Anonymous Correspondence

[Teron_Ashfiend]

The name of the Ashfiend is a doom to man and wife. The hammer wobbles in his hand and collapses to the floor with enough sound to rouse the children from a small, neighboring room. Older son and younger daughter they emerge, eyes going wide at the gypsy woman who has forced her way inside.

William closes the door quickly before he and his wife join arms, clinging to one another for warmth, courage and some hopeless sense of peace that has eluded ever since the Ashfiend's thunderous arrival.

"I knew that this ended too easily," William offered after the brief silence. Their children, both equally atremble, quickly close to their parents and cling to their waists and legs, as each one's height permits. The wife's hand, marked by Teron's frost-burn, settles fiercely upon William's chest. For his part, the husband bore a similar, more ferocious wound upon the front of his neck that vaguely resembled a palm and curled fingers.

"He was trying to protect us," the wife offered with a strong, clear voice. "The Ashfiend... it stormed into the house, captured us, and threatened us with death... or worse." Tears threaten to well where they already have upon her husband's and stream unabashedly down his tanned face. "My husband saved us!"

"There was only one meeting," William quickly added unable to hide the tremor in his words. "When he attacked the house. We all tried to fend him off, for naught it was. He told me to go to the tavern, because the wanted posters have been marked. I followed the instructions, dug up a stone... a stone rose. Crystal-like, blue."

A slow, painful swallow as he and his wife, going back and forth, begin filling in the remaining details. "He took the rose..." "he had taken the family through shadow to a dark place..." "He took us back after the rose was his, didn't say a word to us!"

"Please," William began, unable to answer the question as this final weight brought him to the brink of collapse. "Please, leave us alone..."

[Khalika]

Khalika was staring at the family, no at the childern, at their hands...Few people know the effect the young ones have on her. She has none of her own...Has no the ability after one to many knives to the gut and below. But she has a sister, a perfect pettite vision who she cherish with such a joy. Young wryin had for a time resided in Myrken, but is now in coccon. Safely tucked away as the goes from preverbial puppa to butterfly...

So it was those tiny hands she looked to as the parents spoke....Blue rose?..That must have been the gift. it matched from the tidbits she could see...But then something had her looking up towards the wife...

"He took you somewhere?...You moved with him through the shadows?..Explains this?

As she spoke she was kneeling, before the childern. A hand moved to hold their own..to look at their wounds..

"I too felt his touch....it itches yes?...But don't you worry, there is a magik man, A healer...He will make it better for you...and your brother....

Even as she spoke to the childern, to put them at ease. Her eyes looked up to the parents...

"What was this place like?....very dark yes.....could you feel wood beneath your feet?...or stone?...

[Cinnabar]

No contact had been made with farmer or ghoul during their meeting, for all that the cloaked man had watched and listened carefully, silently concealed; only snatches of conversation, something passed from man to monster. Then as the Ashfiend departs and the farmer rushes home, this cloaked watchman moves in his wake, well-skilled and subtle.

A time taken to examine William's farm once the man's headed inside, to scout the perimeter and check in case the creature should return; satisfied, the cloaked man is about to move into the open and knock on the door himself when a figure approaches, a woman; he ducks back into the shadow of a small outbuilding, out of sight but listening carefully. As the gypsy steps inside the cloaked man slips across the open space towards the house, taking up position by one of the windows left open to permit entry to whatever breeze may stir the day's heat.

And there he remains, crouched and listening to the conversation within.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

William thought that if one more person tracked them down, demanding things from him and his family, his heart might burst within his chest. The gypsy woman evidently calms, growing more civil, and he finds himself relaxing as well. The gods have proven quite merciful to him and his tonight. He could only pray that they continued to do so.

"It was quite dark inside," the wife offered, her eyes growing increasingly wary as the stranger addresses her children. "It smelled... stale, really. Quite stale. And it appeared to be a dormitory of sorts. We were in a small bedroom. Cobwebs everywhere, the bed frame was rotting. There were old ashes scattered on the floor. I think it was wood beneath our feet. I think... I'm not entirely sure, you know."

"It smelled old," the son chimed in, regarding Khalika warily still. "I thought I heard a mouse."

The daughter nodded quietly as Khalika spoke of healing. "He said it was special, the place..."

"Yes," the mother nodded. "That is, the Ashfiend muttered something about how this place reminded him of another, important place. Caer... Caer something-or-other."

"Gardraark," the son quietly interjected. "He said it reminded him of Caer Gardraark."

"Yes, that," the continued. "The shadows came up all around us. It was so cold. And his touch... like ice daggers. You said it could be treated?" She looks at her hand, flexing and uncurling it. "We must meet him. But what of the cost?"

