Open Chronicles A Cardinal Sin

Afanas' curious eyes observed the bole of the massive tree. Although he had seen it more than once, he thought it a thing of beauty still, a massive, sky-scraping bit of plant life taller and, perhaps, wider than any construct fashioned by the hands of mortal races; a mighty feat of nature, having taken dozens upon dozens of lifetimes to reach its final size, all those tiny moments morphing imperceptibly into the present.

The tree stretched up, as if proud of its ancient existence. Afanas dared lay the flat of his palm against its weather-beaten bark.

For a brief moment, he felt the surreal vitality coursing through it. The tree was alive, sentient, if not sapient. Afanas' fingers, each crowned by a single, blackened claw, raked grooves in the bark, but the act evoked no response from the rigid giant. The tree hardly protested, and if there was any suffering to be found, Afanas couldn't perceive it.

He thought that if the tree were to die, so would the entire landscape— complete with every bit of plant life for miles around. For Afanas, this tree embodied the vital essence of the land, pushing out metaphorical lifeblood throughout all its veins and arteries.

"O elder one……" he mused, canting his head to the side. "Curses upon any that seek to end you. May their iniquitous ichor spill freely and soak your roots."

Vardan Shrike

Thunk.

Afanas' shoulders tensed, his ears perked up, and his gaze narrowed. He could've sworn he heard the sound of metal striking wood.

Thunk, thunk, thwack.

The sound came from someplace on the other side of the girthy trunk.

He didn't believe that anyone would be bold enough to attempt to cut down the Eldyr tree, but a man could never be too sure nowadays.

In light of that thought, he elected to circle the tree with the intent of satiating his curiosity.

He circled the trunk, the soles of his booted feet as light as feathers, barely brushing the layer of grass and mushy detritus. He saw a trail of armored human bodies strewn about, none of whom he could identify based on their heraldries. Their gear was too vague. Local militia? Unlikely. Mercenaries? Plausible.

As for the rest? Knight errants, guardians of the tree. They were few, but Afanas knew them to be a martially skilled bunch. The unidentifiable men had slain them, that much he'd be willing to bet his left lung on.


He poked one of the men with the heel of his boot. The man displayed no signs of life, and when Afanas grasped and tugged at one of his plate-enveloped limbs, he made a mental note of how incredibly stiff it was. Rigor mortis, perchance?

It didn't take much effort for his eyes to locate the source of the dull noise reverberating through the otherwise tranquil patch of woodland. Afanas' gaze honed in on the shape of an axe-wielding man with facial scars reminiscent of the surface of a burnt flatbread.

On a branch some two stories above him, a skeletal figure lay in a right lateral recumbent position, its exposed bones supported by the body of a thick tree branch. Afanas stalked closer.

Blackblade all but vibrated against his back, its scabbard threatening to rattle in anticipation.

"Are you the ones responsible for all this bloodshed? Are those the corpses of your men mingled with the corpses of the tree's guardians?" He queried, voice flat despite the gruesome scenery.

Shrike said:

The hatchet paused mid-swing. Tydeus slowly turned his neck to look over one shoulder at the figure looming by the bodies.

He looked up at the skeleton, then down to the exceedingly tall stranger.

“Not him,” he rasped quietly, “Just me and mine.”

Tydeus inspected the wound in the tree. Dipped his finger in the sap and smeared them across forefinger and thumb.

This would do. He hadn’t anticipated an audience, but no matter.

Tydeus began to doff his armor, tossing aside the hatchet, then his bracers, then shrugging beneath the weight of the chainmail as he pushed it off. After losing his aketon and tunic he stood wearing nothing but his trousers and boots, chest bare.

He dipped his fingers back into the wound, then started smearing the sap across his bare skin.

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An expression of…something crossed Afanas' face. Recognition? Enmity? Mockery? It was something, alright, so brief that it lingered for only a split second and then died, having displayed all the vitality of a mayfly on its second day of adulthood.

