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Without the story, the logs don't make sense. Hope I am not breaking log forum rules.
Lectral's background
Lectral Vizagorath, was born to a family in a nomadic group of wood-elves that spent the seasons travelling Thera to pre-prepared sites throughout the wilds.
Captivated by campfire songs and epic narratives, his spirit resonated with song and prose molding his spirit into that of a bard. However a hunger was ignited within him, for the real stories, the epic battles. Not seen on the sidelines, but as one of the participants.
This drove him to leave the traditions of his clan, seeking the struggles and the epic confrontations. Out of the woods and into the cities, mountains, caves and swamps. No place was beyond his curiosity and need to satiate his hunger of composing and playing in his beloved flute.
His life was not meant to be an easy one..., not only because of the dangers of his chosen trade but mostly because he is not able to keep his damned mouth shut. Once a story or an idea gets in his head he cannot help but speak it, or even worse, make a song and let everyone around him hear it.
Lectral constantly fell into the same repeating scenario: he would be accepted among a group temporarily to entertain them or inspire them, only to be violently kicked out and or beaten up after the charm of his composing would fade and his flaw showed.
Just a matter of survival eventually created and honed fighting skills. Learning to turn aside a punch, eventually evolved into parrying a thrust or a cut. And so he stumbled upon an unintended set of skills that would become a part of him just like his music.
Lectral's second curse
And so stories of the titanic struggle of the dwarves of Mortorn reached him. His ability to draw the blood-thirst of Ludan's men, quickly earned him a spot with the front-line of the dwarven resistance.
And so began the carnage..., the line held against the unrelenting waves of dark elves. Seizing upon the momentum, the dwarves advanced and the gore rained... a bloody frenzy born of indignation and outrage of what had been done to their ancestral home.
The drow who were initially caught off guard, made use of their best weapon.Their cold and calculating nature. A trap was quickly improvised and executed to devastating effect. Half of the dwarven line was slain, the rest were forced to retreat and Lectral was captured. The unusual presence of the wood elf was much too tempting for the drow archmage that commandeered the counterattack and he decided that magically dissecting the elf would be a good reward for all his efforts.
The mage needed a good place to work and, lo and behold, a stone slab engraved with dwarven runes was conveniently near their position. A cursory analysis done with a quick incantation did not reveal any danger, but little did he know that the intricacies of the power encased in the ancient altar of Kor couldn't be revealed with such a basic cantrip.
Lectral was quickly secured, spells were cast around the altar to immobilize him, a field of invisibility and silence was set in the area to make sure that noone would interfere with the drow's entertainment.
The drow reached into himself, sliced a cut in the veil using his own essence to harvest raw magic for him to mold, just like he had done so many times before. But as soon as he directed the shaped mana unto the creature in the altar, a line was drawn between the veil, the mage, the altar of Kor and the eyes of Lectral (that which the mage desired to remove first from the elf).
In the next second, something amazing and terrifying (even to the Gods) happened by simple and raw coincidence.
- First, the drow's essence was sucked into the altar, as it became a flimsy barrier between the veil and the holy power of the artifact.
- Then empowered by being fed a direct line to raw magic, the force was fed into Lectral's eyes(a natural conductive platform for the etheral).
- In turn the eyes drew a second line that shot through them and reached through the canvas of reality and the divine and hooked permanently upon a sacred artifact of the gods that sits upon their homeland, "The Armoire of secrets".
One of the most cherished artifacts of the immortals that keeps the peace in the heavens, by guarding the most obscure secrets (even facts or realities past or present) of the gods from the eyes and minds of the other deities (thus reducing unnecessary conflict among them).
It was weeks before a scouting group of dwarves stumbled through the field of invisibility and found Lectral, lying comatose upon the altar. Eyes open and glittering with the color of silver. Kept hibernating by the power of the altar, his mind began to heal and normalize as soon as he was removed from the stone. But the connection in his eyes would remain the same, cursed to gaze upon that which should never be seen by mortal eyes.
