Fate - First Reply I See Fire

[Selene Avar]

Van Helth - Northern Epressa

Van Helth a broken and forgotten place. A city that had been left behind and razed more than a millenia ago.

The ruins of it seemed to go on for a mile. It's once great walls lay half in ruins, pot marks from great magics and trebuchets still showing within it's dark gray stone. Dozens upon dozens of buildings lay as ruined wastes, most of it picked clean by scavengers over the last few centuries. At the center of the great ruin stood a Cathedral.

Two of the five spire towers still stood, somehow untouched by the reaches of war and time. They clung to the main hall of the building, it's roof caved in and half overgrown with vines and moss.

From atop the hill outside the city where Selene stood she could see it all.

Once upon a time this place had been considered the heart of an Empire. Great warriors and powerful mages had walked these streets, men and women who stood high above even the best trained Wizards of Elbion. Then it had all come crumbling down. A single night had seen this city fall, and the countryside around it burned.

She stood quietly, the wind brushing over her as she contemplated what she was about to do. Selene's fingers tightened on the reigns of her horse, and then slowly she pulled it forward.

This city had burned, and she wanted that fire.

 

[Harrier]

Those who'd died here had left little behind. Fire and looters had seen to that. Harrier felt a touch of envy toward the first to pick these ruins clean. They'd have walked these streets while smoke still rose from embers. They might have seen the aftermath of whatever magic burned the city. Maybe they'd even known the casualties as neighbors from the next town over, some farming community that had escaped the blast but not the ensuing poverty. Apocalypse had a way of overcoming scruples.

Crossroad Mire's decrepit and overstuffed library had sent her here. Specifically, a name: Sroga Sule, High Priest of some faith or god whose name was a hole in the page. Sroga Sule, the mage who died while burning Van Helth - or so one writer speculated.

If any soul endured since then, it would be his. A worthy prize for coming all this way.

Walking stick in hand, dressed in rough travel clothes with a clattering shoulder-bag, Harrier picked her way through the ruins.


Selene Avar

 

[Selene Avar]

Selene lead her stallion through the fallen gates of the city.

Two great stone doors lay upon the ground in cracked and broken pieces. Each one was marked with a mural of the city, a depiction of beauty that would have made most artists jealous.

Her gaze dropped to the floor, lips thinning as she noticed bootprints within the dirt that had taken over the square beyond the gate. Slowly the Dreadlord leaned down, touching the earth with a scowl before glancing up at the city proper.

Someone had come here.

She could not tell when, though she suspected it was within the last week.

For a moment Selene debated, and then she tugged her horse forward. For now she would ignore the steps, deciding the Cathedral was the most important thing. It had been the epicenter of all this, and she would have her prize.

 

[Harrier]

The ruined cathedral stood (barely) on a hill in the centre of Van Helth. Only a couple of its towers looked anything like intact. Ashy scrub covered any surface that gave it an inch of purchase. Dark birds, corvids maybe, squalled and fussed around the old hulk. The ground looked unhealthy, a mix of sodden lichen and ancient ash-drifts. Harrier's boots and walking-stick sank in almost an inch before she felt firm, buried cobblestone.

A horse whickered nearby. Harrier whirled, scrutinizing the nearest ruins and routes. She mumbled a command; her silver ring went cold, and a wispy spectre darted up to surveil the area from the top of the cathedral. In moments it whispered back: a woman on a horse was less than fifty paces away and coming here.

 

[Selene Avar]

Unfortunately for her, the footprints lead exactly to where she was going. For a time it almost seemed to her as though she were following them on accident, but eventually she simply resigned herself that this graveyard of a city had but one interesting place left.

Fingers tightened on the reigns of her horse as she slowly made her way up the small hill, the slow curve of the ground obscuring the entrance to the ruin.

Her feet sunk into the fetted ground as she moved, the mount besides her nickering as the air seemingly grew thinner. As she crested the hill a figure came into view, nearly obscured by the ruins of fallen towards Selene barely saw the outline of a person.

The Dreadlord's free hand fell to the hilt of her sword, though her pace never slowed. "A dead city is a curious place to find a life."

Her words were the first uttered in this place in a century

 

[Harrier]

Harrier stayed by the door of the ruined cathedral as the traveler came into sight: a red-haired woman, hand on her sword, walking beside a horse. To Harrier's immense surprise, she recognized the newcomer.

