Knights of Anathaeum Echoes in the Deep

[Faramund]

The Seer talked and, as quiet as a church mouse, Faramund listened. 'Maybe they saw it in your stars?' He quipped, having waited patiently for the dusker to finish telling her tale. 'Whatever their reasons- whatever... circumstances led them to make that decision, if leaving you at the Monastery made you into the woman you are today then I dare say they made the right call.' He shrugged, took a sip of his beer. The Masked Seer was just as much a mystery to him as she was to everyone else.

But as he was coming to learn, she had heart and personality aplenty. A start, he thought, smiling sheepishly as he caught his reflection in Seluria's diamond-studded mask. Or the lack thereof.

'Don't go telling anyone I said that now... or I shall never hear the end of it.' Grinning, he clunked his drink against hers.

Gazing about, his grin soon turned to a grimace as he noticed Petra signalling to him from across the room. 'Well, duty calls,' he said, downing the last of his drink. Placing it aside, he gave Seluria a parting nod. 'Don't go having too much fun now, y'hear?' Smiling, he walked away.

Joining Petra by the door, Faramund's smile faded when he saw the look on her face, 'What's up?' He asked, feeling a touch uneasy to see his friend so... shaken?

She told him, as calmly as she could manage, and the news, much as he had feared, wasn't good.

'Well, that sounds pretty fuckin' bad,' he said, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. 'This Bernard... he's out back, right? Best we go hear what he has to say before the pigs finish him off.' Yeah, probably best. The door to the Chav banged open as three more locals walked in. Miners, their faces were shockingly white in the dreary candlelight.

A sign of how bad things are if ever I saw one, Fara thought, holding the door as it swung back at him. 'Shall we?'

Stepping out into the night, he followed the muddy path out back. In the dark, it was hard to see the pigs as they wallowed around in their own shit, but he could hear them just fine.

It was his hearing that led them to Bernard.

Passed out in a nearby shed, the miner looked every bit the broken man Fara had come to expect. He snored loudly as the dawnling knelt down beside him to retrieve the bottle of alcohol clutched in his hand. 'Bernard?' Faramund prompted, nudging the man's shoulder. The last drops of wine sloshed around as Fara gave him another nudge. 'Bernard? Wake up, lad!'

He didn't.

Standing, Faramund turned to his two companions. 'Don't suppose either of you have a bucket?'

Petra Darthinian Valborast Valchek Seluria Estel'Narqua Roki Mara Tillerman Abrielle Huxley

 

[Mara Tillerman]

Gloomy was Mara. The darts game hadn't turned out as she'd hoped, but rather exactly how she had imagined it would. Though she and Abri had played like their lives depended on it, the boys still won by enough points to keep Tarren gloating all night. Well, big surprise there. Tarren had been practicing ever since they'd arrived and Roki was, well... smart and lucky.

"Night, Roki," was all she said in way of excusing herself before Abri had the chance to make the surrounding miners blush. If nothing else, that girl was impressively creative with her obscenities. Mara was sure she'd hear it all through the floor anyway, if she didn't just pass out. Gods, what a long day! She was sincerely glad she wasn't the one who'd be chasing monsters tomorrow.

Up the creaky stairs and in her room, Mara collapsed into the bed and pulled the blankets around herself. Dead to the world.

"Well, that was fun, eh? I think I'll have another beer," Tarren said with a wide smile at no one in particular.

Petra Darthinian Valborast Valchek Seluria Estel'Narqua Roki Abrielle Huxley Faramund

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Valborast peered from the doorway at this stage of fear that snored. Trauma, shirking of reality. No lover to hold, just the bottle that numbed and made all memories off balance. The ripples of terror made manifest in the frame, the bottle would not be the first, and no doubt the last. The word 'rehabilitate' drifted into Valborast's mind and was released from his mind's grip as if it threatened to scald his sensibilities. Better grasped was the word, 'exploit.'

Faramund asked for a bucket, and Valborast rolled his shoulders in slow reverse motion as he slid in like a knife into the room. As the fulcrum of his joints made their way to the lowest point in orbit, did his waterskin pop open at the sound of his joints clicking. It ejected a spray of chill water at the poor fellow, Valborast enjoying the moment all too much but revealing only a stony exterior.

The survivor clung at the bottle as if it might guard him from being roused into memory, which clawed at him with well remembered sounds and visions. A gasp and spluttering, he turned his back to the spray and the water's waking touch ceased. This moment of rousing had with it the sludge of alcohol upon the brain, yet the trauma made heavy bootprint in the path of lucidity. A cry of pain and hands went to the face and dragged down at this interruptions of the all too temporary reprieve from the recollection.

