Posted by Dyrlyln on May 12, 2000 at 18:36:28:
Heh. You think you people who delete at level 10 have problems? I rolled up Dyrlyln, got him to level 2, wrote this huge honking pile of crap I call a role, and haven't played him since. And after all that work, too - I just couldn't stop adding adjectives. Pitiful, isn't it? Later, Dyrlyln determined that the wild magic within the terrible beaker Added Fri Apr 28 23:53:46 2000 at level 2:
<100%hp 100%m 99%mv>
# Log file open.
l self
Dyrlyln is a tall, slender man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, wrapped in a
rippling cloak of coal-black feathers. Bowing, he greets you, and his
cloak flares and unfurls behind him, revealing itself as wings, and Dyrlyln
as one of the bird-men, the arials of the mountainous north.
Though without a fighter's build, Dyrlyln is lithe and quick, and his armors
are arranged professionally, to allow the maximum of protection with freedom
of movement. The wariness in his glance, the caution in his stance, and
the calluses on his slight palms seem to show definitively his training
in the guild of warriors.
Having examined his build and armors as best you can, your eyes now return
unwillingly to Dyrlyln's drawn face. He might once have been a handsome man.
No longer. Twisted scars, black and seared, writhe up from his thin chest
like blistered serpents, twining about his throat and leaving vivid lashes
that streak up his face to vanish underneath his hair. They are old scars,
but most likely still pain him, as they remain despite the existence of
healers who defeat death itself.
But, if these ancient wounds are not considered,
Dyrlyln, a male arial, is in perfect health.
<100%hp 100%m 100%mv> role
Your role is:
Added Fri Apr 28 22:30:57 2000 at level 2:
Dyrlyln LLyliiran was once a transmuter, and an excellent one. He studied
alone, in a small village south and west of Udgaard in the mountains, and
was content, for he loved knowledge for its own sake. Spells of slowing
maintained his youth, so that he seemed as a youth of eighteen when he was
twice that and more.
It was not that he was evil, no. In fact, in that little village, Dyrlyln
was most beloved, always among the first to assist with injuries or natural
disaster with his knowledge of magic and healing herbs. But he did nothing
outside that tiny, insular valley. In fact, Dyrlyln cared little for his
his fellow men, and often wished they'd pack up and go, leaving him to his
studies. He was never happier than when he could take a day or three to
examine the way a bird's wing guides air around it, or wander in the forest
gathering herbs, or mixing reagents previously unconsidered with each other
merely to discover what new magics would spring forth. That latter tendency
would bring an end to his self-absorbed, solitary existence.
There was sulphur in the mixture, and sweet-smelling cedar bark, and a
shaving from a mandrake root, and half a dozen other elements and compounds
of perhaps magical properties. Dyrlyln muttered a few words, infusing the
heavy glass beaker with mana, and then, to watch the reaction better, he
held the container up to the sunlight shining through the open window.
The sun's light reacted somehow with the conflicting elements, and with a
sharp crack, the beaker exploded. Liquid fire cascaded down upon the hapless
mage.
The freakish brew seemed to burn into the soul as it ravaged the body. Unable
to move, seared to the bone and stricken with pain that was more than merely
physical, Dyrlyln lay helpless on the floor. Every breath was an effort
beyond the sheltered sorcerer's previous ability to conceive. He knew he
was dying, but he could do nothing. Nothing but lay there on the wooden
floor and think about the emptiness of his wretched life.
There's a certain indefinable something about the absolute fact of impending
death that serves to concentrate the mind upon the past. One obsesses over
the sins and regrets of the past. All hope of repayment, of making up for
your misdeeds, is gone. All that you can do is repent, and that Dyrlyln did.
He looked back on his life and saw how his selfish devotion to knowledge
had emptied it of worth. How, instead of giving love to other souls, he had
devoted it to cold, impersonal magics. How he'd hoarded both to him like
a miser with his gold, clasping what he had learned to himself instead of
sharing it freely as he should. And most bitter still was the knowledge
that there was nothing, nothing at all, that he could do to make amends,
because he was going to lie in his own blood until he died.
It was five days later before a village child, seeking herbs for her sick
mother, saw Dyrlyln collapsed on the floor and ran for the healer.
Added Fri Apr 28 23:02:06 2000 at level 2:
Dyrlyln LLyliiran's recovery was long and traumatic. The cleric avowed that,
had he been left two more hours alone, his soul would have moved on to the
next turn of the Wheel. For the last day, Dyrlyln had been delirious with
the pain and injury, unable to think of anything beyond the current breath,
keeping him alive at an agonizing cost. And then the next breath, and the
next. It was a full month before he became conscious enough to do anything
more than breathe on his own. Another week, and he was able to feed himself.
