Open Chronicles In Hushed Whispers

[Torin Gemheart]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Wind danced in the mountain pass, surrounded by jagged rock at the flanks. Difficult to scale unless one had wings to fly between, but some might consider that cheating. Sunlight glowed in the sky above the throat of the valley, and further beneath was the mountain’s ground, on which any footstep would be surrounded by unforgiving rock for the one who ventured further into the deep.

Above the foundation, beneath the peak, somewhere in between the versant green as verdant woodland, and brown as bark in darkness, was stone shapen. As if the remnant of a giant golem, only frozen, and just as much was viewed as the limb of a statue, one abandoned with the wind, transfixed with time’s sigh.

Between four fingers and a thumb, however, hovered a landmark carved by hand, just like those digits from the wrist to the nail. Only it was different. This was no simple representation of a limb. Rather, within the vale, a bridge had long since been built, tethering one end of the mountain pass to the other flank, and that itself was a distinction to be reckoned with.

The wind whipped, shrill as a bird of prey, became its own predator to blow away anyone dumb enough to step too close to the railing and lean over. Peering into the depths of the valley was a curiosity to rob the heart, betray the brain, but the drop was far, and the base was deep.

From one end of the bridge, rock formed within the mountain, spread like a tongue over the depths of the mist beneath the feet, stretched to the other end and ran between the fingers and the thumb of the carven construct.

On the other end was another manmade countenance; the arched doorway of a dark chamber, manmade, leading into a vault unexplored before this moment. Pillars flanked the temple’s entranceway, cracked and jagged like stones left to a temporal echo.

On the bridge? Maybe a dozen figures, summoned to this position for one reason or the other, whether for the sake of adventure or to claim treasure. In their midst? A dwarf, garbed in armor, the color of charred copper, with a large hammer on his back beside a pack, and an axe on his hip, dagger adjacent, with other weapons and then some.

“This wind is treacherous,” the Gemheart told no one in particular as he made his way across the bridge from the base, toward the stone hand that centered it. “I warn you all to make no haste,” he finally decided to call so as to be heard.

“Wind like this can become a torrent before storm in only a moment.” Though, whether his traveling companions listened was their own decision. In this expedition, they weren’t his friends so much as company—hushed whispers in the wind.

If they fell then the Spine would take their cries, but the dwarf would not wait. Torin would make his way to the other end of the bridge and take his prize one way or the other, whatever it was.

 

[Archanae]

Spoiler: Image Reference

At the back of travelers, a figure wreathed in a long fur cloak traversed the ancient bridge like it belonged to her. She walked as freely as its long-dead rulers might have done behind a train of attendants and guards, though she boasted only fellow opportunists before her. The cloak consumed most of her wiry form, its fur so rough and uneven it looked ripped off from a dire boar, rippling and billowing in the capricious wind. And though the wind aimed to claim the cloak from her shoulders, its efforts only revealed flashes of her sapphire medallion, as well as the ghost-blue glow of the rough-hewn stone in her grasp, pulsing unnatural light in tandem with her eyes.

Yes. She could sense great magic here - old as the world's bones, unbowed by time. It charged the very air with its fracturing aura, revealing a faint, shifting mirage to her altered sight. It prickled her skin with promise, by now sensitive to its idiosyncratic touch.

They had certainly found the object of their shared desires. Her and this band. In exchange for their cooperation, she had had to discard her usual minions. Travelling with her golem entourage would unnerve most of these adventurers. And though their flesh might be more fragile, their skills were undeniably more . . . varied.

The wind died suddenly around her - as a force leaned in, killing its wild movement, and instead churning with its own muted integrity. Her hair fell down, once whipping in the wind, now limp behind her back - except for a single braid lifted by an invisible finger.

"Release me . . . sorceress . . ."

Archanae didn't miss a beat, still walking her tight-rope stride, one bare foot before the other, anklets jingling in the deadened wind.

"Hush now, creature. You will serve until your alotted time. Once I gain my prize, you gain your freedom."

The air itself hissed with impotent fury, drilling into her ears. She could see the faintest of silhouttes, lines where the air itself folded and crinkled like invisible cloth, hinting at curved limbs the length of a full-grown man, sharp as scimitars.

"You will . . . regret this . . ."

