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It was fun for a long time but towards the end it just started to drag

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Total Members Voted: 28

[wierd]

"Not exactly hell, but I'll explain later!"

The ceramic clad dwarf scooped up the emaciated elf over his shoulder, and lumbered up the stairs. Waiting for him to get his legs and climb them by himself would waste precious time.

There, in the atrium of the stone tower of Thari's abode, was a round stone motif just inside the door. At the center was a great disc of polished microcline laid into the floor as the centerpiece of the tilework.  It would work perfectly.

Setting the elf down, he looked around for something to work with himself.... and finding nothing. Patting himself all over, his gloved hands came into contact with a tiny shard or broken dalek casing that had embedded itself into the suit after it had self destructed.  Digging it free, and holding it with a shaking hand as the cold air continued to gather, he set about carving the necessary curse to forever block her entrance into the mortal world.

A terrible screeching noise clung in the air as dalekanium clawed into the polished, blue stone, leaving crisp, clean lines on the surface. A large pentacle, like a summoning circle, and images of celestial symbols; a copy of the runic inscriptions on the rare and precious stone tablet that Luc had let him see in private, and which had burned its secrets forever into his mind.

Arranging the mysterious language of the arcane into a long, spiraling passage weaving through the seal, the cloying cold began to make the walls rattle, and the fires in the sconces flicker angrily.

"Tharin, betrayer of oath, kin, and nature; defiler of flesh and spirit; you forsook proper death for an eternal existence in unlife.  As your body is denied existence, so too shall your accursed will. Wretched creature, wander forever the void! The paradise will not open to you, and with this seal, the gates of mortal existence are forever sealed to you! May you writhe eternally with the punishment you have begotten upon yourself!"

Leaving the final strokes to his elven witness, joykill breathd deep as the sconces blew out, and the seal glared and angry red. Fire erupted from the scratched inscription and pattern, and the air clung heavily with the scent of the void and undeath. The stone fumed and seared, burning the inscription deep into its surface, before extinguishing itself, and growing cold and quiet once more.

Then all was quiet.

[WillowLuman]

Thari drifted through nothingness, thoughtless, shapeless, and almost devoid of all perception. Almost, for Thari could now feel only pain. And she was glad.

[WillowLuman]

Kofthefens led Roead to the trade Depot, telling him that people who could provide a semblance of being in charge were there. Suddenly, a kobold burst from a doorway and pulled one of the skeletal rabbits apart. "Bloody hell, this place is crawling with Kobolds! Don'cha have a health code around here!?"

He kicked the kobold hard, causing it to yelp and run off down the corridor screaming "I'm telling on you!"

[Mrhappyface]

"Augmentations are free, no mandatory at this science-blessed fort!" Mrhappyface said as he descended from the wooden cabin.
"Become more than you are! Free yourself from the limitations of flesh and bone and mind!"
I sidle up close to the mage.
"Want a Reflex Booster? Turn invisible? Give yourself machine muscles?"

[WillowLuman]

Genuine falmer blood elixir! See into the minds of others and live for thousands of years!

Sorry, could not resist.

[wierd]

Weird stood in the cold gloom of the atrium, shaken and jittering from adrenaline with nowhere to be burned off.  He breathed deep, and leaned against a wall.

"Goddess!" Rasped the emaciated elf. "What kind of foul magic have you cause me to call forth!?" He demanded.

"A curse. One necromancers are terrified of." Weird breathed. "Its there as both instruction and warning on the tablets left in hidden places of the world by the dark goddess of death. The seal metaphorically represents the gateway from this world, into the next. It is employed in powerful summonings, but I arranged the signs just so."

Pointing at the deep, charred glyphs noe irreparably burned into the massive stone motif, he continued. "Here, we have aligned the stars that guide the dead to paradise, in accordance with the pact that necromancers like mysef have entered into. It makes that road impassible to the soul of the necromancer. The afterlife is off limits."

Weaving his hands over the signs, he spoke again.

"Here, these represent the road over which a spirit passes to enter the road of the void, between the world of the living, and what lies beyond.  I have arranged them to deny passage. The road is blocked."

