Quest Those Who Walk Below

The street yielded before a crude stairway leading up above the crowded avenues of Zar'Ahal. This narrow path snaked around a stony rise; almost an underground hill, slowly but surely leading the party up above and at a distance from the bottom of the city. For every step taken, the stairway took more shape, gradually blooming from a rude path into an elegant rise of carved elevation, sprouting a steel railing and flickering lamps in the end.

The tower imposed itself upon their field of vision; looking more akin to a giant, asymmetrical alembic, breathing smoke through several chimneys ladened on its back. This central structure contained an excess of stained glass rather than steel or stone, glowing from within by some weird contraption of light, reflecting the greens and purples of the distant city stars, but adding some colours of its own to Zar'Ahal's prism: cryptic blue, jealous jade and titillating teal. Around the main structure -- looking like the strange dream of some alchemist hoping to live inside his own container -- outbuildings and protusions grew like fences hemming in this beast of glass; and indeed, shaped from swirling, oval windows, it could bear to mind some crystallised ooze, petrified mid-movement.

Thus the building sat atop the rocky outcrop, a lopsided crown of glass held in place by a myriad of supporting columns, spindly terraces and interconnected balconies. Alchemical smells of resinous notes and cedar reached their nostrils from the pouring chimneys, bespeaking of some grand work within.

As they as they first came within sight of the compound gate, Vel’duith smirked and subtly signed to Vyx’aria,

<<The guards are young. Let us approach the gate first. Slap me-you will know when. Say you are bringing me to enroll. It will amuse them and draw their attention fully, letting the others slip in the gate behind the illusion I will create to hide them.>>

She turned to face the others, her voice soft and crisp.

“Be ready! We will create a diversion. Enter quickly and quietly to the right of the shimmer as soon as it appears. Take cover around the building just to the right. A’ni Zathria will guide you to the tower. We will meet you there momentarily”

As they walked up to the Suulet’jabar gates, the young acolyte inquired loudly and impetuously of her mother, “Vallabha-ilhar, will it really be the Ilharess we meet today, or only her third-daughter?”

The gate opened, and both guards stepped out to better watch, hands on weapons, but chuckling. The lead guard ventured to Vyx’aria, “Another candidate ripe for the cadre, malla’ilhar?”

While the laughing guards were facing fuming mother and stammering daughter, a curling dweamor faded in, arcing from dangling Vel’duith to the first building inside the gate, showing the empty street and vacant gate and courtyard on the side facing them, and a barely perceptible silver shimmer beckoning inside on the opposite side, visible to the others.

Dante hated depending on others, but he’d been doing it this whole quest, by the hells he couldn’t even see in this god's forsaken place without help, so he was determined not to disrupt the plan. As the distraction started he wasted no time slipping inside. Once there he kept to the shadows, which… might have been pointless, but old habits and what not.

He passed by a mirror and pulled weapons… then remembered he’d taken a potion to make him look like a drow and put his weapons away… he did a quick scan of the space to make sure no one had seen his idiocy, and then waited for The Commander to bravely lead the way.

Zathria's small perch gave her the freedom to examine their target more closely, looking for the gaps in the tower that had to be there. They always were and it was just a matter of finding them. Zathria was more soldier than assassin, but she had spent time in the elite scout companies proving her worth and that was this domain.

She spotted what she was looking for and dropped back down to the ground with impressive silence before motioning for the others to follow her.

With the guards distracted, Zathria led the splinter team down and to the right of the stairs, falling in to the side of the stairs where rocks led down under the balconies of the tower, but rather than skirt under and around, she doubled back and hoisted herself up the rocks that ran parallel to the stairs and then dropped down onto one of the balconies that it overhang.

Normally, this would have been a location visible to the guards, but the sharp crack of a slap rang out and showed the guards were more preoccupied with that than the infiltrators.

She paused in the cover of one of the balcony walls and made sure the others were coming, motioning them to come her way before they were spotted or fell into the chasm below. That would be a real shame. Yes, soooooo sad.

J'rell followed in close pursuit of the party, aware that whatever time Vel'duith and Vyx'aria had bought was short and incredibly precious.

Dante looked uncomfortable, but remained steadfast. J'rell took pride in the steel of his fellow human and aimed to mirror his example.