The wind sighed and murmured, relenting, and once again, natural wind basked over her.

“Wind like this can become a torrent before storm in only a moment.”

"It certainly can. The wind should never be underestimated. It may cut as well as any blade or push like a ram." She should know, having bound an elemental of that primordial force to her will. Archanae smirked privately at the back, keeping her smile and knowledge to herself. "Perhaps we ought to hasten to the abode of your ancestors, Gemheart. We ought not keep the dead waiting."

Torin Gemheart

 

[Torin Gemheart]

Torin kept his gaze forward toward the gate. Before him, an amalgamation of explorers and warriors, all of them adventurers and treasure hunters, stretched from end to end of this treacherous bridge.

Swordsmen were in their midst, human and elf and orc, or even dwarf like him. Others were sorcerer, sorceress, and still more traded hilts of blades and hafts of axes for daggers. That was if his assumption of a certain robed figure who approached front and center as an assassin was correct.

But it wasn’t this particular dwarf’s position to judge. Such a sentiment applied to the other figure beside him. There was an elegance to her step as much as eminence. Others worked across the bridge with punished footsteps as they attempted to cross it against the wind.

Her? She was different. Indifferent even. It was the kind of strength that a guy like Torin Gemheart appreciated. He was the type to be cautious around those who practiced magic in whatever form. For this expedition? He wanted it nonetheless.

“Aye,” he replied with no grin, no frown, only rigid lips like the countenance of this mountain. “This wind picks up,” he hollered across the bridge. “It might not matter how tightly we grip the railing!” And walked onward before the wind became a storm. “Wait for the grace then make haste!”

Moments later, the gale charged, failed to take a traveler’s heart, then died down all around them like it had for just one person whose eyes were sharp as scimitars. How we carve our path into the mountain.

Granted, someone had since built a bastion in the Spine long lost to time, but it was hard to identify the craftsmen. “Push forward! NOW!” He suggested. Commanded? He wasn’t the captain of this group even as they moved under his roar.

Past the hand of stone with its frozen fingers, the air quiet if close, no tempest to contend with them in this environment at the moment. Torin Gemheart was, after a manner, tempted to lead this host, though it wasn’t his intention or position. He served a different purpose.

Beneath the archway of carven rock engraven with inscription, with only shadow to grace the gateway, darkness tall as the hall, the dwarf arrived at the back of the line, unswept off the edge. Perhaps his companion, sapphire eyes with a sapphire medallion, had her own light. Torin? He lit his torch and firelight guided him inside.

Archanae

 

[Archanae]

Spoiler: Music

For anyone paying attention, they would see the wind stilled and died in her wake when it grew too violent, as if cowering before her presence. Barely audible whispers emanated from her, directing her bound elemental to shield her from the worst of the winds.

When they made it for the mighty entrance, Archanae touched her held stone to her sapphire medallion - and its light increased exponentially, throwing a blue pallour over the archway fit for a giant. Her own eyes dimmed back to their natural, cinnamon hue, taking in the hallway they entered.


The architecture made miniatures of them - so huge and imposing they might as well have been mice traversing a throne room. Columns shot up from the floor to grip the ceiling far above like standing guards, carrying the impossible load of the mountain on their backs.

Her blue light fell upon a curious feature. The columns were not hewn from stone, like the room itself. Instead, they were iron skins, carrying twisting cogs and gears within them, revealed in particular holes and gaps. These gears hadn't turned in millenia, twisted like the mechanical entrails of each column. Archanae suspected the floor to be full of such mechanical artifice as well, perhaps allowing these columns to move.

"We are in the Age of Wonders, once more," Archanae declared, a soft warning in her voice. Her strange accent and husky voice flittered amongst the columns, every step and breath a trespass on the acoustics of the hall. "Tread with care. This is from a time when dwarves ruled the world. And they hated scavengers and thieves above all else. There will be ingenious traps here."

She almost sounded in awe - reverent, even. If only the human race could come achieve such a pinnacle of technology and progress. But with their short lifespans, it seemed nearly impossible to build something rivalling this.

Unless she could change their fate.

Torin Gemheart

 

[Torin Gemheart]

Spoiler: Music OOC (Recurring)

The gateway and archway were as impressive as the fingers in their own right. Sure, weather had created cracks in the surfaces, but the mighty hand and the entrance remained standing under the test of time, even a biting wind. Inside? It was different, which was an understatement. Torchlight guided Torin. Beside him? Sapphire light. Vibrant.

