The Courtyard

This place was made by the Deathand, and the Deathand keeps it. Open to those who have no qualms about talking chances, or enjoy a good competition. Haven holds events for users to gain Operator Points for use of Favor, or a trick or two. Who knows...you might even get inducted into the Order of Secrets...
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Jericho Veronus
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The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:26 pm

His hand was thick with the black muck he used to inscribe the markings in the floor. For hours he had been at work, ensuring the absolute clarity of every line of every symbol, for even the slightest smear or incorrect placement would have dire results on a cataclysmic level for both this world and the next. Every stroke a work of art as he swung to and fro inches above the floor, hanging from the crudely constructed pulley systems surrounding his masterpiece. He regretted the location he was forced to choose for such a ritual, since he respected the owner and didn't wish to place its architecture in any danger with what was to come. But it was the only place with both enough open space as well as a near absence of foot traffic or otherwise external factors that could effect the seal's integrity.

The last step before performing the ritual itself was the placing of the host structures. Carefully, he had to lift and set them done in respective sections around the seal's rim. The precision required for this act was the most crucial part of the seal's creation, for one the placement of the host was set, it could not be moved. He had to stop several times, to rest from the stress and tension that keeping the weight stationary put on his muscles.

The "day" light had faded by the time he finished placing the last. Although Haven had no sun or moon, and no day or night, it simply had an artificial light essence in order to follow the rotation of the mortal realm, where the main gate opened to. His body ached and his skin was chafed and raw from where the ropes held him suspended in air, so he dragged himself back to his temporary dwelling bestowed upon him by Deathand.
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May God have mercy on your soul, for you shall find none here!

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Jericho Veronus
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Re: The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:26 pm

As the light essence returned to Haven, the prophet had already been in the courtyard for sometime, finishing the last of the arrangements. His appearance, now extremely different than from his usual; no longer dressed in his basic laboring garbs. Instead he wore a long coat of jet black, running from a high leather collar that reached to right below his eye, down to just above the heel of his polished high boots. Around his shoulder hung a large piece of flat metal work, depicting the symbol of the Zealot of Judgment. And on his back slung a chained scabbard, holding within the ceremonial sword that the Order of Judgments had actual spent nearly 500 years searching for. He bent down and placed the last two coins of OP upon the empty eye sockets of the final host structure, before returning to the great circle’s center and reciting the first passage rights.

He held open a large, tattered book, resting it upon the ever changing stand, first placed in the courtyard upon the completion of Haven’s existence. The stand held another book, which the prophet saw no way of actually opening, though he gave little thought to it, as he rested his own tome on it. The prophet’s tome could quite possibly be as old, if not older, than the stand it rested on. It has been bound in flesh as it was ripped from the backs of convicts sentenced to mutilation by the lord-judge of the prison system Guilo. Its text written in an ink derived from the sweat, blood, and tears of the reptilian slave race of Thri as they were forced to build the first of the Warp Temples some several millennia ago. Time had been unkind to such a tome.

He closed its pages as he spoke the last of the words and drew the blade from his chained back sling. The sword was an abnormally large saber, the Death-Bane of Kalimora. A sword carved straight from the spine of the last maurader beast slain by the Templar Inquisitors during the Final Crusade of the Extinction Wars. It was then dipped into the willingly sacrificed and blessed blood of the high priest of the Order of Travels so that whenever the blade struck down its enemies it did not only end their life but further banished their soul to the warp abyss to be fuel for the Zealot’s Void Train. Further engraved with the bio-runes crafted from the skulls of the seventh ligment child upon birth every seven years for seven full cycles around the twin suns of the Fragk Galaxy. And finally polished with a solution made primarily of two pungent herbs simply because the Forge Master had a rather twisted sense of humor and wished the sword’s victims to know the bitter-sweet scent of death as they faced it.

He impaled it straight through the center of the sacrificial corpse’s chest at the base of the stand, shattering the sternum, splitting open its rib-cage and finally severing its spine. When the tip of the blade hit the stone and ink of the markings covering it, the seal ignited, white flames traveled through it and shot into the air. A small whirlwind began to form above it.
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Jericho Veronus
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Re: The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:26 pm

A rapid wind picked up, blowing what few leaves remained on the trees, from their branches and into the sky. The prophet’s robes flapped, though he stood solid, as he watched the whirlwind grow bigger. The world around him grew darker, but a light shone through the spinning wind’s circle and grew outward, conforming to the shape of the rotating wind. As the light solidified, it brought forth a faint sound, which quickly grew louder and became recognized as the thundering pounds of war drums, and the piercing blare of trumpets and horns, shattering ears and rattling even the strongest of wills. Music so surrounding, that it was enough to wake those who had fallen in battle from their eternal slumber and march in step once again. The prophet without thinking, found it eerily easy to hum along with the noise as it had an oddly similar tune to “Seven Nation Army” by White Stripes. As it grew louder, the trembling of the earth grew more violent, but all was cast out as the sound of a deafening train whistle blasted above them all. It was the sound of a hundred thousand souls screaming out in agony and terror as they burned from existence within the abomination’s hellish furnace.

The warp train burst through the portal and into Haven’s courtyard. It hissed to a stop and for the first time in ages, the flames of the raging furnace died and with it silenced the torment of the souls feeding it, at least temporarily. More precisely for the exact time it took for its first passengers ever to be brought to this world rather than from it, and although their disembarking simply took mere minutes, it was an eternity of peace for the sentenced souls of the furnace.
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Re: The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:27 pm

The prophet stood facing the door, waiting for the massive, armored slab to slide away and reveal the contents of the car. The train was a most impressive sight, almost majestic, in a rustic, crude sort of way. Every bit of it, inside and out, was unintentionally pitch black, like looking into the warp abyss itself, though the color was simply the charred remnants of warp matter collected and baked onto the outer hull. It was several feet through the warp matter that the construct of the train actually resided. As metal gears began to shift, the groaned as the door slid open, screeching in pain as it scrapped against the side of the car. Through the opening, several dark figures stood. The prophet bowed out of respect to them and so they did in turn to their most gracious host.

