[Lord Commander Erus]

The figure that strode from the ruined shrine startled Alder... Hell, if she hadn't seen his eyes for a brief instant, she would have let loose with the half-knocked arrow she cradled in her bow. But no one else she had ever seen carried eyes of such a golden hue, the very mirror of a wolfs. Seeing it was Rusael, she lowered the bow to point off at the side towards the path they had came down on, but didn't let up the tense on the string.

He was dragging some sort of sword, some ugly taper bladed thing far too short for the typical sweeping cuts and slashes of the Jai'den that Rusael descended from. And.. Her eyes just didn't want to see the thing, so crude and evil, and the most horrendous scraping noise it made, even as it troughed through bare earth. As if something inside it desperately wanted to be free, and was none too pleased it's freedom had been denied to it.

Strange things flicked across the blade. Runes in colors she had never seen before, in languages she had never heard of, dance their way across the weapon and yet somehow their purpose and meaning was clear. Nothingness dwelt in that blade. An utter lack of structure and form to such a degree that her stomach wanted to run out her navel at the mere thought of it.

What had happened in that forsaken ruin? Where was the man she had journeyed with across countless oceans, braved deserts and even a lake of fire with? What in the Circle could this mean? Was he possessed?

The blank white of his eyes, the random pull and relax of odd muscles made her think so, that he had been lost.. Then, as she pulled her arm up, the thing stopped. The mithril tip of the shaft gleaned with a faint wink as she sped a blessing to the Nine for her friend and loosed the shaft into his breast.

What happened next was known to anyone with their head not under a rock, and several who probably were. Up whirled the cursed blade, the form of it flowing like molten steel, thin tendrils of smoke swirling about the flame kissed circle as the scintillating runes slammed to a single point, a brilliant beacon of gold in a shimmering sea of brilliant silver.

From battered taboo, the sword had been born to something else entirely. Gold wire wrapped white leather, and ivory chased with silver formed a guard of flared wings, a diamond of twisted metals of the same clasping some sort of stone that wasn't quite... there, but definitely here... Forth sped the arrow, though so slow now one could see the wind ruffle the fletchings and spin the blessed bolt.

Alder cursed.. Thinking the blade had somehow slowed down time. Her hands acted of their own accord, knocking and loosing the last two shafts in her blackened quiver. Each one slow as soon as it left the bow, it's wood smoking and popping as a green sapling over a fire.

Each tiny shaft began to quiver, starting with the first not a hairs breadth from Rusael's eye. Feathers flew free from shaft and glue, and a horrendous screech rent the air, followed by an immense and roaring blast of heat that made Alder shut tight her eyes. And suddenly. numerous piles of metal, wood, fletching and other littered the arc of ground in front of the swordsman, the ground beneath burnt in a fire so hot the loose sand of the soil was a murky glass.

A smile touched his lips then, as the howling lessened. Maybe the thing would sleep, rather than stampeding around in his consciousness, perverting his very soul with it foul humor and presence. It seemed, and how he knew it was indeed it's own entity was beyond him at the present, to suddenly be very intent on examining his early child hood.

The sudden return of control shocked Rusael, and for a moment he saw Alder staring at him as if at a vile thing. Promptly, the world spun about and he saw deadened trees and a sky so clear and bright he squinted from the intensity, only managing a single word before the shock of true existence pummeled him to an un-concious state.

'Chaos..'