Impressive? No. Not this structure, not these pillars covered in iron, nor floor and ceiling hewn from stone. Rather, there were no words for a dwarf like him to conjure. Light might shine, from fire or magic, illuminating the great hallway before his very eyes, but his mind could not quite describe the majestic sight.

This was glory vaulted, inscribed, and each column was a monument to the test of time, to the architect; to the builders and the dwellers of dwarven might. There was otherwise no denying the hands of the craftsmen behind this grand bastion.

“The Age of Wonders…” The dwarven merchant, smith, warrior, explorer, any version different from lord, nevertheless whispered in wonder. Generations upon generations, like bridges atop bridges in the deepest caverns, marveled with technological imagination. The torch in Torin’s hand would expire, its firelight would die, but the lamps of this wondrous past would blaze for days and days.

Whether practitioners of magic like her, sorcery of some sort, or his very own race, the Gemheart wasn’t one to dictate blame. He was here, purely and simply…he was here. “Ingenious traps indeed,” he agreed with a slight hint of admiration in his speech.

“Whose traps likely won’t discriminate between the species of trespassers,” someone uttered further at the front. “Including you.” It wasn’t the one Torin might have taken for an assassin if with discrimination.

“Check your flanks,” the dwarf advised, eyes peeled, ignoring the former. “No one venture too far forward unless advised—”

-SKRANGG!-

Just then, something metallic split like a knife in the wind, and someone screamed, their cry just as short-lived. A spike had thundered from a pillar’s center, steel as ever, and penetrated a traveler in the side. She died.

Archanae

 

[Archanae]

Archanae snapped her eyes in the direction of the unfortunate adventurer, untimely skewered by an ancient trap.

"Stop!" Archanae hissed, hand outstretched for the others, still observing that triggered trap. "Do not move any further--"

Survival instinct kicked in with many other members of the group, who began running down the hallway, ignoring her warnings and attempting to distance themselves from the trapped column.

Instead, they activated other traps. And the columns around those who had hung back - including Torin and Archanae - spat more metallic death.

In a huff and swirl of fur and clinking jewelry, Archanae wove a quick, circular sign in the air, carving burning blue lines, before slamming the rune into the ground. The flagstones below them warped, cracking with a horrible cacophony, splitting from the floor and forming crescent barriers around the remainder of their group. More steel spikes slammed into the twisted stone like battering rams, sparks flying from their impact.

"Fools!" she spat, a bead of troubled sweat running down her brow. "You will kill us all with your blunders!"

That was when she heard it. Skitters, like insectoid legs, but far too hard, rapid and large for any insects she knew of. They were coming from the corners of the hallway, honing in on their position.

Torin Gemheart

 

[Torin Gemheart]

Torin was not the kind of guy or dwarf who liked it when anybody died, even his enemies. However, he could not help but curse under his breath at the blunder of this other person. If only they had taken his advice then, not only might they be alive, but perhaps these ancient traps would not be awakened further in.

Traps. Tricks. Magic. It was all too much nonsense for a simpleton like him, same with what happened next.

“STAY THIS MADNESS!” Torin roared but his warning was in vain as other traps were activated. With the pillars that surrounded them, the cacophony was louder; an amalgamation of rings and screams. For a blacksmith like this dwarf, he was used to shrieks, but death and pain were unique.

At once, as blades jutted from the contraptions at his flanks, Torin hunkered down, banking on already being shorter to evade them. He aimed to lean away from one blade at the same time as planting the flat of his ax-head against the other. However, something different happened—nothing did, courtesy of his protector.

“You have my thanks,” the warrior told the sorceress with her sapphire. He meant it for her words as much as actions. There was no time to assess the death and damage of the others. He heard them: legs scurrying across the rock higher than frightened screams or chiming blades.

“SPIDERS!” The dwarf cried, sheathing his smaller axe to grasp his great hammer in his hands. He had no shield but his armor was its own tank. “Magic and arrows if you have them!” He flexed his fingers over his haft. “Hands, fists and axes if you don’t!”

At that, it wasn’t from the floor but from the ceiling above his head that chelicerae all but chattered from an arachnid approaching from the stone. It wasn’t alone.