With that in mind, he spread his feet and straightened himself, cradling his hands to give the man a leg up to reach Zathria on the balcony above.

His dark bulk heaved with tension, eyes locked on movements of the guards below. After Dante had ascended, he would attempt to follow himself.

The balcony offered no resistance against Zathria's intrusion. But the air grew taught, as if *something* contracted, like a coiled beast. Faint woodchimes could be heard, dangling above each door available to her, not moved by wind -- but by something else.

One door led into a small, glass outbuilding, glowing green, pulsating. The other door led into the stone itself, presumably into some cellar, cave or stairway going up into the foyer or main structure.

Velduith loped knock kneed after her 'mother,' as though she was hiding having soiled herself, before they passed out of view and the queen beckoned her near. She smirked at the distant laughter as she resumed her normal, efficient gait, around a pace and a half for each of Vyx'aria's strides.

The diminutive rogue's normally noncommital garnet gaze betrayed a slight note of surprise at Vyx'aria's unexpected offer.

"Free passage? Where would the challenge lie in that? Why, I would truly become as soft as I am often accused of being. Besides, I am repossessing a certain trinket from the matron's consort along our way. You may well wish to preserve plausible deniability."

And sure enough, she skipped ahead to the next chamber entrance after checking all sightlines. She listened briefly at the door, then a ghostly silver shimmering hand emerged from her right hand, passing through the door, and unlocking it from within. Her real hands were already winding out several yards' length of spidersilk fabric as she passed within, straight to a bejeweled adamantine battleax on a stand. She murmured a detection spell, then took up the battleax, wrapping it in the spidersilk and stowing it invisibly within her illusionary disguise. The door closed and locked behind her, the shimmer disappearing. The whole process barely took a dozen seconds, the latch and her mumbled spell the only perceptible sounds.

Vyx'aria

Vel'duith's momentary chipper expression faded as Vyx'aria drew a sharp breath approaching the mage tower. She hurriedly cast a silence spell on the area between where they stood and the guard post they had earlier passed, hoping she would be quick enough to dampen the voice in at least that unintended direction. The jig would be up if the wrong people heard that voice.

Of course, a bit of trepidation also crept onto her face at the looming prospect of facing Nimruil. It hadn't been nearly long enough since her visit to his tower for him to have forgotten about the incident, and she couldn't confidently put it beyond his skill to have identified the culprit.

The name travelled through mazes of glass and boiling alchemy.

Through intervowen wards and scrying runes, each humming and glowing with arcane power; one by one, as if passing the message along.

Up stairs and through doors rendered from rich Zurkhwood, intricate with swiring burls and emerald door handles. There, at last, it would find its intended recipient.

Something shifted above Vel'duith and Vyx'aria. One of the many windows seemed to briefly bulge and curl in its shape, as if indecisive of its form.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

A long moment passed.

But eventually, the lintel above the front door glowed in faint, golden lines, revealing a strange symbol.

A bleeding or weeping eye, entrapped within a golden circle. That circle bristled with wavy, jagged rays, which in turn sought escape from an encapsulating triangle of runes. In this manner, several geometric shapes formed layers around this golden eye; the circle clearly appearing to be a sun, for those not of the drow inclination and more used to its symbolic representation.

Eight clicks sounded from the heavy door; each metallic lock cranking idiosyncratically. The door glided open silently, slowly; as if it was a reluctant manservant stepping aside to allow them entry.

Stepping inside would lead them into a two-storied foyer with colourful glass nearer its ceiling. A grand 'carpet' immediately stole the eye, covering most of the floor. A black, shiny carapace dominated the space, bristling with a few hairs and a pair of exposed mandibles the length of their arms, above which four insectoid eyes stared dumbly at them.

To those versed in their bestiology, the carpet was, in fact, a skinned umber hulk.

Even here, in the upper wings of the foyer, alembics, cucurbits, retorts and other glass receivers bubbled and sizzled away merrily, adding a cryptic chorus of suspicious liquids as a backdrop. An athanor-oven at the back of the room supplied the necessary heat to all these glasses through a boggling network of tubes running below the floor and up into the altars that held aloft this grand offering of alchemy.

Vyx'aria
Vel'duith Voiryn

Vel’duith gently tugged at Vyx’aria’s glove.

“Valsharess, an observation. Note how one’s eyes are drawn upwards by the foyer’s design? Take care of where you step.”

