Raistlin emerges from the trance Need’s put him into a vision of hell. Fire, fog, and a cold spreading dark that has him clutching his staff in one hand and Need’s hilt in another. Faire-goers are running, screaming, trampling each other and knocking over tables. A summer fairy pulls at his sleeve.
“Run! We can’t protect you!”
And then the first nightrender appears. It moves like something from a nightmare, stuttering forward at strange angles, and with it comes a wave of horror that nearly drives Raistlin to his knees. He’s a child again, ten years old, face ground in the dirt. Where’s your magic now, Majere! they chant. Show us a magic trick, wizard!. His lungs fill with dirt, he can’t breathe, they won’t let him up -
Open to All
Raistlin can barely breathe. He has his kerchief over his mouth and nose, medicinal herbs grasped tight within them, but the smoke of the fires is boiling in his lungs and the terrible darkness of the creatures’ fearful aura is snatching the air from chest. Even the screams have faded to a kind of dull background roar.
That’s when the sisters find him. He knows at a glance that he can’t outrun them. Without his brother, he’s unlikely to succeed in fighting them. And yet, he finds himself raising his hand to cast, searching for the strange new channels of power this place had carved inside him -
And then the one with the chain moves faster than his eye can see, and cracks him over the head.
He comes around as he’s being dragged across the ground, bound hand and foot in smoke, and understands that his life is over. No one here knows him. No one here has any reason to help him. He sees someone watching him from cover, and meets their eyes with a tired resignation of a dying animal.
Raistlin Majere
Raistlin emerges from the trance Need’s put him into a vision of hell. Fire, fog, and a cold spreading dark that has him clutching his staff in one hand and Need’s hilt in another. Faire-goers are running, screaming, trampling each other and knocking over tables. A summer fairy pulls at his sleeve.
“Run! We can’t protect you!”
And then the first nightrender appears. It moves like something from a nightmare, stuttering forward at strange angles, and with it comes a wave of horror that nearly drives Raistlin to his knees. He’s a child again, ten years old, face ground in the dirt. Where’s your magic now, Majere! they chant. Show us a magic trick, wizard!. His lungs fill with dirt, he can’t breathe, they won’t let him up -
Open to All
Raistlin can barely breathe. He has his kerchief over his mouth and nose, medicinal herbs grasped tight within them, but the smoke of the fires is boiling in his lungs and the terrible darkness of the creatures’ fearful aura is snatching the air from chest. Even the screams have faded to a kind of dull background roar.
That’s when the sisters find him. He knows at a glance that he can’t outrun them. Without his brother, he’s unlikely to succeed in fighting them. And yet, he finds himself raising his hand to cast, searching for the strange new channels of power this place had carved inside him -
And then the one with the chain moves faster than his eye can see, and cracks him over the head.
He comes around as he’s being dragged across the ground, bound hand and foot in smoke, and understands that his life is over. No one here knows him. No one here has any reason to help him. He sees someone watching him from cover, and meets their eyes with a tired resignation of a dying animal.