Making a broad, sweeping gesture at the great circle surrounding the glyph, he finished.

"This is the endless road of the void. This is the path she circles for eternity. There are no markers and no signs to guide her path. Forever, she wanders its concourse. She is denied all form, all existence. A prisoner of her own fate.  This is what a necromancer most fears. On this road, there is no exit. It extends forever, and nowhere. It is endlessly vast, and endlessly constricting. It is and is not. And now she dwells there. Forever."

The elf breathed.  "The goddess of nature never revealed such terrible things to her children!" He croaked. "She gifted us with natural immortality, in the service of nature, and in so doing gave us dominion over it. Our compact is to obey her commands to protect and love all living things, that the natural world should never perish. This magic you have wrought, it has no place in nature."

"You're right." Weird said. "This magic is a subversion of the natural order. It is what was necessary to contain her though. The void between worlds is meant as a conduit over which a soul travels almost instantly. A black abyss with the light of the next world at the far end; the stars and signs that guide the dead to proper rebirth in the next cycle create a tunnel that directs the soul where to go.  This magic denies all that. It creates an unnatural road, for the damned. It is the remedy for the unnantural perversions that necromancers who dig too deeply eventually become. It is a divine curse. A divine warning, and a divine pronouncement. As long as this seal remains, the creature that was slain here will never know peace."

"I don't know why..." murmured the metal skinned elf, "but that makes me happy."

[WillowLuman]

The gauntlet-fists clenched. "Very happy. If my face were not encased in a helm forever, I'd spit in her ashes."

Thari blinked. She found herself in a dark chamber, wearing the form she had long-since discarded. At the far end of the room was a wall of strange, glowing glass squares. Images flashed behind them, and occasionally the image of an amphibian showed up. A shape, like a person in a chair, was silhouetted against the glow.
"Well, well. It seems their meddlesome existance has led to some good after all. I am speaking, of course, of you. The way one of them has influenced you... is beautiful. Almost enough to make me reconsider my plans and spare her after all. Almost. Anyway, though, that is another matter. Thari the Elf, warper of flesh and perverter of life, you have led your life in a way that is very pleasing to me. Watching what you have done has entertained me greatly. For that, you shall be rewarded. By the power invested in me, I say you shall be... reincarnated."
Thari blinked at the strange figure. "I don't understand... what about the Paradise my Goddess has promised?"
"Oh, I have a much better idea. You shall be reincarnated... as a fluffy wambler. Yes, that would be most entertaining. No memories of past life, no special treatment or extra ability. Just for one who has caused so much wonderful Fun to perceive once more, but as a harmless creature... yes, it shall be done. A little fluffy wambler, on a tiny island far from any people."

[Oliolli]

Oliolli had listened attentively to wierd's explanation. For whatever reason, he had only been taught how death of the body affects Oliollis, so he was interested in other beings.
"Hmm... Wierd, there's soemthing I have to tell you, in case I ever go 'evil'. Just a failsafe, you see?"
"Things like that happen, you know."
"If an Oliolli dies, the spirit will remain in the mortal world until it either decides to leave or is outright killed. To kill an Oliolli's spirit, that is to permanently kill an Oliolli, you need another 'resident of the spirit world'. A ghost, an Oliolli's disembodied spirit, something like that. So if I ever go axe crazy or something like that, if it ever starts to seem like I'd be a threat for the greater good (I may seem a bit cruel in my actions sometimes, but if those actions are necessary to fulfill my goals, so be it), I want you not to kill me, but imprison me indefinitely and dismember me. If I get killed (beheading works best for Oliollis) my spirit will be freed from the body, and will be free to act. If I am imprisoned and dismembered, however, I will be incapable of killing myself, and will be of no harm."
"The only real effect of dismemberment in this case is that we will be incapable of doing anything to ourselves. That's why you should dismember us, cauterize our wounds and then imprison us."
Wierd nodded.
"Ooh! Ooh! Now the caterpillars!"
"Oh yeah, what are we going to do about those?"

