Storm of wrath

Gateway Road
The road has almost ceased to be a road. Trees have grown back until this stretch of the city is almost a forest, and bushes half-choke even this great thoroughfare. The buildings have mostly collapsed into low mounds of earth and rubble.
To the west the heights of the Old Acropolis shine in the sun: the ruin seems less complete in that direction, as if whatever forces leveled the houses in this area spared the higher ground.
To the east, the ruins of the city walls lie like blocks left tumbled on the ground after some children's game.

Contents:
Kiraz
Cloaked_Figure
Obvious exits:
 East leads to Great Gate of Lond Daer.
 Southwest leads to Shattered Bazaar.

[+TIME] Middle-earth time is:
Dawn on Sunday, Day 12 of December.
Execute the +TIMEFRAME command for year information.

Real time is: 18:55:17 MDT on Sun May 16 2010.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
Gray light filters through the bare limbs of the trees, barely dispelling the gloom. No true fingers of light spread from the eastern horizon yet, though sunrise cannot be far off. In the west looms dark and sinister skies hitherto hidden by the darkness of night. In great roiling masses, thunderheads race towards land, bringing Osse's fury with them.

Beside a gnarled tree bole, Kiraz shivers in her inadequate cloak. Sleep-filled eyes glance about the forest warily. "Are you /sure/ you saw it here, Tasmin?" she asks, sounding very much like she would prefer an answer that allowed them to leave. Her breath is a white cloud when she speaks. Startled, she stares at it a moment, then wordlessly breathes out again. "Did you see that?! It's like smoke!" Excitement displaces her earlier disgruntled tone.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
"Yes..here," replies another, a black-garbed girl standing close by. "Or at least I thought I had. The High Priestess mentioned it was a fairly important herb, though perhaps not very common." Tasnim squints through the gloom, blinking a few more times as she fights back a yawn. At Kiraz's exclamation, the scribe turns her head. "It is like smoke," she manages a tired grin. "Rather chilly, here..and no doubt rain soon to add to it." Tasnim casts a frown to the thunderheads that can be glimpsed in between the limbs of the trees to the west.

[Cloaked_Figure(#14221)] Over the seas, to the west, is a pale shadow of the fabled Wrath of the Valar. A shadow of a memory of a storm that cannot be endured. The flashes that pop on the distant horizon are still too far to hear, but the intensity is a marvel to behold. The haze of the rain falling back into the sea is quite distant but does not promise for a warm or plesant day to come.

The clouds form a sort of Amphitheater for the light, each flash showing the enormity of the monster that may reach land if not diverted by forces unknown, and unseen.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
"I'm a dragon!" exclaims Kiraz, first pursing her lips to blow out another white cloud and then making a fierce face at the scribe. She laughs with delight, sending forth even more breathy 'smoke'.

The wind picks up, sending a pile of leaves to swirl and catching the edge of the young corsair's cloak. Pulling it tighter about her, she glances back to the west. Her brow furrows. "Not just rain Tasmin that looks to be a fierce storm. We should not tarry long." Unease enters the girl's voice. "I do not wish to be caught here in these trees. They make me nervous."

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The scribe, for her part, appears to be struggling to keep a relatively serious and business-like expression upon her face but at the second girl's antics Tasnim fails utterly, finally laughing. "It has been a while since I smiled," she admits. "Not had too many expriences in this destroyed town that could be considered pleasant. We are close to going home, I hear? I'm glad."

Then her eyes drift back to the intimidating display of the storm in the distance, and she purses her lips. "Though it looks like we won't be going anywhere if the weather does not improve." Tasnim dips her head down again, resuming the search at the base of the trees.

[Cloaked_Figure(#14221)] From the north comes an eerie cry. An otherworldly noise, alien and disturbing on the brightest of days, and the clearest of skies. As if the legendary Ulmo has risen from the deeps and sounded his horn, or perhaps if the horn did not emerge from the sea. Where as most horns play notes, this one rings with a cacaphony of ships grinding to their deaths upon an errant cliff, or being ripped apart while ramming a larger vessel. That or some fearsome creature, never before seen by the eyes of the southron men and women, not even mentioned in fireside tales or children's stories.

