Corri - History
It was spring, I am certain. The season of new beginnings. Season of rebirths. In the half elf camp, I was delighting in climbing the nearby trees and throwing acorns at the mage students and tutor. The tutor was patient, and would entice me into calming by a novelty - some days a sweet, some a curious object. Time passed into summer. I was thirsty one day - and idly matched the incantations of a student to create a water spring. The tutor saw potential, and from this day dedicated himself to teaching me. This began my arduous struggle to capture memory.
As a creature part fey, I had never before remembered events beyond their immediacy. Repeated experience would bring familiarity, or a sharp scare bring clarity of memory, but little else. Life was in today, not tomorrow or yesterday. It was years of patient schooling before my memory became reliable, and it was only after my teacher's death one cold winter that I think my mind truly learned to grab hold of memories. To not let them go. I didn't wish to ever forget him, you see. And I have not, though I long ago lost his name.
Once my teacher passed, I resolved to become the mage he always wished to train me as. With wavering degrees of dedication over the years, I continue on this path even today.
Spring again - the world was exciting. Having memory developed an appreciation of past and future, not just the now, and opened an entirely new perspective to me on the world. An appreciation of consequence opened up new realms of mischevy. An appreciation of yesterday allowed me to build practical jokes over days. Yesterday, you found a carrot in your inventory. Today, the steak of a rabbit. I found friends in every walk, teachers. I found a straw hat which growled at those who threatened. I found a special fondness for the hunters of the realm - for their efficiency, excitement, and competence. I was never idle or bored, in their company. I found my place in the realm.
Times passage, autumn came in its turn - where I have always felt most at home. Here - came the Kindred. They were family, in so many ways. If I have one regret, it is that I could not truly be part of their ranks - the paths I walked as a ranger did not allow it. I spent hundreds of years in their company - Nicholai and Combee. Cirth. Palmer. So many others. It was in the emptiness after Khore ascended and left them behind left that I realized I was missing something. To understand what was missing, you have to understand something of my ancestry.
Even from my first memory, I knew what I was. Half dryad, half human. The how if it was lost in the mists long before I learned to hold memories. But the key in this is that a dryad is linked to her tree - it completes them. They can not leave it and survive. The tree is the soul of a dryad.
I had no tree. No soul, no Self - no roots. Winter had set in again, hair turned to white, as I quested the realm for ages in pursuit of my tree. And I found it - by discovering it within myself. I resolved to never let that knowledge and understanding be taken from me. I had an image of these roots - MY tree, etched in tattoo onto my skin. So that even should memories fade, I would never forget This understanding. I will never be apart from my roots, my Self, my tree again. I chose a path of self reliance. I would not rely on placing roots in others, that could be taken away.
For the first time in my existence – I stopped changing with the seasons. My hair shifted a final time to autumn’s copper curls and then remained. I was freed from the patterns of youthful exuberance, to growth, to harvest to death. Free from the occasional –need- for death, to bring about new exuberance.
Time passed, the gods cycled, and gradually the mists reached out to reclaim me. My memories faded, and I began to find myself only rarely within the world - Like so many who went before me, I became lost in the mists.
The god of the Magi changed that. Perhaps he found me in the mists because at times, he is known to walk there. Perhaps it was the teacher in him - like my mentor that first remembered spring who taught me to catch hold and keep my memories. Perhaps it was the spark of mischevy, or the reminder of times past. But with the mists still clouding my memory, he kept nudging me - awakening me from their fog. I owe him my return to this world - and I took a step I had avoided by design for 700 years. I joined a following.
It was not a smooth transition. I discovered that my Liege was a Nashite. I began for the first time in my history to consider who Nash is, and what he might mean to me. Nash!? Old friends were forbidden from my company. The conclave became undead fairy godmothers. Suddenly there were Rules. Expectations. Judgments. Controls. I balked in outright refusal to allow my actions to be dictated. Understanding my nature, my Liege granted me freedom from those rules I balked at, for a time. For a time, it seemed within the Magi I could still be true to my whims.
