Chamberlain Roleplays: The book of Ora

Night Terrors

She had done as the dreams and nightmares had bade her, stumbling along the roads like some peasant woman she had left her men in their homeland, it was not fair that she should pull them so far from their families.

She was ill-prepared for life alone, hunger pangs made her feel light headed , her shoes chaffed at her feet. She could scarce braid her own hair. But the nightmares had been vivid. A golden haired woman with silver skin, besieged and beleaguered by lascivious dark skinned men. The woman was crying out as they hacked at her body, but no sound was emergent.

Then there was the dream of the tree, aflame with blood red glow, and always her sisters voice calling her. If she did not respond she knew Catherine was to die a meaningless death. It was this that had called her first, but now the nightmares of the ravaged woman, this was something else. Her father had always despaired at the passions of his youngest daughter. The family had thought her flighty and prone to the fanciful. She had left on a gilded litter almost entirely to prove them wrong. Now as she stumbled into the shack and was greeted by the woman in her dreams, she knew she had left for a very different reason.

The woman looked at her, a playful expression in her eyes, not even as tall as Kristina she stood before her completely naked and unashamed. Far from being abashed when the woman opened her arms, Kristina fell into them, fell into an embrace that was almost overwhelming in its intensity. The woman kissed her forehead and whispered into her ear:

"You are mine."

The Mother of Dale

An elderly maunt was cradling her head and stroking her hair as she awoke, the morning sunrise was hazy but even this made the silver white bark of the tree glow in an almost iridescent hue. There was no sign of the woman from her dreams anymore. The maunt seemed to sense her awakening and looked down at her with milky blind eyes. She smiled:

"It has been a while child, but I knew I'd find you here, she called me to watch over you in the night."

Ironic that a blind woman should watch over anyone. Kristina pushed herself up onto her elbows:

"You have been here all night?" she touched the older womans face, "why?"

The woman chuckled, a warm sound that somehow reminded Kristina of her mother. "Had I not your flower would have been plucked." Kristina's blood ran cold as she noted the 3 large figures slumped at the far side of the shack, their throats cut. Startled she lurched from the woman, noting for the first time the bloodied blade at her side. With an iron grip the maunt seized her arm as if she could see her: "This was her first gift to you child, use it wisely."

The strength in the womans hands belied her apparent frailty. She continued: "And these are my gifts to you," the maunt placed a hooded cloak on her shoulders, and offered a pair of sandals that would lace up her legs. As Kristina put them on, her mind raced, she couldn't bring herself to look again at the three men, worse still she noted with a sinking sensation, the bloodied blade was her own. She gingerly wiped i on the dew soaked grass at the base of the tree and re-sheathed it in her belt.

"How can I repay you, mother?" she asked.

The woman smiled, the benign smile of a grandmother to her grand children. "You cannot," she said wistfully, "Not yet at least." Her blind eyes swept the room and she cocked her head as if listening to some unheard voice. The maunt stood and handed Kristina a small package of food. "It is time for you to travel on, dear heart. I would come with you, but I have three sons to bury."

Bewildered Kristina backed out of the shack. Shocked and silent tears poured freely as she ran stumblingly on the road to Obando.

The Temple of Sermbar

She had been chewing the bark of the white tree steadily on the long journey from Nivemus to Sermbar. Now she took the pulped wood and laid it in the copper cradle on a bed of moss. Striking a tinder she set fire to the moss and soon the pulp was smoking a purple blue haze filling the small shack that was serving as the temple of Sermbar. She closed her eyes praying that Ora should cleanse the land and the air, that this would become a truly holy place worthy of worship. As she opened them she could see the construct. White stone walls and a roof of intertwined vines twisting around the central light well where the tree would be planted. With her bare hands she moved the soil from the spot that would be the centre of the temple. She poured the still smoking contents of the copper cradle into the hole.

The pulp glowed red as the damp wood tried to burn, but still only managed to channel purple smoke around the room. She took the sapling from her pack. It looked simply like a silver twig, budded, but so small and frail. With unseeing eyes she pushed the small roots of the tree into the smouldering pulp. There was a loud pop and a hiss as the wood met the flame, but she held her resolve and gently patted soil around the base of the tree. Placing her forehead to the soil she waited.

The maunts became restless as she remained prone and static for so long, but after three hours they gazed in wonder as first one, then a second and third golden leaves unfurled on the tree. Afine dusting of new grass surrounded the base of the tree where before had been smoking soil.