[Khalika]

"You were very brave..She whispers to the childern after they have all spoken their accounts. the Term Caer Gardraark, sered into memory. A gentle finger touching the girls cheek. Before she stands.

"There is a man, a healer staying at the Dagger, he was a great help to me. I think he will be able to do the same for you and your family. His name is Alastir, tell him Ms. Quiller sent you.

A fuller look now towards the parents."You have paid enough I believe. But I would suggest once you have your family returned to health, that you head out of the county till this matter can be solved. If Ashfiend came to you once, he may feel the need to return.

Without much more she was heading for the door, if she knew the cloaked man was near she didn't show any signs of it. Another did now though, for the traker was tucked somwhere close by watching the farmsted, funny the massive bird did not bring the cloaked figure to anyones attention....

[Sherazade]

The fiend had vanished, the very thing she had been trying to hunt down had shown his face in the dagger and now was gone. She could have gone and tracked down the constable straight away but this hot trail was too good an opportunity to pass up. Moving down into the darkeness, her senses began to unfurl, golden orbs piercing through the layers of darkness.

Do we have a trail Sweet Alexis?" The voice within her questioned.

"Hush now I don't know yet" Though it fell from her lips, the words were barely audible. Kneeling at the base of the tree now, she could still feel the lingering chill he had left behind. Glove was tugged from her scarred arm, lain within her lap, and soon bare fingers were running over the dirt. There was decay within it as if by standing upon it he had drained all its life away.

"where did you go to Fiend" She did not expect an answer, even though the words were spoken louder this time, and she would raise a handful of dirt towards her nose to take a sniff.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

His scent, in and of itself, is almost nothing. His is the remnant of old fire, that has seared the ruined plate armor by which he is easily identified. And yet, there was the hint of something else: incense, perhaps even myrrh. Extremely faint, as if he had accidentally or uncaringly trodden through it. Undoubtedly, he would soon wear the material away but it yet clung to his black boots, however tenuously.

[Sherazade]

Old ash that was one scent that assailed her sense of smell, and it carried with it something else. what was it? It took only moments for her to place it, it was that curious mix of scents that clung to myrrh carried in censors, swung on long chains by angelic faced boys. "It seems our friend has walked through a church recently" This soft whisper fell from her lips as she rose to her feet.

Or an abbey Sweet Alexis, the sisters use such things as well this was a reminder from that other in her mind.

"I have not forgotten." came her soft response. "Now lets stretch our senses and see if we can find a direction".

Wind rose around the huntress as she sent her awareness along these cool tendrils, ones that sliced through the nights heat and sought after any indication of the Ashfiend. Such a creature must at least leave ripples after all.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

It was old myrrh. And it had been exposed to fire, smoke and ash - but this was some time ago. Several years at the very least since whatever the Ashfiend had mucked through had been exposed to the fire.

The shadows, ever the Ashfiend's servants, had carried him along in their allegiance to his dark call. They rippled at his passing, shivered at his touch, and otherwise sought to simply be near him if not called upon to obey. So it was that they bore him aloft, from darkness to darkness - this even greater darkness - and whatever he desires to travel with him. They summarily refused to allow anyone to follow that their master would just as soon leave behind.

Should her senses be attuned to the shadows, for it is they alone who bore him along during his retreat, she would find that the shadows had born him eastward towards the Derry border and the cliffs that marked it.

[Sherazade]

Old or not, it still gave the Huntress a valuable clue as to a possible place to find him, such scents often faded completely overtime, unless they meant something to such creatures.

Ears twitched, not physically mind but within her mind as sounds of movement carried to her, as flickers caught themselves in the corner of her gaze. "time for a change I think" Alexis murmured as she shed her coat, recieving nothing but an answering purr from the other's voice.

Muscles and sinew shifted beneath her skin as human was submerged under panther, the none to soft snap crack and pop of shifting bones, sounding like some night creature making a meal of another. Clothing fell away forgotten into the littered corpses of dead grass, weapons lying forgotten as well .

Teeth grasped the coat and dragged it over the pile and muzzle lifted into the wind Now we hunt Both voices echoed as one within the panthers mind and as wraith like as the ashfiends followers she would start slipping from shadow to shadow.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

The scent lay bare and dying for the huntress' keen senses to pluck from the evening shadows that had spirited the Ashfiend away. For the dark knight it was a simple matter to bend such things to his will, an inexorable crushing beneath merciless, mailed fists. It was those same fists that had strayed through the priory's remaining myrrh which had been spared the flames that Bromn's wrathful saviors had set.

It was the same scent that now led another would-be hero towards the cliffs and rocky slopes along Myrken's eastern border. There, among the rocky crags, the scent's source would await her as she set about to cross nearly half of Myrken Wood's breadth. Behind her the stale scent crumbled and dissipated. Depending upon her senses, this might prove to be a one-way trip.

