[b][color=ed1c24]"They will find you,"[/color][/b] Xaron’s voice bellowed a hissing hurricane, whilst Torus waded, discerning and discounting the evanescent whisper from Escobert’s ruckus at the sallyport, towards the nearest corner. The sultry silhouettes of his garb sputtered as the quarterstaff’s shadow interspersed intermittently into a growing nevus, conspiring into ephemeral fractals of a cancerous gheist, all upon the wall, trailing the elder. Ebbing and flowing with each Hessdalen torch passed, the former Mezro druid, flickering with a public allegory of the cave, finally grasped his weary destination. After brushing and imploding several barren spider webs, Torus collapsed gently into a relaxed squat, knees bent parallel to the floor, eventually facing the center of the main area, plopping his large murky net of earthly treasures, next to his frail constitution and tortoise shield.

A Heraclitean sigh wrenched from his fibrillating vocal cords. 

The children of Linan and Cuth noted the somber yawn. Eager, they inched apprehensively to the geezer. Reflexively, Torus sprouted, behind his neck, a thin illusion of a Blueleaf in the Nietzschean crook; the Swift brood slowly advanced. The stable still image displayed a bulbous vine tree of artificial Bodhi graffiti on the two partitions and the ceiling of the keep, surrounding his new-found navy niche. He placed his makeshift cane in front of his lap as a façade barrier between him and the approaching progeny. The blanche wood was caked with the grime of Tethyrian sin and salvation. Digging, frantically with his ivory fingers in his cache, he produced the ambrosia of his tradition, specifically four goodberries which he offered, two in each palm as a sacrifice of manna to the younger generation.

[i][color=00aeef]"Here, I know you are hungry, little ones. Sustenance is required during these difficult nights."[/color][/i]  

The pubescent offspring hurriedly snatched them from the stranger, learning the lessons of survival quickly from the disaster that had befell Greenest. 

[b][color=fff200]"Thank you, old man,"[/color][/b] mouthed the eldest of the three. 

Noting the shivering of the youngest, Torus smiled, licked his lips, disclosing an ornate tongue ring, and spindled, [i][color=00aeef]"Huddle together. Closer. Good. Now let me tell you a tale." [/color][/i] He dumped a waterskin, full of loose soil, before his white-fanged baton. Molding it magically, he arranged and erected a tan castle in the midst of brown rolling hills.

[i][color=00aeef]"In the year of the Boiling Moats, a dying king’s domain extended south as far as the Lake of the Long Arm and west as far as the Giant’s Run Mountains. Through the staple of his acres ran a sluggish stream, called Reza."[/color][/i]

The senior slothfully emptied a different waterskin, trickling a strand of water onto the carefully crafted earthen stage, resembling a brook upon the brow of the palace. A diaspora of adults were beginning to eavesdrop on the druid’s ancient crowing.

[i][color=00aeef]"It was thick with mud, where local savages would form beautiful pottery for sale to Thaamadathan merchants. Their number had swelled from Low Netheril, only to suffer on the fetid fields in exchange for regular tithes to the leprous lord.  In the thick heat of the late summer, a tenday deluge caused the river to overflow the banks and flood the lands."[/color][/i]  Mingling the dirt and water, a promethean pool of clay became evident in front of the children. [i][color=00aeef]"When the rains finally stopped, the newly formed lake began to bubble, and the savages began to moan that the ancient god, Borem, had manifested in the kingdom, depriving them of their livelihood and food."[/color][/i] 

The vesuvian puddle mystically rippled and toiled with rebellious abandon. 

[i][color=00aeef]"Shortly thereafter, a trio of adventurers from the north appeared."[/color][/i] He pointed to each one of the children, [i][color=00aeef]"A powerful warrior who wielded a simple iron blade that crackled with arcane energy, a stealthy half-elf, and a blind necromancer with a scythe embarked upon the citadel. They arrived and prostrated themselves before the king’s throne. In exchange for passage through his court, the great three of Cormanthor offered to slay the divine interloper and bear his soul away. They were soon blessed and were off. The ground itself seemed to object in their progress towards Borem’s lair, unleashing great geysers of gushing filth in their attempted trek to the ancient planar quagmire, the center of the morass."[/color][/i] 

Playful pillars tossed and turned a floundered boat miniature, with waves of sludge afore the youths.  Suddenly a tsunami of muck towered, circumvented, and ensnared the enmeshed diminutive ship.

[i][color=00aeef]"They were snappily engulfed by molten rock,”[/color][/i] roared Torus, seated cross-legged, his robes coalescing with the jumble. His concentration of the tiny simulacra were interrupted by the Castellan briskly scurrying through the portal of the next room, with guards, a half-orc with a draconic hide, a curious kender, a mahogany ripped monk and a strong, young man, but with idyllic golden eyes.

The dwarf beckoned. [i][color=ed1c24]"Well 'en, I would recommend ya get sum rest now too. I'll need ta get tha report as to how dem nasties actually got 'ere in tha first place. I trust we'll see each other soon enough."[/color][/i]

A girl from the amassed juvenile crowd, enraptured a quick retort, [b][color=fff200]"What happened next, old man?"[/color][/b]    

[b][color=fff200]"Yeah,”[/color][/b] echoed the puerile Swifts in unison.

[i][color=00aeef]"Oh yes,"[/color][/i] giggled the druid. [i][color=00aeef]"Well. Nothing stirred to the horrified savages who were looking afar from their scrying ponds. They all believed doom had come to the foreigners. One. Two. Three days went by. Still nothing. Then. The messy tomb began to err crimson, thrashing to a regular rhythm, then abruptly a lanky, springing fountain was ejected. Atop the tachycardic spout, standing on a vessel, two adventurers remained with the skewered deity’s still-beating heart."[/color][/i] The Stygian earth was conformed once more into the conclusive instance, a geometric canopy of a ziggurat on its head, with the ferry afloat the base, bearing a rogue and a barbarian, with the impaled core of a supernatural tyrant onto a familiar sickle. 

[b][color=fff200]"Where was the wizard?"[/color][/b] groaned a child.  

Torus buckled precipitously the cinematic display onto itself, slithering carefully the filmic gravel back into his waterskin. The elder grinned loose and laughed capaciously, flashing once again his pirate namesake on his witty glossal muscle.

[i][color=00aeef]"Well, my dear, that’s for another time."[/color][/i]

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This story was brought to life by Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, and Shape Water. In that respective order.

And by viewers like you.

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