- Writing Levels
- Adaptable
- Genres
- I'm wary of magic with lots of rules.
[ooc: warning, turn down volume for sound clip links. Opening the sound in a new tab keeps the text flow unbroken.]
A shadow glimmers in the dark
End of Chapter 3
The General Assembly stirred. Sages and Governors were no fools, and calmly took in the views of all three on the Aldus expedition. Opinions began to shift, and Governors turned to their neighbours, whispering, whispering. The hall began to buzz with emotion. Cotton and silk hissed in the folds of robes, leather and stitching creaked in armour, and blades clinked in their sheaths. The younger legislators began to raise their voice, the older ones shushing. A storm began to gather in the hall.
Michel was the first to notice. Oldest among the three, he had personally seen the warning signs and aftermath of the Crystal Death. Helena's voice boomed in the cavern, but she did not have the throw that Ilsa's voice had, and the room was a gathering thunderstorm of opinions, debate, emotions, and sharply exchanged logic. Without the help of the spell circle, she would not be able to quiet the assembly.
Michel signaled urgently at Arktus. He hesitated, then, out of the corner of his eye ...
and it was gone.
The spell circle began to channel the chaotic swirl of energies in the room. The magic within seemed to strain against the defined borders of the runes, pushing outward while simultaneously being shaped by them. The mists and illusions inside twisted and formed into something vaguely humanoid, a warrior, scholar, and priest, shaped by the thoughts of all in the chamber.
In Viridos, the snapped staff Medwick held began to dribble water from the cracked end. In Kaustir, the material underneath Shae's feet turned to glass. In Tavark, the thermic gems in Ture's hand began to vibrate, glowing much hotter than they should have been. Somewhere deep inside Barvelle, the creature who kept watch over the hatching dragon eggs stirred, looking up into the rock, eyes drawing a straight line towards the General Assembly meeting.
Arktus rushed forward, marmot fusing with him and glowing with Advent: State of Solace. A grey bubble exploded from his chest, robes rippling without wind, filling the entire cavern and draining it of colour. Voices and sounds became muted, spoken from a faraway distance and through water. Emotions were washed away in the tide of monochrome, and the Governors slowly returned to their seats, assuming personal expressions of pensiveness or simply staring blankly forward. Time seemed to slow, replaced by the dead of calm. But it was too late.
The illusion spell reached the peak. Something peculiar was happening in the focal point of the magic: what should have been a towering avatar began to twist and deform. The cloak on the warrior's back lengthened, covering his courageous face, smothering his features. The blue tones in the spell faded to black, the spell circle fading and hissing. A stomp of a foot, and the carefully inscribed lines on the ground blew away in a wave front of dust, leaving behind only the materialized figure in the middle. All magic was deadened in its presence. Aux turned translucent, locked in stasis and lifeless. In the room, only Crux existed, and whatever void that stood in the center.
"Morakan." Arktus' voice was apologetic - to everyone else in the Assembly.
Morakan. Mordakar. Mardakaramon. Marabos. Markazon. Mirobozakan. Every scribe who studied the old texts often fell on this ancient title, the original name forever lost. The modern context in which this name was described was a creature who provided the thermic gems to Eirene. As the scribe struggled to transliterate the phonetics of the old languages into modern Sunne, hundreds of different variations were possible. The universal frustration felt by all who studied the ancient Sage led to many sloppy and unverifiable titles, but everyone who read the modern versions of the arcane books could recognize them right away. Other scribes chose more descriptive titles: Hundred Sage, Ancient Sage, Arcane One, Sempiternal Creature, Everlasting Gnoll, and the latest one that Medwick had chosen as his interpretation from the old scrolls ...
Ghoul Sage. All eyes slid to the floor, the ceiling, the wall ... anything but the bottomless pit in the hood.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" His voice was a reminder of ancient times, ethereal, echoing in the great cavern inside the robes, sickly with great age, and hollow. "THE THREE INNER SAGES SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO ALLOW RITUALS OF THIS SCALE."
Michel quickly stepped forward. "We wish inform you that the Utandis cradle, as you are aware ... was an accident ... " his voice, ever spry, fell off as the Ghoul Sage turned to him.
"YOU COMMIT A TABOO TO INFORM ME THAT YOU HAVE NOT COMMITTED ONE PRIOR? YOUR LOGIC IS QUESTIONABLE."
"We wish to maintain the peace."
"Resolve the dispute."
"Settle the misunderstanding."
"Return to building our nation, ensuring our unity."