“Gods, you are cruel. Another bottle, yes, another bottle,” the fellow groaned as wakeful took painful dominion, his mind immediately upon blotting his experience with the dark instead of being concerned with his sodden clothes as he fumbled on the floor.

Valborast frowned. Truly, the victim was afflicted by whatever had caused such a wound. He lifted the empty bottle to sup from it, and finding it empty, turned to look, bleary eyes that were pained and focused on nothing, and through gaseous voice did make inquiry to the shadows that awaited answers in the room, “Drink! I'll repay you once I can forget.”

“Better to remember your troubles avenged and put to bed than to hand you anything further,” Valborast said in low tone, and felt the hot flush of anger at such a display of escapism. He had always faced his fears, for to turn his mind away would render him dead, or worse, forever prey to the dark.

“What? What was that? My ears are dull and I am...I am wet, why, why do this thing to me,” the survivor bemoaned as he peered, head overbearing in weight and with sharp stabs of a hangover well earned.

Valborast ripped the chill water away with a mind wrought whip, and smacked against the far wall with a satisfying slap. The survivor shivered in the water's absence, and rubbed his eyes, his hands attempting to navigate a dark and bleary world to wherever alcohol might reside.

“I said sit down,” Valborast said and provided an outstretched hand to halt the fellow. Valborast peered into the man's mind at the dulled bouquet of fear that lingered like mayflies around his spirit, and flashed a mote of light in front of his face. The survivor recoiled and winced, overbalanced, and sat back down to his original position with a thump.

“We're here to help," Valborast said coolly. "Tell us what happened. We will put an end to it, then you can rest easy, with or without bottle,” Valborast said with all the calm confidence of a doorman denying service. The drunk wheezed and fell silent.

Val looked to his comrades for the next step. Were he alone, he might remove the alcohol from the miner's blood and make fresh the fear so it might be remembered. But his fellow knights might frown upon the method, and render them suspicious of his methods, so Valborast allowed the next to interrogate in far more roundabout manner.

Petra Darthinian Faramund Seluria Estel'Narqua Roki Mara Tillerman Abrielle Huxley

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Petra took that as her cue and stepped into the shed, wrinkling her nose at the pungent smell of manure and alcohol that permeated the air. She witnessed Bernard sitting in a corner, slumped against the wall, remnants of Valborast's magicked water making tracks down his dirtied face and joining where the filth had been streaked from long dried tears.

"Bernard?" she said softly, approaching him with caution before crouching down to be closer to his level.

He looked up as she approached, and she could see the hollow spirit of a haunted man, etched deep in his bloodshot eyes. He groaned and rubbed at his eyes, attempting to focus on Petra's face. He tried to speak what sounded like a question, but it came out mostly incoherent and he had to fight to stay upright, barely catching himself before he toppled. On instinct, Petra reached out to help catch the man before his face kissed the floor, but as her scaled arm touched his skin, Bernard's eyes widened and he let out a guttural scream. "Augh! No! NO! P-please! Monster! N-no, STOP! " He scrambled backwards, his body shaking with fear, and knocked over a bucket of slop in the process.

Petra's heart sank as Bernard recoiled from her touch. She felt the familiar twinge of pain in her chest, the shame and frustration that went with this new feeling of otherness. She had grown accustomed to the stares and whispers, but still, she found that every rejection still stung like the first, so she withdrew her arm and cradled it close to her body, as if shielding it from the world and its judgemental eyes.

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she spoke again, this time not only softer and more soothing, but with the advantage of a peaceful note woven into her words. "It's okay, Bernard. My name is Petra. I won't hurt you. We won't hurt you. We're here to help because Lord Brimheart sent us to aid you fine folk."

Gradually, Bernard's panicked breathing slowed, "I'm sorry," he said, his voice shaking. "I didn't mean to yell. It's just...those things in the mine. They were horrible. I never want to see anything like that again."

"I understand," Petra said, her voice gentle. "But I need you to tell us everything you remember. It's imperative that we know what happened in the mine, so we can stop it from happening again."

She could see where her magic to calm him fought with the man's own anxiety in the way that his shoulders tensed at the mention of the mine. Bernard stared at her for a long moment, his eyes darting back and forth as if trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but for the moment at least, he was lucid.

