Nap time is over (ATTN: Dali & Dash, but open to all)

[Arath Faringal]

-shift-

The battle raged around him. Encased in the void, Arath felt no emotion as the bodies piled up around him and his comrades. They were incredibly efficient at this work of death. Efficient, but no perfect. Nor invincible. He lost the void as the spear bit through his shoulder. In pain he wheeled around to face his attacker. In shock, he recognized the face of his father...

 

-shift-

 

He was in his childhood home, still facing the father he once knew. The father he had hated so. The spear had changed to a club, and it rained down mercilessly on Arath's child body. Crying and whimering, he pleaded for it to stop. Suddenly he was older again, and he rememebered something ... Saidin... He reached for it, but it seemed so distant, like remembering a dream. Despite all his effort he couldn't touch it, not even the vile taint ...

 

-shift-

 

He stood in the ruins of his home, his fathers body crushed under the charred mes of the small house. An odd mix of horror and satisfaction siezed him. What had he done? Saidin...

 

"What have you done?" Arath reeled around at his mothers voice and saw her standing there, as he had seen her last, murdered in the alleys of Caemlyn. Her body and face mangled by the cruel knives of the darkfriend who had never been found. "You've killed us both!" she whispered

 

"No!" he cried. "I did nothing to you mother!"

"You did not save me ..."

"I was five! What more could I have done?" Tears streamed down his face as the horrible scene replayed through his mind. His own scars from that nightmarish day burned as though on fire.

"You did not save me ..."

"Mother ..." Face buried in his hands he tried to block the memories.

"You did not save her ... and now she is ours."

Arath looked up at the new voice. A fade stood looking down with that awful, eyeless gaze.

 

-shift-

 

Sword in hand, he circled the training grounds of the Farm, battling the Myrdraal.

 

"You are powerless," It hissed at him. "You cannot save yourself, just like you couldn't save your mother." Swords clanged together. The fade sneered at him. "Too weak. Too slow. Always useless." The fades face morphed into that of his father. "Always a disappointment."

 

His fathers sword arced forward, piercing his shoulder, just as his own stabbed forward, piercing his fathers throat. His father vanished from in front of him and Arath fell to his knees.

 

"Too slow."

 

Looking up, his father/fade was there again. Dozens of him. "You cannot escape. You are doomed Arath." The nearest image changed into his mother. "You are doomed my son."

 

In an instant, Saidin filled him. The burning cold and the frozen fire filled him and sickening filth of the taint swept over him. The figures only mocked him. In one terrible voice they cried out "You think that this madness will save you? That it will make a difference, for anyone? Fool ..."

 

In a blind rage he sent Saidin out among the images, hacking them to pieces with weaves of pure spirit. Nothing else would seem to come, but he didn't care. He had to destroy them all, the nightmares of his past. The demons of his past. Hate burned almost as strong as the One Power. The image of his mother fell under the blows, broken and bleeding as she had been so many years ago, eyes glazed over and accusing him. In a teary eyed fury he lashed out at the other images. Confused and surprised shouts arose from them, from all around; sounds that seemed oddly distant, but he didn't care. He had to destroy them!

[Arath Faringal]

(Okay, maybe it was a little vague . . . here's some more detail to get everyone started)

 

Arath lay on the bed in the infirmary, unchanging, unmoving, as he had been for months. Ever since the battle at Dumai's well he had lain in a coma, kept alive by the skilled hands of the Asha'man healers. But in his mind, nightmares were forming. The sleeper was about to awaken.

 

A dedicated on duty made his rounds, checking on the severe cases that stayed in the infirmary. He gave only a half a glance at the unconscious Asha'man. There had been no change in this one in the months he had worked here. He stepped past the bed with hardly a second thought, then paused. Looking back he realized that there was something different. The man was drenched in sweat, and his eyes seemed to be twitching. He stepped forward to examine closer. There was definitely something happening.

 

"M'Hael!" he called out. "There's something going on with this one. I think he's starting to wa-". His voice changed to a shout of surprise as Saidin suddenly filled Arath, who began to breath heavily and move his head around, whispering softly to someone. Weaves of Spirit began flying in all directions. The dedicated stumbled backwards in confused shock as one of the weaves slammed into him, cutting him off from the source. Shouts arose from other people in the infirmary, patients and workers, as they saw the weaves and struggled to avoid them.

 

(Any time you want to join in . . . be a victim :twisted: )

[706Somtaaw]

Dashiva stepped out of the kitchen, all weaves inside now stopped. He'd cooked most of the food for the evening meal already and all that remained was waiting for the proper time before heating it once more.

 

Stepping around the corner, he took down the wards protecting his office when he wasn't inside and stepped in, closing the door behind him. Glancing around quickly, he moved behind the desk and picked up a few reports.

 

After a few minutes of study, he dropped them back on his desk and left his office, warding it behind him. Leaving the Inn, he walked slowly to the Infirmary. He no longer jogged everywhere, he was likely one of the most fit men here and no longer desired to prove it.

 

While still a distance from it, he could feel almost an eruption of sudden channeling coming from the building. "Light but I hate paperwork, and with a training accident I'll have some to make... those soldiers will wish they'd never been born. And any Dedicated there will be cursing their fore fathers," he growled.

 

OOC: Not going to be jumping in quite yet, but nice to see you back man.

[Arath Faringal]

(OOC: Alrighty ... I'll just have to NPC a bunch of people and everyone can step in if they feel the inkling to do so ...)

