The Reincarnation of Dante

posted by Duerma @ 12/08/2009

Bleeding. Bruised. Dying. Dante struggled as he watched his friends falling around him. He reached towards consciousness, and failed, falling quickly, too quickly towards death. He knew the fate that waited for him. The Raven Queen would be wrathful in the face of his opposition to her chosen servants. As he became more desperate he sought for some other way, if not life, perhaps he could still escape Her. His mind wandered as his prayers cut through blackness. Suddenly he could see it, bright as the noon-day sun before him, but perfect light that enlivened rather than blinded. He scrabbled for it, reaching out for it.

And then he saw again. He was in the Pelor's Tear. He was Pelor's Tear. Watching from its depths as the last of his friends fled the battle or fell from their wounds. He could do nothing, he was just an orb. He wept. As he wept the orb faded from the room, streaking into the astral sea and back to its master. Pelor received it. Dante was overawed. At first he saw a simple man, clothed in a pure, but plain white robe. As the man looked into his depths, the orb's depths he smiled, and Dante's heart bloomed with light and gratitude for the god before him. The tear shone with the great light, though it was only a reflection of its maker.

"Dante," Pelor said, "You have joined a great host in your merging with the Tear. But your time of death is not come, you must return and complete your destiny. The visions Ioun has given you cannot fail now." With those words Pelor cast the Orb back into the astral sea. It flew downwards, and as it flew, Dante lived again. He lived another's life, a life of sacrifice and honor, wielding the orb for light and truth. That hero also fell wielding the Tear of Pelor, and his soul entered it. Again and again Dante lived and died and entered the orb, a thousand lives. Finally he lived a life, strangely familiar. He lived the life of his Uncle, his mother's brother that had been a wizard. He had found the Tear of Pelor, and sealed it up against strange visions he had seen all his life, and then bound the magic of with his own blood. Dying to protect the Tear of Pelor against the next day of its use. Finally, Dante lived his own life again. He saw his own memories more clearly. The visions and dreams of his life played out again in his mind and he knew again that the prophecies he had seen would come to pass.

And then the Tear of Pelor fell to the floor of the sacred chamber of Fate in the great hall of the University and transformed into a body of light and flesh. Dante lived again. A simple tone rang out. Within a few moments, priests of Ioun filled the chamber ready to welcome the rebirth of a Deva.

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