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Text File | 1993-06-22 | 13.8 KB | 281 lines

S h a d o w S t a l k e r ** P a r t - O n e by Keith Smith A dark, massive citadel looms over the horizon line. Evil dwells within. These are the times of Shadow Stalker. A dark and evil time..... With a massive crash of metal against wood the drawbridge comes crashing down to the ground. With a rattle the main gates come open. Out tramps a large company of hill and frost giants. Leading the column is a hill giant clad in chain mail with six dire wolves running around his feet. A long oaken club bound in bands of mithral rests upon his shoulders as he strides across the drawbridge. Around his neck is a band of mithral. In the deepest, darkest shadows at the base of the citadel a dark rip starts developing in the very substance of the shadows. A tall, black robed figure exits the rip. He looks at the troops marching out from the citadel. He then examines the fortress itself. A white flag flutters highest in the wind upon the tallest tower. It is white with a spray of silver frost on its surface. Lower down is a flag of brown with a symbol of a dark rock. He then chants a few mystic words and cups his hands together. A ball of shadowy blackness appears in his hand. He throws it towards the gate. It sails slowly through the air. It reaches the gate. The globe billows forth to grow. It instantly destroys the poisonous contents of the moat. A vast scintillating silver-black to grey oval totally blocks the gate. The shadowy figure is gone, thru the rift in shadow. . . . S h a d o w S t a l k e r ** P a r t - T w o Deep in the depths of the Citadel. A group meets in quiet. "Deathnight and Grandmaster have you found out who hasss blocked are gateway so thoughly," hissed Bloodclaw, his pale undead shimmering the moonlight. "I've found no clue, Bloodclaw," whispers Deathnight, quietly. "I have discovered something thru my resources," Grandmaster states unemotioniously. "Welll, what did you find!," snarles Bloodclaw. "This unknown being made his escape via the shadow plane, that's all we were able to discover. All divination methods have failed utterly to find one clue about this shadow being, that's all we were able to find out." "This isn't good enough!, the GrandLord won't be pleased with you. You must find and exterminate this pest to us!, NOW!." Bloodclaw pulsed with red light . . . S h a d o w S t a l k e r ** P a r t - T w o (2) The clear, merry, bubbling of the brook soothed the nerves of the beautiful, silver-white creature. She slowly lowered her neck to the brook, gently sipping water from the crystal clear stream. Her ears flicked up to better catch a soft sound she could faintly hear....no further sound was made over the sounds of the forest. Her neck reached down for another drink. The water, gently soothing the parchness of her throat. She shifted her four hooves to become more "I have you now, pretty unicorn!" A hand to a 26 foot tall giant points at her. A bolt of crackling negative energy pulses to strike the unicorn in the side. Her pure white coat fades to grey as the bolt saps at her life energies. She can barely move herself, the drain is to much. A cruel face leers down at her. "Before you die, I want you to know that Maelstrom is your undoing!", laughter belows across the confines of the clearing. A lightning bolt cracks forth to finish the unicorn off. "A storm giant....?", she saids to herself. "Why?" She dies on the cool forest floor. S h a d o w S t a l k e r ** P a r t - T h r e e A massive maelstrom, of silvery black, swirls through the plane of shadow. That place where negative and positive energies meet, to form - shadow, neither light nor dark but somewhere in between. A black cloaked figure seemingly strides through mid-air, if shadow can be known to have such. His pace is swift and sure as he moves through the stuff of shadow. He pauses, he looks at his surroundings. Nothing moves in the eternal twilight. His black eyes stare with intense concentration. Pulling forth a wand of black adamantite tipped with a milky white gem, he barks a command. The gem begins to pulsate, slowly, with grey light. The dark-robed figure holds the wand before him and begins to trace a large oval with it. Glowing, whit light follows it's path through the air. He scribes runes upon the edges of the oval. White-silver light rushes in to fill the oval. The surface of the glowing outline shimmers and turns totally clear revealing the world he had taken leave of. . . In the dark of the night, when the power of darkness is greatest, a force of evil gathers. The stillness of this black is broken by the quiet hissing of dragon's wings. The first to arrive, a red dragon, swifebony running through it's core. He crosses his arms, cover in red dragon mail, and waits for his fellows to arrive. . . rider. The GrandLord Redscar dismounts from his mount, Firefang. He crosses over the graves of fallen to stand at the head of an unholy altar; glistening purple with veins of deepest b S h a d o w S t a l k e r ** P a r t - F o u r In the dark of the night, when the power of darkness is greatest, a force of evil gathers. The stillness of this ebon night is broken by the quiet hissing of a dragon's wings. Arriving on the night's wind a great wyrm, red dragon, swiftly glides to the ground. GrandLord Redscar dismounts from his massive mount, Firefang. He crosses over the graves of the fallen to stand at the head of an unholy altar; glistening ribbons of purple with veins of deep black running through the core. He crosses his arms, covered in red dragon mail. Bloodly red light seeps from his form, as his cambion face leers at night sky. He raises his palms as he summons his fellows. A pillar of black light, oozes forth from his palms, visible only to evil. To those of evil the light seems to pulse out a summons, only to a select few. They are here. They are here. . . S h a d o w S t a l k e r ** P a r t - F o u r One bright morning, inside an inn's room, in a fairly normal town... "I heard plenty of noise from the dogs outside last night Kila, were you up to your usual naughtyness?," he said while staring at the grey furred lynx standing in front of him. "You know that your rompings a night get us in trouble with the locals. It would be good if we left town for a while, besides, there's no work here and I'm getting a little bored, what do you think?" He knows people usually look strangely at him, as