The call is answered from even farther to the north, from other directions.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
"The rudder has been repaired," confirms the Corsair girl, her eyes still uneasily upon the western storm. "I think we will return soon. But many are fascinated by this land and the possibility of..."

She falls to silence abruptly, craning her ears to listen to the haunting sound. She moves closer to Tasmin, her eyes searching carefully for any movement. Her hand moves to the hilt of her curved blade. "What was that?" she asks sharply.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
"The possibility of--?" the second young woman begins to ask, her gaze flickering briefly toward Kiraz but then Tasnim freezes, titling her head in an effort to hear better. "I, I don't know. I couldn't make it out amid our talking..." The scribe pales a little, inching backward a small pace as she stares into the darkness mistrustingly. "Corsairs first?" she suggests weakly after a moment, nodding to the other's blade. "I'd...feel safer. Unless you'd rather forget the herb."

[Kiraz(#32438)]
Hesitation is clearly writ upon the corsair girl's dark countenance. She glances back towards the southwest where both the storm and, the safety of camp lies. Sighing, she says, "They will only send us back and call us children if we return without the herbs. Best we continue."

Her face set with grim determination, Kiraz strides further into the forest and the north. "Just be quick about it." Her hand never stray from her scimitar, though she does not draw the blade.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
With the Corsair girl and her scimitar in front, Tasnim seems to snatch courage back, and she follows slowly, her dark sight flashing from side to side as she scans the forest floor. Suddenly, the girl gives an excited noise and, stooping, throws her hands down to pluck at a black and twisted plant that grows beside a gnarled root. "I've got it."

[Kiraz(#32438)]
A few paces ahead, Kiraz stops and turns at the announcement. Another gust of wind rushes through the trees, sending the bare branches to creak and groan against one another. The girl abandons her hilt to grab at her cloak. "I am glad. How many do we have to bring back?"

"What is it for?" she asks curiously.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
"I'm not sure," the scribe answers over her shoulder, ere rising and stowing the herb away in a pouch at her side. "The High Priestess didn't say much about it. I remember though, it is extremely useful for a multitude of sicknesses. Helps the chest and the lungs, I can recall, if the person suffers trouble breathing."

Tasnim takes her hand to point at the base of another bole near Kiraz. "Her Grace did mention the plant lasts a while, for not much is required for its healing effects. Most likely we only need a few more. There's another."

[Kiraz(#32438)]
Crouching down, Kiraz reaches for a thick stemmed plant, growing in the southern lee of the great oak. Her cold-reddened fingers brush the leaves. "This one, with the jagged leaves?" she asks. "We may need it ourselves if we don't return before the storm."

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The black-clad girl nods in confirmation, but then realizing the Corsair might not be able to it in the shade of the trees and the growing gloom of the approaching storm, supplies, "Yes, that's it." Tasnim yields a fresh glance of concern to that dark line of violent clouds, where the bolts of lightning dance. "Then the quicker we find them the better one more..."

She steps a set of footpaces onward, dark eyes fixed groundward once again. The scribe shivers, reaching up to pull her garment tighter about herself.

[Cloaked_Figure(#14221)] The lights to the west flash brighter, if no closer, on the horizon. An odd glow ripples as if atop the water, in the distance where the ocean meets the sky. A low wall of fog now can be seen to rise from the surface of the ocean far in the distance.

In the pre-dawn sky, a new spectale comes into view. Far above, a flame passes. Somewhere between a fireball and an arrow aflame, totally engulfed, but thicker, faster, and higher than any arrow could be. The flame passes at an oblique angle, near, but not at the ship, or the camp. The only sign it gives of it's passing is it's light.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
The corsair girl pulls the plant up by the root and shakes off the clinging little clods of earth. Her leather armor creaks as she rises and she holds the plant awkwardly for wont of a place to put it. She glances up to find Tasmin and instead espies the streaking flame. "Look!" she calls excitedly, gesturing to the event with the hand that holds the herb.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
Tasnim's neck turns, her sight following the second girl's and the gesturing of the plant. As she beholds the spectacle, her countanence seems to be struggling between awed amazement, and fear. "Did-did the storm just spit fire?" The scribe's voice is wavering. "You don't think there could be a dragon in it, do you?"

