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 is at 65. You change? 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 worn folio on the table in front of you.
You note the spine bears the word 'Elmdor' scribed in rich maroon 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
Astinus sighs as he recants 'We saved 869 books from Ansalon from before the great Cataclysm through today.'