[center][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/C97lAZG.png[/IMG]
[I]Illustration kindly loaned by Brand. [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/13519/posts/ooc]Check the man's gallery![/url][/I][/CENTER]
[h3]TL;DR Summary:[/h3][list]
[*] Theme is similar to the work of Robert Howard.
[*] Fantasy; we start with low fantasy but are coming into an awakening of high fantasy elements and beings. The legends return.
[*] Dark Ages tech level seems perfect for this setting, incidentally.
[*] The Guardians of Dara, the ruling body of the city have been slain in horrific fashion and it is up to the successors of the Guardians not only to steady the city in these tough times, but find out how their predecessors were slain.
[*] The new Guardians are the characters; veteran adventurers that rode together at one point to bring down King Pykas of Selander and his minion, the sorcerer Cyrabassis, while still young.
[*] They faced magical beasts that were the stuff of tales, but people took it for the boasting of drunks and the characters stopped discussing this brief brush with magic.
[*] The characters have since retired from adventuring. As heroes in Dara they were offered all sorts of opportunities -- in each person's own way they've managed to be successful, though in some very different fields.
[*] On the other hand, they have different viewpoints, interests and belief. The characters should disagree on some things, perhaps fundamentally. Some in the group are allies and others are enemies. This is meant to promote a degree of strife between characters, and hard decision making.
[*] I am allowing different races, but the differences are cultural; everyone's lost the magic -- it's the stuff of myth and superstition. These races have the same lifespan as humanity, but different cultural beliefs and practices, and obviously different physical characteristics, but they too do not have magic.
[*] Just a note, let's avoid modern naming conventions in favor of working with syllables and sounds to create something that sounds different. No Devons, Chrises or Bobs. :)
[/list]
[h3]In Character Info:[/h3][indent][I]Dara is an ancient city, one that has fallen on hard times and has survived much. The re-establishment of trade routes and an influx of foreigners has given the city a new vitality in these times, and it is seeing a turnaround in her fortunes.

Twenty years ago, a band of young, green adventurers were swept up in Dara's finest hour, a defense against the legions of King Pykas of Selander, who threatened to take the entire region by force in an ambitious effort to forge a huge kingdom out of a gaggle of dusty, ancient city states on the continent of Aluth. 

He was assisted in this endeavor by an advisor by the name of Cyrabassis, an attainted and disavowed priest of Hazathalra whose dark reputation for ritual and sorcery was known far and wide. Many victories were attributed to his dark arts, though most would say that such things were coincidental -- fortuitous weather, people falling asleep. These were explainable, to a point. In the end, it was the characters that brought Cyrabassis low -- they raided into his lair, the catacombs beneath ancient ruins, and brought him out in chains, gagged and blinded, battered, bloodied and shaking from the things they saw despite their victory. King Pykas, also involved in the fell ritual the characters disrupted, was slain, as were things that were only in the realm of legend. To ensure the secrets of the place, known as Melazus, stayed buried, they flooded the place with water diverted from the River Dara and caused it to be buried in mud and muck forevermore.

Cyrabassis disappeared years ago from his captivity, and had not been heard from since. In that time, the characters somewhat forgot what they saw, rationalized it away or just simply stopped talking about it rather than face the ridicule and the skepticism as they went about their subsequent business, establishing themselves in positions of wealth, power and influence within Dara.

Dara has since flourished -- others have come to the place, like the characters, to make their fortunes in the dusty hinterlands, this forgotten and ancient land that still serves as a crossroad of spice and other trade goods. The region is tumultuous -- it wasn't at peace before Pykas tried to conquer it and it hasn't been since Pykas died, but Dara is confident once more, as it recaptures its old, dimly remembered glory and rebuilds itself into something better.

Despite these good times, there are rumors from the North of shadows and flame, of things the grandmothers told their children, or which drunkards boasted of in the wineshops; handsigns are made to ward them off, but they have never been seen -- everyone knows it is merely imagination, and these things can't possibly be true. The stories are fragmentary and varied. 

Then the Guardians are slain in council by something, their bodies strewn apart in their chambers in a monstrous fashion, rent into fleshy shreds.

