Bitter Sweet Ending

Three posts in one day....well the war between Light and Dark went on for a while, and I am on a roll.

This whole time there were to plots running around Everwind, one about the Seelie and Unseelie ghosts roaming around Everwind and another about a deep betrayal that seemed to revolve around the fate of Stormy and Chance.

IC, I knew nothing about what was going on, I was a loyal Sage, and as the war raged on I kept on fighting beside them. OOC I was torn inside, because Stormy had confided in me the truth of what was to come. Each battle I fought was leading to an ending I did not want to face.

During one of the final battles of the war the fight raged on for almost a full day, it had started somewhere in the forest and ended up on the very edge of the Dark Valley, people were captured on both sides, I was one of them.

After falling twice already in battle and finally someone had the time and wits to start binding the fallen minions, and drag us off. We already had captives back in the Cathedral being tortured, my own Head Ranger Jacko being one of them...so even as my wrists and ankles were bound I knew it was only a matter of time till either we escaped or we were traded or rescued. But I was a little worried....with Stix gone, and Winkie barely present, I was the only active Sage for Stormy and Chance, and now I was bond and being dragged back to the village.

While the other minions kicked up a storm about being thrown in jail I was actually playing hurt and curled up on the stone floor. I actually found it very interesting to be on the other side of the bars for once, after all this time of being a minion I had finally be captured.

Above, Mordok, my captor, and me on the ground, there were three other Drow divided between the cells. I think a couple managed to escape, in the end we were traded/released. I remember Samo came to help me back to the Valley, still wounded from battle since no one bothered to really play on the fact I was laying on the ground moaning and emoting how hurt I was. My Queen healed me, but remaining in the Valley was getting to me, so I wandered out and back to the village. I am not sure what drove me back there, it might have been my parting words with Grace IC was a bitter banter of her calling me a traitor. Samo went with me again, only to find much changed in the village. Between the time of our release from the village and when I returned Grace had declared the village closed to all minions, any entering would be arrested.

Now I should mention that throughout my time of being a minion, many people took it rather hard and in some way this aided me. Most that knew me before my turning were always trying to save me, or convince others besides the fact of my deeds that I was still "good". Rath was such, as Commander and Head of the Knights in Everwind we had known each other a long time, through good and bad, and he did not want to go through with his orders. He was good enough to give us a choice, staring down on both me and Samo he would permit one of us to leave, the other would be arrested. Now I wasn't about to have Samo take my place behind bars, and I wasn't to thrilled about being placed behind bars for the second time in one day...but I wouldn't deal a fate on another I wasn't willing to accept myself. In the end I had to use my rank as Sage to order Samo to leave and take a warning to our King and Queen, and then turned to be chained and taken off again. At least Rath had the better sense of mind and had me taken to the jail cells set up in the human castle *grins*.

I remember when Kelly showed me these cells for the first time, they had been built to hold the highest of risk prisoners to King Slip and Queen Grace, hence, they had been build to hold Stormy and Chance. They had been used once before that I am aware of, during a trial of Kobo for treason. He had been held there till he had been brought to trial and sentence carried down. Now I sat in one of the two cells, tucked away from the Realm. Now, point about an RP realm is that if you force someone away from everyone else, they can't really RP, and they get bored rather quickly.

Needless to say, I was bored, but I welcomed the break from constant fighting. That night I was allowed out to enjoy the OOC Halloween Dance, and the next day came a grand rescue. Stormy and Chance led the minions against the castle to free me, and what a wonderful rescue! They swept in and up, broke the locks and passed me a weapon to fight with, and we rushed out, heading quickly back to the Valley....we had to trace our path to gather a few minions caught up in battle but we all made it back to the Valley and in one piece, it was wonderful!

But, it was short lived. The roleplay behind the Seelie and Unseelie wound down and came to an end, and Stormy and Chance would make their last stand. I arrived to find my King and Queen half out of it and speaking strange, they spoke of being fired on, but did not care. I already knew what was to come, OOC I knew they had been poisoned with a potion that would bind them to serve Queen Grace, IC I was just a Sage, confused and baffled by their sudden change in behaviour. Then came the messenger, my King and Queen had been called to the village, and I followed, helpless to do anything but to watch now. I watched as everyone gathered in the village, I watched as my King and Queen bent to the will of the potion and signed a treaty in blood. I watched in horror as Apos came down and brought her wrath upon them for their betrayal....there was little more I could do but watch.

I cried long and hard that night. Stormy and Chance had been cut from their roles and now a new Drow Queen stood in their place, and I was left trying to decide if it was worth staying and if so, what would I do next?

Will the fighting ever end?

Following that battle it was clear that it was no longer safe for any side to just wander about the realm without fear of being under attack. Few "Safe-Zones" remained in the realm, most of them were Shrines or the main teleports down into Everwind, battles could only be started by the factions in their own land. More battles would follow, but it wasn't till the death of our Dark Sage Stix that things got mean.