Finally, he let out a long sigh and leaned back against the wall, resigned to this morbid questioning as his face contorted in pain. "I see the foreman sent ye then. Makkar is a stubborn man. Seems he's refusing to let me wallow in peace." His hand absently searched for a bottle next to him that wasn't there and he grimaced with disappointment. "I don't know what it wer," he began in a mutter. "We was trying to find a new vein past this tunnel that had been sealed off. But once we had opened it n'the explosives faded... They came. The noises first. They were strange. Real strange. Like nothin' I ever heard before. Made my blood run cold, the way they came from the dark. And the fear, oh gods, the fear was so thick ye could cut it with a knife. Felt like something was watchin' us, even when we couldn't see it." He paused to take a shaky breath before continuing, "And the moments when we coulds see it in the torchlight? It-it was like... nothing I'er ever seen before. And the sounds it made...oh gods, the sounds..." Bernard curled in on himself and a whimper left his cracked lips.

Petra glanced back at Faramund and Valborast with concern. She wasn't convinced of the wisdom in pushing such a clearly broken man, for fear the damage they surfaced would become irreparable. But they needed information. So she turned back and focused more on the underlying notes of peace she was feeding to Bernard. Soothing the frayed edges of his nerves with music.

"Please. The sounds?" She offered somberly.

A beat of near silence amongst them where only the drunken man's ragged breaths could be heard before he answered with thick slurred words. "Aye, Miss Petra," Bernard spoke, "The sounds. Clicking and chitters and high-pitched screeches, that still echo in me head. Like a hundred insects crawlin' over each other, like bones bein' snapped, like they were talkin' to each other in a language I couldn't understand." He finally looked up, his gaze distant. "And then there were the screams. Oh gods, the screams. They were 'orrible. It was like the very air was bein' ripped apart by 'em. It moved te fast, and it was everywhere at once, but also nowhere. Like it wasn't even real. Like they could find us in the dark with their sounds? I don' know how else to describe it."

Suddenly, the man burst forth and scrambled towards her, shocking Petra by grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her slightly, his eyes wild and manic. "And it torn us apart one by one, dragged 'em into the shadows. I 'eard their screams, but I couldn't do nothin. And when we got out, we couldn't even retrieve their bodies," Bernard said, his voice trembling with horror. "Left down there to rot and be eaten. Their bones gnawed on and their marrow sucked dry. But that's not even the worst of it. I lost sight of Makkar's nephew, Kitin the chaos. It's his sister's son, ye see? He wanted to be a miner like his uncle, instead o' a baker like his pa. An he wer hiding in an alcove near the entrance of that tunnel when I left him. And now his mother, poor woman, she refused to believe him dead and went down into the mines yesterday to look for him. The foreman tried to stop her, but it was no use, she wouldn' listen."

Petra felt a chill run down her spine and a lump form in her throat as she listened to Bernard's words. There were still people down there?!

Bernard stared past her, still gripping her arms as if he realized what he had said. "I left him. Oh gods I left. I left him, Ilefthim, IleftKit. Oh gods please forgive me." He crumpled into Petra and began sobbing with great heaves that shook his frame. Feeling a growing horror, the elf turned back again to her comrades. "Valborast, can you possibly put him to sleep? I think we're done here." She carefully removed herself from the man's desperate embrace and stood up, looking down helplessly at him. "You heard what he said?" She turned to stare intensely at Faramund.

"Then we leave now."

Faramund Valborast Valchek Seluria Estel'Narqua Roki Abrielle Huxley Mara Tillerman

 

[Roki]

"Oh," Roki said in reply to Mara's farewell. "Uh, yeah, good night Mara," he said sheepishly as she walked away. A finger scratching at the side of his nose.

Tarren said something, but Roki wasn't listening. Something about the way the Mara had left pulled his eyes to her. But the flighty squire had little trouble catching his attention. Quick and sudden. She always seemed to know where she wanted to go. Maybe part of him wished he had some of that, unspeakable magick.

The frightened ramblings of one of the villagers pulled his attention next, and what little warmth had lingered in the room seemed to be sucked out, like marrow from a bone.

Roki blinked. Things suddenly felt a whole lot colder.

Petra Darthinian Valborast Valchek Faramund Abrielle Huxley Mara Tillerman Seluria Estel'Narqua

 

[Abrielle Huxley]

"Gods damn it! This is bullshit!" Abrielle cursed loudly after the final dart hit the board with a dull thud, causing a few patrons to gasp and look her way in shock. Wasn't she one the Knights? How could she use such vulgar words?! "What the fuck are you looking at?!" she spat, her words dripping with enough venom to kill a god, compelling the onlookers to hastily avert their eyes.

Gone was her smug confidence, replaced with a surly pout as she stormed over the bar and demanded another drink from the shocked barkeeper. "The hell's taking ya so long? Ain't got all night ya know!" Abrielle slammed down a few coins as the flustered man returned with her drink. "'Bout damn time!" she grumbled, and drained the entire tankard in one go. The tankard returned to the bar with a loud crack, sending a wide fracture up its side.

