Stories (A mul is born, Mindbender)

[The Lonely Hunter]

Just wanted to share, by no rights is this my work nor do I know the author.
Since I'm thinking of it too, how about a story/song board?

Cadmar's Tale
"Is that child born yet? I have people waiting to collect the merchandise soon!" yelled a rugged dwarf as he idly tapping a finger against the hilt of his short sword hanging at his hip. Around him was a camp made up of small huts and dozens of large cages that held human females. Looking over at one of the cages the dwarf yelled again. "Well?"
"Not yet Master Gonth. It has been a difficult delivery." The struggling midwife spoke to the dwarf as she looked down at the blood pouring out of the woman on the ground before her.

Gonth sneered and grasped his sword till his knuckles turned white. "By the dragon I should just gut the girl and take it out now. The gladiator trainer should be here any moment and I want the child born and ready for sale by then."

Suddenly a cry came from the woman as her body lurched wildly and blood streamed throughout the cage. Her head shook back and forth with wide eyes that saw nothing but the red haze of pain. The half-giant holding the woman looked nervously at Gonth but continued to try and restrain the thrashing woman.

"Hold her still! If she kills the child with her twisting, so help me I will have the skin flayed from her body followed shortly by yours!" Gonth pulled his sword and waved it at the half giant as he yelled. With a nod the massive giant tightened his grip until it appeared he would crush the woman's body in his hands.

With a final scream and lurch the woman fell limp to the ground, her hands curled into macabre claws that seemed to reach for the bars of her prison to rend them apart and gain freedom. Quickly, the midwife, covered in the woman's blood, reached down and pulled a small form the rest of the way into the world. After a moment a baby's cry sounded through the camp. Her smile was forced as her face portrayed pain and frustration. "Your son is alive Master Gonth."

"So it is a male. Good, but he is no son of mine. He is a product, whose buyer should be here shortly." Putting his sword away the dwarf stepped closer to the cage, careful not to ruin his boots in the puddles of crimson blood that was readily spilled everywhere.

Repressing a shudder, the midwife bent to check the mother for any sign of life, and found none but unseeing eyes staring out the top of the cage. "Elmay is dead Master Gonth." Slowly tears fell from the midwife's eyes.

"Dragon's teeth! Now I will have to find a replacement. Clean the child and make him ready for sale." Gonth peered into the cage to examine the young child who was still yelling loudly.

"He must be very strong to survive that kind of birth Master. He will make a great gladiator." As the woman cleaned the gore from the struggling form she looked up at her master with hope that he would acknowledge something useful in the young mul. She found nothing but a hard stare in the blocky face.

"I do not care if he dies in his first match. As long as he fetches a good price then I will be happy." Gonth seemed satisfied as he turned from the scene and started walking by the other cages. "When is the next woman due to deliver?" He asked as he stared at another woman who looked well advanced in her pregnancy. Under his scrutiny the woman crawled away from the powerful dwarf to the furthest corner of the cage and cried softly.

"She is not due for another week Master." The midwife cringed at the string of curses the dwarf hurled at her after her reply. As he continued his outburst Gonth stalked to one of the huts and disappeared inside.

With the death of the mother and knowing that the cruel dwarf would never name the child, the midwife decided to take the honors for herself. "You are going to be a great warrior, I can feel it. Your mother was a strong woman and would have wanted you to have a fitting name." She spoke softly to the baby with a calming noise. Slowly the baby stopped crying and looked up at the woman. "I will name you Cadmar which means 'strong in battle' so that all will know that you are their doom if they care to war with you."

The trainer came the next morning. "Is my purchase ready Gonth?" The large human man that rode into the compound was dressed in fine, but rugged clothing. Everything about him screamed "merchant" to all that watched him. As he climbed down from his mount, a large bipedal lizard he graced the slaves that gathered with a rare smile.

Gonth pulled a whip from his waist and threatened the gathering slaves till all of the women disappeared from view. Once sure that he was alone with his guest the dwarf bowed deeply. "Yes it is Tyeek. The child is being prepared as we speak."