It started out as something small, a group of minions gathered and started to taunt and cause trouble, the Knight's drew, they had to, it was their territory, and it started *sounds a chord*. At first I watched, not interested to be drawn into it, then one of the Knights seemed to focus on me....well I was a minion and an easy target just about then, so I was all in then. Stormy and Chance showed up and what started out as small became a round about fight, we didn't face as much lag as we had before, people fell and meters recovered faster, the battle went round and round for some time. Then Stormy got tired of the Light getting up and ordered the kills. Not only was I not big on the idea of RPing out the kills was seeing the one liners. I gave mine two, but finally things seemed to be slowing down and ending. Of course, the Light side was screaming foul and in walked Grace, and without even hearing our side voided it all. *sighs*

Worse was to follow, in another fight that started and drew into the village we had been given orders not to kill, this was just to stir things up. We didn't want to fight and see it all voided, and waste hours of fighting to have to go back saying, "nothing happened". Towards the end we start to draw out, and we think that we have everyone as we head back to regroup in the Valley, only to learn that Stix fell and was killed, his body thrown into the fountain. It had been done by a rogue that even as the battle started had professed he was not taking a side, and yet he had gone out of his way to join the Light side and then kill one or Sages.

I took this picture shortly after, Stix RPed a very nice reanimation and he played it to a T....he was literally a walking Zombie, but as good as the RP was, Grace wouldn't void his death, but she voided and created new laws to reanimation, voiding Stix's character and returning him to his death.

From Left to Right: Samo, Katlin (me), Chance, Stormy, Stix

This picture was the last time Stix and I stood together with our King and Queen before he and Jiji left Everwind, fed up with Godmongering. Looking back, now I might take things differently, but I think the worst part is having to accept the fact that as roleplayers we were trying to have fun and seeing those at the top always sway things in their favor. I am a lot more accepting now in roleplay, I am not afraid of my character being killed or facing capture or torture, I accept that if people are willing to have fun with it and put the effort into roleplaying it, then all the more fun. Stix and Jiji were excellent RPers and losing them was a blow to our side IC and OOC. It was then that we were just ready to walk away, it felt that it didn't matter, we would always lose cause Grace or Slip would void anything that actually seemed like a win for the Dark.

We walked away from a number of battles after that. One day the number of captives just piled up in the valley, we ran out of room to put captives. Grace and Slip mounted a raid/rescue into the valley for the captives, and refused to admit they had been seen coming into the valley, refused to accept that the "gates" to the cathedral had been locked. But as it was Dark faction land our side would have had to have drawn. Mind it was about 3 minions against I don't know how many. So no weapons were drawn, many of us refused to even RP with Grace or Slip at this point, which lead to rant in a notice to tell us to grow up...hmmm, so maybe both sides didn't "act" in the best way, but pointing the blame solely on those that fill your Realm with an opposing side might not be the best thing. We lost a lot of minions that day, those that stayed either wanted to continue to pick a fight, or like myself, love Stormy and Chance and stayed for the loyalty they had for them.

But we were tired, of it all, and just wanted it to end.

It's War!

Tension had been growing for months now, and you could feel it in the air, you could taste it....it was that intense!

It's hard to say where it started, but a good place to start on the side of Dark was the anger over The Jar of Justice, that both IC and OOC had ticked a lot of people off, especially those that had been subjected to it. It has started with a raid, which ended up with 4 minions captured and dragged away. What happened, I am not sure of, it was one of the few raids that was actually led by the Light, but those captured were brought back to the main village and placed inside this huge Jar in the middle of the village. At one time I had a picture of it, but I was disgusted with what it stood for and sent it to the trash....POOF! There was a plaque on it, stating that anyone charged with treason would be placed within, they were also "changed" into a fairy for the duration of their punishment.

I was baffled and furious that anyone but our King and Queen could charge a minion with treason...of course we would be against the Light...then should they not throw everyone in there cause everyone would be betraying one side or another but the rare few that could and did remain neutral?

After that our King and Queen gave us orders that no one entered the Valley was safe from our hands, we were ordered to capture all trespassers and freely offered to do with as we wished. Many were captured, most tortured, few killed to leave a message to those of the Light.

Our King and Queen launched a number of mass attacks on the Light, one even included a wonderful plan to attack by all means, by land, by sea, by air....it was wonderful, save for a little OOC slip that tipped off the Light. They "knew" we were coming and massed for the attack, Stormy's Trojan Horse stood in the main village waiting for them to accept it, the air balloon hovered over the Elven Village and a war ship neared the Fae Glade, all ready for the attack. But the OOC slip brought it all crashing down...no one would accept the Trojan Horse and our King and Queen finally turned us into one mass to fight, no longer divided we headed to the Elven Village and stormed over the walls.