I also discovered Kinship. Family. In my years before, I had never been truly part of something - and I reveled in that freedom. Now, the magi had given me a view into something I had missed. There was more to being kin than I had expected. I did not wish to leave it behind.
The Lady suggested in wisdom that change is part of growth. I had not changed, in this new path I walked. My freedom remained my own. But I learned so many old companions never had the freedoms I enjoyed - and only the strong remained true. Old friends grew somber - this was not true to who I am. Aligned? Part of a Nashite following? This was not where my roots and self has always been. They said - I should leave. And I found - I could not disagree. It suited my winter aspect, a portion of my autumn. But it denied spring and summer.
I was trapped... when I had always sought to be free. I could not stay - I needed to walk my own path, true to my own mercurial nature - the good and the evil. I could not leave - give up this kinship, my Liege, and turn my back on a pledge made.
Fractured in this way - I was no use to myself or my following. I needed to walk the world on my own feet again, to learn it on terms I understood – unaligned. To be judged on my own merits, for good or ill. To come to terms with my path, with Nash, and with evil. Then whichever path chosen - I would be whole. Accepting that path with full understanding of what is truly lost - and truly gained.
In the end, I could not return to the Magi.
It was lonely - at first especially. It was Belsambar who brought me through that first hard time - grouped, a friendly murmur ever in my ear.
It was in this parting I found the final gift from my time in Magi. To my surprise – I found that people did not have to be part of my own following to be as close as kin could be. I simply had to accept and ask. To accept my own insistence at obligation towards them. With kin, I already knew myself obligated, so where was no hesitation to ask for aid, for support. The same was however true of a much wider company, when I opened myself up to accepting my own feelings of obligation. This was - an astounding revelation.
I once again am judged on my own merits. Those who give me aid do so freely, as do those who hunt me. I revel in this freedom, given and granted.
I found, curiously, that I was even less self sufficient - and more - than I expected to be. Content to amble, I did not need protection nor knowledge from any. Seeking growth, I could make scarce progress without aid. For the first time - I began to accept this dependence. And to grow again.
As for alignment - there are only two paths for me. Neutrality or unaligned. It is where my nature lies. And given that I will have none dictate my friendships – it seems the latter is where I will remain.
The remaining path for me to discover is Nash. I find it curious, that so many assumed I was accepting His path when I joined with the Magi. And equally exasperated so many assumed I had left that path when I left the Magi. Few ever asked Me what the truth is. Among those few, I found Gwyrdain. Few others have as much of my respect as he.
And suddenly, Abel is here. A scowl in the distance. A silent benefactor.
It was in this time that I first visited the Mystic Woods. Though the enchantment on the woods has long faded, something about my dryadic nature gave me a particular affinity for it. Like the travelers of old, I found when I entered I simply lost the desire to ever leave. Devoid of will, I would eventually pull off my boots and settle in the sacred clearing there – sink my toes and fingers into the rich soil and turn my face to the sky. I spent ages frozen there, completely content for lack of my own will to seek anything else.
Friends noticed I was absent. Concerned when their queries met with silence and apathy, they came in search. Though I no longer had the will to leave – neither did I have a will to stay. When they told me to take their hand and follow – I did. To this day, I still find myself trapped within those woods at times. A bad portal, quest, accidental wander or poor impulse control will take me beneath its limbs – and there I will remain, until another arrives, takes my hand, and asks that I follow them out. Some day, when I no longer desire the world – I will return there and find contentment into eternity.
After a time in the realm – a betrayal found me. As I always had done, I gave my trust to someone I had rarely met, and who was rumored to not be trustworthy. He grouped with me, brought me to a locked room, portalled in two of his kin and killed me. It was not the one I grouped with who betrayed me – I knew his nature. It was not the kin who joined him, though it keenly felt as if it was. It was the betrayal of my own judgment – I had not known they were kin with one another, and had always thought us friendly. In the wake of this turmoil and naked shock, Cordir found me again. She gifted me with the equipment the like of which I had never owned. I was not kin, she owed me nothing. I was humbled.