"Very good, I wish to examine it before we settle on a price." Tyeek watched the dwarf in amusement as the midwife appeared with the newborn mul wrapped in an old blanket.

"Master Gonth, Master Tyeek, this is the baby Cadmar." She handed the child to Tyeek and bowed to each carefully though both had completely ignored her from the moment Cadmar was in Tyeek's hands.

"Cadmar huh? Well it better live up to its name for the coin I am going to give you Gonth." Tyeek unwrapped the baby to examine him. "It seems strong. Quiet though. Is it mute? I will not pay much for a deaf and dumb mul Gonth." He frowned at the dwarf, which caused Gonth's eyes to open wide staring wildly.

The midwife interjected quickly. "Oh no Master Tyeek. Cadmar can hear and can make sound."

Gonth nodded eagerly momentarily forgetting that his slave had spoken without permission. "When he was born, the cries probably could have been heard as far as the Silt Sea. Now about the price."

Ignoring the pathetic dwarf Tyeek stared at the baby. "OK Gonth. It appears to be a very fine specimen. I will give you the standard amount for it." He put the baby into a special sack that he brought with him and took out a small bag. As he tossed the bag to Gonth, everyone nearby could hear the sound of metal chinking.

Gonth snatched the bag from the air and quickly opened it to count the money inside. "I take it that should suffice for now?" Tyeek gave Gonth a wicked smile.

"Yes, this will do for now. It is quite a good addition to my income. The crops and the erdlu herds have not been fetching good prices of late." The dwarf bowed to the man as he climbed onto his crodlu with his newly acquired purchase. "Good day to you Master Tyeek. I should have another of those ready in a week or so if you are interested."

"Perhaps Gonth, but I think one mul in my stables should be enough. They can be very strong willed and hard to break. I will think on it and let you know in the next few days." With a look of disdain Tyeek wheeled his mount around and started riding back to the distant city of Urik. Behind him Gonth started shouting and had his guards rouse the women slaves for their morning work in the fields.

It did not take Tyeek very long to reach his home on the outskirts of the city. Only a few moments later he was in the slave quarters. "Bratch! Bratch, we have a new arrival!" An old, muscled dwarf that lifted his head from the piece of armor that he was working on.

Quickly standing he walked over and tried to look interested. "Who has arrived Master Tyeek?"

Pulling the baby out of the sack, Tyeek handed him to the surprised dwarf. "This is Cadmar. Please see that he is given to one of the women to be taken care of until he is old enough to learn how to fight. I am counting on you to make sure that this little mul brings me a good return on my investment. I paid good coin for it and I do not wish to lose that money." Just as abruptly Tyeek turned and left the stunned dwarf standing in the middle of the yard holding the baby.

Bratch's first thought was to smother the infant before he could realize the life he had been thrust into at birth, then decided that would be foolish. Alive, the child could someday be free and live as normal a life as he could under the dark sun. Also the possibility that Cadmar could become a powerful gladiator in the games made Bratch smile.

He whispered to the little bundle that seemed to smile back up at him. "You have great potential little one. I will ensure that you learn to use all that you have and more.

"I think it is time for you to meet the people you are going to live with until you are old enough to take care of yourself." With a sigh of resignation he walked towards the shacks that housed the slaves of House Tyeek.

[Sandferret]

*wipes her eyes* I have no words. Good work.

[WarriorPoet]

Great stuff man. Great stuff.

**gets all surly and gruff**

More. Now.

[The Lonely Hunter]

Another tale which is also not my work but again, author unknown. =)

Beriah's Tale
Walking through the market streets of Draj, little Beriah could only look around her in wonder at all the sites, sounds and smells as this was her first time going to the market with her mother. She stared back and forth from painted nobles in divans carried through the throngs on the backs of slaves to grim faced templars and their massive half-giant guards. Each new sight made young Beriah's eyes grow wide in amazement even those of beggars in the alleys and the slinking elves with daggers pulled ready for murder.
She had just begun to examine a stall selling exotic fruits when a sudden commotion could be heard from the king's pavilion in the center of the market. Beriah could hardly control her excitement as she turned from the stall to look in the direction of shouts and growls. Through the throngs of people running from the pavilion a glimpse of their king could be seen.