New Guardians are chosen -- in their fear, and reflecting the esteem they hold the outlanders that came to help bring in a new age in Dara, they choose the heroes that saved the city in its last hour of need. This diverse group, all living within the city, but who have gone their own ways and sometimes have found each other at odds now must come together and not only steady Dara in her time of need, but also, they must face the past.

Because they had seen the sort of monster that could do this before. In Melazus.[/i][/indent]
[h3]Out of Character Info:[/h3][indent]The characters are older, retired adventurers, long since gone their own ways in retirement or independent business. They are influential people in various ways, be it wealth or position or a combination of the two. They can hold posts in the city, such as high priest of a given temple or as a commander of a group of the guards (Not all of 'em. :)) or as the head of a guild (thieves?) or trading house. There are a lot of options.

There is no -obvious- magic -- as indicated, it is a shocking and legendary thing, and these characters were scarred by what they saw. Deities do -not- generally answer calls (though they can, since there is magic in this setting) in a public fashion, though a character may hear from one once in a decade if they are a devoted servant. 

Or perhaps I should say that there is no magic [i]yet[/i]. You should absolutely reserve potential for it in your characters if you want, and not rule out the supernatural, but they are coming to it as neophyes. A mystic character with a hint of the mystery of magic to them, perhaps enshrouded in ritual and passed down superstition from their culture/family is acceptable, like a palm reader or someone with a tarot deck -- it works, but it can be explained away. No fireballs.

I am allowing races; elves, dwarves and so forth, but their lifespans are human and their magic is a little remembered dream of the dawn times, not their day to day dealings. They venerate the things they venerate as a source of cultural pride, but they are not magically adept. There are orcs, of course, what would we do without 'em, and goblinoid races, but they are in the same state, though they are in the same boat-- the gods only whisper in the ears of their few chosen, but the power is a well run dry.

Of course, as I indicated, the RP is about what happens when that power once again flows, when the well can be drawn from again. But the theme I want to convey is the shock of the characters as they face the legendary spring into form.

I know this mirrors George R.R. Martin in a sense, but this stuff stems from the works of other authors that are colleagues, like Robert Jordan, or authors that predate him like Robert Howard or H.P. Lovecraft.

The region of the setting of Dara, the continent of Aluth, is a drier/more arid sort of place. Think Israel and Lebanon, or perhaps Armenia and Iran -- these places have their lush spots of green, and Dara is also such a place, sitting on the banks of the River Dara, which it is named for. But there are other parts that are rocky and hilly badlands, desert wadis and dry places in general. It is a region of city states and trade wars and fights over commerce, an exciting and sometimes amoral place of danger and mystery.

The characters, of course, ought to be foreigners of various sorts -- and not only that, they should definitely -not- agree on how things are done. Some love each other, others loathe each other, but they are, for better or for worse, the Guardians of Dara.[/indent]

[hider=Setting Info]
[b]Dara[/b]
[img]http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z399/huzbaz/DaraDistricts_zpsed76044c.jpg[/img]

[b]Aluth[/b]
[img]http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z399/huzbaz/Aluthmap_zpsfbb73511.jpg[/img]
(src: [url=http://ragir.deviantart.com/art/Blank-Fantasy-Map-60508185]Blank Fantasy Map, by Ragir[/url])

[b]Geography of Dara:[/b][indent]- City Walls – There are multiple sets of walls, the outermost long since having been left to its own devices, as it was too large to easily maintain. Smaller walls inside the city are maintained in varying degrees. The Guardians began work after the fall of Pykas, and yet it goes slowly. The breaches in the wall mean that people can get in and out of the city easily, but merchants and their wagons tend to simply use the roads, which are accessed by the gates.

- Nyati District – The city center, it is a place of well-maintained boulevards, trees, predominantly date palms, and palatial homes. Besides the homes of Dara's wealthy, predominantly the Purebloods, is the Hall of Guardians and the Khavi Barracks, which house Dara's urban watch. The Nyati district sits between the Unah and Zalot districts, on the central northern part of the city. It is entered through the Sword Gate, which feeds into the Gold Roads.

