The Collab...

Chapter 36

By Young Sage

The wind blew savagly across a small snow covered valley. places like this were becomeing very scarce, especially since the industrilization started, most had either been built over, or had been ravaged for their resources, and then left.

Deep inside of the valley burrowed under the land, directly in the center pulsed an energy source, a force that worked as a conductor for the valley in which it laid, hidden for years by ether induced spells from hundreds of years before that kept such a large energy center of ether from being discovered and used up, like so many other places before it...

He was swimming in the eternal darkness that was all that he had known for centurys, and had become comfertable with knowing. A type of limbo that existed and yet didn't. he vaguely remember his old existence before the darkness, only emotions, and feelings remained, no longer could he bring to mind faces or people that he had once known. Most of his time was spent holding on to the emotions that he did remember, and trying to bring up something a face, a pair of eyes, anything...

He drifted in this damndable eternal blackness, looking for a part of him that he might be able to salvage, when through the darkness came something that he had forgotten existed : a voice...

"We/I need you protector...."

What should he do? he didn't remember how to speak! he couldn't speak not in this place, he tried to form words in the darkness tried to reply to the voice.

"W...who are y...you?" he sat there waiting for a reply from the unknown person, or thing that had some how been able to communicate with him.

Again the voice came alittle stronger and louder this time.

"We/I need you protector...We/I am dieing."

Why did this thing/person talk as if there were more than one of them?

Something was tickling the back of his memory something that he knew should remember, something that the thing/person had said, but he couldn't remember it wouldn't come."Why do you...come to me?""How am I to help?"

Again he waited, and was almost frightened that the voice wouldn't come again.

"Protector...chosen of the land...help me/us awake, and live once more."

A sudden realization finally hit him, if he had had a voice he would have screamed, this was the earth, he knew it now, he had talked to the earth once before,when he was being placed into temporary stasis, and now the earth was calling him for help.

"How am I to help? i cannot revive myself? How?!"

The earth didn't answer back this time, he was becoming angry, when all of a sudden the darkness around him shuddered, like the whole universe was being torn apart, he tried to scream as he was sucked out, of the abyss that he had known for so long, he felt like he was falling, eternally falling.

Then he heard a scream he didn't know where it was coming from but it was pain-filled, mixed with horror, he tried to open his eyes to see where it was coming from, only to realize that the scream was his, he slowly stopped screaming, and tried to open his eyes. He couldn't see anything except for a huge blur, he figured that this was natural.

Slowly things started to become prevelant things that he had fergotten, Sighing loudly he laid in the small bed that he had been in for so long, enjoying the feel of the soft silky sheets underneath him, the bitter cold around the room, and the rise and fall of his chest, small things that he had taken so much for granted last time he had walked the earth.

His vision finally at least becoming bareable he tried to stand with the support of the bed post, stumbling the first couple of times he finally managed to get over to his old vanity. He couldn't wait to see what he now looked like, would he be the same as when he went into stasis? would he be an old decrepid man?

Slowly he wiped the dust from the mirror, watching it fall away and settle gently back down over an assortment of bottles and vials.

What he saw in the mirror, was not what he had expected, he was not old...and yet he wasn't as young looking as he had been when he had gone into stasis.

He looked and estimated he must look like he was in his mid fifties maybe early sixties, with a smooth mature looking face, grey and white tinged his hair, where before a jet black had been. He smiled at the reflection in the mirror, and winked, it wasn't exactly what he had expected but diffenitely not bad for a man that was asleep for centuries!

Feeling the bitter cold caress his body he hobbled over to the closet and pulled it open, smiling at his old assortment of clothes, glad to see that they were still intact.

Pulling off a heavier robe and under clothes he dressed himself, looking acrosse the room at his refelction in the mirror...he was missing something, ah yes, grinning at himself for not remembering, he reached deep into the closest and pulled out and old staff. Now he looked like the Rangarion of old, well except for quite a few years older.

Rangarion shook his head, he hadn't been brought back to reminisce of old times and too see what he looked like, he knew that he had a purpose and he should get on it as soon as possible, but first he needed to gather a few things....