Fate - First Reply Finders Keepers

[Curio]

Zar'Ahal was a safe enough city, especially by Underrealm standards. It had walls, guards, consistent light, laws...all the things a civilization needed to maintain any kind of longevity.

This was not in Zar'Ahal. This was a cavern, several miles beyond Zar'Ahal's borders. The cave had walls, sure, but they were attached to its floors and ceilings. In place of guards there were monsters and outlaws. Light could only be found in the form of veins of glowing ore in cracks in the cavern's surfaces, or from the bioluminescence of various flora and fauna. And laws, well...the laws of physics were usually respected around these parts, if nothing else.

Here it was that a shadowed form skittered over the rough terrain, over rocks and moss, around corners and between crags. "Imp," most creatures of the Underrealm called her and her lot, though the strange, feminine creature snaking her way though the treacherous underground landscape was far larger than any drow or duergar she'd ever met. "Umbral" was another name they used, and this, she found, fit better. It spoke to where she'd once come from, from a pit of goo in the dark. A creature born by happenstance, without rhyme or reason or parentage. Thinking about such things gave her an odd sense of nostalgia.

The nostalgia was dispelled, however, when the dirt and stone gave way to what the umbral had been looking for: wreckage. Metal and wood scrap, the remains of carts perhaps, or chests. Bodies, too, not yet picked clean. A caravan, likely from the surface, ambushed and destroyed. Tragic for someone. Maybe many someones. Opportune for Curio.

A delighted squeal escaped the six-limbed umbral as she scuttled up to it, beginning to pick through piles of detritus and remains.
"Yeeesss, yes! Unchecked, uncontested, under claim...now!" the Umbral celebrated to herself as she scratched an emblem into a chunk of scrap wood with her claw. Then she promptly began to dig and sort through the mess. "The winds have fallen upon Curio this hour, heheheheee!"

And yet, despite her glee and confidence, Curio was not the only being to have stumbled upon the site of her salvage...

 

[Zora]

Zora walked the Underrealm alone, the only light a small oil lamp in her hand.

Or what appeared to be one.

There was no oil, no wick, no flame—yet a pale, steady glow poured from it, obedient to her alone. It carved a narrow path through the suffocating dark, forcing the cavern to reveal only what she permitted.

She had traveled for weeks to reach this place, following whispers traded in low voices and shadowed corners. A Noble of the deep had purchased a forbidden book. Paid dearly. Asked no questions.

One of Brockern’s.

Perhaps.

It was enough.

She had tracked the caravan from the surface step by step, reading its passage in disturbed dust and fractured stone. Careful men had walked here. Armed men.

Now they were dead.

She smelled it before she saw it—the sweet, unmistakable scent of rot lingering in the stale air. Zora did not hate the darkness. Darkness was pure. It was the stillness she despised. Air that did not move. Air that remembered.

The lamp’s glow slid over the wreckage at last.

Broken wagons. Split chests. Bodies left where they fell, untouched by scavengers or mercy.

She stopped. For a moment, she simply looked at them.

Then, softly, she spoke:

“For thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”​

The words were not for the dead.

They belonged to her.

She stepped forward, light steady in her hand.

 

[Curio]

Curio had only been scavenging for a few minutes perhaps when she heard it. First came the faint footsteps, perhaps the crunch of boots upon the loose rock of the cavern floor, then the wreckage itself. She hunched down and tilted her head towards the sounds, then noticed the dim light approaching. No flicker, no flame. Magic light, surely.

The umbral had not lived as long as she had (however long that had been) by being careless or imperceptive. Down here in the dark, beyond the safety of Zar'Ahal or any other settlement, a quick and violent end was only a single careless moment away. Curio dropped what she was doing, discarded the chunks of wood she'd been digging through, and skittered off towards the intrusion.

Dark was oft a friend to umbrals, but the faint glow that emanated in the distance would see her revealed if she got too close. Curio chose an indirect path, her uncovered hands and feet allowing her a more silent approach than if she'd been wearing boots or gloves.

From a perch she chose among the ruin, her trio of eyes peered at the intruder. A human woman, it seemed, clad in robes, muttering words, seeking something. All alone. Strange. Humans did not often travel the Underrealm alone. Safer to go as either a small group or an army. Individuals could be picked off with ease, and large groups, like the very caravan she sought to scavenge, drew unwanted attention.

For one woman to be here alone, unscathed...she may well have been quite dangerous herself. That known...Curio wanted this find, and she would not abandon it so readily. Hiding would do little good. Best to assess intention.

