IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE
PRELUDE 2B: THE AWAKENING – DOMINIC
PBeM – March 5th thru 9th, 2007
The 15th Day of Amseyl in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
By now the sun was going down, so you made what camp you could with the supplies you had and – clutching the purplish and sigiled stone in your hands – fell asleep…… in the night you dream of a door. A simple, wooden door. You open the door, and beyond it lies a magnificent chamber made all of gold. Its walls and floor and ceiling are all embossed and etched in bas relief. Directly across the room from you stands a door of giant proportions — literally large enough for a giant to traverse it — made entirely of ebony and covered in similar bas reliefs…
… you wake up on a soft bed with warm sheets. Soft, pale light streams in through four large windows. From outside you can hear the sound of rain and the faint ringing of church bells.
“This is a nice bed,” you think to yourself. “Wait, where am I? Maybe someone found me and brought me here.”
You’re laying on one of two beds in the room. There’s also a wardrobe along the wall near you, a table, and some chairs.
As you try to orient yourself, your hand grasps idly at your holy symbol. You find, hanging on the familiar leather strap, not only the wooden symbol of Athor which Father Toma had given to you so many years before, but also the mithril holy symbol of Vehthyl, the god of magic. “Vehthyl? I must be at one of their churches. But how?”
You crawl out of bed and manage to find some clothes in the wardrobe. You meditate for an hour, giving praise to Athor and asking for some basic spells:
• Orisons
• Manifestus magus (detect magic)
• Flamma (light)
• Evolutio magus (read magic)
• Manifestus Malefactor (detect evil)
• Asylum (sanctuary)
(“I should thank Vehthyl, too, just in case.”)
“Mighty, majestic, and radiant,
You shine brilliantly in the evening,
You brighten the day at dawn,
You stand in the heavens like the sun and the moon,
Your wonders are known both above and below,
To the greatness of the Magus,
To you, Vehthyl, I pray!”
As you complete your prayer to Vehthyl your vision blurs slightly for a moment and becomes tinged with silver sheen. Then everything leaps into sharp focus, although it remains tinged with that same silver sheen.
“What…? Hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”
You stand up, looking at your hands with this new sight. The details seem to leap out at you, but you guess you look the same as before.
“Hey, wait! There’s windows. That should give me some idea of what I am!”
Out the windows you find yourself in the center of the large city. You appear to be up on the third story of a relatively large building. From your vantage point you can look out over the roofs and see for quite some distance. It looks like there’s a gorge of some sort just a few blocks away, although you can see a bridge off to your right and another off to your left a little further away. The city continues beyond the gorge, too.
It’s not a city that you recognize. The architecture seems foreign.
“This place is huge, I can’t even think of a city this big. I better be careful, large cities are dangerous”.
You head to over to the door and put your ear up against it. You have to strain, but it sounds like there are people talking out there. Not right next to the door, but beyond it somewhere. You can’t make out what they’re saying.
You open the door and poke your head out to take a look…