Abrielle abruptly turned on her heel, ignoring the damage she had caused along with the people present, and stomped her way up the stairs to her room. As she threw herself down onto her bed, she almost wished that she was departing with the Sworn the next day. Slaying a few monsters would be such a wonderful way to burn off all her wrath. "Whatever horrors those bastards run into tomorrow should count themselves lucky that I'm not there!" Abrielle thought, pulling the blanket over her head, and promptly fell asleep.

Roki Mara Tillerman Faramund Petra Darthinian Valborast Valchek Seluria Estel'Narqua

 

[Valborast Valchek]

“Oh, naturally,” Valborast said flatly and with a hint of misanthropy. He ran his fingers across his belt, turned upon his heel and gestured dismissively in the direction of the poor victim, as if dismissing invasive servants at a social function for being too bothersome and boorish.

“To sleep, perchance to forget, missives of doom, you shall not beget. Thrice day blessed, thrice day removed, go now to slumber and be not behooved,” Valborast muttered in bored inclination as he waved his left hand as his right fished for tobacco pipe within his robe.

The survivor yawned and nodded in appreciation, as if assured by a mother's gentle words that all was fine, and that the straw was more akin to a noble's bed than the refuge of the haunted and desperate. Smacking of lips, another yawn, eyes closing, sleep returning, and a small blessing of lapsed memory, both in dream and in eventual rousing.

Valborast found his pipe as the sweet release of sleep crept across weeping eyes, sending the body comfort. And now, so did the miserable business of travelling further beset them all.

Valborast commented dryly as he looked over to his dwarven partner who approached with his usual heavy plodding, “Survivors in the tunnels,” Valborast informed, and grew more wrathful in mood for the dwarf's change in expression to shock.

The dark does not gorge itself on dwarf flesh in one sitting, Valborast wanted to say.

Instead, slightly more tactful words came into being as they began to walk as a group. Valborast spoke again as he lit his pipe, his feet moving with assured determination.

“We best make good speed. Though not so much as to leave ourselves unprepared. Unless you have any further inquiries, comrades?” Valborast said, the word 'comrades' sighed. “I'd rather be away from this place given the circumstances. Hours in the dark, as prey, will seem as days to them. The trauma will be longer lasting in those who fend still, for that is fear's way of it.”

He breathed in deep of the smoke, and released it with some of his irritable nature in a matter of fact manner. His months of being practical about healing, the act of regulating the blood and giving brutal assessments in triage came into the fore. Perhaps it was the request to put the informant to sleep that roused such a candour.

“If they haven't already-” Valborast began, and was interjected by his dwarven companion.

“Best not think of the end before we've began proper. Miners are stout.”

Valborast cast a doubting eye.

“Indeed,” Valborast said wearily and looked at his companions. The ones who would face the dark with him. He still held the truth that he would be better alone, but such luxuries were rarely afforded to the knights. But with each slice of information that his gut digested, did tell him that searching for survivors was an easier task with many, and his own assurances and appearance would be ill suited to assure the survivors that he wished them no ill.

For the dark was his home, and he assumed it muchly on the surface. Riven and Valborast thought in tandem.


To the Dark we go.
To the Dark we go.



Petra Darthinian Faramund

 

[Seluria Estel'Narqua]

Seluria had been one of the last to step out of the tavern to observe her companions speaking with the poor man. Partway through their discussion, however, her body tensed like a wire -almost flinching at something that darted across the surface of her mask. For those who had the unfortunate luck to glimpse the same thing, they may have noticed a vision of the drunken man falling into a panicked frenzy.

An uncomfortable thought, but thankfully not reality.

"...A'faer na beri-tengua, a'faer na beri-angua." The words tumbled softly from her lips; sounding like elvish and yet bearing the harsh consonants of darkspeech. Astral.

Her hands moved to her staff, grasping one of the five white riverstones that dangled from a rope at its top. "A'faer na tul-na naneth's kenel. Imono'nin polodai." As she continued, a white light pulsed around two of the stones. First one- and then a second as she trailed her hand further up the rope, mana flowing like water between them. Around, and between, ever connected. "Rinn-heno im'tul, meld gwanur."

And then it was done, and her hand lowered, exhaling softly. The light continued to pulse- a spell prepared for later use. "I will need to leave one of these stones at the entrance to the mine. If there are only two down there, this may suffice to get them out. I fear the rest of my power may need to be saved for cleansing what is down there..." Her head turned slightly toward the sleeping man, and for the first time her mouth thinned to a line.

