The Last Story:
[hider=Shadows of a Kind]By [@Cruallassar].

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[i]Which is worse, the devil that wants to corrupt the souls of the righteous...or the devil that wants to destroy them?[/i]
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[img]http://i.imgur.com/F0UFoRL.png[/img]


In the human province of Desonier, dark deeds were afoot. Entire towns had gone missing, travelers riding in to find them deserted. Rumors spread of necromancy and dark magic, against which the local lord stood powerless to act. Fear pervaded the citizenry, who wondered which town was next.

And in the lord's castle at the town of Dol-Tiras, dark things of entirely another variant were occurring in response.  Specifically in the office of Lord Vicari Delnier, who was looking out a window, absorbed in thought. Abruptly, he turned his head slightly, seeming to listen intently for a moment. Then, in a single quick motion, the long rapier at his side slid out of its sheath as he spun, pointing the weapon towards the center of the room...which quite suddenly became not empty. Shadows swirled around in the center of the room, slowly manifesting themselves into the form of a man, a sword of his own held ready, but down and off to the side. 
As the shadows faded into the ambient light of the room, the stark contrast...and similarity...between the two men was quite apparent for a moment. The lord, wearing a white-and-purple garb with gold embroidery, a calf-length white cape hung about his shoulders with purple runes sewn into the cloth, fine leather boots and a pauldron of the same material adorning his left shoulder. The blade in his hand was obviously of the finest make and held perfectly parallel to the floor. He stood perfectly erect, in a manner befitting the lord of the castle, careful poise in every inch of his stance. The other figure, black cloth and worn black leather covering his form from foot to fingertip, a black hood covering his head, black cloak thrown around his neck to drape over his left shoulder down to his waist, and carrying a thin blade of well-made elvish craftsmanship, though with signs of use marked the metal with equal prominence. Other weapons hung about his person, including a dark bow and a twin to the sword in his hand. Metal plates served as protection for his lower arms and legs, with leather-covered shoulder plates visible under the cloak around his shoulders. His stance was low and still, like a crouched jungle cat preparing to pounce upon his prey.
The two men looked at each other for a moment, assessing their intentions and the likelihood that one of them would be trying to kill the other within the next few seconds. The lord broke the silence first.
“Well...the grim ranger paying a visit to my office. What an unexpected pleasure. Tell me, what dire tidings bring my least favorite person in the mortal world to me at this hour?”
The dark figure straightens somewhat from his combat stance, slightly reassured that the man opposite him would rather talk than fight at this time.
“Dire tidings which the lord of this province should already be fully aware. Your people are disappearing, you have no idea where. You cannot respond. I can help you with this.”
Delnier abruptly twirled his sword in his fingers before sliding it into the scabbard at his side with a click. A bemused expression lights his features, shrewd blue eyes seemingly seeing the dark figure in a new light.
“Am I to understand that the great Crual-lassa' Ras Le'Valeron, Rangermaster and solo operative extraordinaire, grand high lord  of quietly killing all the things...that can't fight back...is requesting my help in dealing with a perceived threat?
As the nobleman speaks, he waves a hand sarcastically towards the ranger, who narrows his eyes in irritation.
“Unless the demon doesn't find the loss of his towns somewhat irksome, and an act to be punished swiftly, then I am proposing a joint venture with an objective of mutual interest. I find the disappearance of townsfolk to be troubling. You should find it truly threatening. Of course, if I am incorrect in that assumption, then I can go elsewhere. Perhaps not all demons find theft of their subjects  to be as great a problem as others.”
The nobleman's eyes seems to acquire a violet glint as he waved in a vaguely placating gesture, a motion that was entirely wasted on Cruallassar as he sheathed his own blade.
“For an elf so attracted to trouble, perhaps next time I desire your presence I should just publicly slaughter a few townsfolk. Alright, yes, I find these recent developments quite disturbing. I don't appreciate having two towns stolen from me; however, I fail to see why I require your aid, ranger of doom. Unless you have some asset to bring with you beyond your overrated abilities, I am as capable of dealing with this problem without you as I am with you.”
The hooded figure allows himself a short, satisfied smirk.