Szesh's unsightly form garnered him many looks but few words as he trailed after Vyx'aria and the party. Some of them split off to reach greater heights. Szesh stayed behind, for without the use of his wings he would be a slow climber indeed. Besides, the true drow's presence almost seemed to be shielding him. He had known the drow were matriarchal... perhaps they all thought him her simple-minded manservant. His jaw twitched in momentary irritation that he wasn't that far off from the true situation. He could not see in the dark here without her presence, and he certainly did not know the way around this city... nor around their elven customs.

The magical eye was deeply unsettling, but he remained still as did Vyx'aria. Lashing out early had caused them difficulty before. Maybe this was just how mages greeted everyone down here. Vile witches.

He lumbered forward into the warm room with its bristly carpet. Szesh's new feet were more sensitive and he did not enjoy the sensation of walking on the exoskeleton. The baubles and bubbles in the room were no more alien than the rest of this place. At this point he had given up at understanding anything that occurred in here.

Zathria continue to make her way slowly and carefully from the balcony into the outermost room of the tower, wishing in that moment that she knew a spell to obscure herself, but coming up short in that regard. She would have to simply do as she had always done: rely on skill and when all went to pieces, unleash combat spells.

She began to pick her way carefully up the innermost parts of the tower. It was, after all, an area of students and the like, and Zathria waited for one of them to pass by before grabbing them, driving the tip of her knife right up against the skin of their throat.

Tell me how to reach the upper sanctums. Tell me where to find your master, she said. She didn't really have an interest in killing this student, but they didn't know that. The piercing violence in Zathria's eyes were convincing enough to fool anyone.

Dante’s breath came in ragged gasps as he followed Zathria up the wall and over the balcony. Her destination was a window on the tallest tower… because of course it was. His goal was to just survive at this point. They scuttled up the innermost tower’s side clinging to the shadows like bugs as they ascended.

As Zathria made her grab, Dante groaned. Really, she had to grab someone before they could actually pull themselves in? Typical.

Storta pulled himself up the wall in the window directly next to Zathria, “Yeah, and you better start talking, cause my friend there’s itching to put something in someone.”

Zathria At'Arel

Zathria At'Arel said:

Tell me how to reach the upper sanctums. Tell me where to find your master, she said. She didn't really have an interest in killing this student, but they didn't know that. The piercing violence in Zathria's eyes were convincing enough to fool anyone.

Click to expand...

Students of the tower were prone to not observing their environment. Not when their whole careers could depend on one, misplaced drop into the wrong glass.

This particular student widened his eyes in alarm at suddenly having a knife to his throat. Even more so at seeing the pale, savagely dressed creature next to her. Understandably so from having his life threatened and being in the company of surface beasts; but to this poor soul there was another complication. The drop from one vial to the other missed its mark in his hands; sputtering an incandescent flutter of sparks as it landed. His features puckered as months of labour wasted from his imprecision.

"Th-the sanctum? Oh, but, you can't go there -- no one is allowed to go there until the Auratic Obelisk displays a shamrock green. Until then he is not to be roused--"

Not far from the student, in a miniature rock obelisk on a table near the great sphere of metal rings that held various concoctions in the middle, a tell-tale green glow suffused its runes as they spoke. The student's eyes drifted from Zathria to the obelisk.

"Well I'll be damned."

------------------------------------



Behind the Grand Conservatory, in a vaulted Zurkhwood construction looking akin to an elegant cyst or egg sprouting from its glass back, seeming more grown than constructed, the master roused.

His grand bed swallowed his emaciated form in linens and sheets. Nimruil heard his own ragged breath suck in air, like a bellows rattling with excess grains.

A veritable cloud of glitter and pretty objects surrounded him above. Silverite chimes and twinkling baubles jingled and clinked gently, like a soft lullaby still lingering around his rest. A blood lancet perched above his bed; a frozen guardian of bronze, and a reminder. The cup of his own tainted blood bore witness to his torturous weeks.

Weakness bloomed from his flesh, rising with his consciousness. He could feel it pound behind his temples with all the tenacity of masons; weighing down on his chest like an anvil, and cry its resistance at every errant twitch of his arms and legs. Slowly, laboriously, the Archmage of the Academy extricated himself from his blessed trance and the comfort of relived memories.