"...this will be taking me out of my element by an extreme degree, admittedly. I am a mage of the air and the stars and high places....not the deep below. So any...pointers would be welcomed."

 

[Faramund]

'You want to go now? Tonight?' Incredulous, Faramund's dark eyes flitted between the two knights before settling on Petra. 'We've been travelling all day, and since neither of you two seem to have noticed, the bastard things that killed all his friends,' Fara hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the drink-addled Bernard, 'thrive in the dark. Who's to say they won't pursue us to outside of the mine?'

Raising an eyebrow, Faramund let that question hang. Like it or not, they were going in regardless of it made tactical sense or not. Didn't matter that the woman and her son, Kit, were probably dead already. Didn't matter that rushing off would only make things worse.

They were knights of Anathaeum, after all. Heroes all. Invulnerable to the evils that stalked Arethil.

Fuck it all, Faramund thought, rushing back inside the Chav as Seluria and the male dwarf wandered out. What was his name again? 'Jarro.' Sitting in the exact spot Faramund had left him in, the blonde-haired elf turned at his approach, setting aside the book he had been reading. 'Syr Faramund,' he replied, taking off silvery spectacles that Fara doubted he actually needed and setting them aside. 'What's the rush?'

'We're going in,' he told him. Jarro's bemused smile vanished in an instant. 'We... are?' Smoothing out arming jacket, the knight of dusk clambered to his feet. 'Of course we are! Any particular reason as to why?' He watched as Fara strode by. 'Petra believes there are survivors in need of our help, and Syr Valborast agrees,' he shrugged. 'Can't let them go it alone, can we?'

Sighing, Jarro agreed with a nod. 'No,' he said, staring forlornly at the empty bowl of stew on the table as if willpower alone could refill it. 'I s'pose not.' Clearing his throat, he gathered up his things and followed Faramund up to the rooms. 'I'll meet you outside!' he called, but Faramund had already disappeared inside his own room.

Roki awaited him there. Sat on one of the cots, the orc squire looked like Fara felt. 'Change of plans, lad,' the knight announced, slipping past him to pick up his kit. His pack jangled as he threw it over one burly shoulder. 'We're heading up to the mines. Now. Tonight.' Pausing, Fara turned to him, his face a mask of uncertainty. Was it wise taking squires on a mission that was sure to be high-risk? Probably not.

But if not now, when?

'Arm up,' he said. 'And let the girls know, yeah?' Not waiting for a reply, the big dawnling stepped out onto the landing. Jarro was already halfway down the flight of stairs leading to the ground floor. A voice at his shoulder made him turn. 'Hell of a nigh' for it,' Syr Runawynn smiled, rubbing at her eyes. Armoured head to toe, the dwarf reminded Faramund of a battering ram on legs. Catching his eye, she grinned, amused by his expression.

'Oh, aye, few drinks in an' ready for a rumble!' Puffing out her chest proudly, she gestured along the landing. 'Come on, now. Jarro tells me we've a couple o' innocents in need of a-rescuin'.' Indeed. Turning, Runawynn followed Fara down and out. The night air was brisk on her exposed face, but nothing she couldn't handle.

'We're ready,' Faramund told the gathered party, drawing his blade halfway to make sure it didn't stick. The cold steel glimmered in the moonlight, casting pale shadows across his face. 'Let's go if we're going.'

Petra Darthinian Valborast Valchek Seluria Estel'Narqua Mara Tillerman Abrielle Huxley Roki

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Gathered with the others outside the tavern shortly thereafter, Petra looked over each of them, worried for their fates, including her own, but determined to trust their judgment when it came to pushing forward to the mine and respecting the ones among them who found it wiser for the success of this mission that they return to the safety of the Monastery. There was bravery in that honesty.

She dropped her pack to the ground, her satchel still packed with supplies, never having taken the time to do much else besides drop it in her room. Inside one of the pockets, she found the special small magic tablets that her mother had given her from her own apothecary many moons ago. And as they prepared to set off into the dark forest, lanterns blazing rebelliously against the night, she passed them out, the tablets glimmering in the light. "Here. These will help keep us awake and alert," she explained, "but they'll only last a few hours, so use them wisely."

Grabbing the map from her boot, she turned back to the group gathered around her. "And we have a map of the place," she said, holding up a piece of parchment. "I had Makkar, the foreman to the mine, draw it for us. He was only too happy to after I had a few choice words for him upon learning that he had withheld not only the fate of his nephew, but his sister that has since followed her son down there." The cynical bite to her words made her outrage obvious. "If all goes according to plan, we should make it there before daybreak. Stay close and don't dally." She shot a pointed glance to the remaining Squires. "Any questions?" Picking back up her pack and swinging it onto her back, she barked out, "Good, we can catch up on the way" And walked off without waiting for an answer, trepidation dogging her steps.

