Moedir's Story

The Garden of the Elders has always been considered the most sacred place in all of the Elvin homeland. Because of its placement high in the mountains, it is considered one of the closest place in the world to the gods. Besides the Sacred One's alters of course. The Garden itself is actually a large pond in the shape of a rose bloom, surrounded by rare flowers and herbs from around the world. Long ago, the first High Elvin Priest brought 100 seeds of 100 different flowers to the garden. Every priest since the first has brought 1000's of seeds to the garden over time.

The freezing mountain whipped through the Garden, blowing white strands of snow as they went. The Garden had always been a place for meditation, but at its highest degree. For most elves, it is easy to take the life force of plants away in order to sustain themselves if they are wounded in battle, but it is difficult for a caster to give life force to a plant. In fact, is is almost impossible for any normal elf to give life to a plant without ending their own.

The Garden stands as a challenge for all elves in the land to test their true magical strength. The freezing cold of the mountains would cause the flowers to die in a matter of minutes, so it is up to the priest to meditate to keep the flowers alive. An priest can keep the flowers from freezing for hours simply by meditating on keeping them alive. The priest transfers his/her power into the flower, but at the same time takes energy from the flower into itself. Through this cycle, both the flower and the priest stay alive. With 1000 flowers, the priest must put out an extreme amount of energy in order to keep them alive, and at the same time needs to take energy from the flowers. If done incorrectly, the priest will die from the loss of energy.

Each and every priest must prove he is more powerful than the last, and to do so must keep the most flowers form dieing for the longest time. Moedir had been sitting in the garden for 4 days now, channeling his energy in and out of the plants near endlessly. A total of 5000 flowers were planted in the garden. The longest record held, by nearly 1 day and 2000 flowers.

The mountain was quite, and the only other from the blowing wind was the soft breath of Moedir as he meditated. His long blond hair hung over his closed eyes. The state of meditation was in was so deep it seamed nothing could wake him. He sat in nothing but light robes, suited for forest living. Any other elf wherein this in this temperature would have froze to death days ago.

From the distance, came the faint whisper of breath.

Slowly, Moedir opened his eyes to the garden, looking around at the 1000's of flowers planted around him. Moedir had ordered no one come up the mountain until he was done with the meditation. So what ever was coming, it was obviously either here on a matter of dire importance, or it was here for trouble. The breath started to get heavier and heavier as Moedir stood up, and turned around to the direction of the sound.

"Stop. Reveal yourself." He stated as he picked up the Black Thorn staff from next to him. The breathing had almost completely stopped; as if what ever was there was surprised it was found. After a few moments, from behind Moedir, came the sounds of string being stretched, and wood creaking. A bow was being strung from behind him. Taking a deep breath in, Moedir allowed his legs to fall out from under him and allowed his body to fall to the ground. Not a moment later, the arrow from the archers bow whizzed by where he's head was just a moment before.

Pushing onto the ground to raise up onto his feet, Moedir grabbed his staff by the very bottom and swung it back behind his head, swinging the staff forward and across his body to his other side. A massive gust of air erupted around Moedir and the garden, clearing the air for a few moments of all snow, revealing the 2 assailants in the garden. Both of the assailants were Dark elves, dressed in hard leather snow-armor. The 2 of them were on either side of the garden, one climbing up the mountain side about 10 yards out, and the other on the on the mountains slope, about 20 yards away. The first was an archer; His armor was covered in poisons and potions, meaning he wasn't hunting for sport, he was out to kill. The second was a larger elf, carrying an ax and 2 daggers on his belt.

After recovering from the blast of air, the 2 assassins stood looking at each other and Moedir, conversing their next move. With a nod from both of them, the larger elf charged at Moedir with ax raised, while the other hooked another arrow with his sights trained on Moedir...