- The Great Spice Roads – The road leading north is known as the Barbarian Road, the road East known as the Trail of Dust and the road leading east as the Green Path. Each tends to be known as the Great Spice Road in its given direction, but the Darans know the roads by different names to keep them straight.

- Zalot District – The mercantile district, the markets where things are sold and bought, including men at arms. It includes a number of inns for those that find the Unah district to be unpleasant. It abuts the Shava district and becomes more shabby the closer one comes to Shava. Zalot is east of Shava and Nyati and Udrau, and is the largest district of the city. It contains a large number of docks on the River Dara itself, though one can access the Gold Roads.

- The River Dara – Snakes northeast into the dawn, its source said to be quite far away. It is known as the lifegiver in Dara. Dara itself is dry land, long ago drained, though the lands on the bank of the River Dara are marshes that contain a number of different animals including snakes and lizard-lions, though the snakes were not native, but a curse inflicted upon them by some angry god. The river empties into the Sunil Sea, though the city sits somewhat inland from the sea itself.

- Unah District – Known also as the Candlelight District, Winesinks, brothels, gambling of varying quality. The quality of all these varies. The ones closer to the Nyati District, to the east, are of high quality, whereas the ones that are closer to the Shava district, to the south, tend to be more ragged and of lower quality. One of the pecularities of the district is that one cannot go about it armed, but must give up their weapons to stations manned by private guards hired by the district's governing guilds, who prefer that the alcohol (or more potent and strange things), sex and gambling not be mixed with deadly violence. 

- Shava District – A district that encompasses residences for the tradesmen and the laborers. In some reaches, it is most certainly a slum, though certain parts are abandoned and in ruins, reflecting, perhaps, Dara's decline in fortunes over the centuries. Parts of the Shava are orderly, but other parts run wild with gangs, particularly in the parts that have been abandoned by more reputable inhabitants. The Shava is one of the oldest districts, besides Udrau and Nyati, and has many tunnels beneath it in the catacombs.

- Udrau District – The Temple of Udrau, known as the Great House of Silence, is a gold domed complex, half in ruins itself, that sits atop the flat top of the large hill that marks the Udrau district, which is given largely to ruins of temples past. For centuries, only the faith of Udrau has remained, since the time when the Gods withdrew their presence during what was called the Extinction of Faith. Support for Udrau's temple as a matter of quaint local custom has sustained the Great Temple, though it is in a large degree of disrepute. Then again, ceremonies are still held here, and local festivals as well, so the district is kept up to some degree, though much of it is overgrown; what once were well-tended gardens has turned into a meadow green for children to play in and others to picnic.

- Yamiss District – The Yamiss district is the city's graveyards, built up more than a thousand years of existence in Dara, and is of interest to scholars in that it represents a number of different customs by different cultures from which its people have sprung from. A variety of monuments, from simple rune carved stone to shaped obelisks, pyramids, statues, Dwarven mausoleums and Elven rememberance gardens can all be found in the Yamiss. It is also a popular place for wise women to peddle herbs where they would be hassled in the Zalot district, and for other quiet business deals to be undertaken, of the less than respectable variety. Curses can be bought and sold and other mystic trinkets are for sale for those that indulge in such superstitions. The Yamiss district lies near where the River Dara empties into the Sea of Sunil, to the south of the city proper.[/indent]

[b]Culture of Dara:[/b][indent]While Dara is essentially an open and free city, ruled by a form of a Republican government, it is nonetheless a place with social distinctions and cultural practices that distinguish the native from the outsider. Some within Daran society take great pride in their 'tolerance' of immigrants and their practices, but subtly prefer their own to outsiders and work means of discrimination. There has always been something of a nativist movement among what accounts for Dara's nobility, the Purebloods, families that descend from the House of Isran and other royal dynasties. Though they no longer rule on blood alone, the Purebloods exercise considerable influence in the city by way of their wealth and the ability and leisure to take positions in the city's government. Most of them retain lands outside of Dara or businesses that otherwise allow them the income to take such positions.