*****

The group set off into the forest, the sounds of their footsteps echoing through the trees. As they walked, Petra filled them in on what she had learned with the others at the tavern. "So far, we know these creatures are elusive and grotesque," she said, her voice low. "We don't know if there are many, let alone just one. Since it seems they moved with such alarming speed, that it made them think there were multiple at once? Although, Bernard and the foreman have confirmed that they emit these... eerie sounds like chitters and clicks, even high-pitched screeches." She sighed wearily. "They're responsible for the deaths of several miners, and worse yet, I suspect they can see in the dark, if they have eyes at all. So we shall be at a disadvantage." Although, she admitted that they had been at a disadvantage from the very beginning.

Despite walking in a group with several lanterns, the forest was dark, the trees towering above them, casting shadows that seemed to dance in the flickering lanternlight. The air was thick with the scent of pine and the underbrush caught occasionally at her legs, like grasping hands in the dark. Although she wasn't perturbed by the sounds of nocturnal animals rustling in the leaves nearby.

"Lark." Came the troubled voice of her dragon through their bond.

"I had been wondering when you were going to come back around."

"I never left."

"I know." She smiled to herself. "So, what do you make of things."

"I do not like it." His dry tone gave away nothing.

"Right... anything else?"

"Yes. There... there is one thing. I am aware I originally said I had no knowledge of what may lay beneath that stone, but I now believe I might. Only... I need to confirm it to be sure."

"And how exactly are you going to do that while we are on our way to the mines as we speak?"

"This I where I leave you for the time being. I must fly back to the Monastery and speak with Parshen about something within the library that can confirm what I fear."

"Could you not just tell me?" Exasperation leaked into her thoughts.

"No, no. I do not wish to create alarm where there is none. You all are already facing monsters of the deep. I don't mean to make them bigger than they are."

"And there's no changing your mind I take it?" Petra knew what he would say even before she finished thinking the question.

He sent her visions of him midflight as answer, the trees of the Vale passing beneath him in a shadowed rush.

The elf couldn't stop her heavy sigh in response. And from the outside, she was sure her mannerisms without any of this context made her look crazy. "Right, in that case, keep me updated and fly quickly please."

Her answer was a vision of his large wings beating faster against the cool night air.

"Stay alive."

*************************
As they emerged from the forest, the mine came into view. Petra was struck by how ominous it looked in the darkness, the entrance gaping like a mouth waiting to swallow them up. Strangely, she could see crystals around the site that glowed red in the dark, illuminating the area in an eerie, crimson light. She wondered if they continued into the mine as a fuelless light source for the workers.

The entrance itself was set into the side of a rocky outcrop that jutted out from the ground, the jagged rocks forming a natural barrier that looked like it could crumble at any moment. The mine itself is ancient, its dark stone walls covered in moss and vines that give the impression of being swallowed by the earth. This is where their Lord was forcing them to work?

Looking around, the entrance was lined with worn metal tools and equipment, some discarded and rusting away, while others were obviously still in use, ready to be picked up at a moment's notice. Petra could see picks, shovels, and hammers all piled up, along with wooden planks, wheels, and carts, some partially filled, that seemed as old as the mine itself. The tools that look well used had seemed to be mended with bits of wire or nails, a testament to the hard work this crew had put into extracting every valuable morsel from the barren flesh of this earth.

Inside the entrance of the mine, the air was thick and musty, the darkness pressing in on them. Petra could hear the sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance, and the crunch of gravel under their feet. She swore she could even feel the weight of ghosts, the miners who had lost their lives here, haunting the tunnels. Her skin prickled with goosebumps.

They had to find Kit and his mother. They had to stop these creatures, even if just for the sake of this town's livelihood. No one deserved to lose their life torn to shreds like cattle, never to see the freedom of an open sky again, especially in the name of some man's greed.

Seluria Estel'Narqua Faramund Valborast Valchek Roki

 

[Valborast Valchek]

So this is how surfacers ate at the earth, Valborast thought. With simple tool instead of spellcraft and monstrous labour. It was pathetic, in Valborast's eyes, utterly pathetic. He picked up a pickaxe and then discarded it with disdain as he felt the heft of the thing. Just a basic method of mastering the rock. To carve at it instead of having tamed and imprisoned beast claw and hue and rage at it. To have a gesture from a spellmaster to make clean the rock, to polish it, to design it without simply...chipping away at it.