Cordir has brought me two things. The first - was Cirth. Through the tapestries of history, she anchored my flighty memories. She challenged my long held policies of keeping everyone at arms length, avoiding growing roots in any. Magi taught me I could accept broader kinship. Cordir reminded me of what kinship had always been waiting for me.
I wait for him, even as he waited for me for so many hundreds of years.
The other gift Cordir gave was acceptance. No matter my path, she welcomed me. With words, with actions. Without expecting that I give anything in kind. Even my friendship with Isolas, when I was part of his family, was strained with expectations. That I would fall in line, if he would just give me freedoms.
I found that she would be stepping away from her following soon. Her ftell was silent, she seemed alone. It did not seem right that the Lady of Fate leave unheralded. It did not seem right that she walk her final days alone.
I joined - not for her following - but for Her. She had welcomed me as myself, though we both still worked to find our ways. I am no weaver, or wyld, or guardian. I have close friendships with anathema which I -would- not give up - nor did she ever ask me to. As it was Corri she welcomed, not her vision of what Corri ought to be.
And throughout, Abel is here. A scowl in the distance. A relentless encouragement towards better.
Knowing that Fate would end soon, I was seized with the urge to become eligible for the quest for Triat mastery, before the chance was past. I put full effort as I had never done before, and reached level 50. I still wait for the quest – but the gods are immortal, it will come in time. I do not know if I am suited for such mastery, but I look forward to the task being placed before me.
I remained with Cordir until the end, when she retired. Fate became a part of me quickly, and though I knew it was ending when I joined – its breakup left a hole where I had sunk roots. But even with all of the freedoms I had within Fate – I know that if I had not known it was ending, it would have chafed at my sense of freedom.
In her parting came a startling friendship. Rincewind, who had been known but not kin, approached and we began to plan a few gifts for Cordir’s parting. This was the seed and root of the kinship forged between us. Though his long absences have limited our interaction, he has always stood ready for my defense. Stranger yet, I feel a kinship with him that I have felt with no other. I will always count him as a brother.
There were others in this time who emerged as kin. Less defined in their beginning, I can not tell you how it is that Abel and I first came to speak. How Ink became both friend and mentor. How it was Myst and I began to travel, or how Totec became a part of my world. Without their guidance, I would never have grown into the knowledge I have today. Truly, if ever any were kin to me beyond my early days, it was these four.
I am not certain if you truly understood the impart of what I said about these four, so let me repeat it. They are Kin. Let me try to give a window into the hours upon hours of time this regard has grown from. Totec spent hours giving me terrifying and delightful tours of places in the realm I never knew existed. The cells in the river of despair will always remind me of him. In his generosity, he gave Myst the simple ring I needed to gain possession of one that once belonged to Cirth. Ink spent hours answering questions, helping me learn the lay of both land and gear. He and Myst took Corri on rinkydinks into places few can still go and survive. They gave me magical items the like of which I hadn’t known existed.
More even than these, Abel has spent as much as the three of them combined in friendship and patient tutoring. Teaching me ways to survive, equipment to support my strength, and (regrettably) how to billet a cockroach. All four have shown such generosity of equipment and knowledge that I am humbled to this day. I only hope to be able to demonstrate the regard I have for their care and friendship.
Near this time, a great scavenger hunt was held for items across the globe. I had learned so much in the last age, that I decided stubbornly that I wished to Win. It was grueling hours upon hours at the list, hunting items, checking nervously my score. Chasing Zonaso’s lead far into the night. With Abel as my partner for fully 2/3rds of the sleepless struggle – I won. I have rarely felt such elation. There are few things that can bind friendships as tight as shared challenges.
Throughout, I have been challenged with balancing friendships and alignment. A group mate should be able to rely on the full support of their group - you watch each others back. Even outside of a group, those who you are friends with you should give help to. Yet what if Ink is the one attacking, could I turn on him? I could not. Is it fair to thwart someone’s kill, when you are protected by friendship from their aggression? It is not. I have tried many responses, none of them satisfying. For now, I have concluded the only possible answer is to not get involved. It is never pleasant, and still does not seem right. But it is the best I have devised, in my troubled experiments towards a better answer. And the day will come when I will fail the strength I need to stay my hand.