As the stone, solemn faces draw nearer, marking the separation from Myrken and Derry, the scent of old, decaying death marks the closing border between life and death. For here there are carefully hidden footprints, the mark of their passage a cold, gray stench of decay and the cold, nearly-scentless death that hovers about the Ashfiend as a winter's garment or a lover's embrace.

And should the huntress lift her head she would easily spy the tall, lank figure silhouetted by the low, pregnant clouds whose reflection illuminates the evening sky. A figure's chalk-like skin and staring, yellowed eyes set in a still head above a sunken chest. In one hand it clutched a shortened rake, its shaft nearly broken. It stood and stared out over the country it had once called home and now remembered nothing about.

Save that it was important to watch. It was important to watch for the master.

[Sherazade]

Black nose, easily followed the trail knowing that it was disappearing behind her, but she did not fear that, always she had been able to find her way out of somewhere once in, there was no reason to believe this tiem would be different.

Paws ate up the distant, pressed on heedless of a growing need to rest, drawing strength from the other within her mind, and merging more fully with it in the process, still there would be a price to pay , for even now the huntress had her limits.

Pace slowed as she approached those stones faces, something urged caution now. Decomposing moss and insect corpses drew her attention and a black paw swiped across it, feral gaze finding the hidden prints, despite the care that had been taken. He had definately passed this way.

Feral gaze shifted now, golden depths falling upon the tall lanky figure silhouetted against the sky, without just cause she flattened against the ground, tail pulled tight against her sleek form. Only her nose lifted sniffing for this one's scent. Death, the scent assailed the panther so strongly she almost gagged upon it. So he had set a watcher, that was only further proof she was on the right trail.

Belly hairs scraping the ground, the hunting pantheress, crept onward most mindful of making no sound. With luck, she would seem to be nothing more than a shadow moved by the wind if spotted.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

The corpse-creature stared wistfully, blankly, as the sprawling meadows and forests of Myrken Wood sparked a pitiful flame in a callow memory. The wick of its mind had grown short indeed, frayed and damp with the quick passing of many ages due to the Ashfiend's necromancy.

A shadow-play of a shadow-play, it stared and gaped and stood. Silent, armed only with a broken farming implement, the simple guard's eyes were one of its poorer senses. It served mainly to die noisily enough to rouse whoever else might lay beyond. Yet it stood and obeyed all the same, its will subsumed by a deathly master.

As the huntress carefully ascended the gray cliffs, dotted with brief handfuls of tall, yellowed grass and protruding, dead roots - she moved through the servant's field of vision. Yet it did not react. It merely continued to stand until time wore it into oblivion, or its master finally commanded otherwise.

[SinVraal]

Near the ridge upon which the undying servant stood, armed and prepared to die a second death for the Ashfiend, there arose a great rock like the scalloped back of some monstrous hunchback who had nearly buried himself into the hillside. Hidden from the sentinel's view, a figure glanced askance at the prowling huntress whose sleek form stealthily approached with a relentless mien that she bore as a mantle over her haunches.

A slow, serpentine smile slithered across the breadth of cruel lips. With a tiny pebble held between a gloved forefinger and thumb, he cast it against the curving stone - confident that the dry crackle of the descending, diminutive rock would gather her attention while leaving them both free of the guard's molestation.

He awaited her with purely obsidian eyes whose narrow, almond curvature hinted at the sly amusement and sincere interest in the woman-thing herself. Though they both crouched along the natural outer battlements of the Ashfiend's encampment, his attention seemed entirely upon her. Ebon waves, cinched back by a tiny silver circlet, outline a lean visage of harsh, angular proportions. A pale, smooth brow is adorn with an intricate, knot work black brand centered thereupon.

Between them, a hair's breadth from thin lips, a slender finger sheathed in leather arises and beckons the huntress to approach before pressing against his own lips as a reminder for silence.

[Sherazade]

The moments where she crept through the servant's field of vision, were fraught with tension, but there was no reaction at all. Hackles began to settle, only to rise again as that pebble clattered aganst the rocks. Head turned as she pressed her body closer to the rocks, golden freal depths falling upon another watcher.

This huntress, was more than the animal whose form she wore though and everything within her vibrated with subtle warning. Still after a moment of simple watching this other man creature she would creep forward on all fours. She did not wish to show him her real face of course and not just because she would be left bare a vunerable, one simply did not reveal all to anyone they felt was a danger.

Coming closer she would sit, with all the haughty air of a simple house cat, head titled to oneside watching him, in perfect silence and yet somehow conveying the question... who are you? what do you seek here+