» Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:04 am
Ok *blows horn* this is one of my favorite sections so far, but really thats no indicator to how you'll like it. Its definitely "akshun" packed, to quote Lovecraft. Anyway, here we are.
Note: This section has several footnotes. One is to describes a ficticious mode of travel ala "stilt striders" another is purely humorous. They are indicated with *'s.
The Poet of Grey Watch- part 3
After eating a hearty meal consisting of spiced fish, white rice, and steamed vegetables at a nearby restraunt, Qiam visited a sword smith and bartered for a blade with several dark red rubies. It was delicately detailed, and curved like the contour of a shapely woman's back. "Adamantine" The smith said in fluent Tamrielic between hisses "Cleaves through iron, steel, glass--anything-- like molten tallow. I will relinquish it for no less than ten gemstones of a like hue."
After much fruitless arguing, bickering, and?eventually-- personal insults, Qiam reluctantly complied, though the price had risen as a result to include his boots, reading glasses, and pants.
Next, Qiam visited a cartographer who, in exchange for several expensive oils, drew him up an exquisitely detailed map of the region. For an extra opal, he pointed Qiam towards the nearest Kao-Zhe* port, which would take him to within 40 miles of his destination.
*A domesticated, less truculent variety of the common worm-shark. The Tcaesi mount them with sails and cabins. Being arrayed thus, they are an effective means of travelling long distances over water. They are controlled via a direct (and often messy) manipulation of their nervous system.
Qiam scaled the mountain pass-- free of thought, lighthearted and optimistic, strumming serenely upon his lute.
Not for long, however, was he without opposition.
Before he knew it, before he had a chance to draw his sword, open his spell book, ready his projectiles, they were upon him: the bane of the misty mountains; the scourge of the skies.
The Cliff-racers*.
*Any of a large, reptilian bird native to Vvardenfell, but common to Akavir. They are a plague to crops and livestock. In addition, an estimated 90% of missing Tsaeci children are contributed to cliff-racer abduction. The cliff-racers, having no teeth, reduce their prey's area for comfortable digestion via two means. One: by way of vigorous gumming. Two: by whole consumption. In a few, atypical instances, children have been withdrawn alive and, save a lingering putrescent fetor, unscathed from rifted cliff-racer bellies.
They descended on undulant, leather wings, claws outspread like caltrops, eyes like glistening beads of obsidian glass.
Screeching and singing, like a horde of lecherous satyrs pursuing a ripe virgin, they came; lashing their whip-like tails in erratic, frenzied arcs. They fought with the indefatigability of loci; the extravagant, aerial adroitness of hymanoptera animated with some exotic, intoxicating nectar.
One particularly audacious bird sunk its talons deep into Qiam's shoulders and flapped hysterically, as if to bear him away. He clutched either of its wings and twisted them in his hands. Strained and rent, they made a sound like a cluster of dry, autumnal leaves crunching crisply beneath a boot heel. A gelatinous ichor exuded between his fingertips and slithered in thick rills down his hairy, ferruginous forearms.
To the birds, his ardent reaction was evidently an unanticipated eventuation. They retreated with vehement squawks, producing a cyclonic gale of musty winds, a tumultuous stirring of rock-powder and dirt, with the beating of their membranous vans. They strategically positioned themselves in a perimeter about his person, as if organized by some extrasensory communication. They stared at him angrily with vitreous, protuberant eyes.
To their further consternation, Qiam lifted the ashen beast above his head and tore it in half, whereupon its entrails cascaded in a voluminous cataract of bright red before him. The cliff-racer's regarded him with expressions of mixed disgust and mounting anger.