Some may have noticed that Cirth’s name has been strangely absent since my acceptance of the bond we share. Absent from my writings here, but not the world.
Silonch had noticed that after Cordir left the realm, the vast records she kept began to vanish. Alarmed – she send a cry out for the Scribe of Fate and Kindred. And Cirth answered. His return is both matter of fact, and momentous all at once. It was fated, that we would find our place in time together. Matter of fact. And yet – this is not some distant known event – it is Now.
Cirth is out of balance. With the Weaver gone, Wyld has gained strength. He no longer controls his vampire thirst. He hunts, relentlessly. For the first time, his skin has felt warm to the touch from the heat of his victims, instead of the aloof chill he has always kept. Our paths cross rarely, but I see his tracks. I linger at the half elf camp, searching for them.
And throughout, Abel is here. A scowl in the distance. A friend who shows unexpectedly at every turn.
My fate is intertwined with Cirth, in equal measure with the roots I have grown in him. So it was perhaps not surprising that the seasons began their cycles once more. My hair began to grow out white, as the listlessness of winter found me. We are mirrors of one another in so many ways. While he hunts and grows - I am pushed into winter. Yet I have been through many winters, and know how to break the apathy of the season. You need a jolt of energy. And there is great energy in death… so I began to court strife.
Today, I saw Cirth. He no longer smells of dust and parchment. His voluminous robes are gone, replaced by leathers fit for the hunt. Calluses have replaced the black stain of ink that once laced his hands like veins. The musk of his scent, once hidden until I had nuzzled close, now hits when I come within touch. It holds the vague overlay of sweat, struggle belonging to both him and those he feeds on. It is wholly Him, as much as it ever was – but another aspect.
As such things do when you court strife – it found me. I was at Wintermeet, re-popping my stores of potions. Mas was there, and knew my intent. I knew the hunter lurked. I knew him skilled. But I knew my own speed and strength as well, and I took the risk. He was waiting for me within the boulders. Calmly, I felt my exasperation and stubbornness rise. I was busy, and didn’t have the patience to be interrupted. I knew I had the strength to win this fight. So instead of turning to flight – I raised my weapon in reply.
I had the strength, but not the skill. When my first assault fizzled – I simply froze. The tools were there, at my fingertips. I did not reach for them. I simply stared, frozen, as my corpse dropped at his feet. He was completely coldhearted, though not cruel. Having little – everything I owned was an improvement. And he kept it.
Though this was hardly a unique event in the realm - it was the first such a blow I had ever experienced. I had lost the gear people had entrusted to me. I had lost it in an entirely preventable way. It left a wound where nothing had ever affected me before. I had never known such loss.
In the wake of this shock, stubbornness came forward again. Pick yourself up, gather the equipment you need to start over. Don’t let the loss of it keep you down. Nearly naked, my first trip into the world – Mas tried to kill me a second time. Shaken, with a loss of confidence from our last encounter – I managed to scramble away. But the anger of this event remained. It is one thing to be a hunter. It is another to hunt one you have already beaten, who has nothing of value, who poses no threat and holds you no ill will – while they struggle to regain their feet. In this, the wound that I had been dealt from the fight turned scar.
And throughout, Abel is here. A scowl in the distance. A patient tutor.
Cordir returned to the realm. The shadows rose, and called me to name the place for the ritual and they would come. The Triat had heard my request, from the days of my time within Fate. They had answered. Startled, I had no answer in reply. I did not confess myself to the Triat faith, despite my time with Cordir’s following.
I knew Cirth would be proud, a devoted scribe and dedicant of the triat faith himself. I thought to accept the task, to see where it took me and to simply walk away if it proved something I did not wish. But then something changed.