The Priesthood of Udrau is one such example – though it is open to anyone, it is the bequest of the Purebloods that allow the Udrau priesthood to maintain themselves, even if the House of Silence, so called because the Gods no longer answer as they were said to in the past, is half a ruin. While they collect income from pilgrims and services, the primary means of support are the bequests of the Pureblood in return for accepting the landless sons of their houses. 

The rest of Daran culture is considerably more egalitarian, though urban laborers are not always happy to see new groups of immigrants come in large numbers and try to undercut them, and as such have created guilds that try their best to monopolize the various trades within the city, though they offer fairly generous terms to entice new immigrants to join rather than compete. However, betimes, the competition can get bloody and dangerous, particularly if nonhumans decide as a group to compete and undercut the rates of the guilds, though few native Darans will pay the lesser rate for fear of the social stigma attached to such and the threat of disruption of their business if word gets out. As such, while immigrants, even nonhumans are welcome, they are strongly discouraged from undercutting the guild-established minimum rates, but otherwise generally free to ply their trades without interference.

Slavery does not exist in Dara, something that Prince Isran outlawed when he overthrew his father, King Hrod, and dissolved the monarchy. However, indentured service, a contractual agreement of servitiude in return for pay or debt remission, is a common substitute for such, though Dara is sensitive to the complexities of the situation – the indentured must be given room and board, and the Guilds require sale of service to conform to their rates, lest they send members to disrupt the trade. Indenture is not merely for the unskilled or poor to get out of debt, but may represent service in return for training, such as in a mercenary company, or as the apprentice in a skilled trade. Indenture is found in almost all the trades, and there is a brisk business within Dara for the buying and selling of debt and the brokering of skilled indentured servants to the right buyers, in return for a finder's fee.

Daran religion, specifically the worship of Udrau, is a universalist faith that claims to encompass all other religions as facets of Udrau; other worship is tolerated as such, though there are some religious beliefs that take this as an offensive heresy. But then, the Daran sense of paternal superiority towards others kicks in; they are, after all, unsophisticated rubes by the lights of Darans, who consider themselves a proud, ancient and civilized culture. 

The universalist religion of Dara and its tolerance of differing cultures and religious beliefs feeds into its policies towards immigrants; Dara calls itself the All-Home, with good reason. Within, a multitude of fashions and modes of dress can be found from barbaric fur and leather to loose silken robes obtained through trade (and highly prized by the womenfolk) though the standard Daran garb that gets adopted after a time tends to run towards simple tunics or frocks; notably both sexes favor the djellaba, introduced a couple centuries ago; a long, loose fitting hooded robe that fits over the head. Wealthier Darans go for embroidery and intricate patterns on theirs, along with lighter cloths, whereas the poor make do with the simple garment. In any case, even those that come from other places often adapt to the Daran mode of dress in preferring simplicity and lightness in their choice of fashion.[/indent]

[b]Government of Dara:[/b][indent]The governing council of Dara are the Guardians – they are a council that is able to make laws and issue edicts and judge cases. In theory, their rule is absolute, but checked by the degree of light security that surrounds their person. They are, in a sense, able to protect themselves, but the Hall of the Guardians is lightly held and only there can they conduct the votes and make their business official. The Hall of Guardians, as a large chamber with little provisions for more than a small guard of Lictors, primarily Pureblood youth clad in green tunics that serve as heralds for the Guardians, carrying messages and announcing their formal presence to establishments and homes, is vulnerable, and since tradition requires the personal presence of Guardians for any business to be done, it is entirely possible for unpopular guardians to be assassinated in the Hall or laid siege to in their homes. This popular check on their absolute authority, as a Guardian rules until resignation or death, has kept the Guardians from becoming overly tyrannical, though it allows them a wide degree of theoretical power, if they can but figure out a means to keep the masses from becoming disaffected in the process.