The black-clothed girl moves close again to Kiraz, and she fumbles a hand to open the top of her pouch. "Here, stick it in here. We've got two. Surely that's good enough, considering?" she asks nervously, hopeful. "We can go back now? I don't want to wait around to see if one of those sky-fires will land over here and set the whole forest in flames."

[Kiraz(#32438)]
There is no struggle evident upon Kiraz' own face. She is afraid. She stares at the skies for a few heartbeats, then advances to drop her plant into the scribe's waiting pouch. "I do not know what it is, but I think we should return," she says, her voice uneasy and shaky. "If they insist on more, we can tell them there is no more to find."

[Cloaked_Figure(#14221)] A voice, and oddly accented voice, comes from the forest. Clear as a bell, sounding as if it was standing in front the young Haradrim. The plesent voice sounds firm. "You were warned not to tarry, yet tarry still you do."

[Tasnim(#16424)]
"Yes, tell them there's no more," agrees the scribe with a rapid nodding of her raven haired head. She looks about to say something more, but stops and pales for the second time as the clear, strange voice speaks from the forest.

Pleasant sounding it may be, but that does nothing to remove the surprise and fright in her face. "I-I'm not tarrying any longer," calls Tasnim, hurriedly closing the pouch. "See?" She takes a couple of unsteady footsteps backward, away. A habit the girl has taken up as of late, her fingers begin to fiddle with the beads and necklaces she wears. One bears the image of an Eye engraved on a medallion.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
Though no less frightened than the scribe, Kiraz' reaction is to reach once more for her blade. Again, she does not draw it but places her hand firmly on the heft. Her eyes dart around the dim forest, searching for the voice's owner. She takes a cautious step backwards, "This is not within our power to decide," she says.

Then perhaps realizing she has offered an excuse, she lifts her chin proudly and adds: "Corsairs leave when they wish to. Our Captain will not do so until she decides there is no more to gain from this place."

[Cloaked_Figure(#14221)] The sound of the thunder that cannot be heard from the storm in the distance can now be heard in the forest. The voice that echos should be audible through the city. Terrible anger issues forth with the words, "You were told to not disturb the past. You heeded not these words! And now they have awoken!"

[Tasnim(#16424)]
And quite abruptly that voice is no longer pleasant, and Tasnim stumbles as it rises in wrath and volume she backpedals further. "'They have awoken?'" she breathes in echo, forcing her tongue to form words. "W-who?" Her eyes are wide.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
That brief moment of youthful pride dies away. Kiraz face grows ashen and she too moves backwards. "We only search for healing herbs this morn," the girl insists, her voice unsteady. "Surely this cannot anger the spirits? Or do the dead envy the living so much they resent such endeavors?"

Her backwards progress is now steady, but slow. She braves a glance towards the scribe to indicate she should do the same ere resuming her vigil upon the forest itself.

[Cloaked_Figure(#14221)] The only answer to the two questions is loud booming noises that begin to trail away, deeper and deeper into the forest.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The scribe does as the Corsair girl indicates, and she quickens her paces to fall alongside the other as they keep up the retreat. Tasnim shakes her head, sending her uncovered hair flying out to be caught in the increasing wind. "That's enough for me," she states, in a tone that suggests her mind is made up. "I don't wish to linger long enough to find out what the noises are, nor who or /what/ we've awoken."

With a whirl and a backward glance toward Kiraz, Tasnim heads back in the direction of the camp as hastily as she may -- occassionally tripping on roots or pieces of rubble that litter the ground.

[Kiraz(#32438)]
"Yes," agrees Kiraz quite simply. When the other twirls around, the corsair girl does not. She glances over her shoulder to the scribe. "Run. Go warn the others. I will make certain nothing follows you and will be along in a moment."

With a frightened and worried expression, Kiraz continues her far slower and more cautious retreat - keeping her dark eyes firmly on the north.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
A moment's hesitation.

And then a jerked nod, and the young scribe is gone, weaving around stones and toppled ruinous collumns. She does not look back.