Dusting the soil from her head she stood and looked to the maunts.

"Bring me the gold."

The coffermaster, brought a small wooden chest from within the shack. She smiled at the elderly man: "Now walk with me."

She walked the boundary as she had seen it in the vision from the smoke. Dropping golden coins on the ground as she walked around what would be the temple walls. The maunts looked uneasily at the gold on the ground. So much money, thrown to the dirt. A small crowd of the faithful had gathered bearing witness to what many thought was the abject madness of the High Priestess of Nivemus. The maunts and the woman long passed, an elderly man ventured forward, one coin would not be missed.

"Is your faith so frail Jebediah Munroe." Kristina called to him, not turning or wavering from her task. The man froze fingers outstretched, then fell to his knees sobbing in embarrassment. The crowd shuffled uneasily distancing themselves from the man. She moved back to the man and looked contemplatively from him to the crowd. Their rising anger at his actions was evident. Bending down she whispered: "Ora forgives what your neighbors may not," straightening she bade him: "Go in Ora's peace, I do not think we shall meet again, Jebediah."

The man stumbled from her wishing only to go home. The crowd parted and he left shunned, even his own wife declining to look at him.

She knelt once more in what would be the entry way to the temple, eyes unseeing as she invoked the Goddess. A steely wind blew from the north west bringing with it billowing black clouds. The sky darkened as the cloud coalesced, lightening started to play among the edges of the brewing storm and the deep rumble seemed to shake the very ground. The faithful looked to the priestess and then fell to their knees in supplication to Ora. The maunts lay prostrate even the coffermaster had his face to the soil. Kristina's voice raised in the sing song strains of ancient elvish, so old the sounds were barely recognisable to the Sirionites.

The first fork of lightening hit the ground near the priestess, the smell of rising ozone clear and harsh in the air. Invoking the Goddess by all her names Kristina stood in the doorway and waited. The pressure in the air dropped and the land was enveloped in an expectant silence. A rumble like a thousand horse hooves penetrated through the ground and the static in the air made Kristinas ebon hair float upwards. The ground trembled with the volume of the thunder then lightening forked touching the ground in 100 places.

Then the storm was gone, Kristina swayed with the effort, where the coins had been were now white stone walls, gold melted into the cracks between the stones making the walls strong, already small vines clung to the base of the walls, and over time these would become the roof. The maunts remained on their knees, trembling in devotion. Kristina touched their shoulders. "Sisters we are not finished." Together they planted the staves into the ground, intertwining the ends to make the central well where the tree would grow. They placed woven hessian in the roof space to offer shelter, though Kristina knew they would soon be covered by the vines as the temple established itself in the landscape.

Exhausted she stood in the doorway, the maunts at her elbows their hands steadying her. Briefly distracted, she noted a streak of gold in her black hair, Ora was pleased and she felt a warmth beyond the sun within her soul. She looked to the awestruck faithful:

"People of Sermbar, beloved of Ora. Your temple is anointed through lightening and flame," she staggered a little catching herself on the door frame that had not been there just a few hours before. "To the glory and mercy of Ora!" She raised her hands in supplication, falling to her knees, the sun glinting from the new golden strand within her ebon hair.

The maunts ushered her quickly to the tree, she lay at its base and drifted to sleep hearing the maunts lead the faithful in songs of Ora's glory.

The Knight of Sermbar

Kristina readied herself to leave Sermbar, her few days had shown her much, but had been physically draining.

The faithful had looked to her and she had felt the mystic surges, the ebb and the flow of the faith as she channelled natures fury into the growth of the house of Ora in Sermbar. The tree had grown at an exponential rate allowing the temple to grow with it. The vine roof already blossomed. As the days had passed more of her hair had changed with streaks of gold. She had not expected to find such peaceful mysticism in Sirion after the ongoing tumult and restructuring in Nivemus that came with the war.

Her meetings with Markus had been more frequent, his hospitality had been a welcome diversion from the exhaustion she had experienced from channeling the flow. She had seen the golden seed growing within him and at night dreamt of him, his head surrounded by golden leaves.

The sapling, so recently the length of her palm, now stood 3 feet tall, a healthy crop of golden leaves. She had taken 9 leaves to represent the 9 temples and twined them within strands of the golden hair that now grew from her. When Markus announced that he wished to enter the orders she had known why she had woven this crown that she had now rested upon his head as he was annointed.

