This epic tale of adventure and love is based on logs from free form role play. Warning: this story portrays a homosexual couple. If this offends you, please do not read this story.

Delorean dreamt. The soft sounds of Theral sleeping next to him filtered through the monk's hazy subconscious like waves of comfort and familiarity. He smiled and looked around the surroundings of his childhood, his uncle's richly decorated palace. Laughter reached him from the garden outside the balcony, drawing him to step to the velvet curtains that protected his room from the suffocating heat of midday in the desert. Looking down he spied a golden haired boy playing a game of tag with a half dozen black haired and copper skinned servants while an old man, his skin the same tone as the servants, but his clothes indicating his higher rank of the Sultan's brother, watched the play affectionately. Delorean nearly wept at the sight of his father and the memory of being the golden child, though he knew it wasn't real. How many decades had passed since his father's murder? Seventeen, yes, it had been one hundred seventy-one years, yet the loss was still fresh to the monk, the blood of his mother, the Wisewoman, lending him a longevity his human father would never have known, even had he not been stolen so cruelly from his young son by the Chief Assassin of the traitorous Usurper whose great-grandson ruled as Sultan today. He pushed aside the emotions lest they steal from him this beautiful moment of a happier and more peaceful time and gazed at the old man, studying every familiar line of his father's face. It was the sudden break of the real world, of the half-heard rhythm of Theral's breathing, the always constant heartbeat that he felt in echo of his own, that pulled Delorean sharply from his dreams. Before he opened his eyes he felt them, the intruders. He saw their chi auras, the faint dark red of Sitiani monks, nearly black, and lept from the mat he and Theral slept in, seeing before it happened the intent of the one nearest him to slit his throat with his sharp dagger. He had no time to check on his lover, five other Sitianis closed on him to ensure his death. Dropping into a state of utter calm, Delorean read their actions while they were only intent, his body reacting with the speed and power of his training to parry blows that came with lightning speed from all sides. He heard nothing of the world outside his chi focus, yet he knew that his brother monks were also fighting, the Greystone Monastary a chaotic flash of Sitiani red and Greystone blue auras. He also knew that his brothers were being killed. He felt echoing heartbeat after echoing heartbeat vanish from his own, that pain the only one he felt in his chi-trance, although he was aware of his own blood being spilled by blows and slashes from his adversaries, seeing it as vibrant blue flowing over his mind. Driven by rage and agony at the deaths of his brothers, Delorean surged into attack, focusing the pain into chi energy that drove his hands and feet through chests, throats, and bellies until finally there were no more Sitianis around him with the aura of life. Still, he remained in trance for a moment more, searching for others within the walls of the monastary. All the Sitianis were either dead or had vanished, their attack ending as suddenly as it had started. Opening his eyes, Delorean limped to the mat and knelt, touching Theral in the darkness. No movement responded from the young human monk who had taught Delorean so much about passion and joy. Tearfully Delorean laid his hand over the slash in Theral's throat that had stilled his heart forever, then sobbed as he pulled the lifeless body into his arms and held his dead lover to his chest. "Laughing Eyes," he whispered, using the name he had given his dearest lover, "they took your smile from me, your touch, your heart. I wasn't diligent enough to save you. Forgive me." As dawn broke, Delorean carried Theral's body outside to the courtyard of the monastary. The bodies of his slain brothers were already burning on funeral pyres, the corpses of the Sitianis dragged outside the walls to be consumed by jackals. None of the other monks who had survived the night said a word to their Master as he solemnly laid Theral's body on its final bed of stone and wood and lit the pyre, stepping back and offering him back to the world of the spirits to await his reincarnation. Delorean watched it for a moment, then made his way through the rows of burning monks, blessing their voyage to peace and rebirth. When he was done he led the remaining monks silently into the communal hall. Delorean sank tiredly onto a cushion and looked at the few of his brothers who remained. Twelve monks had survived out of nearly two hundred. Like him, they had received injuries, but these had been attended to. Like him, they had felt the ending of heartbeats and sorrow wrapped them in dark indigo auras much as their simple grey robes wrapped their bodies. One by one they joined him on the floor, arms draped about each other in consolation. "The orphans are safe, Master," said the old monk Sanik quietly, breaking the silence. "Your sister will move them to a new refuge to make sure they are not attacked as we were." "We should go with them, protect them. Isn't it our duty?" Vidal, young and firey, looked at Sanik with almost challenge for the old man's decision. Sanik laid his hand on Vidal's head. "By not going with them we protect them, young one. We are the ones hunted by the Sitianis. If we were to go with them it would be like trailing lamb's blood to lead the lions to them." "They hunt me." Delorean finally spoke, his voice husky with grief. "The assassins of the Usurper will not rest until the last heir of the true Sultan is dead. Yet they seek your deaths as well, for opposing the tyranny, for your acts of selflessness and protection of the weak and innocent." "Then we will protect you, Master." Vidal's eyes flashed, unable to