A Cloaked Figure Approaches the Morninglord's Lands

*In the dead of night, a tall, thin figure approaches the farms surrounding Lathander's temple. His gait is slow and a little unsteady. Any tracker spotting his prints could notice that he wasn't walking in a very straight line. The figure occasionally looks over his shoulder and searches the darkness behind him - a nervous movement with hunched shoulders. Each time he does so, his cloak shifts a bit - revealing a black-gloved hand resting at the ready on the hilt of his shining silver scimitar. The weapon was drawn halfway out of its sheathe already, revealing a razor-sharp edge and the occasional cruel length of serrated metal. The hilt itself, decorated with engravings of leaves and vines, also is silver.

As the cold night wind whips past in sudden gusts, the figure tugs his hood down and lowers his head against the elements. He gathers his cloak around his shoulders and holds it together with his free hand. The figure continues on slowly down the road, his path weaving slightly this way and that. Winter's grey clouds obscure the moonlight, plunging the area further into darkness. Even the figure's shining silver weaponry seems to be extinguished in the consuming darkness.

The figure stops as it nears the orphanage, situated next to Lathander's temple. The figure doesn't approach the building, keeping several paces away from it and staying on the well-worn road. Standing there for several minutes, motionless as stone and sword still drawn halfway from its sheathe, the figure seems to stare at the building. The silence of the night is only broken by the occasional howl of wind that pushes drifts of snow over the figure's hard, heavy leather boots.

Hooded, obscured gaze focused intently on the buildings in front of him, the gloved hand draws his scimitar completely from its sheathe. With his other hand, he unhooks a teardrop-shaped metal shield from his back, which had been obscured by his billowing cloak. The shield is painted black and has a rather sharp, nasty looking iron point in the center of it. With one final look over his shoulder, the figure moves in, up the road, and toward the buildings...

... and walks right past the orphanage.

His steps becoming increasingly slow and almost staggering, the figure makes his way up to the doors of the temple to Lathander. Operating the heavy wooden door's handle with the fingers of his sword-hand, the figure pushes the door open with his shield.

Candles still lit and burning brightly inside, the glow of Lathander's temple washes over the steps in front of the building. Whatever consuming darkness the night had brought was defeated instantly by the Morninglord's light, and revealed the figure that had traveled all this way, in the middle of one of the coldest nights of the winter.

Light reflecting off his bronze dragon-scale armor and silver scimitar, Ardylan crosses the threshold of the temple. He squints for a moment as his eyes adjust to the sudden light, blinking it away as he glanced around the main room of the temple. Seeing nobody in the room, Ardylan takes several steps forward, up the aisle in the center of the room, and starts to raise his sword-arm...

... only to drop his weapon onto the seat of the second-to-the-back bench. It hits the wood with a -clank-, a noise which is quickly overshadowed by the louder sound produced as he drops his shield onto the floor. Letting the shield slide from his grasp, it hit the floor edge-first with a hard -clunk-, then tipped over to spin lazily around its iron point.

His shield still wobbling on the floor with a faint metallic -schwing- sound, Ardylan takes barely another two steps before he finds his body to be the next thing dropped to the floor. He falls to his knees, grabbing onto the armrest of the nearest bench on the way down to slow his descent.

With his free hand, he reaches up to push away his hood and reveal his face. His deep blue hair is damp with sweat and disheveled, and a small bead of sweat runs down his temple. Dark circles under his eyes look pronounced and serious against his otherwise nearly-white skin. His cheeks look sunken, and as he moves his armor looks just slightly too big for him, as if he has lost weight. No longer does Ardylan look like the young, healthy, grinning-faced elf that most people know. Now he looks exhausted and ill.*

"Elijah?"

*Ardylan calls out for the abbot, his voice strained and weak. He sits there slumped against the bench for a moment, breathing hard, his head resting on the armrest of the bench, legs stretched out across the aisle in front of him, and arms laying limply at his sides. He swallows hard, the old scar across his neck plainly visible as he sits with his head tilted back a bit. He blinks repeatedly, eyes wandering over the room in front of him in a way that suggests he might be a little confused or dazed at the moment.