Guardians are chosen generally by popular acclaim and augury by the priests of Udrau, though the process has evolved and devolved over the century. Unpopular but capable figures have been chosen for Guardianship, but checked by others who had the popularity of the people. In times past, would be conquerors or their subordinates, satraps and governors sent to assume control over Dara have been subverted by the allure of the mantle of Guardian, and from this practice has come the tradition of allowing foreigners of no great heritage or prominent tradesmen of humble birth to become Guardians alongside pureblood Darans whose families reach back thousands of years. Votes to enact or repeal edicts are simple majority, but require the presence of all living guardians, but for those that are on official duties that take them outside the city, such as assuming leadership of Dara's forces or on a diplomatic mission. But even those Guardians, upon returning, can call a vote to overturn a decree made in their absence.[/indent]

[b]History of Dara:[/b][indent]Dara always had Guardians, but at times they were advisors to a still greater ruler, and at other times they were the governing body of the city. Dara itself has a long history of expansion and contraction, from the times of legend when the gods spoke to men and there was magic in the world, down until recently. 

The last king of Dara, besides the Usurper Pykas, was Hrod II, who went mad in a quest to make the gods listen to him. He sacrificed and sacrificed, though as the sacrifices became human and bloody, so that the Great House of Silence ran red with blood down its steps. Hrod was intent on finding the key that would fit the lock, or so he thought, and cared little for who went under his knife, as an ever-dizzying array of would be sorcerers and priests advised him to try different types of sacrifices – often they themselves were punished for failure by their sacrifice. Dara was bled dry to buy ever more slaves for the sacrificial altar, and when the slaves were used up, he moved onto relatives.

His son, Isran, led a revolt against his father, when a brother of his went under the knife. When his father's head finally rolled down the steps of the temple, he declared that there would never be slaves in Dara again, that the king's castle was profaned by the blood of so many and must be destroyed, and that there would be no more Kings of Dara. Then, rather then bear the burden of his guilt, he plunged his knife into his own breast.

Dara's Guardians became the leaders of the city-state, chosen by a variety of means that generally came down to the basic system of the people submitting names to the Priests of Udrau and the priests choosing by augury, though the augury was often a matter of sufficient bribery if the priesthood was particularly corruptible. 

At various times, Dara was under the threat of conquest and occupation by foreign powers, for it was a faded glory of a power, sometimes militarily weak, but always with the trade flowing through her hands. At times, Daran policy was to act aggressively against competitors for trade with tariffs or even raiding against their routes. Neighbors of Dara, seeing the strategic value of its position on the Sunil Sea and the Gold Roads as being a vital trade, often looked upon Dara as a prize to be taken with sufficient forces.

Twenty-two years ago, King Pykas of Selander, a powerful city state situated north of Dara, invaded Dara successfully, scattering an army of hastily raised local levies with ease, and then set himself up in Dara as a ruler over a large portion of the local region, using Dara as his seat. Despite the thorough defeat of Dara in the field, the people of Dara were not happy with the brutal rule of Pykas. Pureblood families were forced to send some of their women to marry Pykas' officers and other outrages resulted in a continual resistance of his rule and murder of his troops in the streets. As the reprisals grew more brutal, more people joined the fight against Pykas until he was driven from the city and into the citadel of Melazus, to the North of the city, where he made common accord with one Cyrabassis, a supposed sorcerer with a fearful reputation. A group of young heroes went in to fight Pykas and Cyrabassis – they came out changed. 

After the defeat of Pykas, the hegemony of Selander was broken up as Pykas' generals decided to go into business for themselves and fought wars over who would inherit all-- which was a useful state of affairs that Dara benefitted from. Cyrabassis was taken into custody by the Guardians but mysteriously escaped. Meanwhile, the Guardians ruled Dara once more, and Dara seemed poised to flourish, which it did in the twenty years since the defeat of Pykas.[/indent][/hider]
[hider=Prologue - Ceremony and Vision]What follows is the ceremony of making a Guardian; this is a prologue to explain the ceremony for making a Guardian (including the customizable element where a Guardian chooses their own priest to annoint them after the faith of Udrau blesses them) and the part where -these- Guardians, our characters, see a vision of what happened in Malezus. This is to set us up for the first scene, so we can write a fast entry post and get going -- it was the first post of the last RP, but I moved it to here so you could read it and think about it, but respond to a much shorter opener post when I write that for this RP...