Mel lay, barely breathing. She'd almost healed, but her body was resting and the night was upon her. She began to dream, something she hadn't done in a long time. Through her eyelids you could see the shine of the stars in her eyes glistening through. Her dreams started turning dark and she began whimpering. It was like some great darkness, an evil was coming right at her. A wind woke her, like something large had just flown past her but the sound of wings was absent. She held her wounds, still in a lot of pain but able to move. She looked into the darkening night but could see nothing of what had caused her to stir. She stood and spread her wings. The pain was tolerable and she could fly well enough.

Mel flew to the High Priest of the Light Elves. She'd never spoken to him before, but she'd watched the High Priests meditate for years. When she got there, she found scenes of an epic battle. There was blood and trampling of all the plants. The wind was harsh and thick with snow, making it hard to see. She flew low and landed. It was almost as hard to hear over the wind as it was to see through the snow, but she heard the frustrated grunts of a deep voiced male. Mel crept towards the sounds, trying to be quiet. She saw what appeared to be the High Priest in cage he'd made for himself out of the plants. It was thick but it wouldn't take long for that ax to slice through it. She began to draw her blade and come closer until a whistle over the winds stopped her. The man, an Elf, turned and saw her.

He didn't even take a beat to look at her, just swung his ax and nearly lopped off her head. She only avoided it by allowing the wind to pick her up and rush her away. She flew to the side before bringing her wings back in and taking a stance. The man seemed somewhat stunned but didn't let it phase him. They were far enough away, though, they couldn't see each other. Mel held her wounds and sighed. She couldn't hear their movements and had no idea where they were or how many were out there; she was just sure of one that whistled and the one with the ax.

An arrow whizzed by her head. How can they see me through all this? Another arrow flew past her, going between her arm and her stomach, just barely missing her. It was likely that the only reason he missed was the wind. She pushed off and fought the wind, trying to follow the arrows while dodging them. A gust pushed her into the mountain and she crashed, tumbling and hanging onto the rocks. She tried to pull her wings in but the wind was so high she actually didn't have the strength to fold them down. She screamed for help, though probably couldn't be heard of the wind.

"Help!" Moedir, even in his deepest meditation, heard the cry of the Fair Elf girl. Awakening from his focused state he rose inside the cage, and with a yell of feral rage commanded the vines his cage was made of to break, and skater. 9 vines shot out in each direction, 4 cracking into the rock of the mountain down deep, digging their way through to the girl. The vines grabbed onto Mel's hands to grip her and make sure she didn't fall. The others dug deep into the ground, burrowing their way through the mountain about a foot under the ground. As they dug they shoot out smaller vines which picked up on the smallest movements on the ground. They acted like sensors, picking up anything on the mountain. Even though the elves were nimble on their feet they would pick them up.

The vines hoisted Mel up onto the cliff again, holding onto her to make sure she didn't fall. Even though she couldn't see what was about to happen, she knew it was coming.

Without trouble the censors found them without much trouble. Suddenly thrusting up from the ground they shoot at both of the assassins. The lighter of the two, the archer, knew what was coming, and quickly jumped out of the way. The second one looked down at the ground just in time to see it shoot out of the ground and hook up into his thigh, ripping through skin, muscle, and flesh to come out of the other side of his thigh, blood oozing from the wound. His screams only lasted for a moment before the ground below him opened up, and he was pulled into the ground itself. His screams were silenced when the rocks closed around him, crushing the life out of him.

The other assassin had grown a brain, and got off of the ground onto a solid rock, but Moedir had more than one way to find him. Pulling out 3 more vines from the ground, he whispered another enchantment which made the vines bloom flowers. The flowers slowly opened wide and release a thick green pollen into the air that glowed with a bright neon light. Noticing the pollen, the assassin jumped onto another rock with his bow in hand, and an arrow trained at the monk. The had attached itself to him, causing him to glow bright green through the snow.

The assassin fired 6 arrows in rapped secession at Moedir, but quickly noticing the arrows Moedir pulled 3 more vines out of the ground. They crossed infront of him, creating a shield of thick oak branches. All of the arrows stopped with a thud as they hit the branches. Shouting another incantation the oak branches flew forward, rapping themselves around the archer, gripping all 4 of the archers limbs, spreading them apart so he couldn't move. Bringing back the archer back to Moedir he looked into the eyes of the dark elf, a few more vines coming out of the ground to lift Moedir off of the ground so he was at level with the archer. With a deep growl, Moedir opened his eyes to reveal dark red orbs instead of eyes. Like an infection, the red slowly worked its way into all of the vines, causing them to turn a nightmarish color. With the strength of 100 voices and the depth of of a dragons he spoke at the archer directly.

