Farewells and goodbyes (saved post - Casler storyline)

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Category: Towns
Topic: River's Rest
Message number: 12374
Author: GS4-SCRIBES
Date: 10/18/2007
Subject: Farewells and Good-byes

[The Warren, House Lefante]

He sat in the stone window that offered an expansive view of the Warren. The odd collection of ramshackled buildings and homes crowded together and ringed by great brambles appeared as they always had. Men, women, and children, moved by the same daily script and there was no sign that something had changed. Casler quietly turned his head to the center of the room, to a large four posted bed upon which a woman lay. Her dark hair, once raggedly cut, was now trimmed and offered a halo of sorts for a face frozen in sleep. The bruises, the cuts, the atrocities done upon her body were gone now, with the exception of a line drawn across her throat. Faint tendrils of green under the skin emanated from the wound and healing had done nothing to remove them or the cut they originated from. The rags and canvas which had clothed her had been replaced with a simple dark blue dress. There were no jewels or finery, for this was the way it was, the way it had always been.

Casler squeezed the locket in his hand, causing its chain to sway slowly back and forth beneath his fist. His eyes went back to the Warren, where slowly, and unseen, a war was beginning to unfold.

[The Warren, House DeRichter]

Many would say that the pirates had no honor. They had attempted to crush the old ways back at the time of the Cataclysm and nearly had succeeded. The Smugglers' Code meant little to nothing to them at times, but that did not mean there was not a code among them carried with them from the days of piracy to the assumption of smuggling. Some might argue that it was an even older code, born on the waves and carried across the many seas of Elanthia. Now, in the depths of the DeRichter Hold a ceremony was unfolding that rarely was seen in the light of day.

Upon a stretcher lay a man of lank bone and hair, whose sallow skin might be assumed as the cause of death by those who did not know him in life. Two gold coins covered his eyes and a clean white scarf wrapped around his neck hid from sight the fact that a gulf existed between it and the head. Slowly, the stretcher was guided by two men into an alcove and once fully in, there left. A man stepped forward and the other two stepped back in deference. The man placed a glass filled with a golden-brown liquid on the alcove besides the body and then whispered a prayer invoking the Lord of the Seas. Finishing, Valons DeRichter stepped back and away and nodded to the two men who followed him away from the alcove, and the body, alone with the gold and the drink, was left to the darkness and all its inhabitants.

[River's Rest, Tempest River]

The body slowly swirled in a clockwise motion, grazing tall river weeds and the occasional partially submerged log. As the morning sun raised itself higher into the skies, its heat increased, and soon the body would be further desecrated by the elements. By observation it was the body of a man, a large, rotund man dressed in the uniform of the great human empire. Small fish nibbled at his side where existed an ugly gouge in the flesh. The body swirled now to the left and was caught by the current, which dragged it towards the open expanse of Maelstrom bay. Like a piece of driftwood, the body soon became lost in the waves of the bay, drawn by the tide further into Charl's domain and beyond the assistance of his daughter. Had the body a thought, a last sliver of energy to raise to the infinite one last question before ceasing to be the body of a man, and becoming the meat of the dead, it may have thought this, "...bury me in earth, where my children's children can know the man that was me...bury me in earth, and not be forgotten like my destiny."

And so ends the first phase of the Casler Huntington storyline. Thats right, the first phase! There's more, but it is yet to come. In the meanwhile, things will calm down considerably in town, and perhaps that sleepy stupor that hangs so lovingly above it will remain undisturbed for a while. What this also means is that I'm going to take a little time from grand events (there will still be little ones....willow tree anyone?) to focus on finishing up work thats out of sight, like the expansion, and work that needs completing to even attempt to make a future hunting grounds possible.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the ride so far and will also appreciate a nice breather. While events eventually ended as I planned from the start, the path on how we got there was greatly affected by you, the towns inhabitants. Messers was entirely your creation, his existence brought about by the actions of individuals partaking in the quest. He was quite fun to play with, but like all good things...good evil things..or evil good things...it had to end. So for as much as I planned the story, I was virtually as swept up along with the events and changes as you guys were. So thanks for the fun, and I hope to keep things interesting!

GM Scribes