Ridley Paradis: Patriarch

Missa watched the water flow around the lip of her goblet as she tipped it back and forth. She wasn't thirsty, and hadn't been since Cleric Jordan had spoken with her just two days prior. "Complicated" was the word he had used. She let her hand slip from the goblet, and as it rocked back into a steady postition her hand fell gently to her now surging belly. "My baby is not complicated," she thought to herself, with a tinge of anger. She carefully stood up, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she struggled to maintain the taxing walk to the nearby bed. As she laid upon the lumpy straw mattress she felt a pain surge up from below her waist. No, it couldn't be now, it was far too soon! She looked down in horror to see the bed dowsed in her blood. She shrieked in unholy agony as the blood crawled off of the bed, reaching for the walls and creeping up onto every structure, boiling and searing all that fell into it's embrace. A harrowing blood-covered knight of bones crawled up out of the wriggling pool of blackening gore. Underneath his skull mask two eyes locked with the mother's. Missa was now soaked in burning crimson, and as she curled up into a ball to protect her unborn baby, the knight of bones loomed over her, reaching a hand out to the struggling form in her stomach.

A deathly wail.

Rending flesh.

An abhorrent splatter.

A baby cries out in heart wrenching fear.

A dull growl hums over the sound of thick liquid upon a flooding floor.

Darius Paradis awoke with a bellowing yell, his face soaked in tears and sweat. He gasped for air, clutching at his armored chest with one hand, and reaching for his bottle of mead with another. His comrades around the campfire did not seem disturbed by his blatant awakening. The mead bottle was swiftly brought to his lips and drained of it's warming liquid. The fluid gave Darius little comfort as he fell onto his bedroll and began to sob. Time passed, and Darius saw the sun just begining to peek over the horizon. He crawled sorely and slowly out of his bedroll and stumbled away from his party's forest campsite, taking another bottle of mead as he went.

Darius blundered carelessly through the forest, chugging from the bottle in an attempt to drown out his pain. "My beloved wife, dead. My only son... my young boy... the god's mock me with his corrupted deeds!" He looked upwards at the glorious sky above, marveling at it's omniscient beauty. His negligence for the path ahead caused him to trip on a rock. His ankle snapped, and he hollered out in pain as he tossed and tumbled down a steep slope. Rocks, branches, and stumps battered and bashed his armored yet frail body before his descent ended with a vigorous landing on a large boulder overlooking a pond. Darius was still, his bottle falling into the water beneath him to join the blood that dripped from his head. His eyes remained open, flickering back and forth a few more times, hoping to see his boy just once more.

A blast of luminescence exploded from the river, shaking the rock Darius rested upon. The old man had the strength to look up at the source of the light. A man in glistening armor stood upon the flowing water, nearly nine feet tall with a blazing sun of Pelor on his breastplate. Darius spoke, his mind suddenly clear of the mead's fog, "Am... am I dead?"

The figure's voice vibrated across the water with immense wisdom, "No, Paradis, not entirely, but you are close. I am Pelor."

"Why does Pelor see fit to grace me with his presence now? Where was Pelor when my wife was killed? Where was your light when my son ransacked the temple in the Burning Forest?" Tears fell down Darius's hardened and aged face.

"You know of Ridley?"

"The mages from Glow showed me what they scryed at the temple, I did not tell them who the skulled man was, but do you not think a father would recognize his own son? My boy... my boy has-"

"Ridley has become lost, Darius. Your son may have committed dark deeds, but good still radiates within his heart. He has found calm in the darkness he now stands in, it is this calm that will lead him back to us. You can save him, Darius. You can save Ridley."

Darius clenched his fists together in plea, "But how?! I know not how to speak to my own boy! I spent his entire life trying to show him the path of goodness and honor, and now he stands a symbol of my own failure!"

"Every father is a god in the eyes of his son. Ridley, loves you, Darius, whether he wishes to or not. Confront him, not as superior or paragon, but as a father."

"How will I find him? I do not know where he is headed!"

"Take your Griffons to the Elven lands across the sea, to the North-East. Find the beacon. Wait there, and Ridley will find you."

Darius nodded, resolve and courage filling his heart as the light kindled his fiery spirit once more. As he stood, he grasped the pommel of his sword, remembering his old strength. Pelor held out a hand and spoke, "Unsheathe your weapon, Scarlet Griffon. Your son has become powerful in his separation. You will need my blessing if you wish to overcome his strength."

The father held his longsword high before Pelor, and the silver blade gleamed with illustrious light. As Darius lowered his blade, he looked to Pelor inquisitively. "What will this magic do?"

"Your blade will strike as a valiant hammer against the dark forces your son commands. More importantly, it will not kill Ridley, it will render him unconscious. So, Darius, you may not have noticed, but you are still yet on the verge of death."

Darius only now noticed the darkness of the environment around him, it lacked color and felt cold. "Are you to give me a second chance?"

"No, Darius. I leave you in the hands of your allies, your Knight Sir Ginwulf is on his way to you right now. He will take you to a Cleric. When you awaken, do not tell your Knights of what has transpired here."

Pelor then vanished, but his light remained as a shield to the darkness of this eerie realm. The light burned bright until help came. Sir Ginwulf found Darius's nearly dead body, and carried him back to the camp. Darius's mind couldn't stop racing over what had just occured. He was going to get his son back, or die trying.