Only the champions themselves were permitted to board the warp train, so they had no cohorts or luggage to deal with as they gathered in the near-ruined Haven’s courtyard. Their baggage as well as any companions, pets, vassals and/or slaves they may have would be arriving the next day. In order to be allowed admittance aboard the transport, they were forced to willingly give their physical selves to one of the many states of death. The figures starring back at the prophet, with hallowed eyes, were in essence merely shadows. And they would remain so until they inhabited their new vessels. At the edge of the warp seal were the seven skeletal structures they would mutate in order to became warriors once again in the battle for the realm in balance.
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Jericho Veronus
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Re: The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:27 pm

So, the champions moved one at a time from the train in a manner that could only be described as ‘shifting’. The figure’s pose remained stationary as they blurred and appeared immediately in a new spot only inches away from the previous, but they never occupied the space between the two areas. They continued as such towards the remains that would be their new bodies. The prophet watched as they stood above their new forms, mesmerized as they went to work, unaware that there were in fact only six of the seven shadowy figures there. The figures suddenly ripped to large shreds and attached themselves to the skeletons. They wrapped around the bones, shifting them here and there within the structures, as the shadows twisted within their new husks. The once human skeletal remains mutated as the shadows molded them to be human versions of their former selves.

While all were of races of a humanoid variety, only two could have even come close to passing as humans within their original forms, and as he looked on at their new forms unfolding, he questioned whether they could pass still. While although they maintained the base structure of a torso, four limbs, and a single head, a few traits of their former selves seemed to dominate the human geno-structures. Nothing that the prophet figured couldn’t be covered up by means of cloaks of certain armaments, but he wasted no effort towards such for it was only a matter of time before they would be revealed and unleashed upon the world.
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Jericho Veronus
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Re: The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:48 pm

The prophet of justice was awake when the gong sounded, echoing throughout the great halls to signal sunrise on the mortal plane that had been chosen for the Rinclaw to take place. He had never gone to sleep the previous night. He simply retired to his quarters and set about preparations for the day ahead. The ceremony would not be for several hours, though there was still much that had to be done, especially with his newly acquired position. Rising from the arm chair, he smothered the last flames from the fire place that he had been staring at while working. He stood there for several minutes, watching the black ash that had only moments before been a raging fire and he saw it as a metaphor of life itself. Raising his gaze to the mantle above the fire place he used both hands to lift a white, shining helm that rested there. He thought of the events that had occurred leading up to that moment over the past several hours.

As the physical transitions of the champions neared completion, the Prophet finally realized the absence of a seventh form; one of the skeletal structures still lay, untouched. And almost like clock-work, he turned towards the train to look for the last spirit only to hear the furnace sound and see as it disappeared into the depths of the void from which it came. Turning back around towards the champions, the first of the champions was testing his movements in his new body. General Fergin, Champion of Policy, Plan, and Approach, made his way towards the prophet.

"Where is the seventh champion? Where is the Champion from the Army of Justice and Judgment?"

Whether his vocals were not yet fully constructed or he simply would rather not say, his eyes looked solemnly towards the ground before turning towards the second completed figure to advance. It was, Obidias Zerek, the blind seer and Champion of Mysticism, and he held his hand out stretched towards the prophet. In his hand rested a small glass orb, and within the orb a black smoke began swirling, forming a picture.

The prophet feared that he knew what the orb was about to show him.

"Zerek, where is my father?"
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Jericho Veronus
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Re: The Courtyard

Post by Jericho Veronus » Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:16 pm

The prophet turned from the fireplace and walked over to the heavy oak desk, covered with parchment at least several inches high and spilling down to the floor all around it. Licking the point of the quill he dipped into the small ink pot and scribbled a few figures upon the sheets at the top of the pile, before shuffling them to the sides and pushing even more off the desk in search of some particular information. While still shuffling, since none of the papers seemed to be in any specific order, he was interuptted by a knock on the door at the far end of the room. Still holding several sheets, skimming through the lines, he spoke.

"Enter."

A small hooded figure, possibly not even two feet tall entered and 'scurried' across the room towards him. The prophet's attention was still much engulfed by the drawn ink on the parchment in hand, to the point of being oblivious as the creature attempted to climb atop the desk. It had trouble standing on the stacks that layered the floor, and even more on gripping the desk's top as every time it simply pulled down more sheets right on top of itself. Eventually, after realizing that the quiet swearing of an almost dead language was not simply in his head, he turned his gaze towards the struggling servant.

"What is it you want, little one?"

The prophet allowed the pages he was holding to fall from his grasp and add to the sea on the floor. Placing both hands beneath the creature's arms he lifted it and set it down on his desk. As it looked up at the prophet, the hood began to slide back from his head. It quickly grabbed it to keep it in place, just enough for him to see Jericho. It's chubby little wrinkled fingers gripping the cloth.

"The Master requests an audience, if you're not too busy..."

The creature spoke its words and then immediately replaced its hood, and began climbing off the desk. Jericho allowed it to make its own way off the structure, and watched as it scurried back across the room and exit through the door it had entered. The creature's purpose was simply to deliver the message and it had done so.
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May God have mercy on your soul, for you shall find none here!

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