As he walked to the center of the square his voice boomed throughout the marketplace. "I have discovered that many are not happy with the life they have here and wish to better themselves by conspiring against me. To those who have lost their loyalty to me I will show the foolishness of such actions."

Without another word a faint mist poured from the hands of the sorcerer king and began filling the area. Without warning the people closest to the king began to fall to the ground screaming and withering into heaps of bones.

Beriah's mother grabbed her hand and yelled, "Run!" Beriah ran as fast as she could towards the edge of the market scrambling between others in similar flight and quickly out distanced her mother who was forced to slow due to the mass of people.

At the edge she turned to see her mother trip over a bench and fall to the ground. Wordlessly her mother yelled to Beriah to continue running, but Beriah was frozen as she watched the line people falling in pain edging closer to and then reaching her mother. Her mother began to scream and convulse as the very flesh from her body withered and fell off her bones. Horrified Beriah could only watch until something in her mind forced her to turn from her mother and run from the square.

As she ran the last images of her mother gasping for life kept running through her mind with the force of a rolling boulder. Reaching her house she ran into the door and cried, "Father!"

"Yes precious one? I am in the shop." her father replied. Sobbing she ran into her father's arms. "What is this? What is the matter Beriah?"

"Mother...she...dead...and the king...bones..." were the only words Beriah could get out between sobs. Her father's face clouded over as he picked up his only child. "Hush my precious one, everything will be all right", was all he said as he quickly sat down with little Beriah in his lap and slowly rocked her till she cried herself to sleep.

[Gorobei]

Where are you finding these stories?  They're not  too shabby.

Woah!  I just realized that Gonth was paid in metal.  Muls are more expensive than I thought.

[oDelaraNo]

This was a very detailed and well thought out scene.  I liked it... and it had the same Armageddon feel to it that most stories that come from the players do.  (Not just the background, but the way it was structured)

Perhaps we can swap stories if you're the one writing.

[Gorobei]

If you have some good stories you wrote, why don't you send them to the mud?
There's a page on the site dedicated to player submissions like this, and I for one enjoy reading them.

[The Lonely Hunter]

untrained mul  ~7000 obsidian
trained mul gladiator  ~10000 obsidian

[Gorobei]

How much do you think a bag of metal coins is worth?

- Gorobei, truly wondering.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Take note that those stories are set on Athas, not Zalanthas.  Metal is rare on Athas too, but not so rare that every PC fighter won't have a steel weapon or two ;P

[Agent_137]

Hey, just found these. Thought you'd like them.

-Bump-

[Marauder Moe]

So just to be clear, these are Dark Sun stories, not Armageddon stories right?  As far as I know there are no independant mul breeders, no metal coins, and no cities that really have any areas that would be called "outskirts" (Zalanthan cities have walls).

[Agent_137]

So just to be clear, these are Dark Sun stories, not Armageddon stories right?  As far as I know there are no independant mul breeders, no metal coins, and no cities that really have any areas that would be called "outskirts" (Zalanthan cities have walls).

Yes.

[Mr.Camel]

Both Allanak and Tuluk have some walled villages surrounding the, more of those in Tuluk's case. The outskirts of Tuluk are either villages near the woods, or farming villages, which is all that is there in Allanak's case.

[Gilvar]

All of Tuluk is contained within the Scaien. Nothing outside of it is "tuluk". And there is very little civilization outside of it. Allanak is different and has many farming villages and ranches, since it doesn't have the luxury of plains and fields actually within its borders.

[Xamminy]

Even the coded 'logging village' outside of Tuluk is not part of Tuluk.

[The Lonely Hunter]

Mindbender

Rekor shuffled forward angrily under the burning sun. He might be a captive of the Templars of Nibenay but he was not going to give in. He was a tall, well built half-elf, evidently strong as well as wiry, with long black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was currently surrounded by four half giant guards and one of the proud templars of Nibenay in the lead. He guessed that he was probably been led to one of the minor templar buildings for judgment. As he walked on, aided by the occasional vicious blow from one of his guards, he reflected on what had led to his capture and likely death.

