Faust

[Thrym]

Human Male
Former Paladin, Ranger, Knight of the Moon

I have traveled these lands for a while now in the company of these fools. I find their company to be sorely lacking in manners. However, I am bidden to follow in their wake to find a great evil and stop it. We have traveled the entire breadth of this continent and found only clues to the location of this momentous event we must not let come to pass.

I find myself in the glacial caves of Frost Giants. A tough opponent singly and nye impossible in groups. However we are not here to defeat them but to find their leader and determine where the villainous cretins are sending the minerals and ores they are mining.

Several of our party are well suited to clandestine work of this nature. I am not unable in these skills. However, I am hampered with the burden of watching our backs and minding the one person in our party who cannot blend in with his surroundings.

We have moved through a goodly portion of the caverns and tunnels and hope to reach our goal soon. That is not to be the case for me. No, I am with the sniveling retch that needs my protection. So we are advancing as the other members of our party scout the way when a patrol happens toward our corridor. The “mage” I am guarding says that he will cast rope trick and we will scurry up into it and wait for the patrol to pass.

He throws the rope into the air and he climbs up. I follow him in and pull up the rope. We are turning to see what the patrol is doing when the bag at my comrade’s belt begins to make a horrendous sucking noise. The noise increases and air begins to drain into the bag. The mouth of the bag begins to expand and a chaotic whirl of light and sound envelopes us.

We land in a heap. As I untangle myself and stand I notice that it is quite bright for a tunnel of ice. We are in the middle of a field. The sky above is an orange I have never seen grace the palette of a sunrise or a sunset. ”What have you done?” I cry as I grab the mage by his collar and haul him bodily to his feet. ”Where are we?” 

He stammers something unintelligible. I shake him to regain his wits. It is no use. I bend down to examine the earth beneath us and use my various skills to determine our fate. It is then that I notice the clutter strewn about us. It is the mage’s and it was all in that bag. It must have been one of those bags of holding I have heard of. The bag is a dimensional rift into which we can place objects and keep them safe. There is no weight to the objects once placed in the bag therefore making it a highly sought after item.

By bringing his dimensional rift into his rope trick, yet another dimensional rift, the fool has thrust us to another plane of existence. This snapped my calm like dry tinder.

“You have made your last mistake, mage!” I yelled at him as I drew my sword. But as I held the greatsword I felt the calm of the Moon. ”Be gone, I shall find my own way. I am done with you.” I turned toward the Moon not yet visible in the light of day and left.

I walked until the Moon rose. Not my moon but a moon none the less. I stopped at a rise and held a vigil through the night in the hopes of receiving guidance. By morning I had my answer. Head into the hills and I will find a way.

So I set out toward the hills before me at the foot of a great mountain. The mountain grew and grew and the hills remained far away. Finally after two days of journeying I came to the hills at the foot of a mountain I had no name for and entered them. Once into the hills I realized that the forest here was thick. I began my trek into the hills and the forest. I followed game trails and saw animals that I have never seen before. Finally, I found a cut in the forest where lightning had felled a mighty oak and above me on the mountain’s side was what looked to be an abbey.

I climbed the stairs cut into the mountain itself and approached the stone edifice. A brother walked past me on the stair and ignored my questions. I reached the gate; a large wooden double door in the very thick sandstone wall. A gong was situated near the door to announce visitors. Long after the echoes faded from the walls of the abbey and the mountain around us the left hand door opened and a smallish fellow in a monk’s robes poked his head out and asked my name and my business.

“My name is Faust, Knight of the Moon! I have need of some assistance. May I speak to the Abbot?”

The brother looked skeptical of my status and my claim of assistance, but he bade me to enter. The abbey itself was not unlike the abbeys I had visited back on my plane. I felt secure in the knowledge that I would at least be granted a rest and then begin my journey to find my way home.

After cooling my heels for an hour or so, I was ushered into the presence of the Abbot. “I am Abbot Frene. Welcome to our home,” he greeted me. I knelt to him and asked him for forgiveness for my intrusion. He asked me to stand again and to sit so we may talk.