The stage is set
It took a couple more weeks before Lectral would wake up fully recovered. He did not feel different, even as the color in his eyes changed. He only remembered being captured in battle, but nothing beyond that. It was not long before the elf sought to rejoin another fight against the drow, emboldened by his adventure and daring escape. The dwarves didn't impede him, amused at the antiques of the crazy elf with the weird eyes (the dwarven priests didn't find anything unusual in them).
As Lectral was heading down the stairs to the frontlines, his hand touched a banner dedicated to Lord Boltthrower and a connection was made.... Falling to his knees he found himself elsewhere, his vision transported to another time and another location.
The first vision: Lord Boltthrower's secret
-Where am I?, Lectral wondered. As he found himself sitting in the middle of a massive cathedral adorned with stained glass windows that depict the spheres as they influence the different planes of reality. Beautiful bas-reliefs cover the walls as they show key points in the history of the realms as time turns in its eternal procession.
Just as Lectral was about to lose his mind to the images about him, voices near him refocused his attention. Two huge beings bequeathed in majestic battle armor chat nonchalantly of epic battles of the past and valiant sieges.
*PAN**PAN**PAN**PAN*, a strange sound can be heard about the cathedral as Lectral and the two immortals turn their heads at the source of the noise. A deity, shorter than the two, but stockier... particularly on the lower part of his body as two disgustingly fat legs batter each other as the deity walks, making the horrible sound.
Lowering their voices, they say: Who is the fatty?-ohh, that's just good old Thunder-thighs...-huh?, you mean Boltthrower?. Yes, as a mortal he was ferocious in battle...but the sound of those legs was what actually struck terror in the minds of his enemies, a horrible image that would accompany the mages to their graves....
Badly concealed laughter resounded as the dwarven god shuffled past them, trying to act as if he didn't hear them...but with a pointedly lowered head and a soft lonely tear escaping his eyes....
*pan**pan**pan...**pan...* As the vision begins to fade, the voices can be heard in the distance saying: -And you don't want to hear how he got the name of BoltThrower!...hahahaha...oh the smell!...hahahahaha!.
The price of visions and a loud mouth
Lectral found himself in Mortorn once again..., slowly climbing to his feet. He followed the dwarven fighters, mindlessly walking, trying to make sense of what had happened but admittedly stunned.
As the fighting began he absent-mindedly recited the rhymes that he had prepared before hand to aid his allies.
The battle progressed and the elf droned on...until the drows stopped attacking and silence enveloped the corridors once again.
But suddenly a gigantic Drider with a drow priest mounted on it's back materialized before the dwarven company leaving everyone frozen in place. That's when a stunned expression of surprise escaped the mouth of the elf: "BY BOLTTHROWER'S THUNDERTHIGHS, A DRIDER!"....
Just as sudden, the mouths of everyone in the corridor dropped and remained like that as they turned their eyes on the elf. Including both the drider and it's rider who apparently spoke common fluently.
After 30 seconds of stunned silence...the air reverberated with the sound of mad laughter emanating from the dark elf. As the laughter overtook him, his concentration broke and his drider conjuration vanished. Even as he fell to the ground,he lay there convulsing with laughter as the dwarves remained frozen in place. Except for a particularly quick thinking dwarf who dispatched the drow with a single swing to the neck.
Lectral found himself the victim of the worst beating he had ever encountered, and he had certainly had a few before. The dwarves were without mercy after such afront, and they let the elf feel the immensity of their anger. Many bones were broken...and once they were done venting their fury, they took him to the gates and unceremoniously kicked him out of Morton.
The once wood-elven bard found his hands broken beyond healing, and lacking the grace to use his beloved golden flute. But with enough strength to wield a sword. After some time of healing in the woods he returned to his travels, resigned to continue on his quest. Armed with a primordial need to compose epic music or in lack thereof, epic songs and poetry. And a strange curse that feeds him with forbidden material.
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