Son of a poor merchant of Tyr and an elven woman who after a few months of liaisons and the birth of her son skipped out with everything his father had owned he had lived a hard life. He had hated his father with a passion. His father had always been brutal, but he got worse after his mother had left. He had gotten into drinking and used to come home, totally drunk, and beaten his son for the sins of his mother, using his psionic wild talent of double pain to exacerbate the torture. Rekor learned to avoid his father and to survive by picking the pockets of incautious travellers. A skilled thief by he time he was eighteen, he had skipped town as soon as possible and made his way to Nibenay.

When he arrived in Nibenay he quickly began employing the skills of his profession and it was in this way that he made contact with the Veiled Alliance. He chose the wrong pocket to pick and was caught by a wizard of the Alliance. The preserver had pity on the pitiful youth and began to teach him the basics of magic. After becoming quite an accomplished young mage/thief he was added to the ranks of the Alliance. He had succeeded quite well in all his missions and it had been decided that he would be given a most complicated task. Rekor was assigned to rescue a member of the Alliance of Gulg coming to discuss a possible union of the two Alliances that had been captured by the Templars of Nibenay and imprisoned in a small guardpost. The mission had gone well until he had freed the preserver and was escaping himself. Unfortunately he had blundered directly into the relief of the templar force stationed at the guardpost and had been captured. There had been little doubt of his guilt when his spell components and thief's tools came to light.

A sudden blow from one of the guards sent him crashing down onto the dirty sand and brought him back to the present. They had arrived at their destination. He had expected to be led directly to a judgment area and was surprised to find he had been taken to noble's Quarter. His guards shoved him up to the door of one of the residences and the servant that immediately arrived ushered them into the presence of the owner of the house. He glanced around the building in question. He was impressed. The "house", in truth more of a palace, was made of dark obsidian, reflecting nicely the light of various continually lighted globes placed about the rooms. The floors were carpeted with purple velvet of some kind and rare art and sculpture seemed to be the primary form of decoration. Here and there he caught glimpses of tapestries depicting the Dragon, Nibenay blessing the citizens of his great city and other such pictures. He realised that the palace was organised on a fairly linear layout, with a single corridor slashing the middle of the palace and the rooms going off on either side. Any thoughts of escape by the evidence of great protections visible everywhere. Half-Giant guards casually fondled their weapons as he passed, runes took on a special glitter when the templar escorting him spoke certain words and he thought he caught sight of even darker things in the shadows. Finally the corridor ended in a massive room that could only be described as a throne room. Sitting upon a priceless throne of pure iron he caught sight of something to make him draw in a breath. A proud female templar clad in actual metal chain mail and armed with a casually held obsidian spear. Her eyes were deep, almost black brown and her hair was cut short, in a military fashion, and was copper in color. Her eyes flashed with something approaching triumph when he entered the room.

"Leave us." she commanded the guards to leave, who exchanged knowing glances before returning to their appointed duties. "You are of the Alliance." she said as she approached him, motives unreadable. Rekor sullenly stayed silent, determined never to betray the alliance to Nibenay.. "Your answer is irrelevant, I know you are. I have been looking for a contact in the Alliance for some time." And at this she faced him, her face taking a sincere look. "I want to defect". He gave her a second look and then burst out laughing. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that do you?" he said when his loud, near hysterical laugh was finished. "Nibenay has been trying to infiltrate the Alliance for decades, I don't intend to go down in the history of the Alliance as the one who finally let him in."
She looked at his mocking visage for a minute then turned away, a pained expression crossing her face. "My name is Rasha Va'shen." she said. "You don't have to believe me, but really you have nothing to lose. If I intended you harm you would be dead." He considered his situation for a moment, then turned angrily in her direction. "I do have something to lose! The Alliance has something to lose! I will not, I can not betray the Alliance!" She turned, flushed with anger, having lost her patience with him. "It is irrelevant what you believe. what is important is that I have discovered a way to deal Nibenay a serious blow while simultaneously recovering great magic for the Alliance. But I need aid. If you help me I will free you and the Alliance will have struck a major blow against Nibenay. If you do not I will deal with you as you had expected,"Rasha said, her face hardening, "I cannot chance anybody revealing my secret."