Two, and he could stagger to the privy and back with the assistance of his
devoted caretaker, an old woman whose daughter he had saved with his herbs
and magical medicines.
For Dyrlyln, as he slowly grew in strength, the woman's presence was a constant
reminder and a constant rebuke to him. He'd not forgotten the remorse and
sadness that had filled his mind when he had finally accepted that he was
going to die. When he looked at the old woman, he didn't think of the life
he'd saved. He thought of those like her, the people all over Thera whose
sons and daughters had died, dead, perhaps, because of his selfishness. He
knew that had he used his herbs and magics as he now believed they should
have been, to help those in need instead of increasing his own store of magic
and knowledge, hundreds of people in the wider world could have been saved,
and regret was like a burning coal in his heart. Soon enough, though, as
his recovery progressed, regret turned to determination.
Three months later, Dyrlyln was prepared to depart. He was weaker than he
had been before his nearly fatal accident, and the cleric had told him that
that weakness would be permanent, along with the blistered black scars that
covered his face and chest. They had festered for too long, she said, and
were part of him. Not even death and resurrection could remove them. But
to Dyrlyln, that was of little consequence. His packs filled with notes and
magical equipment, his mind filled with the determination to rescue others
as he had been rescued, the mage prepared to work the thautamurgy that would
whisk him off to Galadon. In his damaged, rasping, but still precise voice,
he called forth his power for the first time since his maiming. With calm
confidence, he whispered the words of command...
...And nothing happened.
had somehow overloaded his own talent, burning it out completely. A man
can gaze at a torch for hours without injury, but only for minutes at the
unshrouded sun lest he lose his sight. Something of the sort had happened
to Dyrlyln at the instant that the brew had melted into his chest. But at
the time, all he knew was that there was fire pulsing in his head, his hands
were trembling uncontrollably, and his magic was gone, apparently for good.
Added Fri Apr 28 23:18:02 2000 at level 2:
Dyrlyln LLyliiran remained in his little village for another month, testing,
praying, hoping against hope that he would recover from his mental injuries
as he had his physical. But to no avail. He brewed strange and noxious
potions of his own devising - though with the greatest caution indeed. His
caution was unnecessary. While most of the philters made him sick to his
stomach, none had the desired effect. He chanted spells over and over again,
hoping that where reason fails, stubbornness will prevail. But the wild magic
was more stubborn still. After twelve hours of shouting, then speaking, and
then whispering the same word of power until agony flared through his head
like the impact of a dwarven hammer with each beat of his pulse, Dyrlyln
went to sleep and slept for two days. When he awoke, he was resigned to the
apparent fact. His magic was gone beyond return.
And that, more or less, was that. With his meager savings, Dyrlyln bought
an old, ramshackle cart and an equally old, ornery mule, and simply walked
his now useless scrolls and spellbooks down through the mountains and along
the roads to Galadon. Upon arrival, he sought out the Guild Master of the
transmuters, an old man who he'd studied with on occasion, and there sold
his magical artifacts for the price of a membership in the Guild of warriors.
The lessons he learned during five days of suffering were still with him.
With whatever life, strength and skill was left to him, Dyrlyln intended to
use them as they should have been used from the beginning: in the defense, and
for the protection, of those unable to protect themselves.
Dyrlyln LLyliiran views his life not as a right, but as a gift. Having
escaped death by the thinnest of strings, he considers each day a blessing
as it passes, and while he fears death, he will risk it, and even embrace
it, to protect another. Darkhearts he views with pity and sorrow, for in
them he sees, not what he was, but what he would have become as his thirst
for selfish knowledge came to overwhelm him. Though seeking to redeem them
whenever possible, he will kill when need be, and with only the slightest
hesitation. He would far rather accept the guilt of murder than the guilt
that comes from watching another die through his inaction.
Ironically enough, Dyrlyln is sometimes taken for a darkheart himself, with
his dark coloration and savage scarring. His somewhat flippant nature and
sardonic wit, the result of his complete fatalism - as Dyrlyln once put it,
"I suffered a week of unspeakable agony, three months of humiliating weakness,
and the complete loss of my magical talent. I had to start from scratch in
a guild my entire life had left me completely unsuited for, surrounded by
pupils half my age who'd been training for years. I've been mocked, reviled,
scorned, and I haven't had a date in years. What are you going to do, kill
me?" - tend to reinforce that impression. Beyond the self-mocking jokes,
though, and beyond the low, ominous rasp which is all that remains of his
voice, people who take the time to listen can sense Dyrlyln's true empathy
for those in danger or pain. In moments of stress, as well, he reveals his
private but passionate devotion to the god Selric, who, though unknown to
him until he came to Galadon, he credits for his repentance and conversion
during those five dark days when he was alone with his pain.
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And if you've read this whole thing through, congratulations. You must have an incredibly high tolerance for boredom. Commments, anyone?