The Watcher 2
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: The Watcher (part 2)
Author: Maelwyn Ab'Arawn
She could not bring herself to raise her voice to the old one again; his pain at witnessing the slaughter of two races in his dreams for thousands of years was enough punishment. It seemed he had been spared from his own crime by Exodus' plot. "But the Meer... what became of our people, Adranath? Are we the last of our race?"
"The time has come!" He stood quickly and smiled once more. "Come, come child! You have returned to us and now the time of the awakening is at hand!"
He took her hand and helped her rise and immediately began walking away at a brisk pace. With nothing else to guide her actions in this strange place, she followed him, unsure of what awaited her. They walked in silence for nearly an hour until they reached the base of the mountains, a small clearing in the grass not far away from the Juka fortress she had barely escaped days earlier.
Adranath moved his hands in complicated arcs and small motes of light fell from him like dust. He clapped his hands together and the lights fell to the ground and swirled together forming one bright point. The light spread along the ground and formed the shape of a square stone platform before it faded. A platform of polished wood with what seemed to be blink runes was fitted into the top of the neatly carved rock.
"Come." Adranath offered Dasha his hand, which she suspiciously took. Together they stepped onto the wooden platform and vanished. When they reappeared Dasha could see that they were in some sort of crypt. Tombs in rows stretched on from one end of the massive chamber to the other with small dots of torchlight burning throughout. It was obvious Meer had built this place, but she had never seen it before.
What is this place? These are not death tombs, Adranath."
"No, child. It was the only way we could follow. The sleep of eternity holds the Meer here." He walked through the chamber to a tomb whose lid had not been sealed. "But someone had to stay. Someone had to watch for the Juka." He turned to her. "The duty was mine. After what I had done... what I had once done and was undone... I had to atone."
"You have been watching and waiting... for thousands of years?!" She understood the madness that now seemed to plague the old eternal. After centuries and centuries of seclusion in this land he had lost a bit of his composure.
Eternals would exist forever but in solitude even an immortal mind had to suffer over such a great expanse of time. "The Meer gave up their home so that we could wait for the time when the struggle for balance could begin anew. The fortress has returned. The Juka have returned.
You, my child, you have returned." He turned in a full circle, taking in the hundreds of tombs that had waited for him for endless centuries. His task was now complete. "Now rise, my people! Rise and continue the fight!"
He slammed his staff down onto the floor and held his hand aloft. A bright blue light shot forth from his fingertips and enveloped the entire room in its glow. Dasha shielded her eyes slightly and looked back and forth as the light bathed every surface and faded. At first it was imperceptible but bit-by-bit the sounds of movement could be heard. Beside her, a tomb cracked open and the lid drifted aside. Another eternal rose from the sarcophagus and turned to meet her gaze.
"Dasha! Upon awakening I could have hoped to see nothing so wonderful as the sight of you returned to your people!" Dasha could only stare in amazement. The entire race had slept for centuries here so that they may once again devote themselves to the balance. All was not lost.
"Watcher, you have done well." The eternal said to Adranath. "Your devotion has saved us all and we are in your debt."
Adranath turned to Dasha, the look of a frightened child on his face. "I... am I forgiven, Dasha? After all I have done, all that I would have done... all of this that has occurred... I can be the only one to blame. Had I not been such a hasty fool in that time, we would not have had to bring ourselves to this new world. After all this time... have I been redeemed?"
She smiled and took his hand gently. "You once told me that wisdom accepts the inevitability of change."
One by one, the tombs opened and an entire race awoke from their sleep.