Qiam, noting their sudden disequilibrium of resolve, drew his adamantine scimitar in a flourish of bright quicksilver. It's hilt was adorned with a pennon of scarlet silk, and it whipped in the wind like a jet of rich, ruby red flame. Ordinarily, he would not have been threatened by so insignificant an opposition as a squadron of wild animals-- regardless of their number, systematic organization, or intellect; but he was exhausted from climbing, and his reserves of magicka were well nigh depleted. His only viable defense was physical combat. Without telegraphing his intentions, he commenced to attack. He swung his blade in a series of continuous techniques, arc after arc flowing seamlessly into the next. He was inundated in the spray of hot crimson during the whole of his lurid assault.
Anon one of the few remaining cliff-racers stuck him with its menacingly barbed beak, and he howled in pain. The bird proceeded to twist and wiggle it inside of him, and he bethought the creatures fowl indeed in their instinctual predatory mechanisms. He involuntarily dropped his scimitar and watched with intense concern as it was lost to view amidst the mounting tumult of wings, beaks and slender, imbricated feet.
After a while, impaled and immobile, Qiam hung his head despondently. "Take me if you must, diseased fowl!" he managed between winces, "I have rightly lost."
The primary offender withdrew its beak slowly, eyeing Qiam with an expression of neutrality. Qiam collapsed to his knees, clutched his perforated side, heaved asthmatically. The barbs heretofore plainly visible on the cliff-racers beak lay collapsed against its surface, enameled with blood.
Qiam looked up, spit blood contemptuously. "Cruel beast! What instinct prompts you linger! Prolong not my inevitable fate! Prolong not the multitude of horrific sensations that have beset me?hysteria, horripilation, ornithophobia, pangs of agonizing pain; nay, let my fate come with the swiftness of a hunter's arrow, the legerdemain of illusionists, the first crack of lightning on a stormy night. Let it be?"
The bird's advanced upon him, clutched the shoulders of his robe in their claws.
With a furious flapping, they bore him effortlessly up.
"I say! Put me down at once! I have little desire to directly provide sustenance for your young! In fact, I would venture to say I have none."
The cliff-racer's responded with a fusillade of acute, piercing squawks, spraying him with an exorbitant amount of saliva. It was viscous, translucent, and inhabited by dozens of luminous larvae. Qiam moved feebly under strain of the mucilaginous webbing. "Again and again you defile me?" he managed, face contorted in an exaggerated expression of disgust, strands waggling from his chin. He sneezed explosively. One of the larvae had evidently invaded his nasal passage. "At least make your intentions clear!"
The topography diminished proportionally with each phase of ascension. Streams fell away to sparkling, insignificant strands; rhododendron to diminutive explosions of green. Conglomerates of flowers-- orchids, pride of Barbados, silver mimosa-- ebbed into fabulously dappled clumps, like the debris of shattered rainbows. In the halcyon light of midday, at an indeterminate altitude, the indulgently fruited tropics appeared an undulating canvas of steady green, trembling with the accumulative minute stirrings of its occupants. Numerous ponds mottled its area, hued with the sun's rich, incandescent gold, as though with molten metal. A strong gust of wind dispersed yonder tropic's florid perfumes, and Qiam might have forgotten his immediate scenario if it weren't for the mounting pangs of pain in his side.
Presently, he found himself born precipitously into an opaque haze of aggregated atmospheric moisture. Even his discourteous escorts were lost to view in its diaphanous lace, its winding tendrils of snow-white gossamer.
In a trice, he was deposited without tenderness onto an altitudinous salient, giving way to a cavern shadowed ebon black. The mouth of the cavern was fenced with intersecting stalactites and stalagmites, like the teeth of a malicious mountain faery. The cliff racers sat and studied Qiam for a moment, tilting their heads in curiosity, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. One of them stepped forward, ruffled its wings and? spoke!
"It is the will of Lord Xzaegith that you enter." it said, gesturing toward the cavern opening with a slight inclination of its beak. Its voice was deep, resonant, magniloquent- wholly at odds with its slender anatomy. The cliff-racer stopped, lolled its long tongue, and continued. "Indeed, lord Xzaegith wishes to hold council with you."
Usually just introduction or seven pages of chapters minimum. 
