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[Liquidprism]

Imoak stood flaberghasted, and tired. He shook his head to try and think a little more clearly. He was tired, and drained from the night so far. He sighed. "Look, its hard for me to follow what your saying. I'm not stupid, but your accent is, well, a bit old fashioned, so bear with me. I guess you're talking about that woman Ekkis, who got me into bed. You should know that I don't like what she did, it doesn't sit well with me. That man she left behind was so heart broken by the whole affair, I couldn't help but feel a bit bad for him. Apparently, she wanted me for my progeny... she thought it would keep her safe through the coming apocalypse, or something." Imoak took a breath.

"I don't like being used. Those oracles, Ekkis, hell, even that creature I bedded in the tower. I've decided to stop playing other peoples games, and forge my own way. Let me be blunt, if you're wanting me to bed you... it isn't going to happen. I'm not sure what it is your are wanting, but that isn't on my list of things to do. I'm not unwilling to help you, but at this point there are some actions I simply will not take. I don't know what's happening, or what the consequences of my actions so far will entail, but I'm through with the games." Imoak taking pride in his decision held himself up to his full height. It was empowering to be able to take some charge, and overcome a situation using a bit of reason.

[Rusty]

"Wouldst thou at least give me a chance to prove myself to thee? I do not propose some sordid tryst, I would help defend this city for a time, as due to your...indiscretion....Erinypsyche the whore-dragon is affixed to destiny, my quest to slay her is delayed until after the apocalypse, which I must too survive, or my questing shall have been in vain. My divinations suggest that, at least for the now, the matter is not so pressing. Do this for me: allow me to meet with thine allies and present my suit, their counsel might aid thee in full consideration of this matter. As for myself, my name is Oristyx, thine arcane allies should know of me in certain records, and mine actions speak for themselves. I shall retire to my makeshift shelter, and await word from thee, which might be sent to me by arcane methods, or I shall meet thee by convenience in coming days. Is this proposal more acceptable, brave barbarian?"

[Liquidprism]

"Lady, you're one of the strangest people I've ever met. Sure, I'll go tell my allies what you want, but I can't imagine there is much they will say to change my mind. I really need some sleep, this night has been long. Some one will contact you within a couple of days. You might consider just hiring the lot of us to go kill your enemy, you know. It would probably be simpler, and not nearly as weird. Anyway, uhm, night."

With that the goliath started back on his path to the inn. He was physically, and emotionally exhausted. How much stranger could life get, he wondered. Not one, but now two dragons is human form had come wanting to bed him. What the hell!? Creatures like himself should have other concerns. It all seemed to inconsequential... and all because of a prophesy. He wasn't going to have any of it. These creatures could go find themselves another pawn. He wasn't an animal after all.

Imaok decided to let it be for now, he needed sleep, and probably a drink. With that he went home.

[Rusty]

::Oristyx resolves to leave Imoak in peace, nods a farewell, and, still blushing, vanishes into the alleyways of Aturia.::

[Amseriah]

::Saubwa seeks a place of privacy around the campsite, a place where he can contemplate the confusing song of One. He sits on the ground far from the others and quietly sings the song to himself, 6 times once in each timbre of One's voices.::

Shun the light, find the shadow,
Darker than night, hard to follow,
Highest height and deepest depth,
Beyond life and without death.

Order fails and chaos follows,
Righteous death and vile hallows,
Sparkling void and ghostly home,
Without direction freely roam.

Shun the light and find the shadow,
Darkness where no one can follow,
Sacred structures on one side,
Horrid portals gods must hide.

Heartthrob, mission, friends, and quest,
Virtues, Vices, worst and best,
Form, function, wake and rest,
Abandon these and seek the rest.

Shun the light and travel shadow,
One small road that none will follow,
Believing right will lead you wrong,
Find the door, embrace the throng.

A sphere, a void, and several moons,
Arcane circle marked with runes,
Ablutions of the tired star,
Lead you through the gate, the scar.

This song is a clue, a hint, I know that it is. It seems to describe a physical place, but what if it also is describing something metaphysical? Could the light described in the first stanza mean soul? If that is so, the lyrics suggest that there is something to us that is us but not our bodies or our souls...like the shadow of our soul, or a void.

Order fails and chaos follows...the Orderers made this place, set up the rules out of the Outer Darkness, they made the rules...but things existed and exist outside of those rules...so in some ways the laws that we take for granted, the laws of magic, the laws of nature are all manufactured. This would naturally include what we as natives of this place are, but since the fundamental essences of the Orderers was that of the Outer Darkness, the essences of the thing that they created could also be a formed part of that energy or essence. If one could find the willpower to unmake what they are on a fundamental level, then they would be more attune to the Outer Darkness than the Formed Reality. There are other interpretations as well: perhaps it was alluding to the idea that morality was an idea of the Orderers and that in reality outside what they created morality didn’t truly exist...it made a certain amount of sense too. The Orderers made certain outer planes to serve as Ideals for concepts that they wanted to have in their creation...they act like the Elemental planes in that way...that could be what helps to give everything form.