The call of Ora was now growing in Sirion, this could only be good. And so she packed her belonings and prayed one last time at the tree. She left Sermbar without fuss or show, secure in the knowledge that Ora's knight sat in the keep of Sermbar and so her people would be served all the better.

The Song of Tabost

Barefoot she walked on the circle of gold coins chanting the song of Ora as she went. The preaching had been amazing, more than 200 of the lost came to her light and now watched in awe as the ozone gathered and the pressure of the air dropped. Her ceremonial robes shone with a silver glow like the very bark of the tree. Her hair raised floating on the currents of the air, small shards of lightening playing along her strands of hair.

Raising her arms above her head lightening arced to the coins and the ground shook raising white stones from the earth in a circle. The soil fell away leaving the stones white and polished, the golden coins melted and streaked over the stones.

The maunts were ready with the staves and vines and planted them around the circumfrence. It had been so long since the power of Ora had been displayed so openly, but Kristina knew that she stalked the lands reclaiming them for her own and what had happened at the temples of Sermbar and Tabost were nothing compared to what was to come.

Kristinas voice changed and the song became ancient elvish again. Her floating hair glinted more gold as it floated around her head like a crown. Pulling her hands down the air pulled inwards swirling around her robes. The staves bent and crossed leaving the central well a star to the heavens. The vines grew readily in creeping up the staves and beginning to knit across the roof.

The song rose from her lips to a crescendo and was gone. with it the wind died and was replaced by birdsong. Falling to her knees, the maunts raised her up and laid her on a litter by the tree. Spent she slept a dreamless sleep.

The Shame of the Grey Wolf

She had been praying for many days. The Wolfs had been close friends of her family for some time, Malakor had been her knight, but twice now he had crossed the pale of what could ever have been seen as acceptable. She still remembered the martyrs of Pucallpa, the nine men and women hanged by Malakor and Maria Whale. She was yet a young priestess at the time, and allowed Malakor to make his own penance. Ora was a forgiving deity, and Kristina had been more than happy with how things had worked out. This second transgression went too far. Kristina yet remembered the Mother of Dale, how she had killed her own sons at Ora's behest to protect her chastity.

Malakor's actions had seen the death of the Mother of Gadlock.

The elderly maunt had been the first to raise hand in defence of Kristina as the soldiers had come for her. She was a simple woman, she tended the shrine and saw to the needs of the faithful. She had become grandmother to so many of the followers of Ora who had sought her advice or guidance. And now she lay beneath a patch of white flowers to the left of the shrine. Three of the junior maunts had died that day, as well as many of the townsfolk. In a way Kristina wished that Malakor had simply been allowed to take her, there would have been no loss of life, though she supposed the act may well have caused much strife amongst the faithful. No cardinal sin against the protection of the faithful could be left unpunished.

Here kneels Malakor, at the scene of his crime, stripped of his armor too ashamed to look upon Kristina. Malakai stands to the right, dressed in a simple white robe, his arms and armor left with the captain of his guard, a look of great sadness on his war scarred face. Malakors unit kneel behind him, unarmed, their arrows once blessed by Kristina's hand in Ora's name, burning in the two braziers on either side of the shrine. They had been there over an hour and Kristina was yet to speak. She did not trust her words, such was her confusion anger and sadness, furthermore this was not her justice but Ora's.

She knelt at the graveside of the Mother of Gadlock, passing her hand through the white flowers, she noted that there was dampness in the leaves, she stood raising her hand: water ran, blue white down her palm dripping from her wrist. "Behold, Ora's tears." the trickle of water poured continuously as she walked toward Malakor. Placing two fingers at her eyes, she tracked the water down her cheeks. Her hair began to float lightly from her shoulders and sparks of blue lightning played between her fingers. Kristina was gone.

Malakai stared in awe as he noted the light points developing on the priestess' ears, it seemed each time the Goddess took her, more changed she became. She turned unseeing eyes to Malakai:

"You will atone for your brother and pay your people. The vessel called you White Knight, faithful and elder. You are also an elder blood to you kin. So you share his crime. You will build a house to my name in Gadlock that the faithful can pray in peace. You shall place guards, that no man shall lay hands upon the vessel again within the lands that I entrust to your patronage. For if she is unchaste she is undone. Your brother was not of himself, he would have laid more than hands upon my vessel, I know the hearts of men and I know this is so." The voice was Kristina's, though her lips never moved and the tone seemed to echo in the heads of all who listened. "Until this is done you are elder no more. A Lord serves and protects his people, a noble of the White Tree is the branch upon which leaves flourish. Malakors actions leave you tainted and diseased. For this you will atone."