Turning her offer over in his mind, he could not see any obvious leaks to Alliance information, but continued cautiously. "How do you intend to do this? And why should you be stricken with such sudden compassion?" Rekor asked. Turning away slightly, Rasha paused slightly to draw in a breath and then slowly answered. "It is complicated. The gist of it is that Nibenay has discovered an artifact of untold power that he is keeping while he studies it's properties inside one of his palace's The artifact is unbelievably powerful, as I learned from some private sources, and could easily be used to destroy the palace. It seems that it employs a heightened version of lifesucking employed by mages to drain all energy and life out of all around it. Structures will actually lose the ability to hold together when it is activated. I need you for stealth and added power to insure that I can reach the artifact. Once there I know exactly what to do, but it is heavily guarded. My motives are simple. My mother was a member of the templar class and raised me to it, my father merely a petty noble, but soon after I became a templar they were killed in the internal squabbles of the ranks. I am sick of the constant fighting and endless killing. This form of government must end. I intend to start its downfall here and know." At least partially satisfied with this information, though he would be willing to bet that an additional motive was the great power that could be seized should Nibenay fall, Rekor turned over in his mind the necessary preparations. As if reading his mind Rasha added, "I have had your spell staff and other equipment brought up." Finally, seeing no reason to refuse her offer he quietly said "Fine, I agree." "Excellent." Rasha replied. "Then let us begin." Out of nowhere a dimensional portal of glowing blue energy appeared in front of her. "Coming?" she said over her shoulder as she stepped through it.


Nerlis was well satisfied with his life. Serving as a templar in the guard of one of Nibenay's palace was a well paid job with little risk, for who would dare challenge Nibenay. Slowly striding along the empty corridors of the palace quietly exchanging comments with those few guards still on duty at the late hour, he was so enraptured in the prospect of his likely safe and rich future that he totally missed the knife whistling out of the shadows to end his pitiful life.


Rekor dropped himself off a beam forming the palace's roof to join Rasha. Much to his surprise and disbelief the two had hit it off quite well and had become quite good partners in the time it had taken them to organise and carry out their plan. It had been pathetically easy to eliminate the few templars and guards still around the palace at night. He was almost beginning to be suspicious of betrayal at the ease that they had penetrated the palace with. The last area they would have to enter was the inner sanctum of this palace. The entrance was a great bronze portal, engraved with various glowing silver runes of power. Rasha stepped forward, indicating that she knew how to open it. Rekor backed up as Rasha made various motions, but noticed that the light of the runes dimmed considerably when she was done. Slowly the two approached the door and gently pushed it open.

Inside was a well like room, obviously continuing far higher than they could see. They could tell that there were two rough obsidian pillars on either side of the door and that a reddish glow was emanating from above. Uncertain about what else to expect they entered the chamber. Looking upwards once they had entered the room Rekor gasped in surprise. "Look!" he mouthed. High above them a great crimson ruby was floating, giving off the red light that filled the chamber. The obsidian structures that they had mistaken for pillars were in fact the legs of a great obsidian statue, its hands poised as if to catch the eternally falling gem. After a quick whispered conversation Rekor began to levitate himself up to the gem, intent on seizing it and setting the gem to destroy the palace. However, much to the horrified fascinating of Rasha on the ground, the moment that Rekor grasped the gem the statue slowly began to move, gem studded eyes filling with a terrible life, and hurled Rekor against the wall. The surprised Rekor groaned, drenched with blood, as his levitation spell slowly began to fail and sent him toppling to the floor. Rasha rushed over to catch him but was crushed to the ground and temporarily stunned by the force of his impact upon her relatively slight frame. The dazed Rekor spoke a few arcane words and sent a stream of miniature glowing missiles at the titan but it had no visible impact. Rasha pulled herself up and cast one of her more powerful spells, sending a pillar of fire down upon the statue, but apart from some charring and blackening of its skin there was no visible effect. "Rekor!" she shouted. "The Ruby! Give it to me and run!" The impact of his fall still having its effect on Rekor, he barely noticed when she waved her hand to create another dimensional portal and pushed him through. Behind him Merlyka began shouting arcane words and tracing glyphs on the gem while simultaneously dodging the attacks of the enraged statue. Recovering his senses once outside the palace, Rekor turned and was about to reenter the palace when another glowing doorway appeared, similar in appearance to the last one but for the color, which was green. From out of the swirling energies came Rasha , caked in blood and without the Ruby. Realising that they had little time before the arcane magic Rekor grabbed her and ran.