“You require my aid because I possess the location of the enemy you seek. I observed an abduction. You have now had three towns stolen...but they have lost their secrecy. Or rather, he has. The rumors among the townsfolk are quite close to the truth. We face a single man, a mage of considerable ability. He employed shadow magic to capture the essences of the townsfolk. I would guess he is also capable of necromancy, or summoning, there were signs of such in the art he employed. He took great care in ensuring unharmed capture of each citizen of the town, with minimum impact. He didn't touch the graveyard either, it isn't another upstart necromancer trying to build himself an army. When he left, I tracked him to a cavern in the Hadrasian Foothills.”
Delnier sat down at his desk and listened intently as Cruallassar delivered his report, then snapped his fingers triumphantly as the ranger finished.
“Then I will take a force of men to the Hadrasian Foothills and...”
“And be massacred. I detected several magical traps. No force you could muster has the ability to penetrate them, you would be the last man standing. You would stand a high chance of falling as well as you continue further in. You need me if you have any intention of dealing with this guy. Just as I need you for the same.”
Delnier put his fingers together in front of him as he considered that. The Ranger waited stoically for his response.
“Then you really expect us to work together on this...endeavor?”
“I expect a temporary promise that we will work together, without trying to kill each other, until the completion of this mission, yes.”
“And the mutual assurance that we will each hold to our end of this promise?”
“Our trust in our own ability to counter any attempt at betrayal made by the other.”
The nobleman nodded in consideration, before rising again from his desk. 
“And when shall we leave?”
“At your earliest convenience.”
“Then we depart immediately. For the duration of this task, until our return...well, let us only say that we have struck ourselves a bargain.”

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[i]Which is best...to sacrifice one's beliefs in the name of upholding them, or to abandon them for the sake of maintaining them?[/i]
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The clatter of horse's hooves sounded on the packed dirt of the road into the small town...village really...of Deralshire. That was, in fact, the only sound that broke the silence of the small town...village really...of Deralshire, aside from that of the birds, and a few other livestock that deigned to give voice to the area. The two riders of the horses...one a black figure on a black horse, small and obviously bred for speed, and the other in purple and white on a prancing white stallion...rode side-by-side down the center road cutting through the center of the small village. Lord Delnier...turned his head towards the ranger beside him.
“Why did you insist we slow our progress while traveling through this place?”
The ranger, Cruallassar, didn't bother to change his stoic straight-ahead gaze as he replied.
“Your people were taken from this place. Abducted, against both their will, and that of their lord. I thought that you, as their lord, would wish to see your loss for yourself. After all, the place of the lord is to provide for and direct the people, as the place of the head is to provide for and direct the body. A wound to the people is a wound to the body, and to ignore a wound is to fail to realize its significance, allowing the body to overextend itself and fail.”
The nobleman huffed and looked back to the road in front of him.
“I appreciate the lesson in lordship, but I do not require the aid of the abyssal ranger in instructing me on how to rule my province. My economic adviser has well informed me of the significance of this wound, and my energies are now best spent on closing and avenging it, rather than nursing the injury. Let us be gone from this place, and quickly.”
The two riders sped their horses to a quick canter. The silence seemed to follow them as they left the village behind them, moving towards the looming Hadrasian Foothills.

Mid-afternoon saw the two and their horses atop a small ledge, overlooking a large crevasse nearly thirty meters deep, with a small cave set in the side of one of the two rough cliffs that formed the edges of the ravine. Delnier dismounted and walked to the edge, gazing down at the dark hole as Cruallassar dismounted behind him, the horse standing calmly as the cloaked elf strode to stand beside the nobleman.
“That is the place where our rat has made its nest?”
“It is.”
The lord began to take a step off the ledge, but the ranger reached out and blocked his passage with an arm.
“Wait. Try to step down there unguarded and you will fry. I told you, there are magical traps all around this place.”
Delnier swatted the arm away irritably.
“Do not presume to know for what I am and am not prepared, untouchable ranger.”
