! Myst! I found it!" He grabbed the vase and quickly scrambled up the side of the pit and into the unforgiving sunlight above.
As soon as he reached the top he hefted the heavy vase above his head. "I....HAVE.....THE POWER!" he screamed, the sunlight gleaming dramatically off the chorizite.
"Gimme that!" Ridix snapped, grabbing the vase from Zero. He set it on the ground in front of Myst, then turned quickly and slapped Zero hard across the face. "And that's for being stupid." he said irritably.
The ritual would prove to be remarkably complex. I don't mean complex as in difficult equations, or even that the pronunciation had to be perfectly exact. As Myst had learned in her studies, such was not the case. What made this particular ritual incredibly difficult was that it required several material and location components to be successfully cast. First and foremost it required the partial remains of the individual to be resurrected along with something close to them in life. Secondly, it would have to be cast within an area sacred to
Bael Zharon, such as one of his dungeons.
These requirements would prove to be no obstacle at all. They already possessed Ilumini's ashes and armor, and they had made the trip to the dungeon shortly after the recovery of his remains. Of course, the spell would require the odd leaf of comfrey, or vial of newt. All were easy to obtain. Unfortunately, the spell also required a lock of hair from someone who had loved the soon-to-be-alive in life.
With any other individual this would have proved to be only mildly difficult to obtain. With Ilumini however, you were as likely to locate someone who had loved him in life as you were to see Burning Hierophant or Zero Night become master mages.
"What? Impossible! Never in a thousand years are we going to locate someone who is actually in love with Ilumini." shouted Ridix. He stomped while pacing back and forth, his mind racing as he attempted to think of anyone who might even remotely like Ilumini, let alone love him. They had brought all the other requirements of the incantation here to the PK dungeon, and now after all that work it would prove impossible to complete.
"I kinda have feelings for him." Zero Night volunteered meekly.
Ridix and Myst paid him no attention. For a long while they were silent with their eyes cast to the floor as they thought of the thousands of people who had met Ilumini in Dereth. Finally, a sound broke the uneasy silence. A wet,
grotesque noise that immediately shattered Ridix and Myst's concentration...
-Poooooooouuuuk...- came the disturbing interruption from the mouth of Zero Night.
-Pouuuuuuuuuuuk...-
In his boredom he always amused himself by making the most obnoxious noises possible.
-Pooooooooo....-
"Stop it!" shouted Myst as her nerves finally ground down to the possibility of physical violence. "You're almost as annoying as Sweet Mary."
"That's it!" Ridix proclaimed, his eyes wide with the weight of a fresh and completely developed plan of action.
"Sweet Mary has always been in love with Ilumini! All we need is a lock of her hair!"
From the standpoint of completing the incantation and returning Ilumini from the land of the dead this was an absolutely brilliant observation on the part of Ridix. From the standpoint of survivability it amounted to tactical suicide.
It was a well known fact that no Isparian male had ever set foot inside the Heart of Thunder allegiance mansion and returned to tell the tale. In the course of Ilumini's conquest, even the dark lord's forces had avoided the bright pink fortress as vehemently as a vampire would avoid a hearty healing garlic pizza with anchovies.
For such a treacherous and deadly mission such as this outside help would be required. Fortunately, Ridix happened to know of just such an expert mercenary. You see, Sweet Mary rarely ventured outside of the heavily fortified Heart of Thunder allegiance mansion, except of course, under cover of darkness. This was primarily for two reasons. First, because Sweet Mary devoted her entire life to the elimination of individuals known as 'automatons' which were generally active only at night. And secondly, because such total devotion to righteousness left little time to attend to the less important issues of life such as, for example, personal hygiene.</div>
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