Thrusting her hand within the brazier, she pulled a charred arrow from the flames. She traced lines of ash from his eyes: "And so you shed tears of dust for your people." Malakai fell to his knees, placing his forehead to the earth.

"Malakor Wolf." His name spoken as a command, Malakor felt his head drawn up: "You would have ripened the vessel with your seed." Kristina's hand reached for his groin: "your seed will never quicken a son." In shock and embarrassment Malakor tried to pull back from the woman, but he found himself rooted in place, unable to act.

"Your words have caused the death of my faithful." Horrified Malakor felt his mouth open and his tongue slide out between his lips. Kristina pressed the charred arrow onto his tongue. Immediately it felt like it was not there. "You shall speak no words, until they be praise to My Name. You will leave your men and travel alone. You caused the death of the Mother of Gadlock and so you must become the Father of Gadlock and learn to serve without arrogance. This is my will and so it must be."

She turned from him, seeming to glide back to the braziers. Tipping the baraziers over she summoned the maunts:

"Paint him in ashes and dress him in rags that all may see the shame of the grey wolf."

The Warrior Maunt

The grey wolf knelt in silence at her approach, head bowed, face still muddied by the ashes of Gadlock. Kneeling before him she wrapped her arms around her old friend and whispered in his ear:

"Your penance is served, Ora needs swords as well as saints..."

His tongue loose, he stammered "Th-th-thankyou..." tears rising unbidden to his eyes and streaking the grey ash on his face.

Summoning the maunts she bade them bathe him and restore him.

He allowed them to pull at his clothing numbly accepting their care. Kristina turned to him: "There is something else," she tugged a silk cover revealing a glowing set of armour: "The Goddess is merciful."

Black Arts and the White Tree

The maunts shuffled uncomfortabley daring not meet her eyes.

Kristina was exhausted, her hair clung to her face and her clothing dripped with sweat.

"Tell me the words again..." she breathed, almost inaudible.

The young Mother of Gadlock pulled at her hand: "Mi'Lady, no... it is the blackest of arts... please..."

She turned unseeing eyes and pallid damp flesh to stare at the maunt: " Tell me the Dagda Witch's words... it is Ora's will..." And it was Ora's will, no matter how it weakened her with the speaking, the words must be said and said again until Ora's will was done.

The Damnation of Atanamir of Umber

The young Mother of Gadlock had found the book amongst possessions left by Solaria the Dagda witch of Obsidia. It was an Ora'n text but ancient to be sure. Handwritten in a scrawling script and a language that the maunt did not understand. Kristina had been apprehensive when she had given it to her. With her own sight the words had crawled on the page, unintelligible, but now as she looked with eyes that no longer saw the things around her the words stood clearly, glowing softly raised by a golden glow from the papyrus.

Three nights she had chanted the phrases and now the maunts whispered the words in her ears to strengthen her resolve. Gadlock had been raped repeatedly both physically and spiritually by the devourer. She could not let it happen again. Ora would show that it could not happen again.

The young Mother of Dale recited the bloodline once again and Kristina poured herself into the phrases from the book. Fatigue and hunger meant nothing, the pains within her tortured body merely strengthened her resolve. When her voice failed her it became other worldly and sang with the voices of the Great Mother and the Daughters of the Woods, the maunts would later swear that they heard a cacophony not simply the words of the priestess.

At first curious and faithful supplicants had come to see the priestess but as the days and nights merged into one it was as if a growing barrier had developed around the temple. Animals would not cross the line and the people would find themselves kneeling in the grass looking too but daring not to venture to the white stone walls.

On the fourth night there had been a blood moon, dripping red in the sky like the wounds to the land of Gadlock. On the fifth there was no moon at all, and it happened, the names began to fade from the bloodline so that they would be no more. Kristina had not been herself for some time now but as the names on the page began to burn, she herself began to shake with fatigue, her burning skin cooling rapidly and the slick sweat making her palor almost deathly. At once with the faintest wisp of smoke from the pages, the words in the book were gone. The cacophony stopped and the whole of Gadlock it seemed became silent. Her eyes rolling forward again Kristina looked up and around beginning to recognise her surroundings. Her body was gnawing at itself in pain and hunger. Taking a feverish gulp of water she looked at the young Mother of Gadlock. The girl silently nodded her head.

