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Name	Author
"Strength of the Spirit"	Jolinn
"Slyjak"	Iceth
"The Patrician's Daughter"	Jolinn
"The Horse Boy"	Jolinn
"Blight of the Void"	Jolinn
"The Spirit of Nalan Jal'hum"	Sirrindiln
"Srryn's Ambition"	Belikan

Current Story: The History of Shiyul

Author: Shiyul

Notes: The History of Shiyul, Shuddeni Archmage of Fire, High Lord of the Raiders

Fire.

Darkness.

Gold.

I clutch the goblet in my hand, and sit on the High Chair. Precious gems, each large as a shura's eye, tear at me. My grey flesh is now pale with age, and ravaged by horrific gashes where fire and battle cut across my hide. The deep folds of my fleshy face droop now, giving me the gaunt, skeletal countenance my enemies always feared I had. I cough, listening to the bellow of my lung gurgle with the brackish ichor of my own blood. I have called the phoenix once too often. I have drank my full measure of the living flame. I have watched my own flesh melt like wax in the heat of my magic.

But I am still alive.

I was a precocious youth, rapacious to the point of impudence, but the elders of Yithoul encouraged it in me. Not for me, Shiyul, was the laconic, crafty magic of the great Void. For me, I recognized early on that their were quicker paths, no less perilous, but just as rewarding.

Like the other acolytes of magic in Yithoul, I would always have a place in the temples. My father was a slavemaster for the chaja, and he had died when one of his charges clubbed him senseless, and devoured his entrails. Not a pretty end, but our household had never been worth much to begin with. After his untimely demise, I lived with the city priests.

Temple life brought power, and a taste of truly powerful magical artifacts, but I resented the notion that the priests stood between me and what I could take as my own right here, and right now.

Listening to a few humans kept in the cells below the city yammer about the gold of their people, desperately trying to save their own worthless skins, became a hobby of mine, and I found it amusing to hear what a mortal would say to save his flesh. In their trembling screechings, though, I heard a note or two of truth. Yithoul promised a long life, but one of delayed gratifications for what I felt were my own very obvious talents. Taking my scrolls, and a small pouch of gold, I fled the temple, tracing my torturous way through the tunnels under the Brintors, making my way to the surface.

Immediately, I found my services of use to some of the rabble in Var Bandor. One look at the city's guards in rags convinced me that a life as an underworld mage was the quickest way to power and wealth. I had no qualms, of course -- the humans who ran the city were animals anyway.

How could an animal own property?

I had begun making a tidy profit for myself, but I begin hearing tale of a group of thieves and bandits who suited my tastes. They were bloodthirsty, prone to displays of excess violence to quell the rabble, and their youngest member had more gold than I had even dreamt possible. I discovered my calling the day I heard of the Raiders of Twilight.

By this time, I was coming into my own as a scholar. I had honed my craft on the citizens of Krilin and Kor Thrandir, blasting through their guards with my searing beams of fire. I could as easily burn a hole through flesh as I could drive my allies into a burning frenzy.

Through no coincidence, I sought the ear of Zyal, the then Highlord of the Raiders. Zyal was a crafty srryn, and one of the most talented templars of the void of his age. He was a successful Raider lord, but I always felt he went in a bit much for ceremony. A portion of his netherworld magic was mixed in, but the majority of his trappings seemed calculated to impress the yokels and the uninitiated. Having spent most of my youth watching the priests in Yithoul conduct such ceremonies, seeing the truth of Zyal's ways was not hard. This is not to say his methods were not clever; and indeed, they tended to produce extremely loyal Raiders, who oscillated between fear of his power on this plane and in the next. Of course, I did the only sensible thing, and bribed the srryn.

Zyal's reign was a profitable one for the Raiders, and I rapidly found myself with access to magical treasures beyond my wildest imaginings. Most of the Raiders were not magic users, and the spell books and enchanted goods I acquired received my exclusive attentions. I learned well that as a scholar of fire, I would have to seek magics outside of my own sphere for protection, and to find which ensorcelled items would give my relatively frail body the edge in combat.