[WillowLuman]

Vemini looked up. "Thari may have started as a somewhat out-of-the ordinary Necromancer, but she quickly moved on to worse things. She became bored with merely animating the deceased with her will, and moved on to creating new, actual life of her own. At least, she tried. She made many plants, found how to return people to true life and heal them, and began to alter elves into other creatures, but she never got around to making any new creatures from scratch. Except, one night, I heard her tell one of her slaves to go until he could no longer see the tower to dispose of something. Would these caterpillars seem like... abominations?"

[Oliolli]

"Very possible. I even found a route to the caves from inside the tower itself. A sealed off area, several floors worth of empty rooms, and one room with a statue of... something."
Oliolli explains what he found in the sealed off levels and the tunnel to Vemini.

[WillowLuman]

Back at the fort, the dwarven trader, no longer soggy, looked at the situation. The cloth was sold, paid for with a single rat bone, and having been here a while now, it was time to pack up. Having nothing to pack up, he merely jumped in the front of his wagon and yelled "Ya!" to the yaks. The wagon pointed in a straight line towards the mountainhome, over the beach and into the waves. Next year he would be back, bearing perhaps some +crafts+ or maybe even booze.

This is a crudely etched stone wall. On it is engraved many images of Roead Sandlebaums the Human. It depicts the life of Roead Sandlebaumbs.

Roead was born when he was 0 years old, making him very young indeed on that day. He was born to the Iron Wedges, a moderately sized island kingdom far to the northeast.

When he was 6, his father took him on his first caravan trip, introducing him to the family business.

When he was 20, his father was lost at sea, giving him control of the caravan. His mother died 2 years later.

Roead did business for nearly 2 decades, eventually falling on hard luck. When he was 43, he eventually found his way down to a small bay in search of new markets. Here he found almost no one, save for a tiny and unimaginably destitute human kingdom. The royal crown was a bucket scrounged from the ocean, and everyone, king included, had to steal from kobolds to survive.

Roead, feeling pity, gave to them one of the 38 silver coins he had to his name, increasing the wealth of the 9-square mile kingdom three thousand-fold. In exchange, they gladly gave him a wool sock, one of the crown jewels.

While stranded there, one day Roead accidentally cut himself while relieving himself behind a tree. Since the kingdom was so poor, the native language did not even have a word for soap.

Roead died of an infection at age 44. Having 37 coins automatically made him a person of almost god-like importance in that society, so the destitute citizens pooled their resources to build him what was, in their eyes, a spectacular tomb. Ages passed, the people long since dispersed, the area became uninhabited wilderness, and the tomb sank into the mud.

[Eric Blank]

Eric listened intently as Wierd and the piss-ass-scary metal-elf-thing discussed the art of dispensing of insane necromancers, and at Oliolloi's description of his bizarre afterlife possibilities. Then he wondered if the powers of Ultimate Mental Thralldom would permit him to further one's existence by trapping their mind in the mortal realm. The conscious, unconscious, and "soul" or base-mind would have to be controlled and prevented from slipping away as if still alive, and that would require some way to prevent the energies of the body and mind from dissipating upon death into the surrounding environ, or taking on aspects of that environ. A sort of insulation againt all forms of energy. This could be very doable if he ahd some way to manifest his powers outside his mind and those of others. Sharing a body with the entirety of a potentially hostile being was a terrible idea, even if it was entirely possible for him.

Using his powers of Ultimate Mental Thralldom; "Wierd, would you mind showing me the secrets of life and death at some point? You of course should know by now that I am devoted to no cause but the loving nurture of the immortal soul, and perhaps I can make use of these magics in a more beneficial way than summoning zombies or influencing afterlives. Perhaps even stabilize one's mind to prevent complete insanity. I have found some other interesting magical knowledge that combined with yours could make for some very effective therapies."

[WillowLuman]

You could try sheer willpower. Some combination of my will to stick around, my atheism, and technically not having died since I was outside my body when it was lost allow me to keep existing.

[Eric Blank]

You could try sheer willpower. Some combination of my will to stick around, my atheism, and technically not having died since I was outside my body when it was lost allow me to keep existing.

