Taashira

Chapter XXVI: A battle royal

Mr. Vane follows the Shadow and the spotted leopardess to a street building and shortly after finds the woman who had helped him a day thrown outside onto the pavement. Children’s crying is heard. He attempts to rescue the baby, which the spotted leopardess is carrying in her mouth, but the white leopardess got to it first. A battle between the two ensues and the white one wins this round.

Thoughts: I’m now confident that the Shadow and the spotted leopardess are the bad guys, as is the princess herself, whereas I’m convinced the white leopardess really is friendly. What greatly confused me with this chapter was the princess’s sudden appearance after the fight. I didn’t expect her in the field of battle, so to speak.

Chapter XXVII: The silent fountain

Mr. Vane realises one of the room’s he’s entered is the princess’s mindt. [Yeah, alright ...] The princess urges Mr. Vane to get her something which will heal her wounds, which is at the top of a tree and she cannot get herself (not even when transformed into a dove, because a snake would bite her, which would be fatal). He climbs up the tree, up the branches and finds himself falling and getting tossed this way and that way and tumbling now.

Thoughts: I’m guessing the princess is having fun playing mind-games with Mr. Vane.

Chapter XXVIII: I am silenced

Mr. Vane wakes up, and finds Mr. Raven infront of him, in a fountain which his father had constructed. He’s back home. The raven hits Mr. Vane with the truth and he [Mr. Vane] realises that leaving the Little  Ones wasn’t helping them at all, it was doing nothing. He had wandered around for a long time and accomplished more or less nothing.

Thoughts: Uhm, what’s going on? I’m lost as to what’s actually happened, what’s been real, what’s he been dreaming and what’s he actually experienced and encountered. It’s no surprise to see Mr. Raven appear again, he’s odd enough to pop up when you don’t expect him to. I’m confused.

Chapter  XXIX: The Persian cat

Long story short: Mr. Raven is Adam, his wife is Eve and the spotted leopardess (or rather, the leopardess covered with spots) is the lilith, the princess, the woman Mr. Vane saved. The lilith thinks that the birth of children is the death of their parents. It’s a power seeking creature and fled from Adam because he would not obey nor worship her.

Thoughts: I didn’t see this coming, at all. I’m slightly clueless as to what the deal is with this spotted leopardess — the whys and hows remain unclear. Alright, so, the lilith is a power seeking creature with an appetite for being (or feeling) superior to the rest. I think the whole “birth of children, death of their parents” deal has to with her not possessing the will or ability to … accept herself. Something along those lines.

Chapter XXX: Adam explains

Mr. Vane and Mr. Raven escape from the clutches of the spotted leopardess (the princess, the lilith) by going into the “secon realm” (by going through the mirror). They are rejoined by the white leopardess, which turns out to be Mara, the desert-woman, and Mr. Vane is sent on his way to Mrs. Raven to get some sleep and rest.

Thoughts: Good and evil is hard to tell apart, at least when they are eluding one another. And no, shapeshifting abilities does not increase the ease of picking them both apart to see “the big picture”. Elusive. Eluding. Confusing. Good stuff.

Chapter XXI: The fugitive mother

Mr. Vane finds a white figure running for her life, hunted by what we later come to know as one of the Princess of Bulika’s two leopardesses. Appearently, the death of the princess will be that of a baby. She doesn’t like this and therefore sends her leopardess to suck any new babies’ blood.

Thoughts: Alright, so, maybe, this princess is the lilith. She sounds more demonic and more of a evil-doer than anyone else in this story.

Chapter XXII: Bulika

Mr. Vane reaches the city of Bulika where he encounters various creatures (some much like the bad giants). He asks himself what it is he expects to find, or know, or get from this, and tells himself that he’s doing it so that he might find out more, so that he can, in some way, be able to help the Little Ones. On his walk through the city he catches sight of a creature, darting past him, then following, like a dog, a man in the near distance. The man seems unbothered by it and makes no attempt to get rid of the creature nor did he try to speak with it. Mr. Vane sees that this man casts no shadow, despite the moonlight, and concludes that this is a man of two dimensions. Oh, and the creature Mr. Vane sees is a leopardess.

Thoughts: Did the Little Ones even need help? Anyway. Nothing of substantial inportance in this chapter. Does the lilith have  a shadow-y two-dimensional accomplice? Or is this strange shadow-y man a traitor (unlikely)?  I feel little sparks of anticipation regarding his future role in the story.

Furthermore, what’s the morale in this story?