As I approached the pinnacle of my profession, fortune turned my way. Zyal came to his end in the swamps, and the gods of blood and greed sought a new vessel for mortal lord of the Raiders. In truth, I don't know what happened to the lizard; I suppose that it's just as likely he was devoured by a demon, or he fled to some sort of unnatural existence on the planes of the void, as the stories say. What I can say that it is utterly untrue that I poisoned him. Really, it wasn't my style at all -- if I want to kill someone, I prefer showy, and, preferably, messy. A random poisoning could have been done by anyone, but a molten, burning ball of fire? Utterly distinctive.

Unfortunately, as Zyal's death came before all my plans were in order. I had two contenders for the position of high lord, both of whom seemed unwilling or unable to submit to my rule. The first was a bandit, carved from the brute and crude race of the alatharya. His tactics were crude, and he quickly learned that you can't possibly wield a cudgel when your entire arm has been reduced to ash. The other could have posed more of a threat, as he was the only other scholar of fire favored with the gift of a position within our House. Named Yurasect, he and I met in a blaze of ekypyrotic glory. Needless to say, he was unwilling to risk the rather unreliable power of the disintegration spell -- I was, and reaped the reward due the bold.

So, I sat at last upon my throne, just as I do now. Then, I was young, and in the full flush of my power, and certain of my success. Now, I am old, but I know that mortal success has been mine, and in abundance. But I can remember what it was to sit on the High Chair, and feel the uncertainty melt away, as I knew that all the kings of the world would bring ingots of gold to lie at my feet.

Noticing the pattern of tribute paid by the nobility of the Dantaron valley to their respective city states and lords, I decided that a similar system would benefit me as well. All those who sought to join the ranks of the Raiders would have to provide me with a sum of gold, matching how I rated their relative worth to me.

This arrangement was perfectly fair, and numerous rogues and cutpurses took me up on my offer. I encouraged them to look at it as an investment in their own futures. What matter a handful of gold now, in return for a share of virtually unending loot? As a point of fact, I did a great many of them a favor, by giving them such rich opportunities.

The first to join me proved to be the pick of my minions. Rascyc, a swordmaster of unsurpassed ability, came to be my lieutenant. Later in life, he bore the blade of Mir-Adan, a blade hewn from ancient magic, and became known as something of a historical figure himself. There was Daigun, a surly human gladiator, who was always eager to be the enforcer for my plans, and Goshon, a barbaric and desperately dim alatharya, who wore armor fit for a demigod, and remained a berserker heedless of his own strength to the end of his days.

By comparison to later additions, most of the first crop of my Raiders entered for a comparatively cheap price. Later, as applicants became less skilled, and more the gull, the tribute increased. I well remember the day I a fighter paid me a million gold Var Bandor coins to join us! The druid Inquinox gave me rare gauntlets from the depths of the Sythtys, and others still paid with the rarest jewelry from Krilin.

While we gained strength over time, such was the fury of the coming of my Raiders that very few dared stand against us. The Champions, lead by Eintras, were no match for my forces, and we drove them back again and again. In our bloody hands, we stole Anirim's javelin from their leader, holding its burning light quiescent in our vault.

Seeing no real opposition from the foes of the light, we turned our eyes to the Guardians. They had some numbers, but the only real warrior of epic mettle among them was Skrinlare, a shuddeni like myself who had come into his fortunes by picking at the bones of the rogues who dared ply their trades in Var Bandor and Earendam. We fought a number of battles, with the usual fanfare.

I daresay the residents of Var Bandor grew tired of watching the skies raining molten fire, just as we Raiders grew bored with ceaselessly slaying the hapless "elite" guardian forces. I remember matters continued this way for some time, until we slew Skrinlare in his own house. We presented Rascyc with the Sword of Mir-Adan, and thereafter he put it to good use for the rest of his days. We had further spats with the Guardians, of course, but I never viewed them as a real threat of any kind after that.

