A Field, Outside a village

[Lys]

"Dead, all dead.... Dead and gone, down to the ashes. They'll be rotting in the ashes, but they'll be walking. Walking ash. All alone..." he to stop to breathe, so hysetical had his laughter become. Real tears were running down his face now, freezing to his lashes with the cold. "Alone.. dead... Oh Gods, what have I done?" His knees gave out under him and he dropped to the ground, sitting in the snow. He rocked back and forth holding his face in his hands, muttering despairingly to himself.

[Enix]

Alastor looked down onto the town, now ablaze by the fires Lys had lit.

"Why here, why now?" He asked helplessly.

Alastor turned to Dio, and nodded, then turned again to Eldred and thought on the words the little halfling had said earlier, about leaving and possibly getting himself purified and removing this curse from him.

"Truly is a great plan, just one question..." He paused for moment, "The Holy City of Eden will only allow those invited in by someone already within the city walls. How do you suppose we do this?"

[Bly]

Eldred responded to Alastor, "I've sent a message outlining our situation to the Holy City. Hopefully when we get there they'll have gotten it and allow us entry. I will ask of my old teacher, the Great Divine Leon Richards, he's fought against the undead for as long his history spans. Selome willing, he'll remember me and take an interest in these matters with Amandil and hear our case. Now we must find a boat."

He cast his finger at Lys, "You weak fool. You've started something great and beautiful yet you have not the wits to see it. Go to my temple in the Century District of Zell, perhaps keeping Selome's house would be more your speed. Or redeem yourself and help us of this island."

[Lys]

"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF BEAUTY!" Lys shrieked suddenly in an outburst quite contrasting to his normally quiet and eccentric nature. His hair hung in wets strands around his sooty face, and his eyes bruned like a man possessed. "Temples, prayers, myths, all to cold nothingness! There is nothing there! No gods would let this happen. I refuse to believe any deity would be so cruel! you claim I have not the wits but you have not the eyes!" he exclaimed in a state of startling lucidity.

"A child laughing after his pain has been healed... a mother holding her newborn child in her arms after a birth... the relief on a man's face when he knows he'll be strong enough to keep his family alive... that is beauty. Not this. Not ever this." He waved wildly at the flames, roaring high into the bleak sky. The young healer stood there for a moment in defiance, breath coming raggedly. Then his shoulders slumped and he turned, trudging through the snow down a hillock. "There's a port this way... there will be fishing boats. The fire won't have reached the docks yet."

[Bly]

I will deal with this heretic at an appropriate time Eldred thought.

For now he said nothing and motioned for Dio and Alastor to start walking towards the port. He went last, leaning heavily on his staff.

[Dio]

Dio looked on as the frazzled Lys led the way down to the port he had mentioned, and thought of what horrors the two Divine could have seen within the ruins of the town. The Knight was sure that whatever abominations from beyond the grave had been walking the streets, he wouldn't have come back in such a state. But he now felt an uncharacteristic wave of pity for Lys, and watched him walk away for a time. He looked then to Eldred, and felt a similar emotion; it couldn't be easy to maintain a pillar of faith when the rest of the world was crumbling around you. He said nothing of these thoughts, though, so as not to appear weak, and only fell into step in front of Eldred, sweeping himself up and marching like a soldier to assure the other men that not all was lost. With one eye on Alastor and another on the path to Eden, Dio Songbringer felt that his party's luck might be turning around.

[Derrek]

At the pier a man in a dark cloak, covering all of his skin but his pale hands, senses your presence. He turns his attention from the burning village and looks at the group of friends and stars waiting for a reaction.

[Bly]

At the pier stood a man in a dark cloak. The wind whipped around him yet he appeared unfazed.

There is no way in the nine hells that this can be in our favor. Never trust the man in black standing outside a burning town. Even if we were the ones who set it on fire. thought Eldred.

He marched up to the front of the company and called out to the dark man, "Halt in the name of Selome. Who are you?"

[Derrek]

“You may refer to me as Derrek. But I don’t have much time my father in Zell he is in grave danger! You must save him! PLEASE!” Then the image fades away as if it were some spell cast to deliver this message.

((OOC: Lys and Bly check your PM I have a message for you))

[Bly]

Eldred paused for a moment. What had just happened? A dark man on the pier tells us to go to Zell so...what we just obey?

"We cannot put our quest on hold to go all the way back to Zell to appease some dark man. Unless we split up, in which case I recommend that Lys should go. You need time to recooperate."

[Lys]

No! Don't make me go alone... I'm already alone! Lys gave them a pleading look that was really quite pathetic. He said nothing about it, except - "The Cadence is the fastest sloop in the harbor... She's tied up over here." He spun on his heel in the slushy, melting snow and led the way quickly down the dock to a narrow vessel with rolled-up sails. The chopy gray water beat at the sides of the ship, the only sound in the eerie silence broken only by the sound of their steps and the mutes roar of the fire. The snow deadened all other noises. The world seemed as though it had laid down and died.

He found a plank on the dock and leaned it against the edge of the anchored boat. "Hurry." He thought of the boys who would often sit on the dock and watch what little sea traffic came through the tiny port, squealing for joy at every distant mast they spied on the horizon. A lump grew in his throat.

[Bly]

Eldred looked skeptically at Lys then shrugged his shoulders, "Allright people, let's move like we've got a purpose. Unroll the sails, and someone find which direction the wind is blowing.

In less than an hour they were sailing to Eden.