One, Miscontinues

Before: I’ve spent 2-4 days rifling thru Merlin files, converting to gdocs, noting and adding, pushing out and padding plotlines toward M4 and after spending half a day prepping the remaining source material, and another half conscious day plugging it into a rough draft of M3-Act_V, and choosing to reread M3, instead deciding to read it all. 

After: Okay, two days later and I can’t believe I forgot so much, in some ways sorry it was written, or that you had to read thru typos and metaphors, or even the dark and adult temperature of it all, or where that had gone, but now I can do M2 for a few days. Not for nothing, I abbreviated some action and cleared some questions, and there are major spoilers ahead, but there’s a revisionist telling here for a single sitting, and something to catch us up on the logistics of M1 before the motions of M3-M4 continue. For now...

The quarantine version of:

Merlin: Gateways




M1.1 (~2007) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2008/11/merlin1.html

Merlin loudly wins a challenge, seemingly composed afterwards. I remember being post technical.




M1.2 (Jan 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/01/merlin-2.html

Alright, so this Troy is supposed to be his son, but I hadn’t decided on it yet, because he’s leaving home with Merlin. After jest, Merlin magics a fire, buries a stranger, opens the stars, and rests. He microwaves a chicken, and they’re off in jest. Until meeting a haymaker.




M1.3 Medusa (Jan 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/01/merlin-3-medusa.html

Upgrade: Titles. The haymaker describes the city, and a traveling education in magic. Wow, the guest is Troy...a marble stops robbers, Troy keeps it. The city has fictional animals, Merlin has business with a member of a society, Troy explores intently and learns about vampire mercenaries for the city. Netheros, vampire city, which I’d forgotten about to use again later. Part of a network of cities. The city wall is inside a larger city. Apparently, Troy is Merlin’s son at this point. The locals are suspicious. Queen Medusa looks like her portraits, after a political discussion they enter a map room, and a mapmaker named Marc.




M1.4 The Open Door World (Jan 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/01/merlin-4-open-door-world.html

Troy rests, Merlin looks at maps, vampires don’t have babies this is ridiculous. Medusa attempts to intrigue Troy. Still swapping past/present tense, still angry and capitalizing names, a special map is made. A little confused, if Merlin intends to see Ana, then Troy/Ana already met for a chronological error at least. Leaving a dry coastal castle, more marbles and eventually the map points to a prairie with a giant smashed clock the size of a hamlet. In the antechamber of the nine worlds, the younger trope, quantum leap. A guardian calls Merlin a Phoenician, and I don’t remember why, so don’t ask. A road between mounds, among other foreshadowing, it’s possibly telling that Troy wakes up at noon in broad daylight, and did the marbles change color?




M1.5 Fairgrove (Feb 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/02/merlin-5-fairgrove.html

Title from a paring knife. At mention of the cauldron a vague answer, a star falls from the sky and Troy finds a familiar egg. Missing posessive’s comma, and possibly shoes, he adopts the phoenix who loves pomegranates from a cartoon i watched in youth. Obsidian sphere FTW and a dirty joke later, in the year of the fish, raining on the city and dry white mud, the bird grows faster than I remembered. Skybeam! Stockyards and light against the rain for a city of giants.




M1.6 Empire (July 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/07/merlin-6-empire.html

Deluge withdraws, still using past-tense illusion, in sight of mountains a city glows. Merlin and Troy speak of cities and meet Ana. Was instead of were, yoshi pets, to Ana’s oceanside cafe. She’s introduced as Merlin’s sister, but that could be a lie. Merlin plays magic with a coin and speaks to city soldiers, the coin makes a picture of a palm tree and the wind picks up, consumer of smoke, mean to them for interrupting. The bird still eats coal, in coals, as Ana teaches Troy how to teach a bird. A magic bowstring doesn’t burn, temporarily it’s used to weld sand. They mention Mars the White Shadow as being the local magistrate, Neptune the lagoon creature appears, Ana covers/hides for the bird. Troy asks a patron about the mountain, and it’s implied that he’s related to dragons, which is news to me. The water creature dives at the shore and the patron, only to trade some precious stones with Ana, and eat a bucket of fish leftovers. The arctic tribe is ready for the southern tribe coming up the coast, but the city and the mountain are still making preparations. A southern scout ship opens fire on a flying creature, followed by red fog that shakes the lightning of a dark sky, but the southern raiders are here. Ana whisks Troy to a nearby forest. I don’t remember these being as long or why so much emphasis on Troy being young.




M1.7 The Mountain (November 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/11/merlin-7-mountain.html

Merlin walks slow, thinking, more than one sun, a thief takes the purse of ashes and it becomes an anvil on his hand, Merlin speaks with the boy’s kinsman about the Long Summer, pays the kid for amazement, dumping the sandbag they stand in the street, they talk. Merlin enters the castle main, a king and kids on pillows in the middle of the castle maze. Picture of four people and a swan, and a partially hidden aged stone painting. The skybeam is a magic circle around the king, a temple acting as a throne. Merlin and king Horus the Aramaic, one more friendly than the other, Merlin demystifies and a jester mistakes him for an intruder, but only runs into Merlin flatly, a conflict disapproved by the king, but applauded by the children. Merlin was weak enuf that magic came with physical cost. Merlin drinks a lot, hears about Pantograph, the northernmost city in the world, the border state of Vanir, and ancient fires on the mountain relit with the recurrence of wartime, and the ‘other shore’ even messaging the southern forces. They use a magic cauldron, something about feathers perhaps from the egg’s progenitor, and it gives them a vision - a dark cloud, a flying beast, and a skyship, grounding the creature near the City of Light. The cauldron mages zoom in on the crash, Horus wants its blood and talks about two fliers from the Malek clan who wanted open cattle trade b/c of overhunting, and naming the water the Amarna Sea. Horus intends on opening a Cipher’s Gate, and Merlin’s the only one who can get there in time. The same jester Thomas will go with him, Horus wants the jester Thomas to go to the Chimera Estate, but Thomas corrects him calling it the Dragon Castle. They suit up and hit the alchemist, a stranger passes them, the tent prepares to relocate as Merlin knocks Thomas out.




M1.8 Rise (November 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/11/merlin-8-rise.html

Cloudy, with an 8-sided die Merlin rolls 8 on a bear, then finds the crash site. Misty, finding a lot of unfortunate armor and weapons at the entrance, cliffside and peak. Merlin makes sangromancy from the dead hunter, in the path of fire or electricity he’s much higher up the mountain, and there stands Nick, wow thought this was later. So, he knows of Merlin? When it rains it pours in the high city of stone, Nick is interviewing Merlin as they walk thru the Ice Kingdom of the Light Bringers. Thru the mountain city to a sky temple. Merlin pins Nick and demands a backstory, overlooking the clouds, which he kinda gets in reference to Court of the Angelicas, of an ancient past flashback sold separately, but detailing the state of Roseroth, and Castle of Siena. Static in the air, Merlin chooses to have the guards leave Nick outside. Ethereal magic makes Merlin’s hidden tattoos begin to warm, whoops I accidentally called Nick-Thomas. Children ask Merlin if he’s here to help Aedan, Merlin is met by the Dragon King of the Chimera, taken to Aeden as his spouse Alexis watches and a doctor named Deacon. They heal the wounded flier, ready to take the blood Merlin has to implore King Draco, after discussing the poachers approach from the south Merlin wins consent. So weird, the vampires are born, but dragons are converted...and Alexis (Tocqueville?) seems to also be the first officer. Merlin asks questions about having children, but while implying Nick is his son, to buffer possible conflicts of interest. Nick talks to dragon children, then looks for Merlin. Why are these halls always dark? Eventually sitting in the king’s private quarters, eating his food. Still ignoring time constraints they talk instead of heading back down the mountain, the bread should be toast by now. Nick admits to being from our earth, they’re looking at the tops of clouds. Mureil is probably the dragon queen, and I called Nick-Thom again, or Thomas made it to mountaintop, okay it was to watch sunrise over heaven. Blatant confirmation, Merlin likes to drink, Nick likes to eat, perhaps making them human compared to vampiric and draconic traits. Uh-oh, the city of light is blinking, and the southern armada arriving, before surprising armada scouts, Nick rolls a 1 and the bear smoshes him, Merlin dropkicks and ends the bear, but wouldn’t it be nice if the bear gets up and thinks it was the scouts?