The white-clad man crouched low, then jumped high into the air above the ravine, drawing his sword with a ring like a chime, or a glass scraped with the tip of a knife. As he came down past the lip of the ledge upon which Cruallassar stood, a sort of ripple...like water when disturbed...seemed to pass through the air from the point through which he passed. In an instant, orange energy gathered from all around the edge of the ravine, collating into two bright bolts that converged on the nobleman. In a gesture almost too quick to follow, Delnier brandished his sword in flight, the needle-like blade glowing brightly purple-white as he suddenly made two quick slashes through the air toward both orange attacks, arcs of light flying from his blade to intercept the two blasts of energy midflight and dissipating them in the air. Yet the danger was not past...as he neared the ground, a network of orange lines flared into existence, a ripple of energy traveling to gather at the point where he would land. Again, purple-white light flared, blasting outward as he landed, dispelling the hostile magic harmlessly, the ground scorching and cratering under him as Delnier and the energies he wielded impacted it. He straightened from his crouched landing position slowly, twirling his blade in his fingers before swishing it off to the side. He started to turn to look back up at Cruallassar, before observing shadows coalescing off to the side near the cavern entrance, solidifying into the shape of the ranger stepping towards him.
“Must you announce our presence to the entire magic-wielding world before we enter?”
“Must you bother me with such trivialities? With any level of competence, our enemy doubtless observed our intrusion a mile off. Let's not waste time evading what must be destroyed in any case.”
The nobleman began to step towards the cave entrance when suddenly the ranger drew one of his own blades and, in a single smooth motion, thrust it into the stone next to the opening, the blade glowing a shadowy red. Another lattice of orange lines flared and faded across the entrance, inches from Delnier's face.
“I merely advise caution, oh omnipotent demon.”
The black-clad figure walked forward into the cave ahead of the aristocrat, who deferred the point position to his ally, both their swords ready for use.

Several hundred meters further into the cave, a short time later, the clash of weapons rang throughout a much larger underground cavern. Purple-white light flashed forth and clashed with the orange glow of molten magic-infused magma, which flowed in a ring around a central pillar that jutted up in the middle of the place, with stone bridges crossing the gap at several points, seemingly lain from connection to connection at random. And on a jutting platform, heading towards one of the thin bridges, the nobleman and the ranger fought an assortment of shadowy summons wielding various assortments of steel blades and stone claws and teeth. Delnier in front, sent arcs of light from his blade slicing through the shadowy forms as they came. Cruallassar stayed back, his swords put away in favor of his dark bow, sending darts of red energy into bright orange defensive spells that destroyed them mid-flight, or vaporizing shadowy elementals. Each combatant was the center of his own maelstrom of offensive power, and the opposition seemed quite weak and rapidly fading in comparison.
As the last elemental burst into wisps of shadow, the two started moving across the bridge in single file...the bridge itself barely two meters across. About half-way across, the two suddenly saw orange light flaring on the central platform, building up and illuminating the figure of a man behind it. Cruallassar reacted first.
“Look out!”
The warning was largely unnecessary, as a blinding bolt of orange magic blasted forth, impacting on the bridge in front of them with an explosive flash. A large piece of the bridge vanished into dust, the rest of the bridge beginning to crumble from the lack of support. Delnier wasted no time in acting; as the ground he stood on broke and fell, he crouched low, purple energy gathering under his boots. Then he exploded into motion. He leaped, farther than any human could normally jump, from his piece of debris to another, his eyes already tracking the next falling rock. Pushing off of the first, he hit the side of the second, then swung himself around and jumped to a third. Moving from rock to falling rock, he used the debris as stepping stones, finally landing on the stable central platform.
Cruallassar's route was only slightly different. Before his part of bridge fell from under him, he ran forward and jumped off the crumbling edge of the broken bridge. As he fell, he suddenly seemed to...twist, as if his form was suddenly turned inside out and substituted for a shadowy wraith. The shadowy wraith...not unlike the elementals they had fought earlier...swooped up and transformed again into the figure of the ranger, which dropped neatly onto another descending stone. Even as the Delnier ascended the falling debris, so did Cruallassar, dissolving into a stream of shadows and flying from rock to rock until he re-materialized next to the nobleman. He dropped into a crouch, breathing heavily, as Delnier brandished his sword and sprinted towards the figure at the center of the stone platform.