Chapter XXIII: A woman of Bulika

Mr. Vane runs in a distressing damsel, or rather, a damsel in distress runs into Mr. Vane. This woman is being hunted a white leopardess. He decides to what he can to help her to safety. He is told that the princess had regined for thousands of year and that she controlled earth, water and wind and probably fire too. Everyone in Bulika is rich and never work (as that is a disgrace) and they feel strangers defile them and their city. However, Mr. Vane is made an exception of and gets to follow this woman to her house. Well, more or less, the door is shut before him, but he gets to stay just outside.

Thoughts: Despite the short length of this chapter, there’s a fair amount of information to take in, which is a pleasant surprise. Basically, the princess is powerful and noone’s dared to stand up to her. And the people of Bulika are filthy rich and proud,  though the impression I’ve had so far of its citizens is that they’re not happy with their situation, at least not the mothers.

Chapter XXIV: The white leopardess

Mr. Vane is woken up by the hooded woman from the desert [Why is she here? How did she know where he was?] and is led to another room in the building. Moments later, a shriek and a baby’s crying is heard. He rushes to the door, opens and finds that the white leopardess is holding in her jaws the baby. In an attempt to attack, he and the leopardess are instead thrown outside by the hooded woman. Fearing the worst, Mr. Vane makes a run for it, but is surprised to find that the leopardess is calmly following him, with no intention of hurting him.

He heads over to the palace, which he finds as ruinous and empty as the rest of city, but on his way he is stumpled by that a body of a woman is thrown to the ground (supposedly from a window). On the other side the street he sees the Shadow and the spotted leopardess. Oh, he also decides to “play a game” with this leopardess and sees how it reacts to his actions of getting closer to them. He gets bitten. Surprise, surprise.

Thoughts: This is getting a bit freaky now. The hooded woman is either stalking Mr. Vane or she has some powerful tools and abilities at her disposal. (I’d guess both.) Either way. The Shadow and the spotted leopardess appears hostile whilst the white leopardess appears to be friendly. Reality or just tricks of the trade?

Chapter XXV: The princess

Mr. Vane is finally taken before the princess, who turns out be the woman he saved before. She treats him kindly with no sign of any evil or mischievous plans. Mr. Vane remains suspicious and cautious however.

Thoughts: This person is elusive in her ways, I find it really hard to say and/or predict what she’s really like. Is she a victim? Is she maliciously persuasive with her beauty and charm to try and lure Mr. Vane into something?

Chapter XVI: A gruesome dance

Mr. Vane continues his journey to the strange land. He now seems to regret having preferred dead things like the pen and books to live things like his brothers and sisters. An existence without human presence is starting to have quite an impact on him. Upon reaching a building-like place, he finds himself witnessing a dance of sorts with skeletal apparitions . We find out nothing about them except that they do not appear to be able to see Mr. Vane. A pause in the dance and a woman appears in the doorway, appearing from her posture and her crowd as a goddess.

Thoughts: I get the feeling that the ghostly creatures are being used by this goddess-like woman, but it’s a very unreliable hunch (as per usual with hunches). Am curious how the Mr. Vane-without-human-presence deal is going to play out, I’ve no hunches or anything really regarding it. As for the “goddess” we were “introduced” to in this chapter, my thoughts are whirling around — she could be a good one, a bad one, or a good one gone bad. She could be anything.

Chapter XVII: A grotesque tragedy

Mr. Vane stumble upon a carriage housing two talking skeletons. (He seems to stay in the shadows and unseen though.)  They have no knowledge of where they are, or how they got to where they are, which, in their case, is hell. Lord and Lady of Cokayne, he grew tired of the beauty of his wife and things seems to have fallen apart since. Towards the very end of the chapter we get a surprise visit from Mr. Raven.

Thoughts: The appearance of the Lord and Lady, if nothing else, is an entertaining one. I find the lady’s sharp-tongued wit particularly entertaining. What it holds for the development of this story as a whole is very difficult to say. As for Mr. Vane, well … it’s the usual. He seems to slowly go through some sort of self-introspective recognition of self state of progress. Something like that.

Chapter XVIII: Dead or alive?

Mr. Vane comes across a lifeless emaciated body of what appears to be a woman.  He’s determined to not let doubt get the better of him and thus, takes care of this seemingly dead woman-figure for about a week. Hope is strong with him, he’s learned to love what he’d lost. He compares himself and this woman to Adam and Eve from the aspect that he, Mr. Vane, waits more anxiously for his woman to wake up than Adam did for Eve, for Adam knew nothing of himself.

Thoughts: Biblical references! Or, well, sort of.  I don’t know what to think of the whole Adam and Eve situation. As a matter of fact, I’m unsure what MacDonald actually is saying, I find it hard to grasp and therefore very hard to comment on. It seems though that Mr. Vane is realising that he is not yet a man as he clings onto this woman and her presence, as a man alone is not yet a man.