I was with Cirth, in the Ent forest. Once again, I kept him company as he hunted and fed. I watched him strike down ent after ent, picking bark out from his teeth. It disquieted me to watch him hunt trees, because I felt a kinship with them as a dryad. Later the same day, I was alone beneath the Mighty Oak of Wintermeet. I nursed a long slash in my arm, where blood trickled down to my fingertips from the strike of a sharp centaur hoof. It hit me then. Blood. Blood, not sap. Why was I more concerned when Cirth hunted the ents, than I was to watch him drain an elven lady lifeless? In my three thousand years of memory – for the first time I stopped to realize that I wasn’t a dryad. I was equally a human. And I had always dismissed that truth.
I came to the triat ritual with new determination. No longer a whim – I would accept the triat challenge to search within. To find out who I was – not just as a dryad but as a human. As all of me.
Among the tasks set before me from the triat was that I must kill a mortal vampire. A wicked sacrifice and piece of destruction, since the only answer is to accept a sacrifice or hunt a friend. And the sacrifice offered willingly has been Cirth. I will not accept. I have pledged my determination to this quest, but How I fulfill its terms is my choice. I will find another way. I will ask Cytoxan and Mistyfier if they will give their leave for me to hunt him…
And throughout, Abel is here. A scowl in the distance. A companion in the distant crossings of the realm.
The triat quest set many challenges in my path. The hardest of these thusfar have been the sacrifices of darkness and noise. I am forbidden to take my rest anywhere but within the noise of cities, guild or temple. The temples have been a haven, the only solid sleep I have found since the quest began. I am also forbidden to travel actively during the day. I spend many daytime hours chafing, watching the hours, waiting for the night – fettered.
The darkness weighs on me. Not just the dark of the quest, but the dark of the realm. Betrayals of honor. For the first time, I have sought the hunt. As one of the tasks of my quest, I must kill a mortal vampire. Cirth offered his neck without fanfare, but I WILL find another path. I seek Mistyfier’s death in his stead, though I know his strength. Beyond the quest, I have actively sought the death of another. At the urging of the shaman Vylera – I hunted for Mas. For the first time in my memory, I picked up my weapons and began a fight with another mortal, seeking his death. In vengeance. In stubborn refusal to allow myself to remain intimidated by the strength which cut me down before.
It ended up being Lestat, not Mistyfier, who fell to my knife to satisfy Wyld for my quest. Phantom granted leave for our duel, and Lestat agreed to meet with me. It did not feel right. Though it was to be a true fight and not a sacrifice, it still felt the cold truth that it was. I had asked a friend to stand forward, to freely hand me a chance to take his life to satisfy this quest. I had committed to the Triat mastery. Committed to doing what it took to win it. I no longer had the option to refuse. My options were this, or accept the sacrifice Cirth offered and slit his throat clean. Or to refuse the path of a duel and hunt someone as any other killer. If I failed, I would be back to the need to slit Cirth’s throat. I chose Ramsay island in Cirth’s memory, as I portalled Lestat out to our fight. A reminder of why I chose this path, though it still felt wrong.
The High Priestess is dead. It wasn’t our skill. It was pure attrition and determination. Those who finally stood with me at her end: Lily, Treehugger, Leo, Mortimer, Belsambar. The death toll: Once, Linkin, Leo, and Lily. Twice: Mortimer and Myst. Three times, Belsambar. Three and a half times – Treehugger. (Treehugger killed himself once in the attempt as well. We thought it polite not to ask how.). Seven times, Corri. Others joined earlier, unsuccessful attempts but survived: Abel, Gertrude, Voyan, Drauglin and Xixxo. I could not have succeeded without aid.
Our first attempt ended after two straight hours of fighting, with no success. The second ended after a 7 hour struggle to draw her out - and where in the end she refused to hunt and make an appearance. For the third, we had dispel evil wands and the strength of Lily’s rifts behind us. But it was pure pandemonium as her strength blasted through us. None of us could last more than a few rounds against her 200hp swings. Heal staffs blazing, she was weakening – but our corpses began to pile up at our feet. Treehugger rallied us as we weakened, and not longer later the Priestess dropped.