"WHAT MATTERS TO ME IF PEGULIS PROSPERS, OR FALLS TO THE MAD NOCTURNE OF THE EAST, OR SUCCUMBS TO THE POISON OF THE WANDERING WITCH OF THE WEST? YOU HAVE NOT EVEN RESPECTED THE BASICS OF THE PACT BETWEEN US."
Silence. The Inner Sages pursed their lips in discomfort.
Ethelwen shivered when the hooded blackness turned to him. The anima was standing behind the three of the inner circle and the Archon, watching the proceedings over his shoulder. Had this been some event of entertainment he could not have wished for better seats. He could not have wished for better seats now, to hear everything that passed around the room. But the Ghoul Sage's stare was far too unnerving.
"DID YOU DELIVER MY MESSAGE TO THE ARCHON, CAT?" Eirene shot him a look, her eyes wide with what Ethelwen interpreted as surprise and sudden distrust. No. The thought of losing what small trust she had placed in him put a bolt of fire in Ethelwen's veins. He straightened, trying to shrug away the fear that covered his body like a second cloak. His Aux .. his aux was corporeal, not responding to his emotions, refusing to shield him. However, from within his heart, a greater mask arose. It was familiar. He had worn it for a brief moment the first time he had encountered the Ghoul Sage. While it was anything but perfect, it was better than the terror-struck Ethelwen.
"She was unconscious for three days after your unexpected visit. It would hardly have done me any good to try and tell her then."
Ethelwen's excuse fell on nothing. He gulped, the fur on his neck scritch-scratching in the loud silence.
"You were in Barvelle a week ago. Why?"
"WHY ASK A QUESTION YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO, CAT?"
There was a funny inflection to the Ghoul Sage's voice, one that was enough to briefly crack Ethelwen's bold persona. The Sage knew. He knew that Ethelwen wasn't just an anima. The familiar, bitter taste of fear flooded his mouth once more. He rolled it around on his tongue like some unsavory concoction, and then forced himself to swallow it.
"The eggs," Ethelwen agreed. "But that isn't the entirety. Had you just wanted the eggs you would have just taken them. There would have been absolutely no reason to doctor the letter from Medwick. Yet you did so anyways."
Silence greeted his words, again. All eyes were on the floor in front of them, but all ears were on Ethelwen. He pressed on.
"My point is there is more to all of this than a gathering of power and a disruption of Pegulis at large. If that was all you wanted, you would have stuck with dragons and golems. But you didn't. You came here, and went to a specific effort to implicate you were Medwick. My point is ... How does your plan relate to Medwick's quest for the Divine Weapons?" It was a shot in the dark, wild and truly unfounded. Ethelwen would not even know that Medwick was looking for the weapons if it hadn't been briefly mentioned in his doctored letter. But he did know. And he asked.
"IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL THEM? DIVINE WEAPONS?"
A deep rumble poured from the hood. Sick, heavy laughter rattled from its depths, so heavy that it pooled on the floor like Tavark fog.
"SO MEDWICK HOPES TO UNITE PEGULIS AGAINST THE ME. HE HOPES THAT PEGULIS CAN BREAK ITSELF FREE FROM THE CAGE I HAVE SET ON YOU, FROM THE PACT FORGED BETWEEN PEGULIS AND I THAT ALLOWS THIS MISERABLE CIVILIZATION TO CONTINUE STRUGGLING. HOW IRONIC, THAT HE PINS HIS HOPES ON AN ITEM THAT HE SEEKS TO DIG FROM THE PAST."
"CAT," And the Ghoul Sage addressed everyone present, "THE FATE OF PEOPLE, SETTLEMENTS, VILLAGES, TOWNS, CITIES, PEGULIS, OR SUNNE IS IMMATERIAL. PRETEND TO HAVE HOPE. PRETEND TO HAVE WAR. PRETEND TO EXAMINE THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD. PRETEND TO HAVE AMBITIONS AND PRETEND TO HAVE DREAMS. PRETEND TO LIVE YOUR LIFE, AND PRETEND TO YOUR FULLEST WITH YOUR PRETEND MORALS. MOVE FORWARD. THAT IS ALL I WILL ALLOW THERMIC GEMS FOR."
Air whistled inside the hood. "IF YOU DIG DEEP INTO THE PAST WITH THE INTENTION OF HARNESSING OLD POWER, THEN BE AWARE OF WHAT WILL AWAKEN FROM THE DEPTHS. DARE NOT PRETEND TO BE GOD. DARE NOT DRESS THYSELF IN ANCIENT BAUBLES AND RELICS, AND PLAY AMONG THE LONG DEAD."