M1.9 The Blood Curtain (December 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/12/merlin-9-blood-curtain.html

Nick comes back to life and some of the blood they need is lost, and the scouts of the Red Army are near, he fights them covered in his own blood, they throw gunpowder into Nick’s eyes, and Merlin magically explodes it, putting one over the bluff. Merlin stops Nick from murder and scares-off the rest with a Darkstone, only to regret not stopping them. The city under attack, an ice-ship approaches, and Merlin sees Ana and Troy escaping. The lights fall and the fires rise, water-light mists and floats from the city center, a red guard approaches, but it’s Horus disguised. He orders Merlin to make the magic gate, he asks about Ana. There’s something special to Merlin about Horus’ dagger, but after a warning of Totem mercenaries and bugs, green fires fill the shadows of the city and the bug-men defeat the tower defenses of the inner castle. They have to get thru a Totem warrior, animal traits, this one insectoid to fill the menagerie, perhaps an avoidable timeline. As witches arrive, they fight into the city, action sequence, still calling Nick-Thomas or the jester is contributing. Nick is quick and pounces from a doorway, I would’ve liked to have him say ‘they always use the doorway’ or something...it takes a picture to open Cipher’s Gate, and they pick the oldest one. Two Totems try to stop them, they don’t, and Merlin realizes what the painting depicts, but we don’t. The king jumps in, but his dudes should probably go with, as the portal closes. One more baddie then the city rumbles, and the ice ships are being boarded, off the coast of a classical Greek city apparently. Shocker, the ice ships melt, as pirates board the wooden ships, and ice dragons emerge from the icy water and cause more damage, and the suns set. Merlin’s focus turns on the forest.




M1.10 Valley of Thorns (December 2009) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2009/12/merlin-10-valley-of-thorns.html

Nick sees Merlin is thinking, moonlight, silently walking, they find some cultists performing a sacrifice, and Merlin and Nick pretend to be summoned and after some magic, Nick rises from the dead and announces he’s going to eat them, Merlin glows except for tattoos, and they bolt, leaving the supper. A chilly morning, they walk casually with wolves on their own nearby trail circling a den of rodents, a dry forest floor, and a rocky valley opening from the forest. A new scene with signs of sacrifice, but nobody around in the small valley of roses. I remember this being rewritten for less horror. A cabin, a tunnel of roses and a pathway of rose petals, and a butcher. The butcher is painting the roses red, and calls them out. Merlin stops Nick, the butcher grabs a rosethorn whip and black magic. The butcher uses magic, but Merlin uses magic and Horus’ dagger, the thorny vine part of the butcher also used against him. Checking wounds Merlin finds the thorns are also seeds. Nick takes a jacket. Merlin’s wounds heal in the moonrise. They go to search the cabin, wow these chapters are long. I was on the wrong side, and I knew what we were doing was wrong, he seemed to say as they don’t let it go to waste. A wolf stares then leaves, I’m unsure if the wolf is the stranger in the alchemy tent. Wolves are happy the devil is dead, impatiently waiting for Merlin to leave them the body. Roses face and follow them thru the garden, the ferngully ends with rocky terrain, a trickling stream and small footpath, with Ana and Troy waving from the bottom, waiting for the phoenix to stop playing. A road into the distance splits at a city.




M1.11 The Shadow’s Edge (January 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/01/merlin-11-shadows-edge.html

Ana in water, exits and makes a toga from Vin’s cape, even tho we don’t know what happened to him and his pregnant wife. The phoenix can’t keep eating the fire’s coals, jumps into a pond with wildlife and something bubbles. Troy falls asleep. By morning the phoenix sleeps just above bogwater, and Vince and his wife are here, good for them. Vin is a dick and chucks something at the bird waking everyone up, Ana’s magic presents while she assumes the worst. False alarm, and the phoenix crawls across the swampwater to Troy. Sunrise glare makes the phoenix look white. It latches into the dirt and makes heat, Troy reaches for it, but everyone stops him. A fiery cleaning process, and Ana apparently isn’t hiding the phoenix from Terra and Vin like in the previous chapter. Ana trains the bird, coaxes it into making fire, and Vin drops firewood on the bird. He and the bird begin to argue and get more wood. They wonder where Merlin is, Troy chats up Ana, he asks about Merlin, and Terra doesn’t trust Troy, but the bird amuses her. Everyone passing the time in wait, they go thru Nick’s book, Ana’s pleased to learn it’s encoded. A wyvern pops out of the water, smaller than a pony, larger than a pure dragon, leaping at Troy, but the water droplets anger the phoenix, attacking and unable to glide it flies with it into the ground, half-sized fire opens the bite, twice-sized fire stuns it, and combat finishes it. Ah, because Merlin and Nick are that far up the difficult mountain. Nick’s feet roll in the gravel at sight of Ana.




M1.12 The Orphan Wraith (February 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/02/merlin-12-orphan-wraith.html

Nick stands, Merlin introduces him, she stands without the cape, and they introduce themselves, give Troy a bow from the butcher’s cabin, and Nick asks what happened with diverted focus. Merlin plans to part ways and has to tell Ana twice because of Nick. Merlin says Troy is also of Midgard. They went to Ilion, and Merlin with Nick to the Hall of the Mountain King, after parting with Troy, while Nick was distracted. Now, Merlin and Nick go north, the mountain ahead of them has one flat side, traveling thru the wolf moon. They find a young body, beneath a hawk and in a hoof crater, and with magic...and Nick’s exposition statement...a ghost stands wearing his former body. When he notices Merlin and Nick he asks about his assailants as if recent relevance, walking from the spot makes the wraith evil with distance, they ask it for direction, after staring at the mountains and closing its eyes tells them about the peak. The wraith’s movements reveal hallucination before feeling Merlin’s thirst to drink, the wraith apologizes for being thirsty, offers to join them, as Merlin and Nick decline, but then it begins raining and washes the magic away.The mountain defies size as they reach the mentioned base camp against the slant.