"Ssiks-orb-you-have-guests, you-have-guests, you-have-guests," a tiny, shrill voice burbled, words near too rapid for comprehension. A form shifted and contracted space in the corner of his room, making itself manifest not by entering the world of physicality itself, but remaining in the abstract world of forms.

His hand rose to cover his face with titanic effort, rubbing it gently.

"Who is it, Meun?"

"Big-scary-scarred-female-hooded-cloaked-emril-blades-small-slender-female-with-funny-hat-strange-cross-eyed-male-booming-your-name-others-maybe-slipping-around-slippery-sneaky-slithering-sneaks-perhaps-maybe.-

"And did you let them in?"

"Yes!-Ftting-your-contingency-let-them-in-let-them-in-and-glass-guardians-activated-should-apprehend-or-let-walk-about-willy-nilly?"

"Stay the guardians, for now. I shall talk to them. Dress me in my fisher-silk gown. It soothes my nerves."

In the privacy of his own sanctum, he sulked at having to move about. His body screamed its defiance, but the mind was ever a callous slave-driver. Especially as it realised the potential importance of such an arrival.

There was only one he could think of who might arrive by stealth, unnannounced and in strange company, while at the same time imperiously summoning him. Two traits that would have been incongruous with most denizens of Zar'Ahal, favouring either obscurity or command.

But when the arrival was none other than Vyx'Aria Tor'rahel, such disparate elements easily turned into a disturbing whole. Fire could burn gaily in water, then, and earth drift as lightly as air. And a rogue's stealth could herald the demands of royalty.

So too would his tormented body and keen mind work in strange unison, he decided. Weakness would camouflage strength.

And Nimruil would arrive in the Umber Foyer in a white gown, slowly tapping his way out with a smooth, blackened staff for support, standing in the upper wings above, greeting his guests (Vyx'aria, Vel'duith, Szesh) with silent observation.

Vel’duith drew a breath when the archwizard stepped out onto the balcony above them, staff in hand. She may as well have found herself facing a fully aware troll within its talons’ reach. She tried to inconspicuously glance down at the umber hulk rug, when she realized her disguise had faded. She didn’t panic, but casually stepped aside out of easy view of anyone standing outside the tower doorway, as though she were merely a curious visitor taking in the decor.

Vel’duith frowned slightly. She had felt no telltale tug of abjuration magic… She considered what could have so covertly canceled her spell, and a thought occurred to her: A well placed sussurra-petal within the decor near the door, perhaps? And then she spied it, among the colorful dropped petals and shriveled shed leaves of some succulent surface plant potted by the door, sitting beneath some manner of subtle light diffuser bathing it in dim light and applying a warm, humid fog.

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, completely out of place with the violence being now threatened, overtly and covertly, from both parties during the shakedown in progress. Vel’duith just couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer ingenuity of both the subtle anti-magic defense and the cleverly engineered device sustaining the plant.

Nimruil watched as their disguises melted away. The hidden sussura plants did their work in suppressing magic. One hid her face, the other turned steadily into a large draconian.

Well, now. This was interesting. Perhaps worthy of disturbing his rest after all. He didn't have to search his memory for long when the name was summoned.

For a long moment, pale red eyes sifted over all three of them. His skin was the colour of grey dust, eyes sunken with fatigue, white hair matted and withered.

"The great Vyx'aria Tor'Rahel. Fallen from grace -- now gracing my threshold."

Sickness rattled his voice, but his eyes remained keen as knives, honed in on her. He spoke in accented common, seeing this as an opportunity to practise his linguistic abilities in the presence of the draconian.

"Discretion is indeed a skill I wouldn't have survived without. Fear not, Your Highness. Not even a sound shall escape from here." With a languid flick of his hand, the door shut behind them. Mechanisms and locks bulged out from its wooden skin like fat tendons. Eight different clicks and cranking issued again, and while the door locked securely, he continued over the din: "There is also a craft in the exchange of valuable information. I am certain you can appreciate the risk I am taking from merely entertaining your presence here. No doubt you have undergone great adversity to venture here as well."

For a moment, a green glow brought new life to his listless eyes.

