He is Tier`Dal, but his skin is an ashy azure, as opposed to the common midnight blue, suggesting mixed breeding (or upbringing). He sits, almost perched, knees bent to his chest, uncanny elven balance suspending him at an almost unnatural angle. Below him, a battered skeleton labors away mindlessly.

The automaton was laboring away polishing a titanic circular slab of black marble. An Altar of sorts. Surrounding this altar in all directions for seventy feet, the earth was scorched and covered with a thick layer of fine ground bone dust, though which were scattered, like malignant grains of sand, inhuman skulls of varying size and color.

Around the perimeter of this ring of doom stood thirty foot tall slabs of granite, each with a single elder Tier`Dal rune glowing like swamp-fire.

Beyond the monoliths, stood the forest of the Feydark, glowing itself, but with faerie motes and golden sunlight shone through the green canopy. All in all, the altar looked extremely out of place, but that was intended wasn't it?

The Necromancer dismounted his tree and with a flick of his wrist, rewarded his servant for it's tireless work, simultaniously completing the carpet of bone dust. The altar was complete.

At it's center he placed the most treasured item he had ever possesed: A Soulstone of Innoruuk, torn from breast of a guardian of the Plane of Hate itself. Within it dwelt a shard of Inoruuk's own soul, used to steal away the free will of his most trusted servents.

The Necromancer mused upon the fact that, had he not taken charge of his own life, one would have resided in his own breast before long.

The alter was complete, and in seven days a portal would open. What then? Who knew? The runes in the monoliths would do the rest, and they were capricious.

The runes had been inscribed on stones and altars since time before imagining - even before Veeshan had left her crystalline mark on Norrath. They were designed to create holes in destiny. Timed correctly, a hero might be drawn to this site...and, timed correctly, the hero would have little choice but to aid the Necromancer in his fight against his once patron God.

Manipulating the forces of Destiny was not the Necromancer's stong suit, though, and even if it were Destiny was...well, capricious.

[ 08-26-2001: Message edited by: Maradon? ]

The human kneeled down near the dead orc. Such a waste of a life. He would likely never understand what drove them, made them devote their lives to a hopeless cause.

Rising to his feet, supporting his weight on his staff, he let out a little sigh.

Standing six feet tall, the human's grey robe looked odd in comparision to his pale, almost whiteish skin, the mark of the Wizard feastened to the shoulders of it.

Leaving the scorched corpse behind him, he returned to the path, resuming his walk in the shadows of the Faydark Trees.

"Damn elves! How can they stand to live like this? Ah, Paineel. Now there is a city! Why Mandaril Dark Knife thinks I need to be his emissary to Crushbone, I'll never know."

Suddenly he looks up and thinks to himself, "Hmmm. Feels like someone is working on something big. And if I'm any judge it's not one of these nature-loving wood elves."

Sheathing his sword and strapping his shield to his back, Crosis quitely utters the incantatinon to locate nearby undead. He growls to himself and mutters, "Damn decaying skeletons always mess up that spell."

He sighs, draws his sword and pulls a greater lightstone out of his belt pouch, deciding the light is worth more than his secrecy as he continues through the Faydark.

He surveyed his work once again, (taking note that there were, in fact, seven monoliths, each of which bore a Tier`Dal rune, not a corpse) but his eyes carried across the landscape of the forest.

The night was dark but his eyes were sharp. He picked out among the undergrowth a brief flash, as of the ethreal green-blue glow of the altar briefly reflected and magnified off metal.

It was starting, but much too early - the Soulstone would take five more days to come to fruition. He would have to genuinely coerce his guest (or guests, he mused) to his cause - his plans (deliberatly made? Or had he simply assumed that no one would voluntarily help him?) of pinning reluctant heroes behind a wrathful Elder God simply wouldn't work. No, he would have to be straightforeward about it now, but being a solitary person, it would be awkward.

The horizon was turning a softer shade of cobalt below the gemmed blackness of the night sky. Morning was coming soon, and he'd slept enough. Standing slowly, knees popping audibly, he dropped from the uppermost branch of the ninety foot old growth tree like a stone or a wooden doll.

He landed with a sickening crunch. His neck and most of his spine had shattered. He'd landed on his feet, and the impact had splintered each shin bone, driving it outward through the flesh, looking like giant broken toothpics that had somehow burst from a covering of raw hamburger.

There was nothing quite like an excruciating death to start a day.

Levitating himself casually, the ruination that was his legs and torso dangling like oddly heavy cobwebs, the Necromancer chose a nearby forest animal and desintigrated it with a vexing mordinia.

Casually, he approached his guest, rehearsing his common speech as he went. He hoped he could still speak it properly.

It was going to be a long day.

"Tunare preserve me!" he whispered.

Quickly he soared back the way he had come until he was certain he could be neither seen nor heard from the altar, then began selecting appropriate spells and surrounding himself with protective magicks in preparation for what would probably be a coming battle...