Chapter XIV: The white leech

More than three months have passed since Mr. Vane brought the womanly body to his care. Slowly life seems to return to her. Soon enough the woman-figure wakes up from her trance, conversation arises, she gets mad at Mr. Vane for having compelled her to live and having put her to shame. Oh, she is a fierce one! She’s got spunk!

Thoughts: I enjoy this bit. It has such a cling to religious and cultural clashes in our society — what some consider appropriate, others may consider rude. It’s these occurences that keeps me interested in “supernatural” and fantasy-like stories, how the author play on the rules of cultural and religious rules and tokens.

Chapter XX: Gone! — But how?

Upon waking from a blow to the head, Mr. Vane finds that he is all alone. She had left him, deserted him. He could see her in the distance and makes up his mind to follow her. He catches up to her, she rejects him, and ends up following her all day and into the night. Mr. Vale exclaims to himself that she’s killing him her beauty. When darkness comes two beasts appear in the distance, rendering and slaying what they come across, in the preliminaries of a city. He sees no signs of her.

Thoughts: So, I left out the small details of this chapter. To conclude, however, she seems to have a really strong impact on Mr. Vane. Whether it so because of his unwillingness to let her go, or the power she possess, I do not know. I want to say, from what I have read about this mythological creature, that this is the lilith. Am I jumping to conclusions? I probably am, but it stung me whilst reading and I cannot ignore it.

As for the beasts, it didn’t come unexpectedly, not in this world, it isn’t unexpected. Is she controlling these or are they there by their own choise and will?

The tank disconnected shortly after the first boss in ‘the Oculus’. Oh well. Therefore, three of us decided to go either ‘Halls of Stone’ or ‘Utgarde Pinnacle’. The new tank we found wanted UP and so we recruited a final damage dealer to our group and went ahead on our merry adventure through the pinnacle.

The next to last bosses has a ~1% chance to drop a Blue Proto-Drake mount. I never seen it drop. Well, it dropped this time.

I rolled for it, as did the other four:

• The death knight rolled 24.
• The hunter rolled 36.
• The first paladin rolled 86.
• The second paladin rolled 87.
• I also rolled 87.

I fucking won it!

Keldara on her Blue Proto-Drake!

Chapter XI: The Evil Wood

Mr. Vane continues his journey and reaches a forest by nightfall. He falls asleep shortly after seeing a pack of wolves and the shape of that pertaining to a woman. (At the very least the shaped figure reminded Mr. Vane of a woman.) Upon waking up later in the night, or early in the morning, it was still dark, he hears screams, wild roars of rage, snarls, laughter, sneers and mockery. He was witnessing a furious battle — phantoms and skeletons fiercely fighting each other –, yet after (when daring to move) he found no sign of body parts or skeletal pieces scattered about. Throughout this chaos he recognises that woman from last evening. He saw herdarkness, her dark eyes and dark spot.

Mr. Vane finds himself missing a human presence.

Thoughts: My guess is this “woman” is the lilith and she seems to be quite a, well, spoilsport and being a quite demanding one at that. It doesn’t strike me as surprising, quite to the contrary, I was hoping Mr. Vane would start wanting some human presence. It’s the beginning of self-recognition, self-respect and self-acceptance, is it not? Not really, I don’t think, but it sounds good.

Chapter XII: Friends and foes

Mr. Vane, wandering through the bushes and trees, comes across a dwarf-tree which carries a delicious cherry-sized apple. Upon taking a second piece, he’s rushed over by literally hundreds of happy children. Some of them not able to yet walk and some of them in the ages thirteen and younger. To test him, they supply him with a fruit which he throws away. They are delighted. One little girl claims he must make haste, all children have then disappeared, in the distance a “clownish, bad-looking fellow, a few inches taller than himself” was approaching. Mr. Vane gets captured, abused and forced to work. He’s plotting an escape.

Thoughts: The little children surprised me greatly. I was not expecting him to be enthusiastically overrun by a bunch of happy children. They seem friendly thus far, but their “little trick” with the fruit makes me feel slightly suspicious of their actions.

Chapter XIII: The Little Ones

Mr. Vane, captured by the giants, whom it turns out are bad, have very bad sight and take pride in being fat, continue to get visited by the little children, or the Little Ones as they call themselves, and they are friendly as can be. They keep him fed,  keep him warm and sleep by his side at night. One morning Lona, one of the biggest of the Little Ones, approaches him with a baby-boy in her arms. They found him in the wood. Babies come from the woods. The Little Ones themselves think they have been dropped from the trees. It turns out that “if a Little One  doesn’t care, he grows greedy, and then lazy, and then big, and then stupid, and then bad“. Basically, they turn into bad giants who aren’t glad. It frightens and troubles Lona, deeply.