"I must caution you: the Eldyr tree represents the beating heart of this country. Should you sufficiently damage, or even worse, kill it, the very land will go sour, and many thousands of innocent people whose livelihoods depend on it will suffer and die."

Shrike said:

“Would they?”

Tydeus let out a low chuckle, more akin to a bark.

“Woe to the vanquished.”

He sat down in the muck and continued smearing it across himself. Bereft of shirt, the ruins of his body were exposed to the air. Horrific scars webbed across his body. Some natural, others clearly the work of something else. They looked like burns. Indeed, they felt like burns even still. But the flesh there was poisoned. Sickened by Nagai toxin.

Tydeus continued slathering himself in tree sap.

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Afanas wanted to snarl but nipped the bestial urge in the bud before his lips could peel back. Instead, he observed the man and his myriad of gruesome scars. They unfurled across the man's bodice, like threads of silver that glowed in the sunlight. Some appeared to have been inflicted with bladed weapons, while the others proved more…ambiguous, although Afanas had the vaguest of ideas regarding their origin: acid, or something similarly corrosive.

His eyes darted to the axe. Upon the handle of aged old oak was a blade of shining steel, painted slick with amber-orange sap.

"Woe to you, stranger, for if I suspect you guilty of bringing down the ancient tree, I'll have no choice but to vanquish you. You, who are equipped with a woodcutter's axe, facing my blackblade, which even now craves to devour your soul."

Vardan Shrike

"I am beholden to no higher power, and neither do I believe in divine justice, only the justice of man."

Afanas dropped his hat. Then, mustering the quicksilver speed of his bloodline, he scaled half a dozen meters up the tree, moving faster than the human eye could follow. He perched himself on the same branch as the lich, yet the power of his ascent barely affected the tree limb. It was hideous, calculated precision that kept him from plowing through three feet of wood like it were styrofoam.

"I've known many gods. He who openly denies their existence is as foolish as he who trusts them too deeply."

Shrike Vardan

"This branch is as much mine as it is yours. Perhaps public property wasn't a thing in whatever antediluvian era you hail from, O ancient one."

He jabbed a finger in Vardan's general direction, lacquered claw glinting.

"Don't you find it a bit gratuitous what your scar-encrusted friend did? The tree's guardians normally permit entry for the sick and the wounded. Why kill them? To prove what point?"

Nuir had made the journey to the Tree in hopes of investigating it's reported healing waters. He had largely avoided the mess of soldiers and guardians at the base of the tree. He had approached with a sort of obliviousness. He heard the commotion of the three talking before he saw. He pushed aside a bit of shrubbery and the odd trio came into sight.
He watched as what he assumed was a human boy stripped down and got into the water at the base of the tree. ah, how fortuitous a demonstration. only then the boy started to rip at his out flesh. Nuir wasn't well versed in this type of healing but he gathered that wasn't usually part of the process.
A small furrow formed on his stoic features as he reluctantly weighed if he should stay to witness.....whatever this was, or if he should retreat before he could impose on this odd ritual.

Afanas said:

"This branch is as much mine as it is yours. Perhaps public property wasn't a thing in whatever antediluvian era you hail from, O ancient one."

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Afanas said:

"Don't you find it a bit gratuitous what your scar-encrusted friend did? The tree's guardians normally permit entry for the sick and the wounded. Why kill them? To prove what point?"

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Vardan said:

Vardan harrumphed and muttered unintelligible. Something about "the commons" and "King Grichen" were barely audible.​

The old lich strained to look up from his position. Past Afanas and the scarred knight to the broken corpses of the Eldyr Tree's guardians. He knew them well, those old the Knights of the Anathaeum. Good riddance to them. Common-born dullards, cowardly and dispiteous in their mien. Every last one.​

​

He set his head back down, staring up at the canopy. The sounds of Tydeus tearing out his guts were quite distant to him.​

​

"If it is displeasing to thee, put up thy sword and avenge them."​

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"Displeases is a strong word. They chose their creed, and they were as much sellswords as I am. They died in the line of duty, and I ought to respect that. The way that scarred man went about gaining entry, though, simply seemed illogically disadvantageous."