M1.13 Mont Blanc (March 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/03/merlin-13-mont-blanc.html

Weak title. Altitude and mining town, further up ice grass, stairs, binary moons, town fires below, electric lights above, halfway point, upright centrifugal windmills, where dark tunnels would be warmer, steps of ice, plenty of surveillance scouts, Merlin shows his wrist and a tattoo emerges matching the mountain peoples’, the air is too thin for Nick. He’s carried to the top as a long evening becomes clear night, indoors is a well lit Citadel of the Frozen Throne, a market or workshop, frosty as the locals pack meat of unknown origin, and as Nick freezes they don’t. Nick gets a winter coat by their standards, after entering palace doors they see writers, the king and queen look like they’re made of snow while wearing minimalist furs. Amused by his shivering, interrupted by a sentencing of a criminal, punished by the king’s staff electrocuting him into kneeling, then ordering 20 days lockup. Merlin calls the king’s heirs ‘the winter warmth’ as they reminisce, the lower gate of the south is closed for an isolated culture from cities drawing population, while the queen eyes Nick. Merlin warns of Horus’ having used Cipher Gate, the king intuits the painting as its substrate, and Nick entertains Sapphire Ice Wine and the queen on a tour for Merlin to talk to the king. She takes Nick to her bedroom, adds a potion to melt water, it dilutes and keeps her warm as she mentions the Dark Equinox, the drink makes him much warmer. They watch people with fires on ice, as giant spiders rise from it are met by soldiers as it begins snowing. She gives Nick an iron mug from a closet so he won’t break another mug of ice. Torchbearers rush the spiders, and fight them. Spiders are brought-in by hockey players, and a complacency spell, torches of raw electricity, lashes out as the queen oversees. Fires remain on the ice during sunset, locking in the spider for diamonds when Nick reaches for one he’s knocked-out. Meanwhile, the king drinks, takes Merlin to a seer who calls Merlin a praetorian, this might be adding the author to the story, sees Merlin’s hands, says something weird, falls asleep looking into a crystal ball, and when awoken mentions the Man of Black Smoke. Nick wakes among men asleep with welding goggles, and has to explain his accent and why he’s not dead for the first time. Merlin joins, the king kills a spider just in time, and they give Merlin the spider’s Eye Diamond, and presumably Nick and Merlin travel the longer side of the mountain toward the others.




M1.14 Vainglory (April 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/04/merlin-14-vainglory.html

Nope, still haven’t left, Merlin has some wine and Nick gets up while the king tries to not smile, Nick drops a bloody double axe and the spider is more dead, they drink/partake pieces of the other broken spider eye. The king carves a section of diamond-like armor from it, and drinks spider blood toasting to man. Nick checks his pockets and Merlin announces departure. The slope has a road like a snake leading down from the frozen lake in a dormant volcano. Merlin enchants a seer’s necklace and gives it to Nick, and a raven gets sick of following them. A wraith emerges with the mountain behind them,but is lost to the wind as they walk. Sunlight adds to the stream and evening freezes it over and they snowboard down the mountain or something. At the bottom they hear high Windsong, and enter the fields. A black animal stalks at night, causes an explosion, and in the distraction a vampire ends many and holds a religious person hostage, then dumps the gunpowders. This vampire is named John, he plants explosives around them, and walks from the explosion thru the cemetery. John in the city gets more explosives until it stops raining, and meets the Chimera Demon in public. Physical traits of many predators, a werewolf minion/enforcer with him by the name of Fenris, as the public gather for a pontiff's speech. He bans explosives, John slips into the clergymen once over and whispers something to the pontiff, as the Chimera drinks something green the pontiff turns green, and falls behind them leaving. Chimera questions John if the pontiff has a double, some rando gets scared-off, and now John is in trouble with the demon master. Chimera cuts John’s throat and eats an eye, damn, before hexing John to hell, damn. A tear in the wall becomes a hole to a venomous landscape, Fenris appears wolf-like as the border burns and Chimera orders Fenris to finish the assassination. Ok, back to Ana with the others staring at an intersection of town, at a shop counter/window with Merlin and Nick approaching in the distance, a thief steals from Ana and in a twist he’s got her at knifepoint, the shopkeep begs as Ana threatens, suddenly Ana gets hot and Nick saves the thief’s life by taking part of the electrical shock. Merlin orders funds surrendered for release and surrounded by them the thief does. The shopkeep happy and Nick in new armor, they enter pub The Fetter’s Ampoule disturbing a raven on the door, until evening. They debate the acceptance of magic, fat dudes enter, Merlin describes magic being from the gods and their war, then talks to the fat men. Outside, a thief threatens the Chimera and gets grasped, and Fenris updates his master of the midnight plan, and then fucks off into public. Chimera enters the bar, bankers can’t hit Merlin, Chimera (chameleon) magics a local out-of money and Merlin lets it happen. The next to try hitting Merlin brags and misses, it’s about to end Nick and they drag him to the alley as the Chimera laughs at the thrower’s tears and apologies. Nick reenters, Chimera wants Nick and waits, avoiding Merlin’s potential. Nick barely notices everyone getting drunk, goes to relieve himself, Chimera brushes Merlin then kidnaps Nick.




M1.15 Pandora’s Box (May 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/05/merlin-15-pandoras-box.html

Flashback...a princess named Pandora, Loki gives her the unopened Chest of All Souls, she opens it and goes mad, the king has the box magically resealed and buried under a new city. Presently...around a real-time map with Merlin looking for Nick’s necklace, to where it stops. Troy is told to wait it out. An abandoned stone fort in the swamp, Merlin and Ana get close while some servants help the Chimera into true form. Nick waits on stone as Merlin signals Ana, Fenris checks outside, clearing scrolls for a prophecy Chimera prepares to sacrifice Nick in circles resembling the real estate as four man-beasts attend. Nick might know what Chimera is attempting. Chimera and his symbols charge and the ceremony begins, as Troy peaks at the four and Chimera orchestrator. Fenris returns without trouble, is sacrificed for the ritual to unlock Pandora’s box, the pale king opens a second lock, the red bishop opens a third lock, the black knight opens a fourth lock, the golden rook opens a fifth lock, as smoke screams from the walls as the red warlock opens a sixth lock, the box summons a changing world as Nick threatens, they chant as Nick fears, and the box opens pouring aracana into the summoners, and Ana enters with fire. While they attack her Merlin drifts onto the scene, she uses Sun Flare and the Shield of Dawn to distract them as Merlin blasts and rescues Nick. Nick counts one foe missing. Merlin’s blast is turning the Chimera into a statue as they escape, a fiery circle and stones pummel the evil sanctuary, a spell turning all to stone and closing the box forces the Chimera to molt and painfully tear free from it.




M1.16 Eye of the Storm (May 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/05/merlin-16-eye-of-storm.html

A cloudy dawn, an empty cottage for a tired Nick and a phoenix too big to be inside of it, Merlin looks thru what he could grab and takes special notes. Troy is eager to learn magic. Ana lights a candle and encourages him. Troy strives to use magic as Merlin and Ana discuss him. The cottage books in the empty cottage comfort Merlin, as he advises the others to rest. An old Spellbook of Light on the shelf gives Merlin hope. At night the wind starts, it begs their attention. Merlin looks out, a tornado begins, Merlin dares Nick to fight a tornado with him, they run into the storm, and kick it’s ass.




M1.17 Smoke & Mirrors (May 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/05/merlin-17-smoke-and-mirrors.html

The ground is torn and Nick was tossed and Merlin was slightly blown, in the clearing a male and female both (and part of me wants them to be Vin and Terra turned into) vampires (from a missing chapter), seeing Merlin alive and assuming Nick is bloody dead, the two of them approach without noticing Merlin behind them, until unusual introduction. Nick gets up and stretches, they confess their storm-tested survivalist thirst assuming Merlin is a deity, but something spooks them and they literally disappear. Merlin and Nick brag one-upmanship, once returning the phoenix balks then rests with Nick before bending the roof and Troy scolds it. With a stone it leaves and glides our first noticing, with Merlin advising Troy to hide it when possible. He asks Troy to bring the phoenix close, Ana and Nick partner-up in watching, then Ana rests with Nick while Troy reads the Light manual. Merlin plans, as Nick pries him for their next move. Merlin tells Ana that the Light book unsettles him. Taking the book from Troy he shows her the cover, she knows what comes next and asks for Merlin’s words. The phoenix sleeps against a bushel of branches they take for fire thru the night, as he sleeps Troy’s skin smokes and wakes him in alarm, they struggle to find the source of smoke, Ana knows what Merlin isn’t eager to say. Merlin speaks, Ana gets the window as Merlin dismisses the incident. The Phoenix peaks into the room as they sleep, a sparrowhawk gets trounced by a murder of crows, and Merlin compares his plan to the bird’s. Nick prepares Troy’s first lesson with a choice of weapons, a few mistakes, in the distance Ana and Merlin discuss Troy’s magic. Nick tags Troy as Ana gives Nick a look, Troy asks Merlin what he’d whispered a hundred yards away to Merlin’s surprise, so he explains Troy’s magic. Nick stops the bleeding, Ana sees Nick with the scar, and Merlin challenges either Troy or Nick to spar and share words. Ana nudges Troy to challenge as Nick finishes the fight that Merlin wins without anger. Merlin has a torch and turns water and ash into a deceptive fog, where Ana praises the fire and Merlin praises water. It makes fog douse the torch, but they urge silence when they see a hunter, part of an eventual nomadic skavengers after the storm.




