The Great Library of Palanthas
An Aesthetic shows you to a small reading room.
Stories of Ansalon from the view of Elmdor.
A little gully dwarf runs by and says 'Wordwrap Off 65 80.'
The gully continues 'Eyes hurt? Turn Color OFF!! (regular story dates)
Astinus says 'Enter the main library here to view only the author list.'
Astinus gently places a small book on the table in front of you.
You note the spine bears the word 'Elmdor' scribed in deep yellow ink.
Author: Elmdor Date Tue Mar 12 23:05:05 2002 Subject The Night Reaver's Ring pt 1 Thud thud thud! 'Master!' Thud thud! 'Let me in Master! Cespenar have supper..not tasteless bread you make appear. Toasty rat is what Cespenar bring. I bash it on head, stick pole up back end and tasty on fire. Open door and eat now...please?' Cespenar whined. This was his daily routine now. It had been for the past month or so. Every day, at meal times, he would come beat on this same door and plead for his Master to open it and eat. In the beginning, he was treated with curses and warnings to leave. After a few weeks of that, the screams stopped and magical bolts started stinging the homonculus until he would finally leave. However, even that had stopped a few weeks ago and been replaced with silence. The only thing that assured Cespenar that his Master was alive was his own continued life, for being a familiar meant that his fate was tied into his Masters. Yet that same link also told Cespenar that if things kept up, his Master wouldn't be alive much longer. It had been days since the meal that he would inevitably end up leave at the door had disappeared, eaten by his Master. The little ball of emotion in Cespenar's head that as his Master was twisted into an agonizing knot by hunger and lack of sleep. He figured his Master had only managed to get five hours of sleep in the last week. Had there been someone else to talk to, to help the familiar coax his Master into eating, he would have felt better. But here, in this magical keep in a magically sealed demi-plane the only things alive were the Master and Cespenar. At least, that's all that should have been alive, the sudden appearance of rats on a plane that derived its shape and contents from the Master's will was something that worried Cespenar. Worried him deeply. Unless the Master wanted a hoard of rats gnawing on his magic bread and defecating in his pure water, they should not exist here. That thought though had not occurred to the homonculus, for if it had, he would not have been worried. He would have been terrified, as would any intelligent creature who feard that it may be trapped on a demi-plane that was under the complete control of a powerful, quasi-sane archmage. Yet, it didnt occur to the creature, and so it was relatively calm. Master!' Cespenar's shrill voice shattered the unnatural quiet of the keep, 'You open door right now, or Cespenar will tear wall apart and smash Master with magic brick and toasty him!' maybe relatively calm was incorrect; he wasn't irrationally afraid at least. 'Fine! Aghar-brained, goblin-faced Master sit in magic room and starve!' Then again, calling a possibly insane mage names wasnt very rational. Cespenar dropped the plate with the roast rat in front of the door, beside the other food laden trays, all in various stages of decay, which bore silent testimony to the creatures dedication to feeding his Master, if not cleaning up the mess. As Cespenar flapped down the corridor, shoulders slumped, head low, he heard the rusted hinges on the door (another oddity, the rust on those hinges_ scream in protest as teh door opened. Cespenar spun to glimpse his Master for the first time in over a month and froze in shock as teh withered husk of a man that he could only assume was the Master collapsed into a puny pile on the floor Author: Elmdor Date Tue Mar 12 23:27:29 2002 Subject The Night Reaver's Ring pt 2 Darkness. An endless plane of nothingness. THe fact that he couldn't recall his name, or if he even was a he only served to make the emptiness around him seem even darker. He racked his consciousness for a memory, something to act as a beacon for him to follow back to his identity. Then he saw it. A glimmer of light; similar to the sun glinting off a piece of metal. The light grew and coalesced into a sphere of light that hoverd somwhere beyond him. It was hard to say how far, for distance was impossible to measure here. He floated forward, somehow propelling himself through theinky blackness. The light grew and enveoloped him, filled his consciousness and images flew past him too fast to recognize any of them. After a while, they settled into a reasonable flow. He saw a man, half-elve, wearring reddish black robes that left his arms and chest exposed to show the many scars he bore on himself. The half-elf as meeting with a human wearing black armor that bore the crest of a lily. They were both confident, knowing that with a word, either could send their armies forward to crush nations. They talked for a while, and they