But that would be too easy! I'm all but gauranteed as many new lives as I wish as a Bay12er, with our natural inclination towards powers higher than those of this game-world, but I also have the powers of Ultimate Mental Thralldom to keep a level and disembodied head at all times. I'm referring more towards the capacity to prevent others from dying or even resurrect them in full flesh as Thari had done, but without the insanity and depraved acts and by side-stepping the natural laws of death rather than punching them in the face and stealing their wallet. After all, if the mind (the base-level of the mind and personallity commonly referred to as a soul) itself is not exposed to death, then one has not died, a soulless husk of flesh has simply been wasted in whatever fashion you died in. The issue lies in whether you can prevent the mind from experiencing death without a body, which is where the insulation of the energies and processes of the mind coems into play. This could be done with innanimate objects, perhaps depending on material composition or an enchantment, but the ultimate goal would be to make that unnecessary by permitting a mind to simply exist without a direct tie to an object.

[wierd]

[Ok, here's the deal. Weird will say "no."  Here is why. Luc almost said "no." to weird when he came around, asking "stupid" questions.  See, necromancy is "divine death magic." You obtain that power by entering a very skillfully written contractual agreement. Not exactly a deal with "the devil", but functionally quite analogous. The tablet itself is the contract, and the instruction booklet. Elves get their immortality, and powers to communicate with nature and to make trees and plants grow with magic by entering a similar but radically different contract with the goffess of nature. Elves are immortal and can make trees grow dildoswords at will, because of that conract. That contract forbids them to harm other living things except as base necessity, and to live in complete harmony with and to enhance the beauty of nature. (This includes its savage aspects as well, which is why eating of sentients is permitted.)  Basically, they get their elf powers by being elfy.  Likewise, a necromancer gets his/her unnatural "unlife", and power over the dead by entering into a contractual agreement with the goddess of death. They exchange life in the next world, and enter a kind of indentured servitude. They get powers over life, death, and the flow of souls, but they get "responsibilities" they have to uphold, such as ensuring souls go where they are supposed to go, (including "special renditions", such as was just illustrated), and to also ensure that there is plenty of death in the world. To fascilitate this, a portion of the necromancer's being is excised and held in collateral, making the necromancer "less than human" spiritually. This is what causes the "immortality".  Like all contracts, it has rules, and conditions. These are what weird means when he mentions "the taboo". Specifically, since you were given power over the dead to help ensure a healthy level of death, if you instead subvert a soul's normal passing for "improper" purposes, you break the conditions of the contract, and default. Winner takes all. Other necromancers are contractually obligated to "remove" you from the picture, and the goddess will sort you out personally. You want to avoid this. In addition to things you should never, ever do with your powers, there is the "super, almost impossible to reach, dangling carrot on the stick." This is the *real* goal necromancers are supposed to strive for. This reverses the stakes on the agreement, and the necromancer retains their powers, (as long as you don't violate the taboo) but gets their collaterall back. If they die, they can pass on properly. To accomplish this, you have to win back your lost humanity. Exactly how is purposefully left blank. Most necromancers approach the art due to ambition for power, or fear of death, and gladly pay the heinous price to get it. Luc is unusual, in that her approach to necromancy is entirely practical, light hearted, plucky, and whimsical.  Wierd's approach to necromancy was "knowledge is its own reward, the powers are unnecessary. If they prove useful or beneficial, then why not use them? Knowledge is a currency that only grows." The only reason luc accepted wierd's offer was because of how light hearted, benign, and silly it was: exchange of knowledge of perfect puff pastry. Weird is almost completely devoid of ambition for power. He is not interested in power for power's sake. Having realized the trap of the contract, as luc did, (she attempts to recover her humanity by living simply as a housewife who just so happens to raise zombies in her spare time) weird would be greatly reluctant to expose that secret to others, because willfully shoving people down that road is inhuman. He would openly tell you so. He seeks to use necromancy in such a fashion as to deny its use for personal conquest and gain, but for selfless assistance of others, and in so doing, reclaim his lost humanity, and claim the dangled carrot. Most necromancers are humans, prone to great ambitions, who go for the power, and ultimately, violate the taboo. The contract operates like a casino. A very few win. Most lose.)