Up close, the figure was revealed to be little more than a man...middle-aged...in a gray robe, standing in front of a stone pedestal with an object on it that shone with the glint of metal. The white-clad swordsman paid it no attention. The robed mage's hands suddenly crackled with orange energy, as he raised them to unleash another blast at Delnier, but the rapier flashed violet and another thin arc of light was flung at the robed man. The blast of magic detonated mere feet in front of him, flinging him back over the pedestal and dropping him heavily on his back. Delnier vaulted over the pedestal and landed in front of the mage, who scrabbled frantically to try and regain his feet. He found some unexpected assistance as the swordsman reached out, grabbing the man by the throat and lifting him up off the ground...and off his feet...with inhuman strength. Purple energy seemed to glow around Delnier's hand, forming the outline of what seemed to be claws from some sort of beast, encircling the hapless mage's neck entirely.
“You, who have broken the laws of this land, now face the sentence of the lord you have opposed. Your punishment is death.”
The man kicked and struggled uselessly, straining to breathe through the lord's iron grip.
“Wait.”
Delnier paused, his grip, easing momentarily as he turned to look at the ranger who had said the word. Cruallassar had recovered from his momentary fatigue, and now stood by the pedestal, looking down at the item upon it. It was a small amulet on a thin silver chain, with a black gem in the center. The gem seemed to glow with an inner darkness...as if you could have the opposite of a light. Shadows just seemed to seep from the thing...yet, the ranger seemed to sense something more about it. As if the shadows were merely the result of the gem, and not its essence...fueled by whatever else was imbued in it. The elf abruptly looked up and looked to the mage.
“What did you do with the citizens of the towns you abducted? And what is this?”
The nobleman relaxed his grip for the man to speak, though he still held him up a good foot above the ground. The mage rasped out an answer, his throat protesting from its mistreatment.
“You behold the answer to the first question in front of you. That amulet contains the minds and souls...the very essences...of every person you seek. They are all there...not harmed, only removed, combined into a new body, the medallion you now see. Their power...what little magical energy they can harness, all of it is combined, infused with shadow magics to create a source of power to defeat the enemies of the world. Demons, necromancers, corrupt mages, none of them can withstand the power of so many people united and arrayed against them. That is their purpose. They take great mental focus to wield...the sheer number of minds of its own...no man can remain unaffected by that. But a great man, one willing to make that sacrifice, one able to direct these hearts and minds against the right enemies, a man such as I, couULGH...”
Delnier tightened his grip abruptly on the man's throat, choking off his words before relaxing it again, allowing the mage to cough and regain his breath and voice.
“Say your piece in such a way that I am willing to listen.”
Cruallassar let him regain his ability to speak, then asked another question.
“You say the villagers are still alive in here, but with this medallion as their collective body?”
“Ye..aheurgh...yes! They can see and feel all that occurs around them, but they don't possess the knowledge to wield their own combined power, it is available for the taking for anyone who does possess the skill.”
The nobleman's eyes hardened as he looked towards the ranger.
“We must destroy it. That kind of power is dangerous, and is certain to attract enemies who would use it for their own aims. I am not foolish enough to believe I could hold onto it long enough myself to offset the damage it could wreak against me.”
Cruallassar's own words in reply were quick and angry.
“You could certainly not hold onto it that long, but to destroy it! You may be perfectly willing to sanction the destruction of three villages worth of your subjects, merely to deprive your enemies of them, but I will not hear of it. What this man has done is terrible, but he did not kill them. Mass murder is not something I intend to condone.”
As he finished speaking, a rumble came from the cavern's ceiling, causing the two men to turn their gaze skyward. It was the mage's voice that was next heard.
“Their fate will be their own! That medallion's power will protect it from the destruction of this place, but you who presume to disrupt my plans will die, buried beneath the earth. I did not prepare this place without its destruction assured should it be necessary!”