[quote]The Great House of Silence was a place of dusty, faded glory; it was perched upon the great hill at the center of the city, with a bright golden dome shining in the light, a thing that remained in place despite centuries of Dara's decline, guarded by the priests devoted to Udrau the Omni, whose temple it was. Once an order solely devoted to contemplation, they became warlike and vigilant as the centuries wore on and Dara's citizenry sometimes came upon the idea of looting some part of the great, rich temple for their own benefit.

Some succeeded, but not in many, many years – the priests had grown fierce, even if they remained silent. There was not as much to plunder as in centuries past, for the outer walls were crumbling and many of the treasures were long since taken, but what remained was guarded most ferociously. It was a cavernous labyrinth of columns and low-burning candles and hooded brass lanterns, redolent with the scent of incense. Here, the inner temple, was reserved for Udrau's own priests, those warlike men with their sickle-swords, heavily weighted blades curved forward and designed to chop – they were weapons of ritual sacrifice, but could cleave through mail easily enough in the right hands.

Kanros always felt like an interloper in Dara's oldest and most hallowed hall. Dara welcomed all, tolerated all faiths, but this was a uniquely Daran place. Udrau, though, was considered to be the deity of all peoples, but that not all people recognized Udrau and called him by different names. It was a conceit of religion that put some teeth on edge, and yet the thousands of years passed and the city's uniquely universalist faith remained. It was a weathered thing of faded, half-remembered glory, like the temple itself, but was nonetheless a link to a time when Dara was great, rather than a crumbling city in the middle of a dust basin.

This part of the temple was off-limits to most except for the sanctioned few; priests of varying faiths that might come in supplication to Udrau, the priests of Udrau themselves and those receiving a ceremonial blessing of the priests, including the Guardians, when one was made.

Kanros was being made a Guardian.

The black-eyed barbarian wasn't sure who came before him or who came after, and it really didn't matter – in a his decades here, he'd never heard of so many Guardians being made at once. But then, as far as he was aware, the Guardians had never been all killed off all at once the way they'd just been. A fearful city turned to its heroes, such as they were, and thus was Kanros the Raven keeling before old Anu the High Priest of Udrau, a wizened figure in blue and white robes that called out his incantations in ancient Daran as he waved a censer of smoke above him. Meanwhile, an ox was strapped down above the altar, bellowing in confusion. The priest took no notice of the cloying smoke, the ruddy half-light of the lanterns or the animal's fear as he continued his ritual, no doubt practiced many a time in his near-century of life.

That was the part of the ritual that applied for all Guardians – Kanros had no idea what the old priest was saying, just that he was to stay still until pulled up from his knees. He wasn't a native of Dara, but even very few natives spoke Ancient Daran. They spoke a mongrelized descendent of the language.

A Guardian could come from anywhere, but Dara was the All-Home, a city where any could become a resident and a native. Kanros, for better or worse, might have come from a mist-shrouded northern fishing village called Brynsvar, but he was a Daran by his own hand; Malezus sealed him to this city.

Guardians could come from anywhere. There had been times of Dara's weakness when a Guardian was made of a would-be conqueror or one of their captains, in order to subvert that person and weaken their loyalties. There had been times in Dara's strength when the Guardians were made from natives who feared no interloper. Dara had many chapters in her history, but the ritual was largely the same, even if the rules of who would be made a Guardian, as chosen by the whims of their people, guided by the wishes of their patrons, changed. The Guardians were chosen to benefit the city, but it was an oligarchy – once in, they were in for life. Only death defrocked a Guardian.

The other part of the ritual was usually very different for each Guardian, because part of the ritual was Udrau's priests granting a blessing but, in keeping with the Daran belief system, the Guardian to be then chose his own priest to put them through a ritual in keeping with the practices of their faith.

Many came to Dara, but Dara changed them more than they changed Dara. And Kanros was another that came to Dara and was changed in some ways, but not in the essentials; he still had the fire in his eye, the barbaric temperament that made him a natural warrior, an adventure seeker, a man of restlessness and little complacency. He was self-sufficient, because that was his upbringing – he was given little and had to make what he could for himself. The lessons he learned in Brynsvar and in other cities, as a pirate and then a captured slave-gladiator, merely reinforced that notion.

