Yelmalion Initiation ceremony :
After about half a days trek into the desert I found the place of the
Initiation. An obelisk type structure with a low entrance. Steep
stairs headed down into the darkness, I lit a torch and headed on in.
After some minutes the stairs opened out into a chamber about 20ft
square. I looked around and noticed a raised stone in the middle of the
floor. I put the torch to one side and stepped onto the stone.
Immediately the lights dimmed and I could hear a voice in my head. It
told me that I would need no weapons on the journey I was about to take.
I stepped off the stone and removed all my weapons and lay them beside
me. As I stepped back onto the stone the initiation ceremony began.
A battle on the spirit plane can only vaguely be described in terms of
everyday experiences. But I will try. My spirit immediately became
separate from my physical body; this was something I could only feel and
not see. All I could see where huge swirling masses of dark cloud, shot
through occasionally with bolts of bright energy in cerulean blues,
sunbright yellows, lava reds frozen whites and jungle greens. A darker
shape seemed to coalesce from the maelstrom all around me. It closed in
until I was completely surrounded. It felt like I was in a cold, black
and lifeless womb fighting for my life, to reborn and free from this
cold, dead place. I seemed to gain energy from some source inside of me
and yet from a great distance. I felt an intense cold and loss as the
power of the spirit waxed. Gradually as the strength of the spirit fled
it's darkness became less and rents and tears appeared in its form.
Suddenly it was gone. Almost instantly though I was engulfed again.
This time I was in the womb for longer and I felt myself weaken again
and again before the spirit finally evaporated. There was a slight
pause this time before I was engulfed. I heard a voice which went
directly into my head and chilled my bones (it also made me gape with
shock). It's eerie echo numbing my bones wailed, "Elanor. I am Tarkath,
now prepare to die!". Again the dark cloud enveloped me, again the
struggle to be re-born out of this lifeless womb. I felt weaker as I
struggled but I had broken free and I felt myself tear through the womb
and disperse the spirit in the process. My strength still low another
shadow loomed out of the storms. As I prepared myself for the worst a
voice chimed out, "I was Aven. I am yours.". The clouds started to
fade and then I was back in the room on the raised stone. I gathered my
things made a bed, prayed and then slept there in the chamber.
Chaotic PC with a nasty experience on the Spirit Plane :
When I faded completly I looked around me, I was hemmed in by a wall of
fog, and could see no further than a few feet in front of me. BullsBane
was standing in water about knee deep and Insanity was growling at
something in the fog.
The fog was a pale green colour and seemed to be swirling gently. I
rode forward and the wall of fog moved with me. We went forward slowly
so as not too encounter anything without no warning at all. The fog
still kept it's distance and it felt as if I wasn't moving at all. I
then began to see twin flashes of light dancing in the fog, never in one
place long enough for me to get a good look at them but I could feel the
presence of something all around me. The hair on Insanity's back was
sticking straight up and his teeth were bared in a feral snarl. Then
the fog started to swirl towards me, the glints of light seemed
malevolent, somehow. I could do nothing about the fog. I started to
hear snatches of voices coming from the fog from, it seemed, all
directions. I started to shiver and drew my arms around myself and
Insanity.
The fog started to swirl faster and I could make out the sound of
laughter and a deep and far off booming sound, very slow and deliberate.
The fog was upon me now and I could feel it against my face. It was
warm and slightly tacky.
I started having difficulty breathing and tried to get the stuff away
from my mouth, BullsBane was a rock under me and Inanity made no sign of
being alive. I tried to fight the stuff going down my throat but
couldn't. I gagged again and then a strange feeling passed through me.
I was being touched by magic beyond anything I could ever muster up.
The touch was delicate as a knife and yet as strong as a mountain. I
was temporarily overwhelmed and could only sit there and smilingly
admire this potency that was doing it's will to me. I started to hear
the voices again, this time inside my head, it was snatches of
conversations and I could only make out the odd words, then the tone of
the intrusion changed, the voices became fewer and one voice rang out
above all the others. It was a voice of intense pain and loss and great
anger as well. The voice charred my innards and I felt on the verge of
death. Then I began to see the images flashing in front of my face.
Mountains tumbling into boiling seas, rains of fire and terrible
earthquakes that turned the land into a mountainous sea. Comets,
streaming out of the starless sky to smash and explode upon mountains,
sending shards of rock back out into the void. Everywhere I turned
there were the images, and I felt my mind loosing it's grip. I tried to
remain calm as the images shifted perspective and I was suddenly
surrounded by death. Death in huge numbers on a battlefield as an army
of demons destroyed men in bright armour, the death of a child, born
into the world with no life, strangled by the cord of life, the death of
an old man lapsing into madness and dotage. The death of birds and
animals and the death of trolls, ogres, elves, all races. Again the
image changes, I can see a sea of blood rushing around in a liquid
maelstrom, faster and faster until it becomes a sea of boiling fire deep
in the guts of the earth, consuming the rocks as it burned it's way to
the surface, to explode in a huge molten fountain pouring a rain of fire
down onto my naked, writhing body. The images came and went, it seemed
for hours, days, a lifetime. I started to become weak and couldn't
concentrate on the images, they started to become a blur before my eyes.
Image blurred into image and I felt cast adrift into a sea of Insanity.
I caught a word coming from inside me, but lost it in the howling winds
of this other mind. Insanity, I could feel a speck of hope being tossed
away from me in seas of rage and pain. My hands clasped around
something and I could feel soft fur underneath my fingers. I grabbed at
them and felt a warmth on my left hand which became cold and sharp, then
I smelt blood. The sea of images grew maddened and more frenzied than
before, I reeled under this fresh assault and lost hold of the fur in my
hands. I screamed; silently in my mind; and reached out behind me for
(Insanity) something, it was lost to my memory but my instinct was
strong. I grasped something and felt the touch of cold, clammy iron,
slightly sweaty in the air. My right and then left hand clasped around
this solid thing in a world of frantic images. I pulled and could here
the rasp of metal on metal as I drew something. The images wailed at me
to stop, faces all contorted with pain and anger, offering me my wildest
dreams if I were but to stop. My hands wavered and my left one lost
it's grip . I struggled on with my right hand and drew the thing on my
back out into world. Feeling renewed vigor I clasped the thing with
both hands in front of me and started to whirl it about my body. I
could feel the rage of the nightmare world intensifying, but the
strength of it subsiding, like the last gust of wind from a hurricane.
Gradually the images melted away leaving me still sat upon BullsBane.
Insanity was in my lap with blood on his jaw. I Looked down and saw that
my left hand was bloody also, there were teeth-marks in it.
Shamelessly plagurised from "Thoughts of a Dark and Sinister Nature"
G.Brodanski
Best Press 1874
:)
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