 

The infirmary was a chaotic whirl in moments. Soldiers forgot their training in Saidin and ran for cover. Dedicateds reached for the source and tried to fight back the spirit weaves, trying to avoid the shields that the unconscious Asha'man was sending in all directions. A soldier in the next bed over suffering from a training accident tried to get away, falling from the bed and crawling away, only to be struck from behind. He collapsed in shock as Saidin vanished from him forever.

 

Arath watched the figures falling before him, hate welling up as he tore his father to pieces over and over with Saidin. The figures began to sieze the source themselves, and he fought back with everything he could. Another figure stepped up in front of him and siezed the source, more powerfully than the others. Arath focused on this new threat, throwing all the spirit he could at it while throwing occasional weaves at the other images surrounding him. This stronger image resisted, throwing back his own weaves, but he pressed relentlessly. He drew more heavily on Saidin, pushed to his very limit. Why didn't they die and stay dead?

 

An Asha'man struggled past the fleeing people. The weaves seemed to focus on him, and he sent his own weaves of spirit out, cutting the shields apart before they could touch him. He gritted his teeth from the effort. These were no flimsy, practice type shields, but full out attempts to sever him, and spirit was not his greatest strength. He yelled in frustration, 'Don't just bloody stand there! Somebody shield him!'

[Arath Faringal]

*cough*bump*cough*

 

Anytime, anyone, anything you want . . .

 

Or is everyone afraid of the sleeping kid?

 

Arath Faringal

Sleepy Asha'man Extraordinaire

Bored to Tear

[Guest Dalinar]

"M'Hael! There's something going with this one. I think he's starting to wa-" The call was cut off abruptly by a surprised squawk that brought Dalinar's head whipping up from the Healing he had been concentrating on. With saidin burning through him, there was no mistaking the sudden swell and burst of the One Power so nearby in the Infirmary.

 

Muttering under his breath, he snapped off the weaves that were closing over a nasty fractured leg with a careless twist that would probably make finishing the job ten times harder later on. Then again, with his Talent, ten times harder was still probably not a tenth of what he could Heal under the right conditions.

 

He swiftly exited the room, his long legs moving him easily, rounded a corner into the corridor that run like an artery through the Infirmary's heart, and followed his senses to the commotion that was certainly the source of the heavy thrum of saidin in the building.

 

To his surprise, the epicentre of the chaos was a certain Arath Faringal, comatose it seemed. And he was channeling. The thought was slightly terrifying to Dalinar - he had read and heard too much about the dangers of chance channeling in one's sleep, and the potentially dire consequences it brought with it.

 

And the room modelled just one example of those consequences. Weaves of Spirit wheeled out of control through the air, crashing with unerring accuracy into unsuspecting victims who were felled like flies. Dalinar hastily spun a web of Spirit across the room, slashed in places by knives of Spirit even as it was formed, and found to his relief that most of the fallen were merely sleeping. But there, and there, he could feel an absence, a lack of resonance, where he was sure men had lost the Source... forever.

 

One unfortunate Asha'man now seemed to be bearing the brunt of the sleeper's assault, and was struggling vainly to keep the razor-weaves away. He was scrabbling desperately with his own weaves, swiping aimlessly now, which only seemed to increase the intensity of the attacks.

 

Watching the weaves, a flurry of threads with a strength in Spirit that made Dalinar envious, it took him a couple of moments before he saw a pattern. A sweep, a stab, a parry and a thrust. Inverted, a switch, and then back to the start again. As if whatever the man was seeing on the back of his eyelids was happening over and over again. Watching again, and again, the M'Hael quickly took the pattern in his stride.

 

"Release, Asha'man." Dalinar said quietly as he measured, drew on Saidin and then with a flick, twist, jab and cross-block countered the Sleeping Man's weaves.

 

"Release, and for the Light's sake, find me someone good at Shielding."

 

Dalinarius Traachanshield,

M'Hael.

 

OOC: Sorry. I suck. I know this has been looong in coming. Hope it's ok.

[Arath Faringal]

OOC: Lets finish this up . . . I do so hate hanging open threads like this . . . Lets wrap it up quick like.

 

IC: Arath's mind churned in the nightmare. The figure channeling in front of him mocked him, countering everything he did with no effort, and not making any moves to attack. Toying with him. Anger welled up inside him and he pressed his attack harder. His attack patterns degenerated into random chaos, trying anything to press his opponent. And it started to work. The defenses he pressed against began to fall back slowly, closer and closer to his enemy. Attacks divided, weakening slightly, but attacking from twice as many angles, pressing ever closer.

 

Desperate to finish this, Arath pulled more on the power, slightly exceeding his limits. His mind screamed at the dangers, and he was vaguely aware of a painful sensation, but his attack pressed harder, closer and closer to his target.

[706Somtaaw]

OOC: Apologies, I've been slacking off alot and was kind of hoping 'someone' would post in here.

 

IC: Dashiva stopped his trotting a short distance from the Infirmary and formed the Void, bringing relief from the mild headache which had caused him to come here in the first place.

 

Reaching for saidin as he carefully entered the door, he cut a few weaves as they slowly moved towards him and moved deeper.

 

Every man he encountered who looked wild eyed, he quickly slid a Shield into place and used a brief weave of Air to keep from being attacked from behind.

 

There was a larger amount of saidin being used from the main hall, he judged, and a lesser amount beyond that. Stepping softly, he moved around a wall readying both a Shield and some defensive weaves before he saw Dalinar ahead.

 

Stepping wide, he stopped well to Dalinar's side and looked at over the room. "What's going on with him," he asked loud enough to be heard by Dalinar, but unlikely to carry far in the chaos and bedlam filling the Infirmary.