Our success in combat was legion, but we faced a great many foes. And, the magics of fire are not necessarily.... conducive to one's personal safety. More than once, the power of my disintegration flared beyond even my control, and I was the one who met a fiery end. Such things vexed me, but not the damage to my own mortal frame. I was concerned that I not lose any of my precious treasures to the gabbling hordes of my enemies. Consequently, I turned to the magic of the phoenix, to ensure that should I perish, I would arise from my own ashes, and could either return for revenge, or hurriedly escape. The phoenix takes its toll, though, slowly drawing on one's health, gently tugging you towards an early grave. I did not begrudge this, as I deemed the rewards worth the suffering.

But with the flame, there is always a price.

Although we had beaten Eintras and the other Champions back, their tower still held numbers. I was not entirely averse to this, as the denizens of Aramril growing in number in actuality meant more ripe fruit for picking. They had powerful allies, though, in the form of the assassin Sydonus, and the archmage Sance. With their knowledge and acumen, the Champions planned a trip into the depths of the shrine of the demon god Xiganath. They decided, however, that for their plan to succeed, they should have the stones of power under their control.

They made known their plot to breach the seals on that demonic place, and put out a call for heroes. Naturally, I held back my own minions, watching as every misbegotten would-be hero crawled out of Avendar's taverns. Under the leadership of the Champions, they stormed into the canyon, hoping to find the combined might of the Raider horde, wanting an epic battle that they surely felt was theirs by divine right. Surrounded by the blinding white light of their accursed sanctuary, armored in steel and brandishing blessed weapons, they broke through our guards, to find....

Only me.

I, of course, had sent my Raiders away. Why stay and fight when we were outnumbered? We have all heard the sagas, and heard the songs of a bare handful of men standing firm against armies.

I also know that bloody slaughters make poor songs, at least among surface folk.

So, the Champion converged on their vault, and I faced them, clad only in grey robes, supported by wings of burning flame, like some dark seraph. Calling the powers of fire that the greatest of the scholars in the War of Fire used, I drew in energy directly from the planes of fire, and directed this energy inward, then, impossibly, outward, with the all the force of a pyroclastic implosion.

It cascaded out around me, and the fire lashed out, uncontrollably. I failed to fully control it, so I was scoured by my own backlash, but it did incalculably more damage to the interlopers. I cackled a mad, wild yell. My enemies reeled, the ground beneath them fused to glass. Protected by their healing magic, they still stood.

I cast the spell again.

A haze of red pain filled my senses. The fire exploded with full force in both directions this time, liquefying my flesh. Darkness and death seemed a merciful relief, but before my spirit left my body, the image of a burning phoenix imposed itself on the blackness. I clung to it, and it brought me back to my body, which I watched from a distance, as the magic healed it and restored its form.

Time went from the slow distance between heartbeats to the quick pulse of renewed battle. Three of my enemies lay dead, while the rest were injured. I snarled like a wild beast, falling at their corpses, snatching their most precious things and then fleeing.

The Champions and their allies withdrew, thwarted in their bid to take the Vault.

I am sure that with sufficient time they could have won past my lone defense. But they were losing precious time, and every hour, every day they spent on their campaign to breach the canyon, their numbers would slip away. They called to me, voices mixed with pity and horror, "Why throw away your life so heedlessly?"

The answer is that I did not throw my life away. In fact, I succeeded at what I intended to do, which is deprive my enemies of that which was mine. I also took a tithe in flesh and gold from the trespassers to the Canyon. Had I simply stood back, and done nothing, I am certain that my position in the world as a power would have been weakened. How could it not? But after this, the uninformed took me as a madman, willing to bring destruction to myself rather than let the smallest ingot of gold slip through my fingers.

Sweeter than a Khazinhindul larvae, though, was the fate of the Champions. They breached the depths of Xiganath, plundering its most secret treasures. Due to some perversity of the demon god, they ended up trapped in its bowels, entombed in some stony prison. Dark forces ensnared most of them there, as the one known as Taezel struck some deal with the gods of evil. When I saw them next on the surface, most of them had been stripped of their powers and position, and Taezel was known as the Pragmatist.

