Fable - Ask Grievances & Regrets

[Gaage Eberwhit]

From threatening and ominous to needlessly vague, if the whole mission was going to play out like this then Gaage was about to have one hell of a long assignment. Longer than it already was going to be, considering he was going to be riding into the heart of Elf Land.

"I hope you're more personable than this when I drag your spooky ass back into a body, lady." Gaage quipped, pulling his gear back on and cutting the meat down for the wildlife to chow on now that it wasn't entirely fit for the mess hall. "Now, you said 'I' should be going. Are you not joining me? I thought this was gonna be a two-person deal?"

Not that Gaage minded a solo mission, but he'd been under the impression that the whole point of this was for Chasmine to determine whether or not she could rely on him moving forward. The redhead began to walk around the ghostly woman towards the stables, waiting for some kind of answer under the slim chance she gave him one.

 

[Chasmine]

"I was personable before," Chasmine replied listlessly, "it did not work in my favor."

Her current state of being was testament to that.

"I have learned to travel using the Ley Lines of the world like the fae do," she continued, "it is much faster. I will arrive at our destination well ahead of you which will give me time to prepare."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

It was an amazing feat that Chasmine had accomplished, learning to tap into something so incredibly convenient and complicated at ley lines. Gaage had heard the term, but he didn't pay much attention to Fae bullshit. As long as they weren't in his way; Gaage gave less than a single fuck what those frilly painted weirdos did.

That also might be why he wasn't particularly impressed by her revelation.

"Alright then. Do what you wanna then. If something kills me on my way to..." He takes the time to put up some air quotes as he recites the needlessly vague instructions. "An hour north into Falwood, then I guess it's your loss, isn't it?"

Not that he was worried. No, the feeling that filled him as he left to mount the horse Gendry had prepared and depart was more that of irk than of dread. Here he was about to put his neck out for Ghost Girl and she wouldn't even do him the courtesy of riding with him. Surely, they could find a ghost horse or some shit?

Regardless. he rode. Away from the camp and towards the northern region of Falwood settled just above them.

 

[Chasmine]

Gendry would, upon handing the horse over to Gaage, supply him with a map to his destination. Ruins of a Vel Anirian outpost from the second war. Chasmine made no effort to explain herself, though it was something she would have put too much effort into a year ago. Gilram had taught her a great deal in the short amount of time she'd spent with him and one of her lessons had been to keep important things close to the heart.

You could never really trust anyone with all the information.

CITADEL DREARWOOD

Chasmine arrived several hours before Gaage would or might. Though he'd given his word of assistance, she held herself to the tune of not expecting him to follow through ... like all the others before him. It was not impossible to do on her own, what she set out here for, but it did make the matters quite a bit more difficult. Regardless of the outcome concerning the redheaded exile, she set to work.

The fourth level chamber's spiritual nexus called to her, and so to it she went.

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Despite all the mystery and vague bullshit surrounding the task she apparently had for him, Gaage did feel some small sense of excitement: A mission that only involved himself and a Ghost who didn't like talking? It was just about the closest thing to a solo mission he'd ever gotten, not for lack of trying on his part for the past who the hell knows how long.

Hopefully Chasmine wasn't as much of a stick in the mud as some of the stiffs back home.

The ride went fine, no hiccups or roadblocks. Really, that should have told him his luck was going to run out, but Gaage was in pretty good spirits, it felt nice to get some air and get way from the hidden base of operations on his own, and for all the shit he gave Falwood, the air amongst the trees felt incredible; He hadn't realized how dirty and dusty the Academy had been until he'd left.

If it weren't for the looming tower that stretched far above the trees in the distance, he might have even gotten lost in the scenery. Just like always, though, the mission trumped everything else in his life.

"Gah, maybe Gloom Girl is rubbing off on me, boy." He muttered down to his hardworking stallion at the rather depressing anecdote he'd made in his head as the two of them approached the tower, pulling up to slow his mount as he kept his eyes peeled for any sign of Chasmine.

 

[Chasmine]

His arrival to the stone tower would give him a proper view of it before the forest at its base devoured the sight completely. The thick tree canopies blotted out most of the sunlight left in the day, and as his horse descended the remnants of the road once taken daily by guard shifts, he would enter what felt like another realm altogether.

Not quite the truth, but history had a tendency to linger in ways it aught not around places of such ... horrific happenings.

The path before him darkened and the air grew stale, and despite the trees in the vicinity seeming quite healthy, there was a vague scent of old decay on the air that only dead and diseased forests ever gave off.

At the bottom of the path the shadow of the past shifted uneasily and there upon what might be the brink between temporal lines stood Chasmine. She stared, unmoving, and only faintly visible to the living eye.

Though she did not turn to acknowledge him, her voice drifted to him distantly, "Are you feeling strong?"

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

'Sensitive' wasn't a word people usually busted out to describe Gaage, but he wasn't oblivious either. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to feel the foreboding pressure that seemed to drip from every surface within a certain distance from the strange tower. It sure as hell wasn't the first place he'd felt it, either. Gaage took one step back, grimacing as his nose twitched up at the scent of death.

Some awful shit had happened just up ahead.

Hitching his horse to an old post buried beside the road, a good distance from where the darkness reached, Gaage opted to walk the rest of the way up. Vibes like this would spook a stallion to the point of running off without him, and then he'd be really fucked.

It wasn't as difficult for him to push through the ominous miasma of death and decay. It wasn't his first rodeo, and it wasn't likely to be his last. If he'd stared death in the face before, he could follow in its footsteps just as easy. Of course, the ghost waiting for him just up ahead didn't leave footsteps, but then she was barely perceptible anyways, looking further ahead of them as she awaited his arrival. Gaage stopped next to her, following her gaze as he scoffed lightly at the question.

"You really don't know me that well. Trust me, whatever's lined up for me, I've got it."

 

[Chasmine]

There was an inherent sadness that clung to this place like a heady summer day that clung and soaked to skin and fabric. Even as she was, Chasmine could feel it. Perhaps moreso than she might've were she alive. The morose nature moved her enough to frown. Many people had died here over a long span of years, if the story Gilram told her about the location was the truth. Even if her own present tangle with death and the afterlife created detachment, it was still sad to think about.

"I don't know you at all," Chasmine corrected him without shame and a glance over at him, finally. Gaage's passion and self assurance stood out here like a flame among fog.

"The veil is very thin here," she continued without preamble or further discourse on familiarity, "and I believe there to be many open portals to another realm. I sense they are small, but there is an ethergate here as well."

And within that ethergate her target. The ghost took a steadying breath that to Gaage might just sound like the stale breeze.

"Do not step through the ethergate. I cannot promise I will be able to bring you back if you do."

With that warning hanging in the air, Chasmine's ghostly form shimmered with rising energy as she withdrew a spectral colichemarde from a now visible sheath hung at her hip. Gaage might recall watching her flounder and fail spectacularly in sparring sessions to the point that the attending Proctor's often made her sit out or play target dummy for the others. Chasmine often left those lessons defeated and bleeding profusely.

Now, however, she held the weapon with confidence as she strode forward into the open archway of the crumbling perimeter wall surrounding the ruined tower.