Archanae

 

[Archanae]

Spoiler: Music

Archanae's delicate hand landed on Torin's ironclad shoulder.

"Torin." Her voice swished out his name. She hadn't used his first name before. "These imbeciles are a liability. We cannot risk our fate by intertwining it with theirs."

The invisible energy of her bound elemental suffused the space, throwing her hair in billowing cascades around them. Tendrils of white-blue energy mingled with her braids - like glowing veins eeling through a dark current - encompassing them both, rendering them as light and immaterial as the air itself.

"Come."

Her voice warped in that last insistence, as her form insubstantiated. So too would Torin Gemheart's body, should he choose to remain and accept her magic. With or without the dwarf, she would spirit herself forward, the only trace of her a ripple among the ancient columns, propelled forward by the air creature contracted to serve.

Moments later, she would apparate at the other end of this hall, space curving and bending to spit her out like a bone stuck in its throat. Archanae landed on her feet, her hand arresting her slide over stone, whirling to see if the dwarf had followed - or opted to join the others in their doom.

Torin Gemheart

 

[Torin Gemheart]

Swords or axes, Torin roared for, as much as magic. He had weapons more in the form of the former. The latter, however, appeared to be limited in caliber to just one other adventurer. Imbeciles, the sorceress called the others in her presence and present predicament. Simpletons, more or less, given the number who had since activated these traps. The entire commotion had opened the path for the spiders to attack.

“IT’S COMING!” Someone roared. There was little to wonder as to what it was coming for. The arachnid landed on the man, snapping his head off into its jaw a moment later. Someone screamed, and his stance was pitiful as another spider advanced. It all happened so fast. In that span of instants, a spider tethered to the ceiling spat a wad of web on its victim, cocooning her. Her shriek was muffled as she struggled to breathe, only to be spun upward and return to her captor.

At the same time, Torin stood tall and slammed his hammer. His attacker was given a strike to its head, sending it crashing. As that happened, its brethren began to converge from every direction. To linger any longer in this position would be folly. The dwarven warrior had to find a better corner in order to fight and survive.

“Come.”

“Aye!” He decided to oblige. Maybe this sorceress before him could have combined her gifts with his instead of escape but it was too late to speculate. With her hand on his shoulder, he felt no less bolder as they vanished together to reappear at the other end of the hall.

Torin braced his hammer, whipping his gaze to where the others were further away. Damn. He didn’t blame her, didn’t blame himself, as he watched the expedition fall. The spiders tore their prey to shreds and captured the rest. Limbs flew as blood spewed and webs meshed over cocooned men and women.

Move. Sooner instead of later, those predators would notice them. “Move!” With no further delay, Torin turned and soared across the floor. There was a door closest to his position. It wasn’t the exit, that being blocked off by the arachnids, and was sure to lead further into the fortress. He opened it.

A corridor stretched before them. “Seal this entrance behind us if you can!” Torin did not doubt the power of this sorceress but wasn’t versed on her magic. Slamming the door shut, barring it, he left the rest to his companion, and turned to face the hallway. Strange. The torches on the walls were already lit in flames.

Archanae

 

[Archanae]

Her fingers seared brilliant runes into stone, uttering cryptic curses below her breath. The stone writhed and bent like a creature in agony, quaking with terrestial screams, sealing the doorway, bending from the walls to cover its lintel, cill and architrave.

With this incantation finished, curved fingers and crossed arms lowered, she rose from being on her haunches, since lowering herself near the ground had helped her spell. It was with this slow rise that she turned, facing the same hallway as Torin.

Torchlight burned heartily here. As if a previous expedition had beaten them to it, lighting the hallway with blithe abandon. Archanae's eyes narrowed with suspicion, watching each flickering torch like a spear pointed her direction.

This hallway was smaller, but no less impressive. Silent gears spun a vast network from floor to ceiling. Dormant machinery that had once seen much use. Torches lined the walls, forming a reverant square of light to dazzle over glinting brass and bronze. Realisation rung like an unbidden bell in her mind.

"Magna mechani," Archanae muttered, a dwarven phrase nearly lost to time. "Their great machine. No doubt, it used to power something,"-she paused, weaving over to one of the nearby torches, touching its handle tentatively, her final word escaping her in an entranced mutter-"enormous."