It was done, Atanamir and his kin could hurt them no more.

A New Sister

Catherine might be her sister and the Queen, but Ora was her liege.

She knew Catherine had treat it as some personal favor when she gifted the Oran relics to the scions of McManus, and as always the Goddess hand proved to have come to bear. Braelin had returned the ring as she knew she would, while avaricious Padraig had kept the mail. The maunts had questioned how Ora's champion was not even a worshiper of the Goddess, but Kristina knew, all of the Sons and Daughters of the Tribes were Ora's, whether they knew it or not. Then in battle Padraig had taken a King of Perdan. Between them they now counted for three of the crowns of Perdan. Ora was good.

Now she felt drawn as things were changing again. Two sisters, driving blights from the land, one with a burgeoning enlightenment. The maunts had brought tales of the Veldiaes as they had been called by the people, young women of virtue who seemed to have genuine care for the people. Now one of the sisters appeared to her in her dreams, she felt herself kneeling beside the girl before a great white throne, feeling the pain and joy of a warm sun on their necks. She was the right hand of the Goddess, the voice of the Trees, and now she turned to look at the spirit figure of Katlaina and it became like a mirror, the face of Ora looking from within their eyes seeing only the same. Had the right hand finally found the left?

The Omsk Remember

The Omsk had been the tribe to remember Ora long after the others had failed, feasting on the selfishness of humanity and its frailties. Yet now Kazakh, the city where the descendents of the Omsk continued to bear witness, was largely under the sway of the teachings of the Church of Humanity. The Church of Humanity, the most vain of vanities to preach that men should worship and give praise to themselves.

The area Lord Ketchum had chosen was what had remained of a vinyard next to the old magistrates court, the statuary indicated that the building had been Aseanian in origins, but the tumbled walls had perhaps nnever been repaired following one of the many sackings Kazakh had bourne witness too.

The shack, now tended by a young pair of maunts from Gadlock, was the most basic of temples, over time she knew it would grow with the swelling of belief within the region. For now though she turned her attention to the small twisted sapling Brock had mentioned being drawn too. It was stunted and weathered, yet had managed to persevere and grow through the cracked earth in the old vinyard. Plucking two leaves from the branches she took them to the brazier. A small crowd had gathered for the dedication of the temple. As she led them in prayer, she dropped the leaves into the flames and watched them spark a brief red flame.

Regarding the tree again, the trunk had straightened and the bark fell away as a fine dust to reveal a white barked sapling with golden leaves. Krisitina smiled and gave thanks to the Goddess.

The Unholy Lands

She placed the flower and the note atop her traveling chest. The Elder maunt and the Young Mother of Caqueta had set up her pavillion around half a mile from the encampment of the host of Perleone. So far south she was finding it harder to hear Ora's voice and she found herself more distracted than was usual by her surroundings. She had been through much of Caligus on a preaching tour some time ago, but she had never ventured so far to the south west. Worship of the Church of Humanity was strong here, the overwhelming faith of the peasantry made her feel empty in a way she was not used to, they did not approach her with any hostility, though their indifference was equally disturbing. So long she had been recognised as the Oracle of Ora in the north, her lack of impact here was also disconcerting.

The land itself was a strange contrast, the plants and trees were what would be expected from the warmer climate, but in the clear dawn she had seen the glittering line of the ice flow far to the south, when the breezes gusted from that direction she felt the unholy cold that had claimed the lands. Ora may stalk the Continent, though it was clear why she would not care to venture in these climes.

The Elder maunt sang the hymns of the White Tree and the Ballad of Ora's meadow. She was an awful singer, but there was an earnestness to her which Kristina usually found comforting. Now the words rang hollow as the echoed in the silence of the void she felt in her spirit.

She picked up the flower, inhaling it's scent. On a whim she turned to the looking glass and placed it in her hair. Smiling to herself she felt for the first time in many years, for the briefest of instants, a sense of longing to be Kristina of Dale once again. As the realisation dawned she grasped the stem and put it back on the chest. Turning to the smiling Elder maunt she joined her in song.