M1.18 Children of the Harvest Moon (June 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/06/merlin-18-children-of-harvest-moon.html

They go north to a sleepy town and sleep outside and see only old and young playing with dogs, the rocky countryside connects with rope bridges and caves with a disc over a bridge, the ropes make tones as the medium aged leap to the platform, they’re throwing fish ashore, while Merlin notices the rocky mountain community, a child fleeing something knocks Nick into the rapid water, as Merlin laffs the fishermen fail to catch Nick, the locals worry despite Merlin still laffing. They discuss the weather and wait for Nick, as Merlin reassures Ana he’ll return. Returning in a half-day Nick returns to the Nyssa peoples and astonished children. Nick offers a child blueberries and the kid possibly reads Nick’s mind, you be the judge, Nick asks for shoes and rests from the climb. Grey apple soup as a local royal asks Merlin for a favor, to slay the slaver in the mountain and Merlin agrees. The woman thanks him and holds her daughter, they eat a colorful fish with grey peoples.




M1.19 Suffer the Sky (June 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/06/merlin-19-suffer-sky.html

Ana convinces fighters to let Merlin enter the door with the words Door of the Dead on it alone, in the first tunnels bones and bodies and unattributed quotes, crude burial catacombs of mole people working in poor conditions, and promises them it’s almost over. The slaves fear light and the guards are blind but somehow mirror and mimic Merlin’s every move as he confronts them they approach and he ends one with a Firestone and demands to see their leader. They escort him lower, the slaver has veins of fire, and asks to be called Valence. Valence is gaunt except for giant arms as slaves worship him, and Merlin questions his sanity. His weapon is a mallet with a long handle, and defiant statement. Merlin flies to fight, but Valence burns and climbs the walls and laffs as Merlin gathers himself in a corridor, as Valence challenges and taunts him. Merlin swings around a corner with a sword and torch for only noise and embers, another challenge is met with profanity. Merlin throws an incendiary and looks for a better weapon, Valence approves of Merlin's tactics. Merlin uses tunnel-vision around a long curve, as Valence grows impatient. As he passes Merlin stabs him in the back and turns back, wasting a strike to the chest, Valence throws him over himself, and then pulls the blade out of his own back and turns to Merlin. Burning ashes into his eyes make them glow so Merlin runs over stone chips as Valence follows, calling Merlin a firefly. Chasing heavy stomps lead them outside to a plateau in a storm and Merlin turns to face, Valence exits the mountain, Valence in armor under storm rain and moonlight kneels and begs before rushing Merlin, Valence screaming strikes the ground he hits, letting Merlin exit with new friends. The queen's daughter hugs Merlin then tends to others.




M1.20 The Art of Dying (June 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/06/merlin-20-art-of-dying.html

Ooh a short one. An abandoned stone city cleaned by rain and nature, The Phoenician enters the quiet structures with red eyes, nature is the only sound here, wandering the forgotten city in the moonlight, a spirit animal of light presents itself, the situation presents itself that the Phoenician subsumes its power, with the daylight his powers change his perception of time in the ancient ruins, the dark electricity reveals a sphere of lightning he breaks to summon, someone from his past now happy to see him. A dream?




M1.21 Pyromania (June 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/06/merlin-21-pyromania.html

Swamp stones and silence brush against the Phoenix, Nick finds a phoenix feather that crumbles and Ana makes fire with it, they eat grapes and by morning Troy watches the bird fly until it quickly but quietly lands before him, another afternoon together mesmerised by nature as a spider crawls from the fire that only Phoenix notices too small for others as they sleep, Phoenix stares and when spider runs it steps and fans tail then pecks it dead, eating it changes color and rouses them. They return to sleep and the coals crawl from the earth a warrior of fire facing Phoenix, glow meets Nick’s dagger melting it as Merlin swings down at arm and Ana burns it only healing as the phoenix uses talons at its heart, the Fire Golem drags a protesting Nick. Nick being dragged stabs the demon and gets finished pausing to see Nick return and ends him again as Merlin slashes, one-on-one Merlin drifts from attacks and hides in shadow then takes a burn as the demon follows leaving burning handprint in a tree, as the demon makes a trail of fire Ana throws a wind of her wound as Bloodfire melting the demon’s ribs, Merlin cyclones the demon with its heat and Ana fills the cyclone air with fire melting into lava they interrogate it. Perhaps the demon is Anzu. Speaking in a dying language, they mourn its wasted waist-high throes. It might’ve reached for Merlin, but Troy strikes it down. Ana grants it fire, and Merlin grants it rain.




M1.22 The Vampire Queen (June 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/06/merlin-22-vampire-queen.html

A vampire queen rules the Council of Solace, a room of paintings and dark guards interrupted by a weakling messenger, she turns the hourglass and faces her throne as her apprentice speaks, but a second messenger enters named Hansel. The queen drifts to him and looms, and learns of a dispute between Atlantis and Caledonia. She lords over him as he grips his hat, she gives him wine to his relief and a stranger watches the interaction, perhaps a Knight of the Obsidian Order, who assumes the worst and she isn’t impressed. The stoic queen mixes black and red, and decrees one empty chest of each tribe given gold or she’ll reign them. The messenger serves her message to wait until she requests them. The scout leaves, she orders total death, and the knight concurs. She looks thru window at her henchmen. The vampire princess without reflection brushes hair beside her shadow with the queen spying, doting on her daughter, who debates what being human was, as she assures the princess there is no threat. The princess moves a chess piece forward, the queen moves the king piece then leaves the room. Before it rains, the queen’s family is now joined by her brother-prince and rulers of house Lemniscates, the queen exits and the princess with fewer guards is the center of attention, under the symbol of the Obsidian empire a lieutenant consoles the prince. One side of the room laffs, the other toasts. The prince raises a drink, and makes a toast that the king interrupts with a broader truth returning from wherever. The king walks on bootheels, bringing human slaves, the queen formally acknowledges. These slaves are possible recruits and one in a cage, which the queen approves-of. He honors the queen and she him while others sit still as he leaves, the pale-eyed princess entertaining as the prince adores her until the queen interviews the lieutenant. She asks him about the conquest. She tests his commitment to the cause. She drinks blood and instils fear to human hearts, and interrogates the prince. The prince shifts attention to his own ranks, as the queen rattles the groom. The bride and groom are happy, as is the queen. The lieutenant’s fighters are armored, he toasts to the occasion. It’s a coup as they steal the groom, the princess demands answers. The queen admits selling the princess daughter to the Obsidian king (of all vampires) and she protests. The groom fights unsuccessfully, as the queen mocks him. They maul him as he warns the princess to save herself. Avoiding a chosen unknown future the princess leaps thru the window, the queen disowns her there. The prince effortlessly only cares for entertainment.