"Lost, or just wandering?" Curio called from her perch stretching her body upwards to reveal her position. "Quite deep you've come, surface-dweller. Curio hopes you do not seek for this salvage. A claim has already been staked, any worth to be recovered shall go to Curio. The laziest vornyx misses its prey."

 

[Zora]

For a single instant, Zora stilled.

Not in fear—her face remained composed, the serene and distant calm drilled into her by years of merciless discipline—but in surprise. The motion was subtle: the tightening of her fingers around the handle of the lamp, the slight elevation of her wrist as the flame rose with her hand. The light responded as though alive, its pale and impossible fire stretching forward, eager to touch what had revealed itself.

Her eyes settled upon the creature. Not with alarm. With curiosity.

It did not burn her senses as a demon would. No sulfurous presence. No spiritual abrasion. No immediate protest from the invisible geometries she carried engraved upon her. A thing born of Hell could not hide itself from her. She would have felt it long before she beheld it.

Which meant this was something else. Something older, perhaps. Or simply forgotten.

The Underrealm, it seemed, was not merely a grave. It was a reservoir.

Her lamp’s flame poured across its many-jointed form, tracing pale contours and unnatural symmetry, revealing a body shaped by laws adjacent to creation, but not entirely within it. She watched the way it held itself. Not attacking. Not fleeing.

Observing… Intriguing.

Zora did not raise her voice. She inclined her lamp slightly, its impossible flame resting upon the creature’s form, and spoke:

“O thou born of lightless womb and crawling deep beneath God’s sight - speak now thy given name, that I may know by what sound the dark remembers thee by.”

 

[Curio]

The two strangers shared that moment of quiet contemplation. The trio of eyes upon an otherwise featureless mask that was the umbral's face stared, unchanging.

The surface-dweller showed no fear nor aggression. Only held her lantern higher and attempted to see and to know what she beheld.

Perhaps a conversation could be had, a deal struck. Or perhaps not...time would tell.

"No name was given I, only chosen,"
the umbral replied in an odd, melodic lilt. She crawled forward slightly, then reclined across the precipice that was the perch she'd chosen.

"'Curio' you may call me, wanderer."
Usually she would give the name freely, one of few things she did not ask for something in trade for. The surface-dweller had demanded it, however, and thus had set the tone.

"Now be it your turn; what seek you here, hmm?" she asked in turn, comfortably resting upon a quartet of arms, two folded neatly beneath her chin.

"Do you wish to pilfer from Curio?"

 

[Zora]

Zora's eyes lowered to the dead.

The lamp’s pale flame drifted across slack faces and stiffened limbs, across broken wood and spilled iron. It lingered upon the wounds, the arrangement, the stillness that only true death possessed. She studied them with the clinical attention of one who had seen death too often

Then her gaze returned to the reclining figure.

“Pilfer?” she repeated softly

A faint, almost imperceptible tilt of her head followed.

“Well… it depends. I'm Zora. I come from above the dark mountain, and over mountains and under mountains the path has led me here”

She took a slow step forward. The light moved with her, bending shadows around Curio’s form, tracing the elegant wrongness of her limbs.

“Did you do this?” she asked plainly, her eyes going once more to the corpses. “Are these yours? Your work… or your meal?”

There was no accusation in her voice. No moral weight. Only the pursuit of fact.

“If what thou wishest to know is why I walk this place,” she said, her tone settling into something older, more formal, “the reason is simple.”

Her free hand rested lightly against her chest—not in humility, but in declaration.

“I have tracked this caravan from the surface. I was told it carried a book. A book that belonged to my order.”

The flame of her lamp gave a soft, unnatural pulse.

“Stolen” she added. “Whether that makes us rivals or merely travelers upon the same road…” she said, her voice quiet and steady, “that is a judgment yet to be made.”

A pause.

“I must first confirm it is here.”

 

[Curio]

The creature's horns swayed to one side as she cocked her head, though she did not otherwise move as the woman stepped towards her. The human, the Zora, had said many things that caught Curio's intrigue. Just as Curio had surmised, a conversation was indeed to be had.

"Hmm? Curio's work? Ooohh, you think Curio is a monster, yes? Yes, it is true, Curio is terrifying and majestic, truly a sight to behold!" she began, abandoning her metered speech pattern as quickly as she'd taken it up; as she spoke, she mirrored Zora's hand-on-chest gesture, though in a much more exaggerated and mock-vain fashion. "Yet you do not fear Curio. This is good. Curio gives you no reason to fear, for she is a collector, not a killer. Besides, umbrals like myself do not eat as you do."