“So this is what the dwarves are so proud of, this manner of labour,” Valborast breathed and sneered at the implements. Further derision ran through him. Such a pointless and menial existence he thought. Slave work hidden as honest day's labour.

“Stop. I won't hear you deride the honest art of cutting at stone Valcheck. It's a fulfilling life. Even the beasties are a part of dwarven existence. Pity they had no hunters for the purpose like they do back home. It's an important part of a mining operation. The Lord directing this operation should have known that much!” Grundor said, and stroked his beard as Valborast approached the mouth of the cave.

“Time to discard the trappings of the surface, stand away from me. Let me remember how I used to be,” Valborast uttered, and took some moments alone at the mouth of the entrance. Syr Grundor looked to others and checked his gear. Watched as Valborast embraced the darkness where most were hesitant to tread.

Valborast peered at the darkness and stared at it, finding himself centered by the gloom. He bid goodnight to light in his heart, and welcomed the embrace of the pitch black into his perspective. Into his dominion. He kneeled and drew Riven, and placed it as if he were kneeling before a Lord's direction and favour.

First, the eyes, centered upon the dark. First, flecks of grey and white entered his vision, and then, all became blood red as his eyes dilated and gained flecks of droplets of blood crowded about his eyes. His visage shimmered once with a sheen of black, and then a shimmer of red as the sight of the vampire was upon him. He blinked a few times and gave out a satisfied sigh and a curling of the lips as his spellcraft took hold of his demeanour. The mouth of the mine was a wealth of information now, the darkness a welcome friend that yielded the way to him.

Next, the kindred magic proper.

He extended his hands above his head and spoke of sin bound contracts in a language few might understand, for it was kindred speech, the arcane language of the soulless, taught to Valborast by his adopted vampiric parents. If such a term could even be described for his guardians of Zakron. A shield of shadows emerged around his person, swirling and coagulating around him, that would make him sensitive to the pressures of air so that he might hear beyond his all too human measure. The spell finalised with the shadow of his cloak became liquid black, performing a clockwise motion as it elongated and became numerous, and then emerging as a black pool beneath his feet that were as tendrils to the earth, sensing much. The vibrations of stone settling against stone. The exhalation and inhalation of breath. The thrum of heartbeats. Whispers of thoughts that people had of him, half imagined, half real. A consequence of the vampiric spell to induce paranoia imagined and all too true. The vampiric perspective that had given him a chance to perceive of which they commented upon with scowl and thirst.

The rest would arrive upon his person when the situation demanded it as he rose to his height. His crimson clothes seemed to throb as if were a river of blood, an unsettling reminder of the life liquid that was a mark of his old clan. The Crimson Knight resembled himself and his title all the more for his kindred magic, his own heartbeat beating in time to the crimson pulses. It was as the surface of his red clothes were an extension of his circulation system.

These spells could be sustained as well as a dwarf might sustain the heft of the pickaxe against the rock, long into the agony of time that would labour much from them.

“Much better,” Valborast revealed and slicked his hair back as he peered into the blackness. He almost made step in to go alone, but thought better of it. His eyes were a medley of crimson and black, his clothes that of bloodflow, his shadow a beast that with thin tendril felt the earth.

“I am ready. Are you, sun and cloud fond comrades?” Valborast remarked his voice steeled with a further refined sense of uncaring cruelty that was beyond his usual candour. He pointed his vision down as he awaited response and for people to step in line with him, waiting for the rest to make approach so they might enter as one, or for someone to make a comment he could swiftly shelf away as grudge. The scorn fuelled him. Made him strong where others might pale at the horror to come.

Grundor gave low hum of acknowledgement and stepped forward.

“With you Val. Let's do this right, or not at all.”

“As you wish, Grundor,” Valborast breathed all too sweetly as Grundor looked to the others to approach.

Seluria Estel'Narqua Faramund Petra Darthinian Roki

 

[Roki]

Roki stroked his chin.

"Well... guess we should... go into the mines?" he stated, standing at the yawning mouth of the caves.

He would've thought one of the many sworn would've taken point, but he supposed a squires' lot was to be expendable. All the time it took to become sworn, better he than those of experience. He sighed, and nod. He stepped into the yawning maw of darkness, felt the temperature in the air drop immediately.

Peoples lives were on the line.

From the stories he had heard. From the accounts he had read. Expediency was of the essence.

Seluria Estel'Narqua Faramund Valborast Valchek Petra Darthinian

 

[Faramund]

A big hand seized Roki by the scruff, arresting his momentum instantly. 'Not so fast, friend Roki.' Faramund whispered to the young squire as he slipped past him. 'I'll go. You can watch my flank.' He smiled, beckoned to Syr Runawynn. 'Might need your eyes on this one, sister.' The squat knight moved up beside Faramund without a word, and together they descended into the mines in search of monsters.

