[center][b]Ialu, Level 28 Hero[/b][/center] [hider=Summary] -The Strong Tribe has grown over the past thirty years, and there are other nearby vassal villages that are also ruled by Ialu. He now has about 600 in the Strong Tribe and 1,400 in vassal tribes. -Ialu's village has been more extensively fortified and is now built mostly out of mud bricks. -Ialu has been preparing his people for war. His tribe hunt dragons to make armor and weapons, while the other villages are forging armor and weaponry. -Ialu has sent an envoy to the summit. He was going to go at first, but changed his mind in favor of challenging the Garakai sooner. -More dreams. Ialu reached the top of the mountain and now has the 'gift' of Sight. -Ryak, the emissary at the summit, has assured the others that Ialu will kill the Cimex soon.[/hider] The majestic dragon gave out a rather meek and helpless roar as it found the air forced out of its lungs and some strange force violently pulling it to the ground. Crashing down in a heap, it tried to breath fire and incinerate the approaching humans, yet it found that it couldn't even inhale air, much less exhale its flames. Ten of the hunters had their fists clenched as they strained to channel their Wi, using the Strong Tribe's strange telekinesis to cripple the beast. Ialu found his way to the dragon's side and finished it off by plunging his cutter into its belly. The crude iron thing barely managed to pierce the weak spot between two scales and go deep enough to inflict a mortal wound. Ialu had claimed the Sword of Chaos from the slain Dyun Champion and made use of that blade for some time, but after only a short time he had cast the thing into the darkest depths of a cave, deep in the forboding woods. While the strange sword could cut though anything and its very metal was imbued with the power to obliterate thirty six men, as the Dyun champion had done to Ialu's best hunters that day, the weapon had a way of driving its wielder insane. Every time he gripped its handle Ialu had felt a sick sadism, and while his status as a hero shielded him from some of its negative effects, he still had felt that the thoughts in his mind were not his own whenever he touched the thing. If he ever needed it again, he would reclaim it from that cave, but he doubted such a day would ever come. His bare hands and his Wi were weapons that could slay dragons. The thought of dragons snapping him back into reality, Ialu looked back down to the one that he had just slain. Over the past thirty years he had lost count of how many dragons he had slain. A dozen, perhaps? In any case, their deaths were necessary. The voice of the Mighty One had commanded Ialu to go to war, and so he would obey. He had been making preparations for the past few months, and hunting this dragons had been one of them. The Strong Tribe needed more armor and spears if they were to raise a proper army like the upcoming conflict demanded, and to achieve those ends they had needed more dragon hides and teeth. Ialu was of course more than willing to solve this problem. As his ten hunters used their telekinesis to carry the fallen beast back to the village, they passed a macabre sight. The once pure and golden grassland was now marred by the sight of corpses in various states of decay. Some were impaled, where others swayed in the somber wind as they hanged from the occasional tree. Still others had been crucified or flayed and nailed to racks. All the wretches were put in places where they could be seen along the roads. The skeletal remains of none were allowed to touch the ground. Burial was for the noble; the ilk that Ialu executed would not be allowed to taint the soil of his land with their touch, even in death. Many of the mutilated remains were of the Dyun that had attacked some time ago, though admittedly some were human. Ialu was just yet harsh when it came to punishing banditry and the like. At last, Ialu came close to his village. With admiration he gazed upon it, remembering the first days when it was little more than a dozen hovels. Now the moats had been widened and deepened with abatises placed in front. The pallisades were taller and reinforced, and there were watchtowers and an actual gate at the entrance. Several homes were in disrepair as a result of the fires that had swept through the village when the Dyun Champion had unleashed chaos, yet in reality that had been something of a blessing. By burning away the pathetic wooden huts and hovels, it had cleared room for better houses. Ialu's pathetic Mighty Hut was gone, transformed into what he now called his Mighty Cottage! Sections of the village had already been rebuilt in sturdy mud brick, and what ramshackle huts remained would be replaced soon enough. After that the walls would be improved. The Strong Tribe had grown over the past thirty years, and their fortress of a village now housed in excess of five hundred people. It was as dense as it could possibly get, for there was no more room within the walls and the nearby river could only feed so many people. Of course, hordes of refugees had flocked into Ialu's arms during the past decades, coming in search of safety from the Cimex, the terrors of the night, or even the so-called Garakai 'Kingdom'. The Garakai Kingdom was the one that the Mighty One had commanded Ialu to conquer. Of course, Ialu was not one to turn down the prospect of more loyal subjects. So rather than overcrowd the Strong Tribe, he settled the refugees nearby. These vassal tribes would be