She lowered her hand and shook her head, as much a denial as it was to tousle her own hair about.

"Far you have traveled, then, Zora, but somehow not heard of the rising fire, the conqueror's sword. A new queen seats the throne and wishes for war. This caravan crushed is not the first, nor shall it be the last. Curio does not aid in this; merely seeks, finds, picks clean."

Now this coveted book had earned the umbral's intrigue. Knowledge was precious, after all. Curio rose, stretched, stood upon her hind limbs and balanced upon her tails.

"Your lost book Curio has not yet found, but barely scratched the surface of this quarry have I. Hmm...Curio does not wish for a fight. Perhaps a deal can be struck, between we?"

 

[Zora]

“Whoever aspires to master the magical science must be fearless,” she said at last. “For the spirits are not merciful. They yield only to certainty. Doubt is an invitation. Fear, a command for them to destroy the one who dared to summon them.”

“You are correct in that... I do not fear you.” Not arrogance. Simply fact.

She took another slow step, the dim light tracing the contours of her pale face beneath the hood.

“I must also confess,” she continued, “I hold little interest in the affairs of this realm. Its queens, its wars, its shifting dominions, for I serve only one master, and he watches me from above the heavens”

Her gaze flicked to the wreckage, then back. “If any creature believes me easy prey, they will discover their error before they understand it.”

She paused, allowing the silence to settle between them.

“But understand this also,” she added quietly. “I name as enemies only those who obstruct my work.”

The lamp’s flame gave another faint, unnatural pulse.

“You say you do not wish for a fight. This is agreeable. Conflict wastes time, and time is the only resource no ritual can restore.”

Her head inclined slightly.

“So,” she said “if you propose an alternative in which neither of us must hinder the other… I will hear it.”

 

[Curio]

If anything was to give the umbral an appetite, it was the pulsing of that lamp. The last light source she'd been able to drain was that of a cave-fish with a glowbladder, an hour ago. 'Twas a fine enough snack, and she did have more treats on her person she could consume, but it wasn't every day she got to feed on an arcane lantern.

"I will hear it," said the surface-dweller, and so Curio took her eyes off the lamp and reminded herself of the situation at hand. The bargaining had begun.

"The deal is simple: Curio will help you recover this book you seek, and will relinquish it to you despite having staked claim of this salvage. In return, all else among this ruin that Curio finds of value, Curio will keep. Though, should it please Zora..." she tapped each trio of digits on her upper hands together, her trio of eyes wandering about. To add another condition to what was already in her mind a fair deal was greedy, perhaps, but a great collector she wouldn't be if she didn't make pushes.

"...Curio would also like to...read the book? Curio is quick reader, she will not take long! A skittering centipede seizes several, after all!"

 

[Zora]

A faint smile, slow and deliberate, found its way upon Zora’s lips. Recognition of hunger. Not for flesh. Not for gold. For knowledge.

She inclined her head slightly, the impossible flame of her lamp trembling as though stirred by a breath no mortal lungs had drawn.

“Most curious art thou,” she said softly, her voice taking on the measured cadence of older speech, each word placed with care, “and on this night, I find myself not unwilling to indulge thee.”

Her eyes drifted over the wreckage, the dead, the silent witnesses to bargains greater than themselves.

“This book thou seekest to behold beareth within its leaves the cabalistic signs of the Red Dragon and of the Infernal Goat, which the ancients named the Goat of the Art. Its pages were bathed in the great lagoon of the Red Dragons that lieth within the Infernal Realm, and by that consecration no element of the created universe may bring harm unto it.”

She raised one finger, as though lecturing an unseen assembly.

“Its leaves may neither be cut nor pierced. Fire itself falleth still at its touch, and water refuseth to claim dominion over it. It endureth, as all true things endure.”

Her gaze returned to Curio’s threefold stare.

“Its name,” she said, quieter now, with something almost reverent, “is the Testament of Solomon.”

The name did not echo in the cavern, and yet it seemed to linger all the same.

“Any who beheld that title without understanding would name it falsehood. Fancy. Blasphemy, even. For among men, the truth of that king hath long since fallen—from history into legend, and from legend into myth.”

“And yet,” she added, “thou art no man.”

The faint smile returned.

“If thou aidest me in its recovery, I shall grant thee thy wish. Thou mayest read it. Briefly. Under mine eye.”