M1.23 The Moonlit Mistress (July 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/07/merlin-23-moonlit-mistress.html

It’s dark as an open grave, beneath the night the vampire princes starts a new chapter of afterlife, picking a midnight flower another vampire suitor approaches, only to learn they are both undead, and with some hesitation they hit it off and share a makeshift resting place. Blond & Brunette, they sleep as only two vampires can.




M1.24 Apostasy (July 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/07/merlin-24-apostasy.html

In grain farmland where tiny flowers grow two suns cradle the horizon until dusk, a world where the Chimera has long attacked peace, the three monks from an earlier chapter do their ritualistic chores,the Chimera knocks them out one by one, dragging the three to worse fate as one opens eyes, he begs his brothers to wake and witness. He hears them and stares them down, to warn them to relax. When two wake he offers dinner to two of them. He reads their holy book giving them time to long for freedom and listen to his lies, he quotes their book with scary words. One screams to forest eyes and Chimera intimidates him, they deconstruct what the other disbelieves. He starts fire and sharpens an old blade on new coals as the forest vampires Blond & Brunette watch, captor and captive negotiate for the benefit of doubt. Unable to escape Chimera and his recent wounds sees one of the vampires and questions two ill fates, having heard the cries the vampires spy at the heavy demon. They watch concerning his size and speed, the survivors bargain with promises. They challenge Chimera, he declines with an insult. He points to their friend, the vampires distract and hold Chimera at knifepoint, ordering him to take a hike and leave the humans. He needs their marrow and sweeps taking a knife to the vampire girl who poorly fights, he realizes they are vampires. Her suitor reattacks, and he taunts him for it. Chimera stares into the forest and offers the humans for their vampiric blood. Waiting for an answer, he offers them his wine. As Chimera pours the vampire cuts himself, Chimera grabs him by the arm to force out the thick vampire blood, the demon cuts his arm and feeds her then him and tells them to hurry. They enjoy it as the monks whisper, Chimera intimidates them. Drinking vampires glow and then float intoxicated, Chimera takes what he needs and excuses his own actions. Chimera leaves on black horse, the vampires are content. The vampires realize the humans are there, but release them without hunger. One is freed and freed the other, the other one attacks the vampires. He swings the torch his final time, the vampire princess releases his honest friend.




M1.25 Shadows Fall (July 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/07/merlin-25-shadows-fall.html

Autumn moonlight owls give way to morning ravens, glass spheres and burning horizons as constant vision, the surviving monk isn’t sleeping well seeing demons in the darknesses.




M1.26 Disconnected (July 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/07/merlin-26-disconnected.html

A vicar’s barn-house office of dust and footsteps an author ages, an aging home and older books where something is missing, his box of distractions taken to a desk of empty vials except for one he mixes for himself and the full moon, the Chimera dismounts outside the home, a quiet march up weak steps toward hints of blood where the demon tastes the glass only to spit it out, and gives the vicar an alternate ending. The vicar’s ancient language and Oroborus symbols fade at midnight beneath the demon’s blade, and cuts his voice to prevent incantation, and mixing all available bloods the chimera makes a new potion to painfully heal his wounds.




M1.27 A Light in a Darkened World (July 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/07/merlin-27-light-in-darkened-world.html

The air has cooled and Merlin travels again with his family, Troy is tanner, the phoenix is almost big enuf to ride, and Nick and Anna hold hands and discuss having pets, she smiles at him and this pleases him, ready to rest they need evening shelter and follow the road to an old barn-house, something watches them as the stovepipe smokes and the windows flash bright enuf to blind, Merlin leads them into the house to inspect, it smells of the vicar and the forest, Merlin calls Nick. Nick checks it out and Merlin pushes ahead over creaky floors thru shadows while Ana and Troy check the first area, of which Merlin and Nick assume the worst. Merlin and Nick check upstairs as Nick looks over papers Merlin finds the quitter, Ana checks the perimeter and calls it safe. Ana enters the building with Troy and phoenix outside, a book with the Ouroboros symbol intrigues Ana, the smell of blood attracts the vampire lovers, and Merlin recognizes the book in Ana’s hands and chooses to stay for the night. Merlin analyzes the vicar’s things and doesn’t notice the vampire princes in the windowsill, and when he notices her standing where the blood should’ve sprayed she’s staring and the blood on the floor, she mentions it was the vicar’s tarot fate. Merlin reexamines the tarots on the desk, and asks her why she killed the vicar, only to be unsure of her answer. The two vampires stare in wait, his disgust meets their shared inquiry for the earlier flash. They let Merlin search the desk until disgust, one last question checking their awareness and excuses himself. Merlin leaves with the artifacts of the vicar, the vampire princess announces her delay to join. The male vampire is wearing vicars’ clothes and closes the door with her over the pool as Merlin leaves, Anna reads the Ouroborus book, explaining the book describing a haunted unlocked house. Troy forces the phoenix to stay outside, but then the phoenix prevents him from going inside until he sneaks into a window, Ana understands the vicar’s book, but not it’s meaning and shows it to Merlin. She breaks focus to give him the book, Merlin explains the spellcraft involved and his encounter with the vampires upstairs. They share drinks and light candles, eventually asking if him mentioning vampires was a sly joke. The vampire princess stands atop the stairs, explaining her need to walk with Merlin and the others instead of the cold swamp. Her boyfriend sits against the window, Merlin agrees to temporary allies. They start a fire and describe their royal pasts as Ana teaches Nick the old language and learning the stories, despite Merlin examining a diamond and distrusting the vampires. Outside Chimera waits for them to leave, careful black magic to hide from the phoenix, he sees Merlin and gets furious, the wind brings the night closer and they show their vampire abilities like magic tricks. They show how they can glide, but begin to stagger, the vicar’s drink pollutes them, the Chimera hexes their toxins worse thru tears of blood, as runes begin magic Merlin’s diamond spins, and helps the vampires going thru fever and visions of sunfire, the diamond spins until it breaks.




M1.28 The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion (July 2010) https://mjbanks.blogspot.com/2010/07/merlin-28-subtle-arts-of-murder-and.html



Bright light from the explosion as Merlin takes a knee and shields, unable to dream heal vampires and forced to fight, Ana’s fire magic turns threat to smoke, the phoenix protects Troy, Nick revives from suffocation. Chimera stands in the yard and Merlin rushes him, Nick throws a dagger into its chest and Ana sets it on fire, Chimera tosses her and pulls it out, Chimera crushes a rune in hand and heals from moonlight. The demon kicks and sends Ana flying from ground to distance, Troy shoots and misses and Merlin shouts, a second arrow draws Chimera’s attention, which causes the phoenix to take Troy far away, giving Nick time to attack expertly. Merlin and Ana team-up, Nick regenerates and three attack together, between Nick and Merlin, Ana stabs Chimera in the back. The healing effort supports winning, Nick attacks and is thrown at her, Ana puts a fiery dagger in Chimera’s back, it screams. Ana turns air into fiery rain with burning eyes, the backdraft tosses the weighty demon screaming thru debris. Reaching for runes Merlin severs the demon’s hand, it pleads with time. Nick moves to cut the other, but an arrow from on high strikes palm releasing tar, it is dusk now and Merlin calls for pause. Nick prepares a deathblow, but is halted by the cries of crawling sickly vampires.

Merlin 3.65 Sweven and Hearth

Merlin 3.65 Sweven and Hearth

Ana falls asleep from any combination of fear, pain, exhaustion, and distress.