Thoughts: I love how Mr. Vane compares Lona’s description of the giants to being rich. Furthermore, I like the friendly, pleasant and enjoyable vibe the Little Ones send out. It  intoxicates me. The whole turning-into-a-big-bad-giant happenstance does invoke a bit of a cautious fear inside me.

Chapter XIV: A crisis

Mr. Vane escapes the giants and begins a solitary journey to find the great pleace with a giant-girl for queen. See, te queen hates the Little Ones and wants them dead — only she’s never been able to find them. The Littles Ones knew nothing of their age and barely anything of time. Upon leaving he thinks about Lona and how ignorant and yet wise she is, but then ponders that maybe he’s the one lacking the insight to understand what’s around him. These little children had no need to grow up or grow bigger, so there’s no reason bother haggling about it, in his own head or not, maybe the fear of gianthood is instinctive.

Thoughts: The Littles Ones appear to be as sweet and pure as genuinely can be. Any doubt I had about their suspiciously too good behaviour is gone. However, I can’t help but wonder if they actually are as innocent as they appear to be. Then again, why dwell upon it? Why question the good aspects? The dialogue between Lona and Mr. Vane’s hints at theology and it’s slight confusion is a bit thought-provoking. (Though that might be the actual theological aspect being thought-provoking.) Upon leaving he is warned about a cat-woman in the desert.

Chapter XV: A strange hostess

On his journey to the unknown country, he is accompanied by what turns out to be the cat-woman he had been warned about earlier. She, who we come to know as Mara, however, appears to pose no threat to him, on the contrary, she is helpful and hospitable, not to mention mysterious. In a way Mr. Vane, who had forgotten his name, I might add, by the way, is reminded of Mrs Raven by her — a saddened Mrs Raven, one who constantly sheds tears behind her veil as opposed to the sexton’s wife who seemed glorified with happiness. After having spent a night and at her cottage, he sets off to the, previously unknownst to him, country Bulika.

Thoughts: Mara surprisingly doesn’t strike me as one to be suspicious about. In fact, I get the feeling she’ll be of great assistance to our dear Mr. Vane during his, well, shall we call it ‘visit’ in this place.

Chapter VIII: My father’s manuscript

As the chapter’s title suggests, Mr. Vane have found a manuscript, which his father (hereby known as Mr. Vane Sr.) has written, and starts to read it. It tells a story of Mr. Vane Sr., sitting in the same library as his son now does, and getting visited by a strange creature, who appeared to have appeared from between Mr. Vane Sr. and the portrait of his ancestor, he decides to call Mr. Crow. Its, or his, name however was not Mr. Crow — it’s Mr. Raven. He was Mr. Vane Sr.’s great-grandfather’s (whose name is Sir Upward) librarian and a close friend to him. Conversing about dimensions and alike take place and Mr. Raven shows the way to get into his world, through a mirror. [Most likely and highly unmistakably, it's the same mirror which Mr. Vane came through in an earlier chapter.]

Thoughts: I didn’t find it to be a particularily enjoyable or intriguing chapter on its own, yet getting a background story and finding out that more of the Vane family have been in touch with this alternate “reality” leaves me to plead for a reunion of sorts.

Chapter IX: I repent

Having read his grandfather’s manuscript, Mr. Vane feels ashamed for running away from the Ravens the previous day and for not having the courage his grandfather allegedly had. He therefore decides — and manages! — to get back into Mr. Raven’s dimension, or alternate reality, if you will, to beg pardon. While speaking with Mr. Raven he also asks about his father and grandfather and sure enough, his father is here, deeply asleep and his grandfather in the Evil Wood (”It is the place where those who will not sleep, wake up at night, to kill their dead and bury them.“). Upon asking for direction to the nearest way home, Mr. Raven objects yet he appears to produce a firefly-like thing which Mr. Vane decide to follow.

Thoughts: There isn’t much in this chapter in regards to character or story development. What we get to know is that his father and grandfather are — I dare not exclaim that they are alive — existing. Mr. Vane himself is riddled out of his senses although, according to Mr. Raven, they are no riddles but truths and only seem riddles because he himself is not true. This is an enigma, a complicated one.

Chapter X: The bad burrow

The bright firefly like creature leads him back to his library. We find Mr. Vane is on a journey through the mysterious dark, afraid to lose his way despite not having a way to loose. The moon’s light protects him in the dark as he sets out to the distant hills.

Thoughts: I remain confused as to how he ended up in this dark world — did he enter another dimension, is he imagining things or is it a combination of both? Or something else?