The flames pulsed gaily, as if in agreement. Her faint words echoed down the hallway, stolen by the aged machinery. The torch, she noted, held no coal or rag - just a strange wick, connected to a tube that seemed to disappear down its metal shaft. Heat pipes leading elsewhere, no doubt.

Torin Gemheart

 

[Torin Gemheart]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Perhaps they faced the same hallway together. However, Torin Gemheart was a dwarf since versed to the various machinations of this universe that differed to his abilities. There were some under his hall who were particularly enchanted with magic. Him? Not so much. His present companion? She was a bit different and then some.

Half-tempted to let the enchanted sorceress go first before them, Torin held back out of caution, not fear. He watched the walls in the very manner that his predecessors should have only moments earlier. Perhaps, had they heeded the pillars with respect, they would not have ended up dead or in the mesh of a spider’s web.

‘Enormous’ was an understatement. Sure, some could conjure the word for the depth of the expanse amid tunnels carved from rubble, or the heart of the dwarf from an infant’s stubble to year’s beard, but for Torin? He was walking in memory, breathing in purpose that turned to tombs but whispered the future.

Magic. Machine. It did not matter much to his being. Ever the curious adventurer amid the prospective smith, the vigilant guardian amidst the merchant-warrior for whatever the difference, he was no dwarf so unversed with caverns to explore as this.

Magick. Machination. Certain dwarven strongholds, in this dwarf’s experience, either shied away from the kinds of contraptions that permitted explosive results from hands akin to an elven staff, or stayed fast and strong to crossbow bolts. Who was he to judge?

“Power takes many forms,” Torin responded to his spellcaster companion as much as to his axe and sword and the torch in his hand. “By craft of hand and magic of a dance I can’t stand.” His words cryptic, as ever he endeavored to deliver, he gestured down the hallway.

“Watch your back, sorceress,” the dwarf bid as he advanced. “And I shall watch yours as much as you watch mine in return.” At that, he turned toward the corridor, each step measured with as much fervor as a dwarf who was alert to the traps of treasure.

“If not for our predecessors,” the Blackheart admitted into the distant judgment of champions. “My greed might have my spleen halved between these walls." Even for a shorter corridor than the great hall from earlier, they were tall.

A door was open to his left, as something gilded beckoned him to go within and, for a moment, the dwarf stopped short in his trek, shining his light into the entrance. The glow was as good as a promise, even if it was not honest.

Archanae

 

[Archanae]

“If not for our predecessors,” the Blackheart admitted into the distant judgment of champions. “My greed might have my spleen halved between these walls."

"Best to check it with caution, then."

Archanae glided after Torin, approaching the humble door. Indeed, gold glinted tantalisingly from within, teased forth by the glow of torches.

The chamber was small. A dead end. However, a gilded statue dominated its wall. A dwarf in ceremonial robes, wielding a shepherd's staff in one hand, a skull in the other. The gold looked tarnished, even a noble metal which should be impervious to Time's claws. However, bits of it had flaked off, or perhaps been peeled off, revealing the bronze beneath the gild.


Six levers flanked this statue, three on each side. Runes hid in the dark below each lever, applying some cryptic meaning to their function.

The sorceress' eyes lingered on the staff and skull. Her eyes widened with realisation when she saw them for what they were: divine attributes. And then it dawned on her.

"This must be Wodir Greybeard. They say he was an dwarven wanderer and demigod of ancient times, since the Age of Uroghosh. He preceded the dwarven empire, and some believe he even granted it the spark to ignite its fire." She stepped closer, looking into the shadowed eyes of the statue intently. Her voice softened with her next words: "They say he achieved the status of divinity. He became a guide for the souls of dwarves in their journey to the deepest underworld. To most, he is a forgotten and pagan deity." A purr of amusement entered her speech in this half-lit darkness, like a cat enjoying the sharpness of its own claws. "Some even claim he was one of Arethil's first necromancers. But I wonder why he might be placed here . . ."

Dwarven theology held that while the souls of other mortals travelled upward, dwarven spirits descended into the earth instead, seeking Arethil's bottom. Such souls surely needed guidance through the twisting guts of the underrealm to find peace. But what significance could the shepherd of souls have to this room?

Torin Gemheart