"EXPECT ME IF YOU DO."
Morakan slammed the staff into the spell circle. Fissures ran along to the edge, and the stone slab broke, cursed and forever unable to channel magic. The robes deflated, the presence within gone. Aux was restored. The staff of twisted wood clattered to the floor.
Michel was the first to notice. Oldest among the three, he had personally seen the warning signs and aftermath of the Crystal Death. Helena's voice boomed in the cavern, but she did not have the throw that Ilsa's voice had, and the room was a gathering thunderstorm of opinions, debate, emotions, and sharply exchanged logic. Without the help of the spell circle, she would not be able to quiet the assembly.
Michel signaled urgently at Arktus. He hesitated, then, out of the corner of his eye ...
and it was gone.
The spell circle began to channel the chaotic swirl of energies in the room. The magic within seemed to strain against the defined borders of the runes, pushing outward while simultaneously being shaped by them. The mists and illusions inside twisted and formed into something vaguely humanoid, a warrior, scholar, and priest, shaped by the thoughts of all in the chamber.
In Viridos, the snapped staff Medwick held began to dribble water from the cracked end. In Kaustir, the material underneath Shae's feet turned to glass. In Tavark, the thermic gems in Ture's hand began to vibrate, glowing much hotter than they should have been. Somewhere deep inside Barvelle, the creature who kept watch over the hatching dragon eggs stirred, looking up into the rock, eyes drawing a straight line towards the General Assembly meeting.
Arktus rushed forward, marmot fusing with him and glowing with Advent: State of Solace. A grey bubble exploded from his chest, robes rippling without wind, filling the entire cavern and draining it of colour. Voices and sounds became muted, spoken from a faraway distance and through water. Emotions were washed away in the tide of monochrome, and the Governors slowly returned to their seats, assuming personal expressions of pensiveness or simply staring blankly forward. Time seemed to slow, replaced by the dead of calm. But it was too late.
The illusion spell reached the peak. Something peculiar was happening in the focal point of the magic: what should have been a towering avatar began to twist and deform. The cloak on the warrior's back lengthened, covering his courageous face, smothering his features. The blue tones in the spell faded to black, the spell circle fading and hissing. A stomp of a foot, and the carefully inscribed lines on the ground blew away in a wave front of dust, leaving behind only the materialized figure in the middle. All magic was deadened in its presence. Aux turned translucent, locked in stasis and lifeless. In the room, only Crux existed, and whatever void that stood in the center.
"Morakan." Arktus' voice was apologetic - to everyone else in the Assembly.
Morakan. Mordakar. Mardakaramon. Marabos. Markazon. Mirobozakan. Every scribe who studied the old texts often fell on this ancient title, the original name forever lost. The modern context in which this name was described was a creature who provided the thermic gems to Eirene. As the scribe struggled to transliterate the phonetics of the old languages into modern Sunne, hundreds of different variations were possible. The universal frustration felt by all who studied the ancient Sage led to many sloppy and unverifiable titles, but everyone who read the modern versions of the arcane books could recognize them right away. Other scribes chose more descriptive titles: Hundred Sage, Ancient Sage, Arcane One, Sempiternal Creature, Everlasting Gnoll, and the latest one that Medwick had chosen as his interpretation from the old scrolls ...
Ghoul Sage. All eyes slid to the floor, the ceiling, the wall ... anything but the bottomless pit in the hood.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" His voice was a reminder of ancient times, ethereal, echoing in the great cavern inside the robes, sickly with great age, and hollow. "THE THREE INNER SAGES SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO ALLOW RITUALS OF THIS SCALE."
Michel quickly stepped forward. "We wish inform you that the Utandis cradle, as you are aware ... was an accident ... " his voice, ever spry, fell off as the Ghoul Sage turned to him.
"YOU COMMIT A TABOO TO INFORM ME THAT YOU HAVE NOT COMMITTED ONE PRIOR? YOUR LOGIC IS QUESTIONABLE."
"We wish to maintain the peace."
"Resolve the dispute."
"Settle the misunderstanding."
"Return to building our nation, ensuring our unity."
"WHAT MATTERS TO ME IF PEGULIS PROSPERS, OR FALLS TO THE MAD NOCTURNE OF THE EAST, OR SUCCUMBS TO THE POISON OF THE WANDERING WITCH OF THE WEST? YOU HAVE NOT EVEN RESPECTED THE BASICS OF THE PACT BETWEEN US."
Silence. The Inner Sages pursed their lips in discomfort.