The platform shook under their feet, a large chunk of the ceiling suddenly breaking loose above the pedestal with the amulet. Cruallassar didn't hesitate, he grabbed the powerful item and dove out of the way, as the pedestal smashed to dust beneath the falling rock. Even as he acted, the instant he touched the medallion, he felt the presences of the populace of the three villages pressing upon his consciousness. Hundreds of them, each of their thoughts clamoring to be heard. Their power was...erratic, undirected, like a race horse raring to be off and used, but with its reins fixed in place and the horse unable to move. The essences of the villagers pressed on Cruallassar, sampling his own presence, threatening to overwhelm his senses with theirs. He fought back, forcefully trying to wrest his mind from them...letting some of their thoughts and emotions settle neatly into their parallels in himself, letting their overarching focus augment his own, sacrificing those parts of his mind to their collective consciousness in exchange for the dominance of his will. He saw the truth in the words the mage had spoken...how every individual, from the village blacksmith of Deralshire to the visiting salesman's son from Challiston was present, their minds augmented by each other, their thoughts and individuality equally voiced within the gem in the center of the amulet. And he saw their greater goal, that which they most desired their powers put to accomplishing.
Vengeance.
Vengeance against the man who had taken them from their homes against their will and imprisoned them here.
A goal which suddenly slipped away, replaced by a void in purpose...pleasure at a goal accomplished, and yet dissatisfaction at its manner.
The ranger rose again to his feet, the amulet clutched in one gloved hand. Looking towards Delnier, he saw the mage still clutched in his fist...but his neck, visible through the purple energies that encircled it, was thinner, crushed in the nobleman's grip, with his head hanging limply to one side. Rocks still broke free from the ceiling and fell into the molten sea under the platform all around, but Delnier's gaze was fixed, focused solely on Cruallassar, to the exclusion of all else. The ranger picked up his bow from where he had dropped it before, slinging it onto his back as he turned toward the way they had came. He spoke, but his voice was different...pitched lower, strained.
“Come. We should leave this place before we are buried.”
He started walking toward one of the bridges that seemed to head toward an exit, hearing a thump from behind him as Delnier dropped the body he held. Suddenly, he heard a ring, like a chime, or a glass scraped by the tip of a knife. There was a unified sense of warning, of urgent danger from the medallion. He turned his head slightly, to behold out of the corner of his eye, the needle-like point of Delnier's rapier arrowing towards the back of his neck.

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[i]What is the value of a man? Is it priceless? Can it be measured in the price of other men? If it were, then is the life of a cruel king who kills men by the hundreds, yet leads his armies to victory, worth more or less than that of the poor farmer, who's sole existence is that of growing his meager wares and selling them at the nearby village market?
Yet those wares may help feed an assassin, who kills the king in the night, and bestows freedom from tyranny upon a great, yet oppressed, people. Now who's is the more valuable life? Or perhaps, life is truly without measure of value, every life being incapable of being compared to any other.

In that case, is there anything to keep us from taking as much life as we wish, save other men, because life has no measure by which we may value it?[/i]
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Delnier's rapier flew straight and true...and yet, it failed to find its mark. With the speed only an elf aided by the magic inherent in their kind can attain, and the forewarning of keen training and the amulet grasped in his left hand,  Cruallassar spun and blocked the blade with the steel vambrace on his arm. The ranger's sword swished out of its scabbard with a hiss of leather and runic metal, slicing through the air to block a quick follow-up strike, before both men jumped apart to reassess their situations. The ranger took the reprieve to slip the amulet's chain over his head, leaving his left hand free to draw his second sword.
“We promised to work together until our mission was accomplished.”
“And so we did...but the enemy lies dead behind me, and besides, I'm not very keen on the idea of ridding myself of one enemy only to strengthen another. But look at it this way...we do have such an excellent stage for this sort of act...it would be a shame to waste it.”
The ranger stood silently for a moment, the conflicting entities within the medallion coming together with one new overarching purpose...the death of this man that threatened their existence. At that moment, their aims merged perfectly with that of their new lord, and they accepted him as the one to wield their power in this battle. Power and master aligned perfectly as Cruallassar assumed his combat stance...the two men mirroring the positions they had taken when they had come together for this venture before. White and purple, a rapier held perfectly in line with the quaking ground. Black as night, two elvish blades held forward and back, ready to attack and defend from either side. In unison, the two enemies charged each other, each prepared to destroy the other.
