The Starry Wastes(Out of body/dungeon chat zone)

[Anastasia]

The words of the Dark One echo in your minds. His declaration of challenge lingers in your foggy, death blasted minds:

"Pathetic creatures! Welcome to Eisenschloss. Your task is simple. I will grant you bodies to challenge what is ahead. Amuse me with your feeble attemps - for if you can reach my Throne, I shall grant you freedom and a wish. You shall even has as many bodies as you need for this. You'll need them."

His rumbling, sulphurous roar sends fear down even the spine of the most valiant spirit. Be that as it may, there seems to be a convergance in this star dotted void - three souls coming together. Are they drawn together or merely attracted to something else besides endless night? They themselves are not entirely sure, only that the reality of it is thus. As they approach, orbs of white are overlaid by faint, ghostly images. Of bodies remembered, never again to be inhabited?

OOC - Go ahead and intro yourselves and have fun, I'll give you some leeway for now and some direction after a few posts.

[Corwin]

"So... this is death?" Corwin muses, looking down at his ghostly form, before observing his fellow spirits with outwards disinterest.

[Carthrat]

One of the lantern-like spheres is overlaid with the image of a young-looking half-elf, clad in a dominating robe and wearing mostly black and blue.

"Death is just one more stepping stone," he sighs, in a light, but hard-edged voice. "It seems that the journey never really ends. Sa-Sha was indeed correct."

[Dracos]

The disembodied spirit of Aesop floated towards them. "Of course not!  Well, at least, as far as we know."  

An older human with a wide face dressed in a purple toga somewhat overlayed the excited ghost.  "Mmm, others though, well, that may or may not ruin the challenge.  Mmm, is this all?  At least it's not a horde." The man seemed semi-absorbed in his own thoughts.

Dracos

[Carthrat]

Tchaner looks with some disdain at the babbling spirit, before trying to will his spirtiual form to move about, and orient itself to face the other two in a more useful fashion.

"It seems we are companions in whatever afterlife awaits us," he says, in a broad, engaging tone. "And that the Dark One still holds sway over us, no matter what trickery he used to gain it. If we have no choice to be his playthings, then so be it- but he'll rue the day that he allowed us even a mockery of life."

[Corwin]

"We were always so obsessed with life, granted with so much of it we never gave aging a second thought...." Corwin shakes his head, his hand coming to his short beard. "We did not think of existence after death." He turns to look at the others. "Do we believe this Vile One, then? Can he restore us to our former glory? Has he the power over death itself?"

[Anastasia]

Movement happens slowly - the orb under you lightly moving about. Not that it seems to matter much, you can only see this black abyss of stars as far as your eyes work.

[Carthrat]

"To be raised from the dead is no impossibility," snorts Tchaener. "But he has possession of our very souls. Until we can release ourselves, the breath of life is something we may as well forget about.

To play games with a defeated foe! There is no respect in him, only mockery and foolhardiness."

[Anastasia]

Around you the winds of space stir - a feeling of movement around you. Yet your ghostly forms are not stirred by it visibly. Instead a chill goes down your  spirits, a distinctly barren and vulnerable feeling.

"Hmph. Foolish mortals." This voice swirls in the air around you. A man's voice - oh so very human, yet covered in contempt and hatred. Floating above you appears a masked helmet, a skull motif with empty, black eyesockets of metal. "The Dark One said you were pathetic, but this is too much! A degenerate thinker, a petty warmonger, and a piddling royal?  You won't even manage the first tier of Eisenscholss!"

[Carthrat]

"Out with your message and be done with it, servant," snarls Tchaener. "Your skill at mockery is beyond pathetic when set aside your masters. No doubt the respect due you is of similar comparision."

[Dracos]

"Yes, yes.  But what a game it seems to be." The philosopher's eyes gleamed. "Mm, you're a soldier aren't you?  Or at least a warrior.  I know the type, always yammering on honor or glory or such."  He concluded.  "Mmm, I wonder what the true rules of the game are.  We have bodies, but surely he's not set us to a task we cannot ever lose.  Mmm, I suspect the lose would be to bore it."

Dracos

[Dracos]

"Degenerate?  Away with you metal cask!" Aesop shoo'ed.

Dracos

[Corwin]

"Cease and desist thy bleating, minion," Corwin commands the masked helmet, nodding in approval at Tchaener's words. "All scores shall be settled on this tier of Eisenschloss, should thee find thyself brave enough to face your better in single combat!"

[Anastasia]

A sneering laugh echos all around you. "You, Aesop, are nothing but a foolish old man. But you two..." The helmet's eyes catch aflame with green light, as agony floods the senses of Corwin and Tchaener. Unlike anything felt in life, as if they are being torn apart strand by strand in spirit!

"I am the Lord and Warren of Eisenschloss! Suffer an eternity if you dare forget it, spirit dogs." As the orbs of white turn blood red and swirl in time with the pain of the two spirits, "When you are ready and have worked up the courage to face your eternal failure, focus the power you have into a form and you shall enter Eisenschloss."

[Carthrat]

Tchaner's spirit-scream echoes through the cosmos! It transforms into a shout of mingled fury and agony, a stream of vicious words in a knife-edged language spewing forth from empherical lips!