But Dara did not change his heart, and in the hour of his ascension to the mantle of a Guardian, he could have chosen a number of local priests of more familiar deities to oversee the blessings. It would have been a politically sound notion to do so. Instead, he sought out something else; a priest of Thran the Forger.

The second part of the blessing was dependent on the faith – many of them were similar to old Anu's chanting and blessing, though they didn't necessarily involve being drenched in the blood of an ox that was being sacrificed.

Thran's faith was of different stuff – Thran did not answer prayers, he did not give blessings. The Forger once made a race that he loved so dearly that he gave them much easily, and this race grew spoiled and degenerate from such gifts earned easily. As coddled children, they were brought down by a fiercer, more resourceful people. Mourning and desolate, Thran forged the Second People, from whom the likes of Kanros descended. Their lot was not made easy – Thran witheld help, except perhaps to issue cryptic challenges, so the tales claimed, that the supplicant then had to figure out. Nothing of value came easily – the strongest sword had to be forged with more effort, sharpened with a harder stone. The harder stone required a stronger chisel to work it. And the greater adversity forged the greater man.

And so Sig, the priest of Thran that Kanros' messengers found, when asked to preside, gave his assent to test Kanros, not simply to annoint him. When asked by Anu what he would require to give Kanros the blessing of his deity, Sig replied, “Thran does not dispense blessings. He does not hear prayers. A man must be able to carry his own burden.” They were taciturn words from a grim-jawed old man of long gray hair and a seamed mask of windburnt old leather and bright, hard blue eyes.

Sig led him from the temple down into the streets of Dara itself, dark and dusty in the night, with but a torch for light, the flame rippling in the gentle breeze off the river banks; the river emptied nearby into the Sea of Sunil, and the Khammis Quarter, the ancient district of docks was silent this night – the rumors of what killed the Guardians muted the raucous proceedings of Dara's lower city for almost a month now.

“Where are we going?” Kanros asked Sig, as they stepped through the River Gate and out into the Quarter of Tombs, the city's cemetaries built atop the city's catacombs, a bewildering array of stone markers of varying types, from obelisks to statues to gateways leading down into a family's burial ground of many centuries. There were always superstitious legends that clung to this place of death, and the danger of being attacked by footpads that lay in wait here, but the priest was secure in his faith and the sellsword secure in his swordarm; he was starting to feel age, mostly in the form of the odd occasional ache and pain that didn't exist before, but he was still a fit and trim man. He got up early to stretch his muscles and warm them up before he practiced in his courtyard with those men that guarded the Skaltun, the native argot for the Shield Hall.

Sig paused and looked sideways at the younger man, considering him for a moment before deigning to reply; he was not a man used to questioning, but Kanros was a long time out of Bryndsvar, and had lost the part of his upbringing that obeyed priests without question.

“To face the things men dread most.” They were atop a hill with a flat stone laying there, perhaps the roof of a mausoleum sunken into the ground; it briefly reminded Kanros of the way Melazus sank when they flooded the tunnels, sealing the secrets of the place for at least a lifetime.

He didn't see the priest come up behind him and circle a brawny arm around his throat, cutting off his air. He struggled as he might against the old man's surprising strength, but to little avail – the whoreson was squeezing the air out of him.

Kanros' last thought before it went black was that he couldn't believe he let his guard down like that.

–

The ancient chamber where they fought Pykas and Cyrabassis was, in actuality, a dangerous catacomb where the thing that took Pykas' body at the behest of Cyrabassis and turned him into a thing of furious lightning that flung arrows of something not mortal at them, that glowed dully from a light source in the center of the room. The place was cobwebs and dust among the columns, the smell of musty time flooding their nostrils, along with the fresher coppery scent of blood and cooking meat.