Cruallassar spun both blades at Delnier, who abruptly vaulted high in the air, his own blade slashing down at the ranger's head. A quick change in one of the elvish blade's vector, and the rapier was effectively parried. The nobleman jumped back upon landing to evade a falling stone, upon which Cruallassar shifted into ethereal shadows and passed directly through the stone, though the action was suddenly less silent then it had been before. A sound like a thousand people crying out through a thick veil from the bottom of a deep chasm seemed to echo in the mind of the Ranger and his opponent as he reformed upon exiting the stone to parry the immediate magically-charged strike Delnier aimed at him. A quick counter attack with both blades keeping up a steady stream of thrusts and slashes forced the duelist back and onto the defensive, but upon the slightest opening, the rapier thrust forward as Delnier lunged, pointing the sword at the ranger's eye. Cruallassar twitched his body to the side at the last second, allowing the blade to pass through harmlessly, but the nobleman's left hand had drawn a long dagger from behind his back, and now cut at the ranger from the other side. A booted foot came up to kick the dagger up and out of Delnier's grasp, but the rapier was deftly flipped over to his left hand, while the right snatched the dagger out of the air to put the two on even terms once more.
Cruallassar was unwilling to allow his enemy any modigm of control over the field, and suddenly twisted into the shadows once again, his magical form fueled by the power drawn from the amulet. As the shadows lanced up high into the air, Delnier quickly twirled his sword in the direction of the ethereal ranger, sending arcs of energy up after him. Cruallassar ascended as high as the ceiling of the cavern would allow, reforming into physicality with his bow at the ready, his fingers drawing back shining red darts of energy to fire at his enemy. He twisted his body upside down, adjusting his path back and forth to evade the purple-white slashes coming up at him and allowing them to fly past, cutting thin canyons into the cavern roof and sending showers of gravel out over the combatants. Elvish fingers let magical arrows fly, speeding down upon the nobleman, who danced nimbly aside from each shot, allowing them to expend themselves in scorching black holes into the ground beside him. Purple energy gathered at his feet, and Delnier launched himself up at Cruallassar, flying up like an arrow himself. The ranger reversed his orientation in midair, his bow-hand glowing white for a moment, when his downward fall was suddenly arrested by the bow halting its descent in midair, seemingly frozen in place. The ranger used his momentum to flip up on top of the bow, his feet balancing themselves atop the slender stick as his swords swished out of their sheaths. The nobleman's rapier swung up and clashed against the elvish blade with a purple flash, forcing Cruallassar to take a step back to the bladed edge of the bow. Delnier reached out with his left hand and caught the bow as he flew past, his momentum redirected as he swung over, under the bottom of the bow, and back up. He twisted in the air, a foot kicking out at the ranger before he gained a balance on the time-locked weapon. The elf began to fall, but caught the edge of the bow in his own fingers and flung himself out to the side. One of his swords suddenly glowed with a white light as it too stopped in midair, allowing Cruallassar to regain his balance atop it. The two weapons, both parallel but arranged at an angle to each other, supported the two combatants far above the crumbling ground below. Delnier flung arcs of light from his blade at Cruallassar, who reached out a hand to throw what appeared to be solid shadows gathered from thin air into the nobleman's magical attack, breaking each arc's cohesion and shattering it before it reached the ranger. In turn, Cruallassar's hand dipped to the back of his belt, then came out and hurled a pair of ggsmall knives at point blank range towards the lord, who deflected each with his rapier and dagger. The two exchanged more blows, before another large piece of the ceiling broke off from the whole and fell towards the two and their thin platforms. Immediately, Delnier made another leap, traversing the gap between them and one of the bridges that led to another tunnel to the surface. The Ranger stepped one foot over to the bow, shifting his weight precariously to the impossibly stiff bowstring before hooking the other boot under the frozen sword, white light flaring across its surface as the ranger flipped it up into his hand. With that, he fell off the bow, touching it in midair to release it from the time-lock spell, then twisting himself and the weapon back into the shadows. The shadowy wraith that was Cruallassar streamed across the room, re-materializing in front of Delnier, with the bow replaced upon his back.