"Tell me. What do I stand to gain, then, from telling you about the exploits of my esteemed colleague and the fate of this egg? Nothing is ever given for free, as I'm certain you can appreciate. And as it stands, I could gain much from handing you and your companions over to the regent." His staff pointed at the draconian. "Perhaps you would offer this draconian in exchange, hm? Is that why you brought him here? I should take great delight in testing the resilience of his scales and discovering the properties of his fiery blood. Or perhaps you wish to give over your discrete friend there, who keeps hiding her face from me?"

Zathria didn't feel like she was getting anywhere with this acolyte and she knew a simple spell of sleep wouldn't be effective against a mage more powerful than her, so she bound and gagged the person in place with a length of rope, leaving them there as she made her way back toward the front door. She would leave the student to whatever strange out-of-control experiment might be happening there now. Hopefully they wouldn't die.

She didn't know if he would meet Vyx'aria there but at the least, she could open the door for the rest of the party.

As it turned out, there was her target. Decades on decades spent in the scout companies meant that Zathria could move like a silent shadow in her light armor, hearing the sound of the mage outright disrespecting the Queen was not something she would stand for in silence.

Her knife pressed up to the neck of Nimruil from behind as she grabbed his hair and yanked backward not quite so gently.

Do not threaten the rightful Queen of Zar'ahal or I'll take your tongue, she hissed. As far as she was concerned, threatening to hand over the Queen and company to the usurper was just that: a threat. Her own threat was not an idle one, either. She'd slit his throat if she had to, but she knew better than to lead with a threat to his life when they wanted information from him. She wasn't a rookie at this, after all.

An elder figure loomed above them, but before Szesh had the chance to observe him his own body rippled once more. The transformation back was not as arduous as the first time, though it was still unnerving to feel his bones move beneath his skin. Overall it was a great comfort to be back in his own scales, mercifully free of the thousand bristling hairs all over that drow body. He understood now why mammals made such poetry about wind.

It took a moment for him to realize that he understood Nimruil, that he was speaking the common tongue. He wished he hadn't. It was impossible to remain impassive when being discussed as a bartering token. He could not help a low rumbling in his chest, a deep and predatory warning as he felt his breath warm instinctually. His lip curled, showing a glimpse of slick black teeth, and he snorted a small plume of smoke.

He was not stupid enough to start a fight here... but he was becoming all the more eager to finish one. What did this shriveled magus stand to gain? How about another day of life in this sunless crypt? Or perhaps he would remain in a grand hall with unbroken baubles.

Szesh held his tongue. He was good at that. Though, the longer the drow spoke, the more he wondered if their flesh would have the same earthiness that the worm had.

Zathria's arrival was as shocking to him as it surely was to the wizard. Why did Szesh bother with any sense of decorum at all if they were to immediately resort to violence? He was better at violence anyway.

Zathria's hand touched hair, though it felt like slime. Tendrils of ichor stretched from his strands to her palm. The knife rested on his throat and his chin lifted. A distinct smell of ammonia layered with exotic perfumes would assail Zathria at this proximity; a near poisonous stench covered by sickly sweet smells.

The air contracted near his staff, as the invisible form of Meun slipped into it. Wood writhed quietly. His eyes turned slowly for Zathria.

"Threaten, you say? I am merely relaying the facts as they present themselves. You, however, seem to be dispensing all the threats here. Is this the thanks I get for my courtesy -- for greeting trespassers in my home?"

He made a disapproving cluck of his tongue, though he hardly moved. His eyes narrowed a tad in recognition, still glancing side-long at his aggressor.

"Ah, I think I recognise you as well. Of House At'arel . . . are you not? Well, I have shown you my position, and I have endeavoured to identify yours. A fair negotiation requires exact knowledge from all parties. Would you not agree?"

‘Vernutar’ doffed her hat, looking up at the archmage coolly, her garnet hued eyes seeking his curiously. There was something peculiarly familiar about old Nimruil’s voice, even though she had never had the pleasure of meeting him before.

With the slightest of eye widenings, Vel’duith recognized a tome casually sitting open on a display stand in a corner of the foyer as one she had acquired years ago, but her mother had always handled distributing her prizes to commissioners from the upper houses. A snowy eyebrow arched before returning her gaze to the archmage.

A’ni Zathria appeared suddenly, but Vel’duith well knew that an archmage fully aware of uninvited company in his own lair would be quite far from defenseless against such immediate threats. She clucked her tongue almost in unison with Nimruil’s.