Ethelwen shivered when the hooded blackness turned to him. The anima was standing behind the three of the inner circle and the Archon, watching the proceedings over his shoulder. Had this been some event of entertainment he could not have wished for better seats. He could not have wished for better seats now, to hear everything that passed around the room. But the Ghoul Sage's stare was far too unnerving.
"DID YOU DELIVER MY MESSAGE TO THE ARCHON, CAT?" Eirene shot him a look, her eyes wide with what Ethelwen interpreted as surprise and sudden distrust. No. The thought of losing what small trust she had placed in him put a bolt of fire in Ethelwen's veins. He straightened, trying to shrug away the fear that covered his body like a second cloak. His Aux .. his aux was corporeal, not responding to his emotions, refusing to shield him. However, from within his heart, a greater mask arose. It was familiar. He had worn it for a brief moment the first time he had encountered the Ghoul Sage. While it was anything but perfect, it was better than the terror-struck Ethelwen.
"She was unconscious for three days after your unexpected visit. It would hardly have done me any good to try and tell her then."
Ethelwen's excuse fell on nothing. He gulped, the fur on his neck scritch-scratching in the loud silence.
"You were in Barvelle a week ago. Why?"
"WHY ASK A QUESTION YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO, CAT?"
There was a funny inflection to the Ghoul Sage's voice, one that was enough to briefly crack Ethelwen's bold persona. The Sage knew. He knew that Ethelwen wasn't just an anima. The familiar, bitter taste of fear flooded his mouth once more. He rolled it around on his tongue like some unsavory concoction, and then forced himself to swallow it.
"The eggs," Ethelwen agreed. "But that isn't the entirety. Had you just wanted the eggs you would have just taken them. There would have been absolutely no reason to doctor the letter from Medwick. Yet you did so anyways."
Silence greeted his words, again. All eyes were on the floor in front of them, but all ears were on Ethelwen. He pressed on.
"My point is there is more to all of this than a gathering of power and a disruption of Pegulis at large. If that was all you wanted, you would have stuck with dragons and golems. But you didn't. You came here, and went to a specific effort to implicate you were Medwick. My point is ... How does your plan relate to Medwick's quest for the Divine Weapons?" It was a shot in the dark, wild and truly unfounded. Ethelwen would not even know that Medwick was looking for the weapons if it hadn't been briefly mentioned in his doctored letter. But he did know. And he asked.
"IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL THEM? DIVINE WEAPONS?"
A deep rumble poured from the hood. Sick, heavy laughter rattled from its depths, so heavy that it pooled on the floor like Tavark fog.
"SO MEDWICK HOPES TO UNITE PEGULIS AGAINST THE ME. HE HOPES THAT PEGULIS CAN BREAK ITSELF FREE FROM THE CAGE I HAVE SET ON YOU, FROM THE PACT FORGED BETWEEN PEGULIS AND I THAT ALLOWS THIS MISERABLE CIVILIZATION TO CONTINUE STRUGGLING. HOW IRONIC, THAT HE PINS HIS HOPES ON AN ITEM THAT HE SEEKS TO DIG FROM THE PAST."
"CAT," And the Ghoul Sage addressed everyone present, "THE FATE OF PEOPLE, SETTLEMENTS, VILLAGES, TOWNS, CITIES, PEGULIS, OR SUNNE IS IMMATERIAL. PRETEND TO HAVE HOPE. PRETEND TO HAVE WAR. PRETEND TO EXAMINE THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD. PRETEND TO HAVE AMBITIONS AND PRETEND TO HAVE DREAMS. PRETEND TO LIVE YOUR LIFE, AND PRETEND TO YOUR FULLEST WITH YOUR PRETEND MORALS. MOVE FORWARD. THAT IS ALL I WILL ALLOW THERMIC GEMS FOR."
Air whistled inside the hood. "IF YOU DIG DEEP INTO THE PAST WITH THE INTENTION OF HARNESSING OLD POWER, THEN BE AWARE OF WHAT WILL AWAKEN FROM THE DEPTHS. DARE NOT PRETEND TO BE GOD. DARE NOT DRESS THYSELF IN ANCIENT BAUBLES AND RELICS, AND PLAY AMONG THE LONG DEAD."
"EXPECT ME IF YOU DO."
Morakan slammed the staff into the spell circle. Fissures ran along to the edge, and the stone slab broke, cursed and forever unable to channel magic. The robes deflated, the presence within gone. Aux was restored. The staff of twisted wood clattered to the floor.
"EIRENE ... WHAT RABBLE YOU HAVE SURROUNDED YOURSELF WITH."
End of Chapter 3