Behind them a black radiance began seeping out of the palace, turning the palace and all within it into mush, which itself began to dissolve even as they watched. Anxious to not be the next victim of the terrible power leaking from the gem he hurried away, elated with their success. A glance at Rasha however dampened his spirit. She was loosing blood quickly and he could tell she had suffered several cracked ribs and broken bones from the angles of her form. He was no surgeon, but the caved in appearance of the back of her skull required very little medical knowledge to interpret. Which great speed he decided that the best place for her if she were to have any chance of survival was the Alliance headquarters. The Clerics available elsewhere would ask far too many uncomfortable questions that he would rather not answer. Rushing through the city, he began babbling to her about what life would be like, his subconscious trying to deal with the fact that he knew he wouldn't get there in time. While it had certainly not been love at first site, Rekor truly liked this woman and if he ever chose any mate to share the perils of the dark sun with him, he would surely consider her. But now ihe would not get that option. "It will be great Rasha." he said. "You can join my Alliance cell, and with your templar status we will bring down Nibenay once and for all! You will meet Jo'ran, and Trask, and Iyas, and you can even meet the leaders of our cells like Arres and Heron! They will be sure to appreciate the missions you joining us will bring!" he continued on, tears streaming down his face, images of all the Alliance and what he could have done with such a one passing before his eyes. When he finally realised that he had arrived at the hidden entrance to Alliance headquarter's, he found she was already dead, blank eyes staring up accusingly at him from their final resting place. Cursing the fates for causing such a terrible sequence of events he moved mechanically to go and make his report...

...And suddenly found he was back in Rasha's throne room in the Noble's Quarter. "What? Huh?" he said, looking around in shock. Rasha was sitting on her throne, a malicious smile on her face. "Poor, naive little Rekor," she said. "What a pity he had to go through all that just so that I could get the information I needed. You must realise that been a templar does not preclude been a psionicist. Nibenay will reward me well for this. An entire group of Alliance cells revealed, and when I use that same technique on them perhaps more! You see Rekor, you never left this room. The psionic "portal" was merely my means to allay your suspicions and place you in a psionic sleep. As for my parents, they thought they could intrude on my power simply for reasons of paternity! Really! Now I am sorry, Rekor, but I am a busy woman and have a Veiled Alliance to destroy. Guards!" At these words several heavily armed half giant guards appeared from the Anteroom. "Take him away. I don't care what you do, send him to the arena, put him in Nibenay's dungeons to rot, whatever. I am sure he will punish himself more than we could."
Her grin grew as the guards grabbed Rekor and began dragging him away. The horrified at the implications of this, he began screaming as he was removed from Rasha's presence, his mind filled with the horror of what his actions had done. The screams echoed through the mansion, mingling with the laughter of the matron templar.

[Mr.Camel]

:shock:
Exquisite.

[RunningMountain]

Darksun stories/books were always good, I'm surprised people havn't read these before.

[Savak]

Well, let's put that in perspective -- I found the ones I read -entertaining-, although many of them weren't written in the most flowing style I've ever appreciated.  And the last one or two I read was bordering on silly (way too high-fantasy).  But yeah, overall I did like the stories, and it gave me more to think about than just Arm's tales (and I didn't have to miss so much of it while logged out).

Seems like the books faded away when the tabletop setting faded away, which isn't surprising.