I explained my story and my need to return to my plane. He told me how he may be able to help me, “The Brotherhood of this abbey is an order of wizards and sorcerers who have given up the worldly ways of most of our kind and who seek a quiet place to learn and better ourselves. While I am not the most powerful of mages here I am the most experienced. I feel we will be able to return you to your world. It will take time to locate your plane of origin but I feel we must help you avert this calamity to protect not only your world but ours.”

Days passed and then weeks. Finally, I stood before the Abbot and his brethren and awaited their spells. The Abbot had questioned me on the last locale I had been in. However, my memory of the Frost Giants’ lair was cloudy at best. So we chose instead to send me home to my mother’s cottage. It was where I had grown up and I remembered the details quite vividly.

All was set. The monk-mages had gathered in the forecourt of the abbey. A circle of protection has been inscribed there for centuries. They began their spell. The monks and the court began to fade around me. Slowly ever so slowly I could make out more of a room. The room I had know my whole life.

Then suddenly, snap, the room existed and the monks and their abbey were gone. I stood there for several moments waiting and wondering if I were truly home.

There it all was; my mother’s chair with the blanket resting over the back. The dragon’s head my father had taken during his career. Everything seemed normal except where was my mother. It was late according to the light outside. She should be sitting in her chair.

I looked closely at the furnishings again. Yes, this looked like my home, but small differences became apparent after first glance. The rug was a shade to dark. The windowpanes were slightly different in design. As I stared at the window I saw movement out in the darkness. I then heard noises that came from no domesticated animal I knew. I readied myself and drew my greatsword. 

A horned head hove into view threw the window. I reached for the Moonpaths to escape this fiendish trap. It was then that I knew for certain that I wasn’t home. There was no Moon here.

More heads passed the window. All of them were fiendish in nature. The door burst apart and a Balor walked in. I had never seen one before but I knew him for what he was. A small horde of lesser fiends poured around him. No words were spoken. None were needed. I set myself for the inevitable death that was coming and I prayed to the Moon that was lost to me.

I awoke to pain. It was then that I knew that I was not dead. My feet were bound as well as my arms over my head. The bindings were hooked to a chain. I was surrounded by darkness.

Hundreds of cuts oozed blood down my body. I could feel my life slipping away. The searing pain was from my eye. I recall a claw I couldn’t block taking it before going down under the press. It wouldn’t be long until I died. But I couldn’t help but wonder why I was alive. As my spark finally dwindled to nothing I heard a whisper, a sound so quiet that that I wasn’t sure if I really heard it … “Now you will be mine!”

Faust

Former Human Male, Death Knight
Former Paladin, Ranger, Knight of the Moon

Many moons later back on the Prime Material Plane, Faust stands on a hill. The plateau behind him echoes with the sounds of heavy construction. He now knows where the giants were sending their ores. But he only cares about two things; revenge on the mage who brought him to this point and the goals of his new master, in that order.

___________

Many months later, a great battle was taking place on the plateau while blood rained from the sky. In the background, a device was draining the negative energy out of many undead and building to its climatic destiny.

In the foreground, giants were attacking giants; a red dragon was reducing the knights and archers to cinders; a skeletal knight was attacking the device, but one person was trapped at the back. He was dimensionally anchored and boxed in a forcecage.

I had asked the dragon for this chance. He had cast both spells on the mage. His vendetta was just as personal but we had orders. He was mine. I walked the moonpaths and emerged inside his “cell” blood rain covered the forcecage and blotted out all light. Not an issue for one such as I. I could sense his life. The rapid beating of his heart was a melody to my ears.

He wasn’t expecting me it seemed. He was intent on escaping his prison or so it seemed. The conniving, whining, sniveling little mage turned around and threw a bag on the floor of the forcecage. Unfortunately, it was two bags, one inside the other. It created a vortex at my feet and began to suck me in. The mage just hung there in the air; the dimensional anchor holding him to this plane.

He smiled and waved. He said something as well. It was lost in the cacophony of the dimensional rift. Once again I was tossed from the prime material plane by the mage.

Whatever it takes. Wherever I land. I will return. Then he will be mine … at last.

[Author]

Posts