In her dream she forgets all that has happened, and sits upon a blanket in a field in sweltering heat of summer, and as a fire witch enjoys the sunlight with a smile, a snake slithers by into the grass, she looks at a cloud that giver her fear because it brings darkness across the land, in thunder and lightning there is no breeze, hundreds of ravens awake and fly from trees until the lightning is hidden, the thunder dies and lightning strikes a fire into the grasslands, startled by the sound she grasps her stomach, confused but not scared, the fire sprites and wisps accompany her to a warm breeze that carries her to safety, and encircles her to protect her from damage, she bathes in the flames of the burning cyclone amongst raging burning pastures, the cold air nearly pouring from above, she fears burning and a moment later the world is ash, her connection lost, her magic telling her senses there is nothing left to burn, screaming at the burnt world her voice does not sound, roses grow from the ash unearthing countless stones covered in runes and the fertile earth, the wind blows and she knows what candles fear, she convinces herself again and again that water will come for the roses and she mustn’t fear it, time stands still and she with it and must ponder the sensation of eternity, then in darkness sees herself out of body on the world below herself, in the abyss the stars begin perforating the darkness, the stars explode to blinding light, and she opens her eyes.

She is awake, and is about to give birth.  

M363 + Shadow of a Soul

Merlin + 3:63 + Shadow of a Soul

Close to ground of stone and soil is a fog thinner than whisper, enough that dew drops permeate the slope of a moonlit mountainside, the basin of bog and willows a valley of purity and moonlight, as stars and ethereal sky cover everything aside a tall and endless spine of mountainous ridge that distantly bifurcates many times with the great triumvirates of mountain, mystery, and night. Calm and quietus as her mighty egret carries Kylesa Mara above reflective ponds, in air it knows not day or night, the phoenix and rider Troy wait for her near the summit where the dins of battle cannot yet be heard, for this is the side of peacefulness where reflection of light from white feathers glows into his much radiant eyesight. In the same moment the avian opens for her landing beneath its wings faintly echoes the sound of conflict.

O’er the mountain, its other side much darker, the moon hangs as an angle of it, to look downward at the sight of dangerous edges and hidden mosses, dark shadows beneath each crag and jagged spiny scale of the granite, filling age-long cracks with weeds to blindly pull in disaster. This ground to climb unwelcoming by the blindfolded enemies and worse by the moonlight making villains into werewolves only on the heads of boulders, making them targets to the eyeless on the shadow-stricken rise. If not a werewolf oneself, imagine wounds that only heal in moonlight as Sino’s army attacks. Never slipping they slash at beasts who can pull into shadows to hide in mortality, dragging their wounded into being surrounded where the advantage is to the servants of the moonlight, and in this conflict even the men with the scarves on their eyes are still human, their stamina tested and having rested, despite the artifacts of protection to thicken skins or kindle dark magic’s purest sins, agility of foot and speedily stepping on the fallen as if the night ground were memorized.

A few torches lay aground strewn, flickering firelights against their faces distracted, a howl behind a stone from wounded hybrid without his moonlight magic, he is alone and restless, and then he is surrounded, but he smiles with bloodied face, for they are the surrounded. The mountainside is indolent and quiet as it swallows desolate echoes with fog and grass.

Werewolves feeding in the distance on the guards of the mountain, at their boundary new screams for new blood for new feeding rites of passage and power of healing, as the last man leaves the shadows for the passing moonlight he becomes a stoic wolf and feeds on the cursed.

A distant darkness serves silent footsteps where the earth sleeps, the trees hold their breath in fear of dropping leaves in her presence, Lilith, the first bloodborn, walks thru shadows like withering waves up the mountain, she is invisible in the moonlight and silent in darkness to the blindfold-men, a face of rage she does not blink. Her path is purposed and clear, passing by fighters for the violence, as blood familiar and new sprays into the wind, the bloodshed sprays on her face and lips is the smell in the air and taste on her fingers as her eyes become night.

As the night builds to crash across the sunset valley behind the other side of the mountains, the many caverns are a contrast of torches and inescapable blackness, where we find Sino balancing both, torch in left hand, a potion in the other that swirls three dark colors, his hand trembles, his eyes frenetic like panicked sleep as he drinks it. He calms unnecessarily, with eyes closed he hears the coven footsteps of intruders and digs his heels turning in the dirt.

The sound of a growing stormy sky becomes one with clashing steel and shield, a fist strikes a claw. Sino puts the necklace received from Belladonna around his wrist, firmly but cautious of the tunnel exits. Vampires approach the cavern, silent steps carrying sternly carried leather armor and the occasional scar, emptying themselves slowly into the open.

Uriel: Do – not – walk more!
Sino: A command… …by f* who…?
Vermillion: I am Vermillion.
Sino: How colorful.
Vermillion: I’ve come for the blood of traitors.
Sino: You’ve come for the blood of the undead?
Vermillion: Have you cheated death?
Sino: So many this day could be the anniversary of it. Have I cheated you?
Vermillion: If I find you’ve granted a stay to my betraying minions, so you have.
Sino: Their crime?
Vermillion: Stealing an immortal not theirs.
Sino: Tall like a corn stalk, funny even with a dagger in his heart?

Ana cries with her heart of fear and soul of desperation loudly from the next room.

Ana: I KNOW OF WHERE THEY ARE, THEY TOOK ME FROM HIM, THAT MONSTER BETRAYS YOU IN THIS MOMENT, I WILL TAKE YOU TO THEM!
Sino: You are many and this is your mountain, search it readily, but my guest, she won’t be taken.
Vermillion: Why wait to stop us…. (smile)….no dragon, Sino?
Sino: To hell with you!

Sino raises his hand and the green magic of the stone covers them, a pain and anguish as many escape others suffer verdant fire making them claw at the ground. Sino’s soldiers run into the cavern beginning to help him stab the accursed.

Blindfolded Man (Velen): Wolves attack, we are losing our numbers!
Sino: Dammit!

Sino puts his hand to the blind-soldier’s chest, the heart slows then stops. The blind soldier feels cold, green magic thunders thru him appearing as a green vapor warmth.

Sino: Vimond, you are my greatest soldier, but you will only survive if others die.
Vimond: I understand, I will destroy what I see.

The blindfolded soldier leads others toward vampires within the tunnels, Sino looks at his own hand to see it glow, the radiance courses into him and his eyes cloud, the soldier he touched runs with a fainter aura than the rest.

Vermillion walks around looking at things in the high-mountain dungeon and reminiscing at the walls, the blindfolded soldier that Sino had touched charges at them, but they the vampires are too skilled to defeat, almost taunting the blind, but refuse to fight the soldier without a heartbeat, shunned from conflict and outright ignored.

As the vampire monarch taps his finger on something, the blind-soldier wanders at the sound of the ticking dethklok, the vampires are confused by the fading heart and dragging feet, stumbling toward their monarch in timeless fashion, but with a failing heart falls forever short.

Vermillion: I guess his heart wasn’t in it. 

/ mj.banks / 

Merlin 3x62 Bound by the Moon

M3:62 / Bound by the Moon / mjbanks

I.
Merlin cordons his waist and runs into a glide for a horse into the city without explaining, chasing to catch the danger at the cost of scant consent. Braden’s fellow of the earth magic, Digr, raises his hand beckoned by the trail and pointing as to find it, he and Braden’s troupe as if reluctant begin to follow. Sino knows he is to be trailed and takes a bottle of lantern fuel and pours it on himself and Ana, she smells her hands, realizing what it is and using the magic of fire makes it explode, but to merely aggravation of Sino he knocks her out, again. He throws another bottle at a man on the road then holds a sword outward at the man, smiling with vicious grin, a quiet ride, seemingly without hurry.

II.
The light of sunset and rising moon, the heat growing humid in the foothills of the nearby mountain as the other side’s mist rolls over its top. The werewolves track Sino’s scent until finding lantern oil in its stead, and that smell to a man on the roadside. One beast throws a stone into dead leaves and branches, another howls deeply into the sky above the clouds, from the fire Lilith rises elevated.