close enough to be easily ruled and defended, yet far enough so that there would be breathing room and they would have their own land to farm, hunt, and fish. These villages were assembled in a rough ring around his main village, which had the added advantage of making the Strong Tribe even harder to assault. Taking them by surprise would now be difficult as it would mean slipping past the outer villages. Fortifications, making his tribe harder to assault, preparing them for war...such thoughts filled the chieftain's mind the moment after he ceased reminiscing about far he had come and returned back to reality. The Strong Tribe had been crafting spears, armor, and cutters for nearly half their people, as Ialu intended to take than just his hunters to war. The vassal tribes were more liek the rest of humanity. Rather than learn the Strong Tribe's form of Wi or craft equipment out of dragonhide and teeth, they forged armor and weapons like the fire god had taught them. While Ialu forced all the vassal tribes to worship the Mighty One, he gave them the freedom to pray to the lesser gods as well. They were not a part of the Strong Tribe, after all; they were not the Mighty One's chosen tribe. They did not need to be held to the same standards. Upon entering his home to further make preparations for the inevitable war against the Cimex, a messenger arrived. It would seem that he would not have to fight the Cimex alone, for forces in far south were rallying to meet the challenge as well, and they requested his presence at a gathering of all the great leaders of men. Ialu recognized one name in particular: Zerabil. He had never met Zerabil in person, yet he had heard rumors. The chieftain also recalled that this same 'Zerabil' had once tried to corrupt his tribe, many decades ago. Fortunately it had been to no avail and the tribesmen had remained devoted to only the Mighty One, as befitted his most loyal tribe, yet Ialu still held Zerabil with some contempt. The chieftain had been filled with rage upon returning from his hunt that fateful week, only to learn that a strange preacher had tried to corrupt his tribe. In any case, Ialu was wiser than he once was, and he was willing to set aside that past slight. He would attend this summit, though he worried that it would take precious time that he did not have. After all, he needed to defeat the Garakai king and rally his men before the Cimex attacked. Ialu set out within a day of receiving the messenger. He brought a bodyguard of eight men and two of his most grizzled sergeants, both friends and trusted advisers. The first day of arduous trekking down the paths brought them far; in fact, Ialu realized with a start that he had not been so far from his village since he had founded it. Had he really been rotting away in some corner of the world, never wandering the land like he had in the past? In any case, when Ialu at last fell asleep he eagerly fell into a deep slumber. [center]~==--==--==~[/center] In all this time, Ialu had still not reached the mountain's summit. The higher he climbed, the higher it loomed. The larger he got, the smaller the handholds that he found. But alas, there was now nothing below him yet ghostly white clouds. There was nothing above save the black mountain, or at least a little bit more of it. The peak was within his reach now; there was a ledge only just above his head, tantalizingly close yet barely out of his reach. Yet there was nothing to grip between where Ialu now was and the ledge at the top of the precipice. He had been forced to merely cling to the side of the mountain. He had been grasping onto it for years, not seeing what to do. Yet tonight, at last, his patience evaporated. Risking everything, he released both hands from where they stood, and before he fell back, he jumped. It was not enough; his fingertips barely missed the edge. He began to fall down, having thrown away everything with that foolish risk... But he refused to move down. Gravity could not break his will, not here in the land of black and white. He drifted back to the cliff's face and scrabbled up its smooth surface to grip the edge. With a heave, he pulled himself up and finally saw the top of the mountain, the thing that had plagued his dreams for as long as he could remember. At the summit he beheld another color, not like the blacks and whites of the rest of his dreams: a brilliant golden light, awe striking in its blinding splendor, a thousand times brighter than the sun. It was too much to withstand, its sheer brilliance throwing Ialu back and casting him over the edge. [center]~==--==--==~[/center] When he awoke he did not feel in good health, for the first time he could remember. The thirty years since his village's first days had exacted no toll on his body; he looked every bit as muscled and powerful as he had before, whereas those around him had withered. Never once had he been afflicted with sickness, never had he been burned, and not since his first encounter with the Dyun when he was mere days old had he bled or been scarred. Yet now his mind rang with a thunderous sound that left him dizzy and barely able to think. His own eyes betrayed him, for they kept seeing that same golden light from his dreams. The light was just as overwhelming to his unprepared mind, yet it was strangely and thankfully not omnipresent as it had been in his dreams. Rather, it only illuminated the path behind Ialu's party, glowing in a golden trail that led back to his village. To walk a few steps