seemed to reach an agreement and the man in the strange robes left Shift He was in a forest now, outside of a house made of timber and a thatch roof. He was confused for a second, then he heard a scream. A second later, he saw an elven lady get dragged out of the house by her hair by a group of 5 men, all wearing strange robes of red, white and black color. The woman was lifeted up into the air, sobbing as she floated. The men began chanting and the ladies soft cries turned into screams of pain and torture, and through it he heard the word, or was it a name? Lunitari. That was her death cry. When the men were done, she was dropped to the ground and the house set on fire. The last thing he saw was a young half-elven boy appear in the clearing, eye's aghast at what he saw. Shift He saw the half-elf again, the one with the open robe, bent over a desck, writing a note. he seemed angry, muttering darkly to himself as he wrote. Looking over the man's shoulder he could read the letter. '...it was all done to aid magic and the black robes, however, if you fools cannot see that and wish to follow you own rules rather than that of our Lords, so be it. I resign my position as Head of Conclave and Leader of the Blackrobes. I will not however, remain here to watch you run the Conclave into the ground. I am leaving to a place of my own making, if you want to find me, too bad. Elmdor, Blood Magus.' Shift Shift Shift The dreams all came, and with each one, something new was revealed about the half-elf. This man he saw, time and again, had been a powerful archmage, leader of a group of mages called the Conclave. Tired of the politics and bickering, he had left them to thier own machinations. He had gone to a demi-plane of his own making, sealed it off, and began work on an immense magical item. He was shown the glories of this Elmdor's past, yet in each one he felt a foreign prescense. Something else was bringing this memories, for he knew now that's what they were, his memories, to mind and watching them at its pleasure. Something was trying to get all of the information about him it could, and now that it had seen it all, he felt it trying to push his consciousness aside. Trying to take over his body. Author: Elmdor Date Tue Mar 12 23:53:56 2002 Subject The Night Reaver's Ring pt 3 Elmdor allowed his mind to roam, to traverse the infinity that he floated in, seeking, searching for the Presence that was trying to find his weak spot. The chink in the armor that was his will, that, if exploited, would allow the entity to subliminate his identity and gain control of his body as well as access to all of his memories. In his minds eye, he saw the formless void that he floated in change and become similar to the night sky, the sky that he was familiar with under which he could battle this Presence. Similar, he noted, save for the absence of the White and Red moons, Solinari and his cousin, Lunitari. And where hs should have seen the black sphere that was Nuitari, he saw only the absence of stars. He could no longer see his deity's moon! The symbol of his deity that was only visible to those who served him was no longer visible to his former Head Archmage! Not only that, but he could not see any of the moons, he had been forsaken by his former Masters. The shock at the absence of the moons was enough. He felt a sudden stab of pain in his mind as the Presence, sensing its victory, tried to push him aside and lock him in a cell that had suddenly appeared behind the Archmage. He immediatly recognized the ruse for what it was, yet could not think of a way out of it. He was too close now, the gate would be locking him away if he didn't act quickly and get out of the way of it. He had not been chose as Head of Conclave for his good looks alone though, and he quickly came up with a plan. He urged his consciousness towards the cell and tried to spin around the Presence in order to put it between him and the cage. It was too fast. He spun and the entity behind him simply spread itself out, stretching to keep him headed into the cage. He realized to late that his plan was going to fail, he was going to be made a passenger while some creature controlled his body. As a last ditch effort, Elmdor tried using pure brute force to push the entity away, hoping that his willpower would be too great for its own. Straining, he pushed, and pushed harder, until his movement towards the cage, the manifestation of his prison in his mind, had stopped. Slowly he began to move away from it, to push the entity away. He could win this! Too long had he sat in his study, not eating and not sleeping, yet even drained as he was, he would push this thing back. 'Would you fight your god?' Asilky voice resonated in his head. 'Would you fight against the One you claimed to serve and Who you claimed the otehrs had forsaken?' The question shocked him again. Yet this time, when he stopped fighting back due to shock, the entity did not press him back towards the cage. 