Wolvic: We’ve lost his scent with this man and lantern fuel.

Lilith takes the man by his hair and bites into his throat, with blood his primordial memories, then dropping him down.

Lilith: Follow the fuel up the mountain, now.
Wolvic: But the moon is dying, the turn is blind to darkness.
Lilith: I AM darkness behind you if you don’t get up that mountain!

III.
Sino drags her into the mountain as if a light bag of wool by her arm.

Sino: My oath to Merlin, you will understand, burns in the great darkness, I am warmth to the blind, seeing my reflection in axes sharp and hammers dull.
Ana: (waking) …in the darkness, we celebrate our joys, appreciating them not for granted what simple blessings others forbid, in day honest, thieves celebrate themselves without satisfaction, standing stormy night where there are cries and echoes, we are lightning and thunder.
Sino: Quote the book all you wish, it does not turn, amongst the humans – with you the page will turn, soon this old story will be ended.

Soldiers in blindfolds approach them.

Ana: To play with fire, first dance with smoke.
Sino: But there are no stars burning in the cursed sky.
Ana: Was it raining blood?
Sino: Secure her, there is little time before the dawn eclipse. Without moons or stars she cannot waste the strength that keeps the child.
Ana: You’ll burn for this.
Sino: That, is, the plan.
Ana: I’m going to burn your bloody marrow while you’re still using it!
Sino: No, you will help me to the surface of this present darkness.

The blinded are guarding Ana.

IV.
In the tunnels two of the blindfolded patrol for intruders, amidst a conversation. (required spell: night vision)

Ciego: So, she puts a paring knife to the fruit and nobody moves.
Aveugle: But if he’s made of stone, how is it a damage point?
Ciego: Because stones melt into lava in a volcano.
Aveugle: Yeah, but fresh obsidian melts steel so it doesn’t make any sense.

The warriors of Fortress Vermillion hear the story thru the dark, seeing as if lit brightly, the sentries see them all but soon enuf, one of them captured, the other killed.

King Vermillion: She survives as a flame survives a candle. How many others are you?
Ciego: I cannot see you, my guide into the light, will you help me to the surface of this darkness?
Vermillion: He is blind.

The king’s Lt, Artemis, almost drinks the blind one’s blood, but the king prevents it.

Vermillion: Both blind, both careless, Artemis, take this one to the fortress abattoir for a priest’s interrogation.

King Vermillion moves deeper into the darkness with others following, he drags his fingers across the rough granite wall.











~mjbanks

Merlin 3:61 Love in a Burning Building

M 361: Love in a Burning Building

Lilith: Having fun, Merlin?
M: We never really get to enjoy burning cities too often!
L: I’m sorry, I was too busy talking to trees!
M: If I wasn’t wasting time succor to the demons!
L: I can’t hear you, I’ve been waxing poetic, bloody stupid namesake cambion!
M: If you weren’t so imprudent, you’d know the difference between rack-rent cajolery and portents of fate!!
L: You would, too!!

His hands and arms bloody she flies across the ground at him and shoves him thru a fiery wall into a scorching building. Wrestling in a pile of embers, they see amicable smiles on each other’s faces and begin to free themselves, she bites his wound and wipes the wound from his skin, the bloodstains on his arms become ashes in radiance of his tattoos now wrapped around her waist, a black tongue licking the blood from her fingers he is healed, the fire heats to slow rises and waves of sunset, her hair glows red and gold as her shadow hides him from incineration with diamond eyes.

Other buildings stand strong, raging hearts calm, a quiet soul excites, and many warriors check their wounds.
Agnar, giant, checks his bruises as a rare case for him to have any, as Jonak, hexer, wraps his own hand. Braden and Katina, shockers, take a seat and wait for Merlin.

Kat: Odd they socialize like that way. Why is that?
Brad: I don’t know; I think it’s exciting.

Kat punches him in the arm. There is dialogue and exposition among minions.
Nick, deathless, runs into the scene faster than his feet, the gravel rolls beneath his shoe tips as he turns corner, to save Merlin from the burning building, assumption of danger, but Belladonna, plaguer, stops him.

B: You can’t.
N: I’ll stop her and save him!
B: Everything is fine.
N: Nothing is fine! Move!

Belladonna doesn’t move and Nick collides with her to ground, enough that she poisons him in her defense, but her newly strengthened and uncontrolled powers poison him severely, as he falls she attempts to reverse his new death and cannot, his veins blackening roots, hardened tearing thru him as he struggles.

Belladonna: Somebody help him!
Agnar/Braden/Katina/Jonak: He’ll live.

Nick resumes from essence, taking energy from the fires Merlin and Lilith nestle with themselves and smile overly happy, she rises as Nick sneaks thru the rubble, already known by her she hears a first footstep and a second foot twist on the ground, but before Merlin and Nick can communicate, the burning building collapses on the three.

Lobo: He doesn’t know?
Braden: He doesn’t know.

Nick exits in trauma come rage as he crawls from rubble and ember, coughing thru the smoke from his clothes, egregious scars of burning heart and emotion, now in livid accost ire precious little restraint, standing before Lilith wrapping sooty cords around burnt linens, as does Merlin in standing beside her. He realizes they are not enemies, nor the salvation affordable only to Ana, immolator, captured by Sino.
Nick runs again, this time stealing a sword and cutting a horse from wagon to pursue, shouting back at the crew hauling the blade.

N: He has Ana – I run him down – with or without you!
L: AFTER THEM AND YOU’RE DRAGON FOOD IF YOU LOSE HIM!

The wolf-men run toward the end of the city, howls gather beasts in entourage into the sea hills to the sound of tears of those who’ve survived, the hooves of horses of Braden’s impromptu cavalry, and flames that toss like ship sails as Lilith escapes Merlin thru a wall of fire into another dimension of black fire and winds of darkness.

/ch

Of Immortality & Ice

There are many tales of heroes come and gone, as poets let them live forever, building sagas from rumors a story lives a long time. An immortal man, living as if he had no time to spare was punished to be a statue for 1,000 years, and one day he escaped, as all immortals eventually do, to see a world memorized for the first time as what it had become. 

So he wandered with a dead language learning the world with only a few phrases taken from his captors and other prisoners, doing good for the world and making many mistakes, and in a quiet place learned of a wizard to end his eternal boredom freeing him from immortal duty. In this low place he met a witch of fire who giveth him light living forfeit to burn with his passion for her. 

In three years time she was with a child born in the first winter storm, their magic powers against the violent skies bore a child like the mother with the gift of fire, you may now this story from the people near her statue carved by the immortal man at the base of the black mountain Palidrias. They say for childbirth a mother's water "breaks," now I would have you imagine what fire would do instead. 

The immortal can recount many experiences more than there is time to hear just a few by so many that he knows, but for his family's safety he made it that only a precious few knew their life after the childbirth other than the gods and ghosts. 

Now, as trees sleep, being immortal and in that most dangerous magic of love the wife and child could live extended lives while supernaturally bonded to his soul, and they hid in the child's birthplace in the mountains titled by the unused name for the poisonous flowers that grow in the snowline. The fire magic allowed mother and daughter to burn away the toxins and the immortal would die and wake from time to time, learning that even having walked the world he lived in a place unknown to him. 

In three years neighbors were met, traditions of fire magic celebrated in old ways that humans and most cities wouldn't. Terribly, three years later the child became sick, with magic it was postponed and this new tale of loss to the immortal frightened even he who is usually without fear. The mother and her coven tried to burn the illness and the child's blood would not purify, and so they tied more of the immortal's essence to their auras. It almost killed him, not waking until the spell was diminished. 