it isn't an everyday event that somebody with a lynx walks into town, "talking" with it. Or for that matter that a cat should be chasing away dogs instead of the other way around. Taaka gathers all his stuff, hangs his faithful longsword on his belt, then ever so carefully hangs his ten daggers around his waist. He then dons his cloak atop his leather armor; he wears a cloak over himself to obsure the fact that he is carrying ten daggers. Why look for trouble. Taaka takes a little gold neckchain with a ring on it and puts it around his neck. "This little thing has saved me plenty of times, hasen't it Kila?," he murmurs while he finishes puttingng everything in his backpack. Taaka then walks down stairs. "Two breakfasts," he tells the bartender. "Dat cat ain't gonna to eat on the table, it ain't allowed" "You better allow it, or I'll have to let her prance into your kitchen and let her help herself, free of charge." The bartender looks at Kila, who has a certain malicious grin on her face, did she really understand what he was saying? "I'd better bring two rations right now, did you see what she did to the dogs last night?" Taaka left two silver coins on the table, pulled his cloak over his head and went out to his horse. "C'mon Kila, jump! That's it" His horse had already grown accustomed to the cat riding behind the boy, in fact, he had fashioned a leather mat where she could hold on tight without hurting the horse; it's a rather strange sight and he knows that people stare at him alot when he's around, but it only makes him smile to himself. Already out of town, Taaka is peacefully riding down a lonely road when a little boy comes running up to him. "Sir!, Sir! Help us!" "What the...", Taaka turns his horse around and sees the little boy, about eight years old, running toward him. "What's wrong?", he asks. "Four bad men are in my house, and my father is very hurt, my mom pulled him into the cellar so they wouldn't hurt him any more. You have to help us." Taaka dismounts his horse and gives it to the boy. "Here, keep the horse with you, don't follow me, because it is very dangerous and I don't want you to get into trouble too." He then walked over to a small span of trees, abnormally dark and dense for such a little area. Kila stalked silently behind him at a safe distance to watch for ambushes. "Hmm.. It's quite dark, I wonder, it look good for an ambush..," he barely finished saying that when suddenly. "Argh!! My eyes! HEEELPP!! Take this beast away from me!," as Kila appeared from behind a tree with blood on her claws and teeth. "It cost him dearly to follow the boy, didn't it?," he said with a smile on his face, "Thanks Kila" "Look, I can see the house, I suppose thet the other's are inside, I think we should go around the house, or charge inside, or...," a women's voice suddenly sends a shout into the air. "No time to think, run Kila!" Running as fast as he could, he bashes the door clean off the hinges, longsword in one hand, dagger in the other. "I was waiting for you, you fool!," a voice said from beside the entrance, when suddenly Kila jumped out of nowhere on to the attacker's head, tearing into the man's neck and eyes with her claws and teeth. "One down, now it's your turn," he said as he turned to the man with the woman, when he saw the other on unseathing his sword; the sound of a blade through the air made his legs instinctively retract, lowering his head enough to free himself from the hit. He lifted his blade up and plunged it deep into his assailant, at the same time as he got up and with a flick of his left wrist sent the dagger deep into the third one's forehead, quieting him forever. None remained alive, that was quite normal when he had a job to do, for when his instincts took over his body in combat it was too late for the opponents to get away, maybe someday even too late for him to get away from his own instincts. He went to the man, obiously the boy's father, and lifted him with ease, placing him upon the bed. It's going to take awhile for him to recover, but he is strong, give him plenty of rest, and maybe by tomorrow he'll be able to sit, although he'll hurt all over," he said to the man's wife. "WHat is that?," she said looking at Kila. "*She* is Kila, she's my companion, she isn't normally violent, neither am I, but sometimes strong measures are called for. I'll help you clean up, let me take this garbage out," he said. Referring to the bandits bodies. It was now well into the afternoon. "Thank you for the meal, 'twas delicious, it's been some time since I've eaten in a real home." "You're welcome to stay for a few day if you want to," the boy's mom told Taaka. "Yes! Please stay!," said the little boy. Taaka got down so as to be the same height as the boy and said, "Sorry, I can't, I have to go to the next town to look for a job, besides, Kila here would get restless in a few days if she doesn't get any dogs to chase around," he said smiling. "Will you come back later then?" "Maybe, some day we'll meet again, ok?" "Ok.. But when I'm older you'll have to teach me to use swords and things like you do, promise?" "Ok, I promise..," he said as he took the boys arm and saluted him as rangers and scouts do, by grabbing their forearms. Then he got up and went outside to his horse. "It's your job to take care of your mother until your father's well, ok? " "Ok," said the boy as he waved good-bye to Taaka. After several hours of riding Taaka came to were the next town was suppossed to be. Instead of the town, there was merely a small clump of trees, black with silver leaves. With a deeper blackness within the center of the trees. "What do you think Kila?," but she was busy looking at the surroundings , into the trees; it was already dark and in the tiny forest they were going to cross there was a even darker spot, straight in front of them, and in the process of paying too close of attension to their immediate surroundings they didn't notice that they had ridden straight into the ebon oval. Suddenly, everything was different. . . Deep into the gateway they were sucked. Images for many worlds and places flashed before their eyes as they came closer to the end of their trip. With a trail of shimmering radience they exited the other end of the gateway and found themselves within an empty moat and above rose the Citadel. And in front of it's main gate was the same shimmering black oval that they had passed though. "Where are we Kila?," Taaka asks his cat.