All that was gone; the chamber was there, the altar was there, and the light source...well, that gave a clearer view of the murals on the chamber walls, things he'd never seen before, because he'd been busy fighting the guards of Cyrabassis and Pykas at the time and had no moment to admire the artwork of ancients. There was writing, but it was indecipherable to him. The artists, however, also left artistic depictions. All of them were mosaics showing scenes of destruction and chaos, all emanating from a shapeless and riotous swirl of color and shape, no symmetry, no balance. At the center, a sphere of rippling darkness sitting in a large floor-standing device wrought like a lamp of intricately filigreed metal that wrapped delicately in a cage around a sphere of dull gray stonelike material; the metal and the sphere were wrought from substances Kanros could not identify. The dull, uniform darkness of the ball in that filigreed was marred with but one thing – the impossibly bright, riotously pulsating light that the artists tried to depict on the wall murals.

He'd never paid attention to the sphere at the time, so busy was he fighting the thing that Pykas became, and then as he and his friends hauled the babbling Cyrabassis from Malezus to stand for his crimes in Dara. Later, of course, the man would disappear – the Guardians had the men holding him executed for corruption, but the ones who fought Cyrabassis thought, well, it was entirely possible that Cyrabassis used some other method.

But now the sphere commanded his attention, as a voice, gravelly and grim, speaking in the native tongue of his people, said merely a word, “Unlocked,” as the sphere started to disintegrate and the light consumed the dull darkness.

Then his vision was awash in the flood of color, and he too felt seared and consumed by the force of it.

–

He came awake somewhere in the Khammis quarter, his wrists bloodied and his naked torso's flesh painted in the runes of his people's priests. Sig was nowhere to be found, but his sword was belted around his waist.

What had he faced? Death? Himself? His fears? His past? The future? Why had he faced that?

The question made him more confused than before, which meant that it probably was a good question.

It was a long, surreal walk back to Skaltun in the pre-dawn, and he found himself crawling into bed as soon as he arrived, though only staying up long enough to scrape the damned priest's runes off him. His chambers were comfortable, if perhaps a bit overly rich with the wealth he'd not known as a young man – baubles for the barbarian, the haughty Daran aristocracy would quip behind their hands with a smirk, but he could take it or leave it. Even so, he had servants and the like to see to his needs, and one of those woke him with the summons; one of the others called the Guardians to their hall to meet for the first time.

Guardianship's burdens were already showing – he no longer walked through the city on his own, but with a small group of Daran youths serving as lictors; guards, couriers, body servants to a Guardian, for they were not unattended in public. They would call out the approach of the Guardian to an establishment or home and knock upon the doors with their staves to demand entry. It was all ceremonial, but Kanros didn't think these young scions of noble families were likely to be worth much as bodyguards...and so he didn't get into the mindset of thinking of them as such. They were terribly serious, wearing the short tunics, bright green in hue, of their station, left bare legged so they could run and fetch or carry whatever was commanded of them, and in that sense they were a useful service to have.

His attire, however, was out of tradition – he wore a breastplate of lamellar, with its engraved ravens, for luck, upon the shoulder pauldrons and carried Vindurfang, as worn and old as the blade was, in a sheath that was newer than the blade, and decorated with gold and gems. Riffraff tended to carry much wealth on them, and the barbarian had always been disreputable enough to carry on doing so. He wore his hair, pride, joy and namesake that it was in staying jet black through the years, though his eyes had wrinkles around them now, unbound to his shoulders, held back only by a braided leather headband that he'd brought with him from all those years ago -- adorn himself he might (and some might whisper out of his hearing, like a slattern) he never did see the need to change that. He did wear the emerald green of a guardian, though as the scarf around his neck, to prevent chafing by his breastplate. Green was fertility, food and prosperity. It was the ancient color symbolic of the Guardians, a reminder of their duty of stewardship.

There was still a pall on the street that Kanros could discern, less people out and about even in the daylight. Crossing the Guardian's Circle, the center of town, toward the Hall of Guardians, an edifice that stood directly opposite the temple of Udrau on its hill, he saw little commerce. In most days, there'd be a throng here conducting business agreements in the sight of Udrau and the Guardians, along with the hired witnesses to make ratification of contracts legal, but today the place was silent and the commerce hushed.

Trade was the lifeblood of Dara, the source of its revival. If people were too scared to make money, they had a crisis indeed...[/quote][/hider]