conquer the desire for vengeance. Delorean smiled sadly. "They have numbers on their side, no matter how great your skills are, Mongoose. Gathered together, our chi is strong enough for them to find. Our only hope is to seperate, to spread ourselves throughout the land." "Leave you, Master?" Sanik was incredulous. "Leave the monastary?" "A monastary is only a building, old friend. The Greystone Order lies within our hearts, not within these walls." Delorean stood and turned to lean against the sill of the open window behind him, gazing at the valley of the mighty Genoshil river below. "The Order must live on to fight the evil of the tyrant. We will feel each other across the distance of Faradain in our hearts. The Sitianis will have more trouble finding single auras than all of us together, and wherever we go, we will kindle other hearts, add more echoing beats, until we are once again strong enough to regather and continue the fight. Our duty is to serve, to protect the weak and innocent from the strong and tyrannical, to bring joy and pleasure to those living in bleakness and despair." The others sat in silence, heads bowed, knowing the thought of seperation was as painful to their Master as it was to them. Finally Sanik spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. "We will serve, Master. The Light of the Greystone will not go out." Delorean swung his walking staff to the horizontal, pressing the switch that revealed its deadly secret, sharp curved blades flipping out at each end. The crash of the ocean waves below the cliff behind him, moments ago so novel and peaceful to the monk, now faded to silence in his chi trance as he faced the four black clad Sitianis. For six months had he travelled, for six months had he felt the agony of heartbeats dying under his own as his brothers were hunted down and slain. Now he cried out inwardly as somewhere Sanik's heart beat its last and his heart beat alone for the first time in one hundred and fifty years. Forcing the grief from his mind he spun the naginata to block the attack of the first two death monks, impaling one and quicly pulling the blade free to use again on the other, sending his head rolling over the cliff into the crashing waves. The third flung deadly stars glistening with poison at him, but Delorean knocked them aside and pressed his attack, sweeping a kick into the man's legs and then bringing the shaft of the naginata onto the back of his neck to break it. Without losing the rhythm of his movements he spun to face the final Sitiani, holding his weapon before him in a defensive pose. The monk sprang into action without the anticipation that would give Delorean the chance to prepare, his foot kicking into the shaft of the naginata with such force that it snapped in two. Delorean's eyes opened, his trance disturbed by the skill of the chi-master facing him, and he saw two scimitars coming for him in the hands of the Sitiani. In desperation he swung the halves of the naginata up, barely in time to save himself from a scissored beheading, then dropped into a roll, coming up on the edge of the cliff itself and concentrating, closing his eyes to regain his trance, his only hope for surviving this assault. The Sitiani attacked again before Delorean could find his center. Delorean dodged helplessly, but the Sitiani missed his strike. Intent on his quarry, he had failed to keep in mind the more subtle chi of the cliff and now teetered for balance. Without a cry he grabbed Delorean's arm, both of them plunging to the wild waters below..... Delorean opened his eyes. He had been sure both he and the Sitiani would be killed, dashed against the rocks by the tumultous waves, but he was not in the water anymore. He lay on a sandy beach that looked and smelled nothing like the shore of the ocean he had seen. He turned his head to the side and saw that his opponent was likewise regaining consciousness. Delorean pushed himself to one elbow, looking for his weapon, but he had lost the halves of the naginata in the fall. The Sitiani had somehow managed to keep ahold of one of his scimitars. Without warning he rolled to his knees and swung at Delorean. The Greystone slipped into trance just in time to dive under the blade, knocking the Sitiani to the sand. Both men rolled in a grappling struggle for the scimitar, the Sitiani's cloaking stone which kept his chi shrouded and dark in much the same way his black cloth mask did his face falling away. In an instant Delorean knew the identity of his attacker. "Sitian!" he cried. The Master of the Order of Silent Death himself, the monk so skilled with the lifeforce of Chi that he had overcome age and the infirmities of time, the Chief Assassin who had slain his father, who had helped the tyrant Usurper to gain his uncle's throne. Sitian only smiled mockingly, his soft voice echoing in Delorean's mind. 'With you my duty to the throne will be completed, Greystone, and your so-called order finished. A pity, you were almost as good as me.' 'There's nothing of good in you, Death Master,' thought Delorean as he relaxed further into the memory of his father, of his slain brothers. 'I'll not accept your pity, or your blow.' His hand twisted on the blade of the scimitar, using Sitian's own grip and leverage against him as he drove the blade between them, the curved point gliding soundlessly into the assassin's abdomen. 'The Light will never go out.' Delorean pushed Sitian's body from him and struggled to his feet, looking around the strange new place. He waded into the water to wash the blood from his robes, the salt water stinging dozens of bruises and abrasions on his exhausted body. He wanted desperately to sleep, to meditate, to prepare his mind and body for the unknown, but he would not do so in the presence of his enemy's corpse. His wet robes clinging to his body, the monk made his way from the beach towards the dim outline of a road in the distance.

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