The two continued to fight along the bridge, making their way towards the exit. Delnier would attack and defend in turn with precise, pre-meditated and carefully constructed maneuvers, and Cruallassar would attack and evade with unorthadox movements and attack sequences. The nobleman would make an attack that the passive onlooker would think would surely connect, but Cruallassar's outline would blur with shadow, and he would suddenly be attacking from another direction that put him out of harm's way. His own attack would fly true, but a ripple of purple-white light would deflect it, or the rapier would change direction in an instant to parry it. Both masters of their art, the battle moving across the field but neither forcing the other back, both remaining mobile, giving ground willingly in exchange for different ground, better suited to their next attack. Neither could control the flow of battle, and yet both managed to keep the other guessing as to their moves, with only the mastery of their actions and their superb reflexes managing to keep them unmarked. As they neared the end of the bridge, Cruallassar flipped himself backwards onto the outcropping before entering the tunnel and slapped a closed fist...still holding a sword...down onto the stone of the bridge. A crack rang out as a shockwave blasted through the bridge, shattering the stone. As it dropped out from under Delnier, he leaped up again, vaulting above Cruallassar to land behind him...but it was a forced action, one for which the ranger was ready. The quick follow-up slash from the noble impacted a defending blade...one which bore the white sheen of the elf's time-lock spell. It expended its momentum uselessly on an unyielding blade, before Cruallassar's armored forearm slammed into the back of the tip. The thin rapier's blade-the magic in its attack expended and the spells keeping it intact neglected due to the nature of its enemy-snapped in two as a stick breaks over a man's knee. A follow-up spinning strike with the other elvish blade knocked the hastily raised dagger aside, before the nobleman was backed up against the stone wall of the cavern, one of the ranger's blades at his throat. The intent and rage from the medallion charged forth and the ranger's blade seemed to surge forward of its own volition...but Delnier twitched to the side, allowing the blade to embed itself in the rock next to him. Cruallassar was suddenly blasted back by a flash of violet energy, as the nobleman made another jump up to another, higher platform. Turning around as the ranger flipped up to his feet, he called out,
“Nicely done, ranger, nicely done. You came close there for a second. But I'm afraid that this act must come to a close...while I can survive being buried alive, I'm afraid I would suffer more damage than it would be worth. Therefore, until we clash blades another day, I will bid you farewell...Shadow Ranger.”
Delnier cast the broken hilt of his rapier down onto Cruallassar's platform, then turned and ran out into another tunnel. Rocks had started falling with greater frequency now, and the magma below was churning angrily. Suddenly, nearly the whole ceiling seemed to shatter and fall, a single huge blanket of stone descending upon the ranger. And as the stone begins to crash down, burying the whole cavern under rubble and debris, shadows coalesce around him.

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[i]Perhaps these questions need no answers...nay, they require the very nature of not having answers. Perhaps one must simply do what they can, when they can do it...and if an outcome is unacceptable, then they must change their actions to fit the best possible. Life is an overly complicated thing...no man has the freedom to act according to the right impossible answers to life's questions. They can only live...according to their code, their duty, and their ability. Some forge their own codes, accepting only the duties they choose...others have these things forced upon them, and yet accept them as their place in life. No man's lot in life is perfect...yet it is those imperfections that give it a place in the universe. And so it goes on...with the perfect forever striven for, the imperfect forever attained, and questions always asked that help it on its way...yet never any answers.[/i]
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Cruallassar, Rangermaster of Shadows, stood at the edge of a forest, looking up at the high towers of Dol-Tiras. The metal of the amulet was cold against his neck, where it now lay under his shirt. The enemy he had faced still lived...he could discern the white-and-purple figure standing at his office window. But now was not the time to deal with him. For they both were shadows of a kind...the one, wearing his darkness on the outside, forging a bubble within which he became one with the shadows around him...the other, keeping it buried within his soul, letting only a veneer of light be shown to the world that desired such things as its rulers. And as the shadows swirled around the ranger, carrying him off on other personal quests, the lord of this part of the land continued to gaze at the spot from where he vanished, knowing that his enemy still walked the world...and that one day, only one of them would survive their encounter.[/hider]
[@RyuHll] has volunteered to assist with judging this time around, and as usual may have the first pick of stories to evaluate. Expect their announcement soon.