in that direction was relief and salvation, yet to continue on his trek was to know pain and invite back the ringing in his ears and horrendous headaches. Ever determined, Ialu pushed forward and fought the pain like a wild and cornered animal fought its hunter; however, he was unusually silent and slow, weakness evident in his every motion. He only managed to continue until midday before collapsing. His bodyguard and sergeants were terrified, having never seen such human frailty or vulnerability in Ialu. He was indomitable, daunting, and inhuman: like a god. In reality, the Strong tribe and even some of the vassal tribes worshiped the ground that he walked on as if he [i]really was[/i] one of the gods. He was far more real to them than the true gods. While those 'true' gods might occasionally send their minions to teach humans the ways of the forge or otherwise interact with the people, the humans never truly witnessed those gods in flesh, blood, and impossible might as they did every day with Ialu. [center]~==--==--==~[/center] Struck down by the light's fury and the pounding in his own head, the unconscious Ialu instantly fell into a deep sleep and returned to the dream world. The dream (or was it truly a nightmare?) resumed right where it had ended before, with Ialu being cast off the summit's side by the sheer force and unadulterated power of whatever the golden light's source was. Like before, he did not fall back down the mountain, though this time it was not his own will that defied gravity. Rather, it was the will of something far stronger: the Great Light atop the mountain. His eyes having grown somewhat used to the light from its appearance in the real world, Ialu was able to vaguely perceive what was atop the summit. A mere dozen stairs led to the very top of the mountain, where there stood a figure, though the blinding light denied Ialu's eyes the ability to so much as even look directly at that figure, much less discern it. A thunderous voice shook the mountain so violently that it pulverized stone. The power conveyed by it was indescribable, a thousand times greater than the voice of the Mighty One when Ialu had slain the Dyun Champion. It roared out to Ialu, [b][color=Gold]"WHY DO YOU SQUANDER THE GIFT THAT I HAVE BESTOWED UPON YOU? THE SIGHT GUIDES YOU. YOU MUST OBEY. FOLLOW THE PATH OF LIGHT. STOP WASTING OUR TIME. GO NORTH AND CONQUER THE GARAKAI. CLAIM WHAT IS YOURS AND GROW STRONGER."[/color][/b] Ialu, the great hero like a flea before this being, tried to ask if this being was the Mighty One. All that could come out was an empty croak. [b][color=Gold]"NO,"[/color][/b] the voice thundered back, the force behind that one word enough to propel him out of this reality and awaken him in the real world. [center]~==--==--==~[/center] Ialu awoke as suddenly as he had collapsed. Hardly five minutes had passed during his brief dream. His eyelids snapped open. From the fierce and determined look in his gaze, the tribesmen instantly knew that their leader had returned after banishing whatever foul spirits had possessed him or shaking free of any curses. Still, there was something...strange that they had seen. When his eyelids first opened, they had seen a spark as bright as the sun within those aquamarine eyes for a brief moment. Even after that spark was gone, his eyes were faintly gleaming with that same rich, golden hue. Jumping back to his feet, Ialu suddenly spoke, "I was a fool to come to this meeting. My destiny is elsewhere. I must return to our village and assemble the army; we will march for Garakai within a fortnight." Quickly instructing his party to continue on without him and on what they should say at the summit, Ialu turned back at ran at an impossible pace back for the village. Following the golden path, the hero knew no exhaustion. [center]~==--==--==~[/center] After that, the party trekked on for many days without their chieftain, getting lost more than once in the strange and foreign lands. At last, they arrived to the summit. Admittedly they were late, the talks having already begun, but that was of no concern to the rather crude warriors and hunters. At last, the ten arrived at Orabson. Ryak, one the two sergeants that had went with the party, was chosen to be their representative. He would be better at talking than any of the bodyguards or Thorn Skull-Smasher, as the other sergeant was named. Barging into the small room, he took up a spot at the head of the table across from Zerabil. He needed to be at the head of the table to look important. Ryak grunted, "Mighty Ialu was going to come, but then he changed his mind. He had important stuff to do, some people to slay for the Mighty One. So he sent me, Ryak the Hunter!" Breaking a short and awkward pause that followed, Ryak continued, "Ialu wants you to know that he will all the Cimex sometime soon. He'll add the bugs to our field." Suddenly realizing that these people might not understand what he meant about the field, Ryak explained, "We have a field of Dyun and other things that we kill. Some nailed to things, some on big spikes, some hanging from ropes." At that Ryak laughed at the fond memories of the field. It was obvious that Ialu chose his sergeants based on their blind loyalty and talent for killing, rather than intelligence, diplomacy, or any other form of wisdom. Sill, Ryak's strange dragonhide armor and grizzled appearance revealed that he was no weakling. He had fought dragon, Cimex, and Dyun alike in his time, and the scars made him strong.