'Yes, Elmdor. I am your deity. I have not forsaken you, as you thought, but you have forsaken me. Your inablility to see my moon is due to your actions when you led my Blackrobes. An alliance with those who harbor renegades? And then leaving Krynn to become a hermit due to your supposed righteousness? You are what you have always railed against. You are what killed your mother, you are what you tried to align the Conclave with. You are a Renegade' The voice echoed with harsh finality. 'I am locking you away and using your body, so that you mau at least prove some use to me.' 'You lie...' Elmdor whispered, 'You lie!' He shoved with all willpower against the entity claiming to be his god and he screamed in triumph as a silvery cage of pure magic winked into existance around the darkness that as his enemy and its crea of anguish and defeat joined with his victory cry as it shrunk and compacted until it was simply a ring laying on the floor of the cage. 'I made you, and I am your master. Do not forget that. The only reason you were able to move me is because I am still weak from your creation. You try again and I will be sure that you end up in the hands of someone who will destroy you.' Author: Elmdor Date Wed Mar 13 00:27:50 2002 Subject The Night Reaver's Ring' pt 4 Of course Master. I will not attempt to attack you again It echoed in his mind. He figured it was a lie, yet he as to tired to argue. Willing a portal into existance, he stepped through, back to consciousness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------- 'Master? Master! OoooooooOooooh! Master is awake again. Good to see you Master, perhaps you want food? Cespenar have magic bread here for you to eat.' He accentuated his point by taking a bite of bread and immeadiatly spitting it out with a horrid look on his face 'Hrm...that not bread. That maybe rat? Whatever, Master better not eat it.' 'Shut up Cespenar. Fetch me some bread from the pantry and a mug of water.' Elmdor sat up from his position on the floor and looked at his hands and arms. The skin was ashen grey color, loose around his bones, the muschle all having been eaten away by his body's demand for nourishment while he worked at creating it. It! He glanced down at his hand, still clenched even though he had been unconscious. He held his breath as his hand creaked open, muscles stiff and unresponsive from thier hours of beeing clenched, in his hand he saw... 'Uh...Master? We have no bread, no water that you want drink. Rats. They come while you were not hearing me, they eat bread and poop in water..if you _really_ want me to get it tho...' 'Dammit! Find me something, anything. If there is no food or water to be had here, then bring me the crust of one of the chewedon loaves and a tin of the impure water and I will fix it, now just GO!' He cursed under his breat as the familiar flew away. Watching all his memories flow before him had made him realize just how much he did appreciate Cespenar and even lke him, which only made him curse louder. Then he remembered tand glanced down to his half-open hand. He could see nothing of its contents, for the light did not fall upon his hand right to illuminate the inside of it, yet he knew what was inside. It was inside. The reward for all his hard work. As he opened his hand and stared at the band on his hand, he heard the voice of the 'entity' from his fight echo again in his head. Welcome back Master. Place me about your finger and feel the power that you have instilled in me. Taste the fruit of your labor. This time, he knew it was no trick. He had defeated the ring even in his wearied state and thus won its respect. Even so, he, the ring's maker, knew its desires and knew that they lay parallel to his own. The ring would learn this too soon and would serve and respect him even more and know that it had no need to try to control him, for they would both achieve what they desired. He slid the ring, the Night Reaver's Ring, for so it was to be named, upon his finger. Cespenar returned then, a gnawed upon piece of stale bread in one hand, a tin of impure water in the other. Elmdor smiled, for his joy pver tje success of creating the ring spilled over even into the laborious task of creating more bread and pure Cespenar returned then, a gnawed upon piece of stale bread in one hand, a tin of impure water in the other. Elmdor smiled, for his joy over the success of creating the ring spilled over even into the laborious task of creating more bread and pure water. Uttering the spidery words of magic to the simple spells, more bread appeared on the floor beside him as well as another flask of the stale tinny, yet pure water. Casting the spells had drained him to the point where he could only consume a few bites of bread and a swallow of wter before he curled up on the floor and soon fell to snoring contentedly.
The Storytellers of Ansalon, The DragonLance MUD
Astinus points to the massive wall of books behind him and bids you to make a selection.
Authors: All|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z