Exhausted, Ardylan remains slumped on the floor, waiting for someone to find him.*

*After spending the entire night and a better part of the day on the floor of the temple, only moving to drink from his canteen, the first person to find Ardylan was Huron. The pair spoke for some time before Huron departed, leaving Ardylan laying on the floor.

It wasn't until well past nightfall did Ardylan manage to get to his feet again. Collecting his gear and pulling his hood up over his head, Ardylan moved toward the door. Just before stepping outside, he left a note laying on the desk, addressed to Elijah:*

Quote :

Elijah -

I would like to be able to return to the orphanage, and not have to walk this land in fear of being run through by a temple paladin. I was here all night and most of the day, but I cannot sit here forever.

I am willing to talk if you are willing to listen.

~Ardylan

Elijah returns to the temple after spending a few days in the wild harvesting rare reagents. As he enters the temple and walks down the central aisle of the main hall, he notices that the seat of one of the back benches has been splintered. Near it, the stone floor bears a chip mark, a recent blemish that is not hard to spot for one who has swept the very floors on numerous occasions.

A young temple acolyte runs up to the abbot bearing a letter addressed to him, adding in a trembling voice that a pale skinned elf was seen at the temple hall the past day, behaving in a deranged manner - slumped over the benches, rolling about on the floor when not, and muttering feverishly to himself for the most part with a wicked-looking silvery scimitar never far from reach. The young monk-in-training quickly apologizes for his inaction, with a look paralyzed by fear still overshadowing his face.

Half listening, the abbot waves the acolyte back to his chores and reads the letter. "Wait!", Elijah calls out to the acolyte just as the scurrying young monk reaches the archway leading to the inner rooms. "I need you to deliver a reply to the pale skinned elf you saw yesterday." The acolyte's eyes widen in dread and silently plead for the abbot to reconsider the assignment.

"Tell Ardylan, yes, his name is Ardylan, that I most definitely welcome an opportunity to hear him out." "A-a-ah-ah-ay-ayye, a-ab-abb-abbot", stammers the acolyte, feet rooted to the spot. "C'mon, go now", the abbot smiles and gives the young monk a pat on his back, perhaps a little too hard. The acolyte fumbles headlong towards the main door, tripping on his over-sized robe and falling face first onto the benches. Crack! The already splintered bench gives way with a deep groan. "Owwwww!", the acolyte flails about in pain as he tries to remove the splinters from his hands and face. Flushed like a crimson ioun stone, the acolyte scrambles out of the temple knowing full well the penetrating gaze of the abbot is on his back. Sighing and shaking his head, the abbot returns to his duties.

*All things considered, the first place the acolyte would probably look in search of Ardylan is Myth Drannor. Any guard along the road worth her or his position would tell the acolyte that Ardylan returned from the Grove not long ago, and is now on-duty and at his post up by the entrance to the refugee camp, near the cave. If the acolyte has not been scared out of this assignment yet, he would indeed find Ardylan at his post - the exact same spot that Elijah found him the other day.

Leaning against one of the weathered columns, partially obscured by its shadow, Ardylan looked more like a shady character waiting for something interesting to happen than an on-duty guard at this moment. With his arms crossed over his chest and his hood pulled down to obscure his face, his mood and expression would be impossible to gauge. The only thing visible as he stood in the shadow of the column was the glinting silver scimitar at his side, and the burning end of the hand-rolled cigarette held between his lips.

After the stammering acolyte repeated Elijah's message to Ardylan, the pale-skinned elf would nod, then hand the acolyte a medium-sized pouch of coins.*

"This is to fix anything I damaged. I think I chipped the floor tiles. Whatever extra coin is left after repairs should be considered a donation. Tell Elijah I will find him soon."

*Before the acolyte could bow and skitter away, Ardylan held up a hand to stop him.*

"One other thing. If you see Elric, tell him... the accused blackguard will fix it."

*The broken tile is left near the entrance to the druid's grove with a letter saying:*

Think lightly not of evil,
‘It will not come to me’,
for by the falling of water drops, a water jar is filled.
The fool with evil fills himself,
he soaks up little by little.

Think lightly not of goodness,
‘It will not come to me’,
for by the falling of water drops, a water jar is filled.
The wise with goodness fills himself,
he soaks up little by little.

The writer then proceeds to buy some marble from the ironhouse dwarves.