An abandoned cart sat just inside the entrance to the mine. Full to the brim with rubble and ore, the cart had either been left in haste or else left as one final obstacle for the monsters to overcome. Given how easy it was to bypass, Faramund figured the only reason the creatures hadn't ventured outside was simply because they didn't want to. Which means everything beyond this point belongs to them and them alone, thought Faramund, padding softly through the half-light, eyes peeled and blade drawn.

The stench of blood and offal came on the breeze blowing from deeper within the mine. Pulling a mask up over his nose and mouth, the knight held up a halting hand, pointed to an opening further within. Bodies lay strewn there, though, to call them bodies might have been an overstatement. A collection of limbs, perhaps? Doesn't matter now. Using the softly-glowing wall crystals to move about without bumping into anything, the big dawnling crouched down in the middle of the opening.

A clicking sound echoed from deep within the mines. Faramund went still.

'What was that?' Tarren asked, voice laced with fear. Faramund silenced him with a look. If he died due to a squire's inability to keep his mouth shut... well, didn't bear thinking about. Crouching low, the scout waited for echoes to subside. For all of Valborast's and Seluria's magic, the knight doubted it would do them much good should the creature -or creatures- get the drop on them.

Mind you, if it came to that at least it would be over quick.

Getting his bearings, Faramund waved his people on. Like it or not, they would have to delve deeper if they wanted to rid the people of their monster problems. Runawynn, quiet yet oh so very loud, moved with him. With a few whispered words, a ball of lochlight appeared in the air between them. Faramund had seen its like before. On a faraway mountain, with a woman he was surprised to find himself thinking of now.

If only Selene were here now, maybe he wouldn't have felt so scared.

Pushing the distraction aside, Faramund slid his way along the track leading down into the mines. Between the iron and stone and rotting sleepers, the ground beneath his feet was proving a damned nightmare for some of his comrades behind him. He gripped the hilt of his blade tighter. If they gave the game up too early...

Pausing in the next chamber, Faramund waited for the party to gather before deciding what to do next. 'I can feel a breeze coming from further down the line,' he told them, whispering to his fellow sworn as they huddled close around him. 'And there's a mineshaft off to the right there, see?' He paused for affirmation. 'Must go two, three levels down,' he looked to Petra. 'Guy you spoke to wasn't lying when he said they were working this place dry.'

Another echoing click made Faramund shut his mouth. Glancing slowly over his shoulder, the knight followed the curve of the track down to the corner, where it promptly disappeared out of sight. It was then another clicking came from the vertical mineshaft. To Faramund's practised ear, it sounded like the scrape-crack of mandibles gnawing together.

The sound sent shivers down his spine.

Petra Darthinian Valborast Valchek Roki Seluria Estel'Narqua Abrielle Huxley

 

[Seluria Estel'Narqua]

Quiet and ethereal as a ghost, Seluria flit between the members of the party, their varied reflections twisting and spiraling across the gem set into her mask. Words unspoken and expressions unmade passed as quick as a breath as she watched their preparations and steeled herself mentally for what lay ahead.

Crimson eyes closed. A last deep breath taken of the outside air before she followed her companions into the maw of the earth.

A single, pale stone was tucked against the entryway in the dirt.

Silk and steel rippled gently at her sides as the Star Seer moved pale fingers to trail over the hem of her robes for reassurance. The feel of the thread-thin, silvery blades that made up the hem of her garments reminded her that she was not defenseless in the face of such an outlandish mission for her to take on.

The clicking sound caused the faintest twitch in her stride, and the woman paused. The air thickened with the unease of her companions, and even the calm divination mage found herself swallowing with a mouth gone dry.

Was it dripping water... or something else?

The faint gleam of emerald scales caught her eye in the magelight, and Seluria glanced toward Petra. The others each had a partner they were used to, but the Dragon rider was cut off from hers. Perhaps she should be the one Seluria focused on bolstering during this mission; shoring up some weak points to help them both get out of this alive.

Gesturing silently to avoid speaking as another click echoed through the tunnels, the Seer pointed two fingers to where her eyes would be, then pointed to Petra likewise.

She could bind their sight through the loch to give Petra the benefit of two, instead of one... or many, Seluria supposed. But it was a bit overwhelming to the unprepared.

To those who could learn to take advantage of it, however... their blades became all the more lethal with the knowledge of multiple perspectives.

Petra Darthinian Faramund Valborast Valchek Roki Abrielle Huxley