He leaned against the tree trunk, facing the lich's profile. His dark eyes studied the skeletal figure. He noted Vardan's attire to be of vaguely native origin, although quite old and outdated.

The lich must be his senior, he thought, but he elected not to voice his calculated assumption. After all, old people were prone to getting cranky once reminded of their advanced age.

"I haven't revisited these lands for many years, so I swither to call myself a native, but you seem to be one, based on your garments. I'd like to hear your story if you don't mind my nosiness."

Afanas said:

"I haven't revisited these lands for many years, so I swither to call myself a native, but you seem to be one, based on your garments. I'd like to hear your story if you don't mind my nosiness."

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Nuir carefully stepped out of the way of the swarms of ants and stepped closer to the base of the tree. Certainly something or several somethings were responding to the boys call.
Though what the purpose of this painful ritual was Nuir didn't quite yet understand. Perhaps this unfortunate being was simply lashing out.
From here he could hear the murmur of the conversation above. The two men seemed to be in some matter of argument. Seemingly deciding between them, who's responsibility it was to stop the boy's blood ritual.
Even if he had been of the mind to, he himself was of no power to intervene such an invocation. He watched on with interest.

Shrike Vardan
Nuir

Afanas listened and chewed on his lower lip, opting to ignore the lich's unsavory humor in favor of listening to the blackguard's strange chant. The more he listened, the wearier he got, for the stranger was invoking the names of many a deity. Afanas didn't fancy the stranger as a wizard, nor even a minor sorcerer, but the miasma of magic was beginning to settle heavy around the area, prompting the pale man to stand up and step forward, plummeting off the branch that moments ago provided an anchoring point.

He landed with feline grace, feet first, and immediately surged forward, heading for Shrike.

A change came upon his eyes. Color bled from his irises, turning them monochrome, and where once round pupils stood, one could see only vertical slits, strangely ophidian in their design.

With his witchsight, he perceived a myriad of multicolored strands, all as thin and delicate as gossamer, congealing around the man.

They spun and shimmered and began weaving together, threatening to form a bejeweled tapestry of dazzling colors. He ignored the writhing of ants—their physical forms unfit to paint the picture of what was truly afoot.

Afanas theorized that, should the chant be completed, so would the tapestry, and either the mangled man would finally garner the attention of one of the deities, for better or for worse, or they'd all go up in one big, fiery ball as unrestrained and unguided arcane energies tore the Eldyr tree asunder.

Afanas brandished his blade, hands moving with all the swiftness of a shrieking thunderbolt.

The Black Sword began to howl, and the familiar black radiance spilled from it. The runes carved into its blade pulsed a vivid blue, which turned slowly to a deep purple and then to black once more.

Feed me! it demanded, filling the tomb of his mind with its crooning ululations.

Afanas raised the blade overhead, poised to strike, leaving sword and man alike wreathed in a palpitating stygian mist. He swung, his sword too out of range to reach the man, yet, as the blade descended, so did a wave of darkness erupt from its very tip.

It slithered and scraped, low against the ground, leaving a deep furrow in its wake. As it raced toward Shrike, it rose violently, morphing into a large crescent moon.

It missed the man's torso by mere inches but successfully struck the ethereal tapestry, biting deep. At the point where the two forces clashed, the unfinished tapestry offered some resistance before ultimately being hewn in twain.

The lower portion of the tree shook violently, and a few branches fell off when a potent shockwave began uprooting torso-sized clumps of dirt for meters around Shrike.

Nuir braced himself against the tree as the impact of the impressive attack rocked the base and fell some branches nearby. The sky grew dark in an unsettling manner. He felt a cold that was much worse than any he had ever felt. Something deeply unnerving. The screeching tang of the incomprehensible being rang from the strange tear.

Nuir had seen quite a few arcane displays before but none quite like this. Or a sword that creates spooky Cresents.