It was a wonderful battle, the lag so heavy even running made you stand still and maybe your hit would land 5 minutes later if the meter even read it. Before the battle we had prepared ourselves, knocking off as many attached items as we could, reduced our settings to next to nothing, just enough for us to see what and who we were fighting. We were able to fight through the lag, at one time I was up against Dream with her "Hero" meter and she was furious cause she couldn't get to me but I reduced her meter to the red. At this time I was human, and this caused a lot of confusion, I got a number of IMs from people asking what side I was on cause I was being relentless in attacking them. Even with the lag people started to fall and after hours of battle Stormy and Chance called a retreat. It wasn't till the numbers started to thin and the lag slowly lifted that my meter finally dipped below green.

I should have mentioned that as a human and a ranger I had 2 healing powers (Charm- Human, Self Heal-Ranger) and 3 attack features on the rest of my Ranger HUD, between that and fighting with a very low lag, low scripted sword I was just sitting pretty for this battle and most that followed. At the end, Dream demanded that I leave the battle cause my meter was broken. Even as Chance shouted us to retreat I stayed to take out one more opponent...I had Mulder down to the orange and we had been facing off for most of the battle, I wanted to take him out before I left. One of Mulder's hits struck through then just as Dream IMed me and I was nice enough and lag permitting to copy and paste it for it to show that my meter was working and kept fighting. Mulder was down moments later and with Ajin at my back we hurried out of the Elven Village and to safety.

As each side licked its wounds and us Minions sat and grinned and rewarded ourselves with a battle well fought and no looses, (we had been given orders not to kill before the whole battle started) there was no more doubt left for any side...we were at WAR!

Hail! Da King!

Da King *hugs* my King Chance, at rest in his lazy boy...one of my favorite pictures of him!

Trust me, he might look layed back but his bow was never far or slow from being drawn in a time of need and you couldn't run far enough or fast enough if he had it out!

What do you do with a bored minion?

I had found a very happy place in my roleplay and my character now. I had started to let go, both of the pain I was feeling and clinging to being "me" and not a character. I found I could still be Katlin and myself, but have more fun with it and not let the RP effect me as much. Without the stress of having a character RP forced on me, I was a lot more comfortable...and partly pleased with myself how many people were mislead by my human looks...everyone simply assuming that if you are human you are good.

This is hardly true, in many fantasy based cultures, humans were given the right to choose, where as Elves are deemed always Light, and Drow are deemed always Dark....a human could pick any path...freewill.

The Drow I walked among hardly batted a lash as I continued to serve Stormy and Chance, it was usually the newer minions that arrived that questioned me. But as now a proven and loyal minion, and one of only 3 Dark Sages, I held a lot of respect, all of which, I hope and tried hard to earn and keep.

In Everwinds history there have only been a handful of Dark Humans. Samo was most the most notable, from day one of Everwind's opening he came and swore himself to the Drow, and on the day it closed he was still there. Seat would venture into darkness a few times, torn by either a curse or oath, he could always spin a wonderful character to play off of. I recall only one other human, Crom, but rarely active. And then there was me....*smiles*.

And you would think the Realm would have to fear Drow, but they knew what they looked like and could see them coming. Dark Humans, unless you knew, you wouldn't know what hit you till it was too late.

I think a returning point for me came not long after, Samo and I were killing time in the Cathedral. The Realm was quite, and we were getting bored, it was just one of those few nights that Everwind was quiet and RP dried up. Depending on which of us talks about that night, will blame the other *grins* that the events to follow was never their idea, and that they were only the one following.

Samo taught me a great deal of understanding to being a dark human, a minion, and also focusing on keeping true to the roleplay. That night we rode together to the main village and hitched our horses to a tree, gathered our weapons and crawled up the steep side of the hill leading to the Human Castle. In what would be an epic RP for us, we would fill the night...almost 3 full hours of struggling around the outer rim of the castle, hiding from patrolling Knights, and slipping quietly inside the castle.


Getting in was half the trouble. Rath had seen to putting doors at the throne room balconies, and we did not realise this till we were already on the back side of the castle. 2 hours of roleplaying finally goes us around pillars, down to different levels of ledges and to an open balcony....tut tut Rath, you forgot one *grins*.

We slipped inside, did the usually minion mischief...sat on the King and Queen's thrones, left a picture of Apos in front of them. We could have done worse, we could have lit the castle on fire, but we had gone into this expecting to be captured and we had come so far....I was scared of my mind, but I didn't care, I was having the time of my life.

Leaving didn't take us nearly as long, but Samo kept the RP in check, we grappled our way down the side of the castle and made for our horse, spurring them towards the Dark Valley and to safety! We made it!

We presented our task to Stormy, who was rather happy with what we had done. Grace was rolling her eyes at us OOC for something original *shrugs*....and Rath...a few days later her got around to returning the picture of Apos to me, then was sure to add doors to the balcony we had climbed through.

*holds her finger to her lips in a secretive smile* Even with passwords to open doors and get inside, there is always an RP way to break into a castle *winks*.

I am going to dedicate this entry to King Samo and Queen Katlin.....hehe...even if it was just for 5 minutes.