The final fight was – a curiously touching affair. Cytoxan and Darkclaw are at war. Lily and Belsambar stand with him, Treehugger and Mortimer with Her. Sworn enemies. All four put aside their differences for the fight. I am humbled all over again by their friendship, loyalty, strength and solidarity.
So much has changed since I last put words to paper. The high priestess proved to be the most difficult of my wyld-given kills – but not the most difficult to get to. The Lady of Masters Tower took that prize, as too many mages with large inventories and untried tactics struggled the hard way through her realm. Straezan lost more unique treasures as his bags burnt to ash and all we owned littered the floor. Retreat was forced, as we fought now only to reclaim what had dropped. It wasn’t until three ladies came together – Lily, Rhyki and Corri – that we made our final successful bid.
Triat challenge answered, I came to the final rite. The tokens accepted, I was deemed Triat Master. Cirth stood by, his slight smile revealing the tips of his teeth. I was fiercely relieved, to be soon freed from the restrictions of travel and sleep. Yet examining my thread at the rite, Cordir seemed puzzled. Following past to present – my thread ended in a giant knot. Stunted from lack of roots in my early years, I could grow no more.
I was offered a gift then – at a price. The hand of Wyld could slice this knot. Cut the thread of my existence.. allow me start anew. It was not an offer that would ever come again, and I chose swiftly. With no time to prepare, I simply rested my eyes reassuringly to Cirth - even as Myst stepped forward as the hand of wyld to cut my thread. She raised her sword, with the weight of Triats Wyld behind her – and cut me down.
I was told later of the scene. Cirth standing numb, with the frozen, breath-held horror of shock that not only was I dead – but my thread cut entirely. I was no more. Around him, the celebration of my triat mastery continued. While he remained closed in his own mind -filled with loss and the bloody corpse of his Ash at his feet.
I never again walked the realm as I was.
Memory, in times of strain, can be a loose-weave. I did not think of myself as changed, when I found myself stepping out from a dead Ash in the woods. But I was. I remembered the stricken look of Cirths expression as Myst came for me, and knew I should find him. I remember – confusion, when the old familiar incantations failed my tongue and I found myself stumbling barefoot back to town.
And throughout, Abel is here. A scowl in the distance. A rotten smell and solid heart.
I know that I quickly relearned much what I had once known – a blur of incantations and flicker of blades that was like the reminder to muscles of what they once knew. I have more endurance even now than I had before the rebirth. And I still have so much to learn.
I think that I found Cirth, once after my rebirth. I know my appearance had shifted – no longer did I appear human and know my dryad ancestry – but dryad, knowing my human ancestry. He knew me without hesitation. Of that meeting, I remember only his face at my cheek - he said I smelled different. I do not know if he said he was leaving – only that he is gone. I will wait. We have always waited. We are mirrors of one another in so many ways. While I hunt and grow – he is pushed into dormance.
It has been centuries now, since my rebirth. Still no trace of Cirths passing. I leave small signs in the corners of the realm where he has lurked, but find only dust. As his absence makes me stop and think of the passage of time - I look up and realize that most all have abandoned my side. All of my mentors are gone. My brother has not been seen for ages. Abel is gone. He has been gone for years now, but it is only now as I pause to think about that loss that I realize it is true. A hermit by nature, he was often lost for months on end to the solitude of his oceans and deserts. I remember he was there when I relearned the trick of turning skin to stone. But I can not say if I have seen him since. Back and gone, back and gone again.
The Lich of the Black Conclave is no more. While it may seem strange to some that this event holds importance to me, it is the closing of an era. The conclave has always held my respect as a following of honor. And I still haven’t figured out what Nash means to me. That he is real, I have no doubt. I have seen him. Gods themselves trembled when he passed. Somehow Molo always felt like the link to that answer, and it is gone.
And throughout, Abel was here. A scowl in the distance. A silent benefactor. A relentless encouragement towards better. A friend who shows unexpectedly at every turn. A patient tutor. A companion in the distant crossings of the realm. A rotten smell and solid heart. He is gone.
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