Offering to sleep for the child's life he rested in a silo, to channel him his immortality required offerings of life that would wilt in his presence, and the child was not dying, but not healing, and in only days what things once wilted now quickly became ash. 

The mother became rage and fire as one and drew a circle on the ground and summoned that wizard that her immortal husband once sought, promised, and abandoned. The magician was thrown from the ground with a tear and a laugh and held accountable for all things in time, whose quick response was to offer her a diamond made of pure coldness and night sky to offer the immortal. 

For reasons of honesty, there is too much to understand in this story to explain both why and how a puddle in mud became a mirror, from it three men without mouths crawled from it without ripple, which then became muddy waters again, and the druid has better places to be right now. 

The immortal man grasped the cold-star and woke, fear-driven eyes he worried his awakening meant his child's demise he ran toward his home, the mother chased behind. 

The child was getting much worse, more as they ran, the child began burning in magical fire to heal and running outside to breathe, seeing the stone ran to them, taking the stone and collapsing. A silence consumed everything and they watched as flames died and child rose, black veins receding toward the neck until the eyes black. 

"Are you well, can you see?" they asked.

"I can see...I can breathe..," smiling first in weeks, "but I am, ...warm?" she asked, almost complaining. To relieved to worry they hugged their child.

The mother asked, "Can I see the stone?"

When the mother took the diamond it burn her deeply, matching her pain with her magic fire to heal the child, intending to make holy fire burned a shade of green, making the wound worse. 

The immortal moved the child away taking more damage to his clothes than any danger, asking the mother, "Are you healing?" 

"I am, not by that diadem shard," she replied, healing herself, holding his hand. 

They watched as the child quickly learned what still looked like familiar fire made mountain grass brittle and water eventually freeze. Putting the stone on the ground made the child sick again, troublesome veins and making bones to strains. Putting it to their decision that if the child was warm they would move up the mountain and left for a tethered ridge with a common breeze. 

It was only days before winter, in a few weeks they had to build a cabin where the treeline meets the stone of the world itself, and still the child would often sleep outside, such an altitude that even their resilience needed fire to cook and keep warm, but mostly for comfort. 

The stress caused hate, the most common of elements, to be uncovered and derided, and caused a contemplative tear from the child that quickly turned to snow and drifted into the wind. This mixture of magic and melancholy made a sound only deities of ice can hear, of wolves and spears in distant echoes.  The immortal opens the door to the rising storm of the summit skies and the child is gone, footsteps and heavy sleeted wind he chases his daughter austerely for the track's path could erase it. 

He followed the tracks until they vanished, in the growing storm the mother also went looking for the child, running until escaping the snow into a clearing of blue sky and sunlight. He is snow-laden and damp, his child sat on the ground to the side and one hand, smiling at the immortal man. 

"Fair greetings, my father, you are very snowy," the child said.

"Out of breath, ...out of my mind, ...who in all the hells, ....are you, ...?" he gasped.

There stood a woman, dressed as priestess throwing the seeds of the poisonous flower on the ground as would a farmer on a spring morning.

"

"Your child has something that doesn't belong here," she said. 

He replies, "And again, who are you so I can decide to run with my child."

"I am Skade, this is my storm, every stnowflake is mine, and there is a bear in your house."

The immortal kneels, "I know your name, in your audience I ask you heal my daughter for the diamond."

Discontentedly, "It is not a stone, it is an eye, and there is no cost, one cannot keep things from me."

"Then please, my child is sick, my 'little torch' is sick, unable to fight the poison flowers like the wizards and witches, heal this child or tell me what it is that I can fight with my aching heart!"

"Witches of fire suffered a plague when their home-world split during Ragnarok, they called it "the night root," and unable to get a cure from another realm they nearly died. Your child is descendant of them, altho it is rare the risk is more so from being surrounded by the green poisonous flower."

"I am well aware of the worlds having been, but i cannot guess who has the cure, that stone is the only thing keeping 'the child' alive"

"'Cure?' You will sadden at the pain, and you will hate the reason."

"I am ready for everything when by living I am not alone, one way or another."

"Taking the stone, the child will not enjoy, curing the child, you will not enjoy."

Skade walked to the child and raised her hand to the immortal, freezing him in his footsteps almost unable to move. The trees stood still watching snowflakes hover, she knelt over the child and tore it from tiny hands. The more the poison turned the child's veins against them, the more the child screamed. The immortal can move slowly, but Skade notices him as he almost cut her throat. 

"An immortal? in this forest? we will freeze your time more so for your patience," she said. 

She slowed the immortal to a total stop, the toxin moved faster thru the child, and Skade began pulling out the black veins faster to compensate, pulling at threads like fates. A very black blood was everywhere and the child didn't move when Skade finished. 

Skade stood and release the immortal man from frozen time, the wind blew, the storm circled and he knelt at his child. 

"What have you done!?" he asked.

"Your hearts may beat as one again, " she said, but then her voice became many voices with the powers of time and space, "Stand, give yourself selflessly, and the child will live!"

"I surrender to the cosmic balance."

"Sleep," she said as she touched him on his face. 

He fell directly to the rugged and jagged ground, into he bloodpool with the child. The mother, burning dark colors to survive the storm in squall surrounding the the other two, enters the utopia without cloud or shadow. Seeing the mother's face Skade collapses that utopia, the storm retakes the entire summit in earnest. The sky diamond is gone, the witch's fire is all that protects them. 

Merlin 3:60 Jaded

M.3.60:Jaded

Heavy wind blocks light and carries dark rain, a vampire who desires to taste the knowledge of werewolf blood’s scent in air finding fire and the dead enter the room. Sino wraps his arm around the first’s chest and punches its back, the blades on his glove sever spinal neck.

Vampire 2 (Rufus): You shouldn’t have done that.
Sino: Tell me why as I spool your forked tongue.

The dead one rises.

Vampire 1 (Aetius): Because now it’s your turn.

Sino tears a sautoir locket from his neck and glows from his hand, a jade light from the jade stone given to him by Belladonna, the vampires begin to cringe and curl as their dead hearts begin coursing ages of infectious blood thru veins craving only that of mortal sacrifice, tirelessness becomes tithe to warlock.

Sino: Playtime is over, time to die.

A painted vision of punishment and pallid expression on canvas of disparate stare with rage of concept, black veins in eyes and clenching form, fighting to stand against deepest imagined pain in curse and chaos, glom of darkness within the loss of control.

The rain begins terrible sounds as each drop against the earth violently tears against the air without a sound to the hexer. Because of his own rage, Sino cannot notice that his aggression is being watched by Ana from careful distance. At the corner of her eye she sees the consortium of mages and pack of wolves separately decide next tasks, having already helped the aviators with their problem of lingering evil, but also sees Kylesa-Mara relieved to see Sino thru framework flames of burning building survive the attack.

Hereto Sino notices Ana by peripheral vision as the hexed vampires collapse shattered and exhausted, and in this dark awakening he understands he has been seen and leaps disappearing into fire, knowing this, Mara distracts Troy for Sino’s sake.

Mara: What is happening? My heart, it burns, there is a burning in my lungs, I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe!

Troy attends to her and Sino flanks Ana in speed and silence, taking her before she can signal anyone. The disgust and indignation expression, as Ana begins to flame from hair and hands, results with Sino smashing her head into a wall.

Sino: Firefly.

But for the face of fear, he enjoys catching, binding, and lifting her into a wagon hurriedly that he might escape by horse all the sooner.

The interminable ardor of war restricts the perceivable, and unknown is spectacle and context of rain has burning buildings rumbling, splendor and circumstance of people in commotion, the noises of confusion and dour itself. Merlin, seeing Lilith, stares rakish with maudlin.