The third stanza seems to be talking about a location. It could be referring to the dark side of the moon, or perhaps the graveyard of the gods that they had seen in the shared visions. It could also be a reference to something personal though. In almost every culture the body is considered to be something sacred. What if the Sacred Structures was also the body...maybe there is a portal to the energies in the Outer Darkness in the body...one that could be opened by finding the shadow of the soul, that would be something that the gods wouldn’t talk about because they wouldn’t want it discovered.

The fourth stanza talks about 12 things: Heartthrob, mission, friends, quest, virtues, vices, worst, best, Form, function, wake, and rest...then it says to abandon them. These ideas could again be things that set the formed apart from the formless. Seek out things other than those 12 concepts...they would just distract me from what I am truly seeking.

The fifth stanza talks about shunning the light and traveling the shadow, which is different from finding it. It also talks about a road, one that no one follows. It also states that if you are certain you are right in the road, you are wrong. Huh, that could also be the surety of your personal path, maybe if you are certain of your beliefs it keeps you away from this state.

The final stanza again looks like it is just talking about a place, and upon contemplation of that line I think that I know where the door might be.

::Saubwa began to chuckle to himself as he contemplated all of this.::
“The “Gods” committed a horrifying sin, they attacked and laid down not just their creators but the creators of everything, they stole their power, and they have been regarded as holy beings, as gods worthy of worship. Here I am seeking to rejoin that which we all came from, peacefully, and I will be called a vile creature...just for seeking to go back to the state of things as they were before the Orderers changed everything.”

::His mind reeling from all of these revelations, Saubwa closed his eyes and looked deep within himself, past the light that he now recognized as his soul, deeper calling upon a primal part of himself...the part of himself that wasn’t perfect...that wasn’t finished, and he began focusing on it, pulling on it, like one would a loose thread, and he began the process of unraveling himself::

[Amseriah]

::As he continues this process, he tears down the mental walls that protect his sense of self and individuality that the Daggerspell Order instructed him in. They understood that it was easy for shapechangers to become lost as they change forms to many times, that they could forget who and what they really are. Saubwa was beginning to think that "self" might be one of the illusions began by the Orderers and perpetuated by the gods. Maybe there is no self, maybe that is the final step in attaining mastery of form...to become completely maliable in mind as well as body. Tearing down the mental defenses, it begins shifting into different forms...human, wolf, tree, giant, dragon, elemental, and allows itself to fully experience the form in a way that it never did before. Gender is an illusion, race is an illusion, species is an illusion, even individuality is just an illusion. Maybe this was the true path to the Unformed, maybe it was the path to insanity, maybe it was the path to complete loss of self, or maybe it was all three; of one thing it was certain, hesitation and fence sitting was surely more dangerous than going all out.::

[Amseriah]

::Revelations were coming faster and faster now, the Orderers weren't just ordering and shaping things, they were separating them. It was just another illusion, nothing was truly separate, they were all part of the whole. The Orderers didn't want to live that way though, they wanted to experience themselves as greater than other things....they seperated themselves from the whole by creating this illusion. That is what caused most of the problems in this world, the current gods were jealous of the power that the Orderers possessed and they felt as though they couldn't be as powerful on their own, they didn't realize that they were all the same thing, so with a partial understanding of reality they tried to gain the power of godhood by "consuming" the blood of the Gods. They didn't see that their feuding was destroying themselves, that they had become a cancer. Even though these realizations came to it (from where it didn't know), it felt a loneliness and emptiness that it had never before felt. It felt so seperated from everything and everyone, so small, so insignificant. It wanted to become more, and it knew how to go about it. It was just a small part of the whole, but in this place, in the state that it was it, it had to abide by the illusion. Here it truly felt empty and alone, but if it could incorporate another, into itself, the way that it was able to draw Belian into itself...maybe it wouldn't feel so alone. That is what it could do...draw another into itself, give another this enlightenment that it had gained. The "hunger" for lack of a better term brought another unusual sensation...just as it was wondering how it would integrate another into itself, it felt something churning inside of it; no that wasn't right...something writhing in itself, under it's skin...like a nest of snakes, writhing and twisting, growing and pushing at it's shell, struggling to free themselves finally from their prison. All it had to do was to free them, they would know how to and be able to draw someone into themselves, into itself. "This isn't right, this is an unnatural, evil urge!", it heard something saying in the back of it's mind...ah, it's old mask...inconsequential. Time to bring understanding to this place.::

[Rusty]