"You turn on the one who first gave you shape... Who first gave you breath! Where all elves grow, a million life times of my knowledge has saturated the soil! This could have bin forgiven, but you have committed a far WORSE crime. You have dared to try to end the lives of 2 of my young ones. The price for this would be death, but I have made an exception for you, assassin! For your crime, you shall be this gardens protector, never to rest or to die. You shall stand watch over this place of meditation for the rest of eternity!" With a deep growl, what WAS Moedir's vines wrapped around his body, pushing themselves into him. His screams filled the air as they filled his body, turning his skin a dark green. Slowly over his body what looked like bark grew over his skin. It was as if Moedir was turning him into a tree, and that's exactly what he was doing.

Slamming the assassin in to the ground, the assassin stood like a wooden statue, his face frozen in a look of pain and fear. The transformation was complete, and the assassin stood part of the garden. Over the course of the next 100 years, flowers and moss would grow on him but the weather and cold would never kill him. A never ending form of torture.

After pulling Mel to him Moedir's eyes had faded back to normal, as did the rest of the vines. Slowly the vines retracted into the ground, leaving flowers on the ground they touched. Moedir landed on his feet, holding his head in his hands as if he was about to faint. Throwing his head back, Moedir's body fell to the ground in a patch of dry grass with his body covered in cuts and wounds. He was loosing blood, but the grass around him wraped itself around the cuts to help heal them. But this wouldnt be enough. He needed to get down from the mountain, ASAP.

Mel hadn't been able to see most of what happened, though what she had seen frightened her. Moedir's malicious use of the vines and the anger with which he acted actually scared her. The wind began to calm, slightly, but it was still harsh, cold and dangerous up there. She saw the man that had been turned into a tree and touched its face gently. She walked and found hair coming out of the ground, the same kind the man with the ax had. She looked back at Moedir. He'd saved her, but he used vines to tunnel through mountain, thick rock. She'd never seen anything like it and she never wanted to again. She swore, when she first was pulled to him, there was something wrong with his eyes, but she was in too much pain to really notice. The wind felt like it was about to rip her wings right off her back for a while and they were still very sore.

She calmly walked back to Moedir, the plants around him seeming to try to heal him. She'd used most of her power healing herself and between that, the flying she'd done today and the fights, she didn't have much strength left. Mel decided to try and carry him, kneeling to pick him up. Suddenly the thought of how tired she should be and the wearing off of the adrenaline, she suddenly felt like she had no strength. She nearly collapsed on top of him. Her breath was heavy and she felt like simply passing out. The stars, she could see them through the clouds and snow and it caused her to smile. She liked to smile. A deep breath in, the ice crystals burning her lungs, she smiled and tried to pick him up. It wasn't easy for her and she struggled. When she was finally standing, Moedir in her arms, she opened her wings, which hurt very much, and allowed the wind to pull her off the mountain until she was able to glide down to the ground. They came to a landing in a grassy area on the side of a road. In the distance was the silhouette of a city or town but it was far too far away to tell if it was Human, Elven or something else. There, she lay him in the grass and started trying to get the plants to help heal him before simply laying down.

Mel didn't need and wasn't willing to sleep, just to rest. Her body was sore and in pain and simply tired. She stared at the stars and smiled again. Her eyes closed and she began listening to the sounds and smelling the world around her. The smell of the grass when you were this close was a fine, earthy smell with the dirt having its own, rather strong, scent with it. The evening air was moist and you could smell the humidity just hanging there. The bugs and little nocturnal animals were out for their daily lives and it was all very peaceful. Mel began to concentrate on her breathing in a sort of meditation, happy that everything just felt right.