3/22/2023 0 Comments Quick word bell ringersIt was high time for the overproud, overreaching gods to be cast down again. Memories that were dim even for him flickered briefly, and he felt the stirrings of excitement. If only it had been her laughing face! The Overgod take her! She -īane froze in sudden thought, and a slow, dark smile spread softly across his angry face. Bane whirled with a roar of sudden fury, there on the battlements, and drove his fist through a stout merlon, smashing it to stony rubble that rattled and sprayed down over his startled and fearful minions in the courtyard below. In the ashen failures of his last few attempts, she'd even laughed at him. But how? Many webs he'd spun to take her- some still hung waiting, even now-but the very power he sought warned her and shielded her, time after time. He must possess her, rule her-or destroy her-to gain true mastery of magic. Ethereal mists whirled briefly around him, and then he was striding again along the windblown battlements, looking far out over bleak Acheron. Restlessly, Bane turned toward the sun, corpses shifting under his black boots, and spun himself homeward through the shifting voids, back to the body that grimly paced the Cold Castle. Down the long years he had learned to be old, but not to be patient. Up against the shield that left him helpless once more. For centuries-eons, now-he had come back, again and again, to that gnawing need… and that stone wall blocking his hunger. The power eternal, the energy behind all. Waste on this plane and that, puny beings struggling to seize fleeting power, when might enough to shatter all their realms at once throbbed and strove all around them. The Dark One looked around at hill after hill of destruction, and sighed. If they took the shapes of rightful rulers, the Chosen would actually defend their new-won realms for them! All that was needed, to make victory a sure thing, was shadow magic that would hide the Malaugryms' true essence, inside their stolen shapes, from any Chosen who survived the Time of Troubles.Īll that was needed to conquer Faerun was a Cloak of Shadows…įaerun, Raurin, Mirtul 29, The Year of ShadowsĪ dark shadow that had eyes drifted down unseen over a mist-shrouded battlefield where weary, snarling creatures hacked at each other with blood-drenched blades at the end of a day that had been long indeed. If Elminster was powerless, and the Chosen were busy trying to hold the Realms, the Malaugryms' chance had come at last. Shapeshifters and sorcerers of ancient power, they had long feared to challenge Elminster, who hunted and slew them whenever they ventured into the lands he held dear. The Malaugrym, masters of shadow, watched the chaos and ruin in Faerun from their dark castle and grew hungry to conquer as much of Faerun as might fall within their grasp. Yet even as Elminster and his companions defeated Zhentarim evil once more, older and more sinister foes had their own dark designs on the Realms. Together the three young people aided Elminster as he plunged into the depths of Zhentarim plots in the High Dale that lay in the Thunder Peaks between Cormyr and Sembia. One of his fellow Chosen sent two of her Harper pupils to guard him, and a brave lady Knight of Myth Drannor took the same task upon herself. Elminster's inability to hurl spells against them must be concealed from everyone. Elminster of Shadowdale, the Old Mage feared and revered across Faerun for nigh a thousand years, held so much of the divine power of the dying goddess Mystra within him that he dared not cast so much as the simplest spell, for fear of shattering the Realms around him and being torn apart in the world-destroying conflagration that might follow. Folk looked to the Chosen, who stood helpless, with magic a treacherous thing in their hands.Īll save one… one who dared not act at all. It was a time for heroes to stand forth and fight to defend whatever could be saved of the splendor and strength of the civilized Realms. Even the gods themselves were wandering Faerun, slaying and plundering and despoiling all that fell within their reach, and battling with reckless savagery whoever-or whatever- stood against them. Magic would obey them no more than it did anyone else.Īgainst them stood outlaws, orc hordes, and fearsome monsters that had long lurked on the fringes of the bright realms and grown hungry indeed. Amid all the flames and strife, the Chosen of Mystra were hurt more than most guardians of Faerun, for the servants of the goddess of magic discovered that spells were raging wild all over the world. The gods came to Toril amid flame and destruction, and the world was riven and changed forever. Series: A shadow of the Avatar Cloak of Shadows Ed GreenwoodĪs the Time of Troubles came down upon the Realms, dark things watched and waited their chance…
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