::The creature once known to some as Saubwa felt it's innards shift, and, more importantly, for a brief moment felt everything else shift as well. [Will save reported on skype]. The ordered world around it, in some way, seemed less...important? no. Less meaningful. Saubwa felt a sort of unraveling happen within him, the first part of which was perhaps the most meaningful. The ultimate battle between good and evil, and that between justice and injustice, and that between law and chaos, all became suddenly meaningless. The most obtuse of the edicts of the orderors, the division of ideas and people against themselves, suddenly had no value and no moral weight to Saubwa. [You no longer have an alignment. You are treated as being any alignment for purposes of activating class features and enchantments, and are treated as being of any alignment for purposes of spells (even those cast against you) and activating your enemies class features.] The unraveling continued. Saubwa's form began to shift, but not as it had before. His subconscious mind directed his shifting, as it always had, but in a panicked way, trying to fit the thing he was turning into some idea of the things he had been before. Saubwa was gradually wracked with pain, as he began shifting into the next form before he had finished the previous shift. Finally, the chaos began to break his subconscious mind's grasp of the concept of changing forms, and finally, in a crescendo of pain, he turned into all of his forms at once, a great ball of hair and claws and wings and teeth and faces. His senses were nigh overwhelmed by the sensation, and perhaps it was this that broke his mind. Saubwa began to collapse in on himself, a mass of tearing flesh and breaking bones, until he seemed to be only the size of small fruit. He felt as though something were possible just then, as though he were pressing against a sheet with his body, one which he might tear through, but it rebuffed him, and he recoiled back into his physical form, which, worn with the strain of this process, rapidly discorporated. Saubwa existed, for a few moments, as a pool of biomatter, but this didn't last long at all, as his obsession with the outside, with the alien, the aberrant, drove him to reform his body. Yet his mind was broken, and his subconscious grasp of what he was "supposed" to be was gone. Now he had the freedom to make his body from something else, from the "outer essence", from darkness. Saubwa reformed as nothing more than a pile of tentacles, but as he willed himself to coalesce, the mass obeyed, and he reformed as his original self, at first, and then cycled through all of the forms he knew, each time reducing himself to tentacles and then reforming himself as he once knew. He found that one more form was in his repetoir now, that of just the tentacles, just his pseudonatural underbeing. [Apply the pseudonatural creature template as per Complete Arcane pp 160. All of your forms have this template].::

::Having undergone a tremendous ordeal, "Saubwa" rested. He realized several things at once, some of them brought him elation, others disappointment. He was no longer the being he once was. He could see the remains of that being sprayed all over the walls in little chunks, no, he was now a new creature with the same, or most of the same mind. He remembered the old Saubwa as a naive supplicant, and he felt that he was the being who answered that call for formlessness. He realized that he was the same creature that he was before, and that he had called a being into him in his desire for formlessness. He realized that he wasn't the same creature that he was, nor was he some outside being called from the beyond, but a new creature forged of his own yearning for formlessness. He realized that he couldn't have done or be all of these things, but he felt that all of them were true. He realized that he was on his way to reaching outer darkness, but there was a lot more to learn. He realized that however insane his form might seem to a mundane individual, that he was in fact still formed, and still bound by the laws of the Orderors, at least for now. The song that One had given him resonated in his mind. There was a road to travel, and maybe now he was ready to travel it. One last, sobering realization struck him. If the cosmic beings in the mausoleums in the graveyard of the gods were Orderors, then their anatomy was that of an orderor, and the weapons that his companions had stolen had changed their forms to strikingly resemble the sleeping gods, so maybe Saubwa's friends were in fact becoming orderors. And if Orderors oppose the Formless, then perhaps his friends would oppose him. The rage of Imoak, and the freezing cone of death of Aine, the pummeling fists of Vae'Lin, The Bard's inspiring song directing his friends into battle against HIM, Rachnar's shapeshifted pouncing attack, and perhaps most cutting of all, the cold, serene gaze of Da'La as she thrust her weapon through and through her foes, all of these things flashed in the mind of Saubwa as he realized his potential opposition, and that he may soon face these most terrible visages and acts, whose efficiency in battle he had seen many times over. Saubwa had seen many warriors in his time, had fought many battles, and the swift efficiency of his own comrades was one which he had yet to see matched, he swallowed hard, perhaps doubtful as to his ability to repel his allies advances.::

::One had warned him in his song about allies, about the loneliness of the road to outer darkness. Perhaps it was this warning and a little healthy paranoia that slowed his blood, but perhaps it was something else. Either way, Saubwa had jumped off the fence, and was an Aberration now, for better or worse. [You are now a creature of the Aberration subtype, in addition to whatever other types you may carry.]::

[Amseriah]

::"Saubwa" makes sure to clean the pieces of itself that had splattered all over the place, taking the solid chunks outside and burning them, and scrubbing all of the blood and other fluids from the walls, floor, and if necessary the ceiling.::