The assassin had been the one whose corpse I had stolen armor and treasures from. I like to think I kindled in him a despair, tempered by the desire for the finer things in life, after he had seen exactly what it was to face true power. Regardless of the motivation, though, he bore some token from the god Xiganath after he returned, and was a vastly changed man.

Inspired by these events, and taken by the fact that I had few real enemies remaining, I took upon myself a kind of madness. No armor was good enough for me but the very best, and no raiment fine enough unless it be fit for an emperor. Fat merchants wept when my name was mentioned, and the city fathers locked up their meager hoards, but I craved more.

How better to clad myself than in the armor of a demon lord? I knew that one of the greatest of their kind lay imprisoned beneath the castle of the Titans. Xthjich the Eternal, Xthjich the bane of the Iilim, still wearing the armor he had crafted with his own hands before his imprisonment. And yet, the demon had great power over the magics of fire, so that my own spells would avail me little against him. I plotted, though, and gathered the necessary forces. I hired the most talented (and trustworthy) healers. I promised great wealth to Daigun and Rascyc. I brought the stones of power to the castle.

Sacrificing the stones in a ritual of power, I lead the attack. Sortie after sortie, striking at Xthjich with every iota of our power. The fight lasted long -- so long that I cannot remember clearly to this day how it ended. But the colossal form of the demon crumpled, and I seared the armor off his flesh with the last of my magic.

The armor seemed an extension of my own flesh, the spikes as hard as I fancied my own soul. Wealth flowed into my coffers, and I recognized at last the life I had seen in my dreams. Wines of every age and taste. Art stolen from the most decadent of nobles. Jewelry that any human woman would make herself a whore ten times over for the merest glance of.

I spent my days on my throne, lost in a dream of my own wealth and power. I sipped the venom of a small snake a sable-haired youth brought me. I saw through visions. I felt the searing heat of gold coins in the summer sun, and the icy chill of silver left in a mountain stream. I slept.

When I awoke, I was alone. Over time, my great lieutenants had come to me, seeking their freedom from the Canyon. I had given them wealth enough and over to live like kings for the rest of their lives, and most of them had grown more prudent with age. They each approached me, and offered marvels and great sums of gold to leave my service. Graciously, I accepted. Most of them might still be bought for gold, and there was no sense in making enemies of men who wanted to retire.

Besides, I had, perhaps, become less than good company. Most of my time had been spent in my own contemplation. I wore bracers which tore at my sanity, and I spoke what was whispered in the nether corners of my mind. The prudent men shied away, but there was always new blood, tolerating any eccentricity for what they saw was a leader who would grant them the rich life they wanted.

It was one of these newer ones who betrayed me at the height of my power. Dizzen, a mediocre thief, of mediocre wit, waited until I was wounded, and slipped his knife into my back.

He took what was mine.

He DARED to take what was mine.

I placed a price of a million gold coins on his head. I set the other young Raiders against him. But he made off with the armor of a god, and I never saw him again. Maybe he retired on the fortune he could have sold it for, or maybe it lies, moldering in the attic of whatever obscure farm the thief retired to.

I still had fine things, and I still had minions. I had vast storehouses of wealth, but it lacked flavor. I had seen the acme of what was possible to me, and everything else was merely an echo of that one moment of my greatness.

A few enemies remained. I still quarreled with the archmage Sance, operating on contract, financed by her enemies. The Guardians made occasionally resurgences, and had to be pruned. But I had no heart for it, and the life I had led took its toll on my body.

Too long have I sought the phoenix. Too many fires started in the hearts of my enemies at the expense of my own flesh. Coughing my own blood, I sit on the High Chair. None of the younglings have my cunning, or my strength. Perhaps I shall let slip my grasp on the mortal plane, and go to my reward at the hands of Arkhural, and the gods of blood and greed. Perhaps I will travel to the outer planes, and seek new worlds to suck dry. Perhaps I will never die, and live in a dream of my own glory and wealth for all eternity.

Sitting on my Chair, I collapse.

Gold.

Darkness.

Fire.