"Selene Avar, master of the elements, Dreadlord of Vel Anir - welcome to Cathedral Van Helth."

They had a mutual friend in the Elven mage Ava Gilleth, but had never shared more than a couple of words if Harrier remembered right. She certainly remembered the tunnel that Selene had bored under the wall of the Golden City, though. The stink of burnt rock had clung to her for days.

"I'm Harrier Wren. I'm here to find a soul."

 

[Selene Avar]

Selene blinked as the woman recited her name and title, lips thinning as she struggled to recall the face before her.

Unimportant people were often lost in her memory, but this woman vaguely stood out to her. The name had never been caught, but an introduction was quickly made. Fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword for a moment, then slowly released.

"Souls are rare here these days." She commented.

Van Helth was a dead city, long gone and forgotten. In her mind the only souls to be found here was of the scavengers that went picking through the rubble.

Was she one of those scavengers?

Slowly she looked around the ruin of the cathedral, her eyes narrowing upon the fallen doors that stood half open. "The Soul you seek...is it the one that sparked the flame?"

 

[Harrier]

Harrier took note of Selene Avar's interactions with her sword.

"Of course. Nothing else could endure this long, but he has." She'd used a ghostglass and verified that a spark slumbered under the cathedral. Better to keep her means private, though. "High Priest Sroga Sule - his shade lingers here. I'm...let's say nine-tenths certain of it. The fire you used at the Golden City suggests you're here to learn. I want his soul as a servant; I've got no exclusive need for his knowledge. Our goals might be compatible."

Tangling with a senior Dreadlord would be fascinating, but even if Harrier won, she'd be weakened facing Sroga Sule. Not an optimal position.

 

[Selene Avar]

She considered for a brief moment. Allowing other mages to empower themselves was never really a good idea, but this woman as far as she could tell did not stand opposite her goals.

At least for now.

The Dreadlord considered for a few more seconds, and then slowly inclined her head in a tight nod."Very well."

Necromancy was not something she had much knowledge of. The arts were forbidden in Vel Anir, at least Ostensibly. She knew the truth of course, the secret that even most Archon's did not dare whisper about in the dark. Yet the dealing of the dead were not her own.

This woman wanted a soul, and Selene simply wanted what that soul had been sold for.

"You know the soul may not be...intact?" Sharing information was not something she liked to do, but it was likely she would have to use this woman. "Sule did not accomplish this alone."

The words were vague, but not much less than what she had gleaned from the deepest reaches of the Archives. Stories were all they had been. Talk of eyes appearing within the flames, hands reaching and dragging people into infernos. Whispers of a demon, claiming what had been promised.

 

[Harrier]

"I'd be immensely surprised if his soul was intact. I do quite a bit of...patching up, let's say. What I've detected under the cathedral would fit that bill."

Since the Dreadlord had agreed, Harrier turned and headed into the ruin. Her walking stick disturbed spiderwebs and ash drifts that stained her dress gray halfway to the knee.

"When you say alone," she said over her shoulder, "do you mean you have reason to believe he worked with allies, apprentices, patrons...?"

 

[Selene Avar]

Selene followed behind the woman, wondering briefly if she could incinerate her before any retaliation could strike.

Flames flickered across her fingers for a brief second, but they were quickly snuffed out within a fist as she decided not to strike. Necromancers had a tendency not to die when you wanted them to. Best not to test that yet.

"A patron." Selene stated plainly, her eyes wandering over the interior of the Cathedral.

It was an ornate building. Great stone reliefs and massive mosiacs still somehow retaining some of their beauty even within the ruin.

"The stories were vague." She explained. "Black hands crawling from the flames, a voice echoing within the mind."

Something far beyond even her.

 

[Harrier]

Turning her back had been...not exactly a calculated risk, but she'd done it with eyes wide open. Specifically, the eyes of the incorporeal spirits that attended her in one way or another. The ghost scholar al-Kaateb who inhabited the jade pen in her belt pouch, for example, or the orcish scout Ghar who she'd bound in the Spine while trailing the Thousand-Eyed Angel.

"That makes sense. Sroga Sule wouldn't be the first to find a deal turned against him."

They entered the main hall of the cathedral, or what used to be. The firestorm had exploded in a room underneath it. Most of the floor had crumbled into a pit of broken stone and ash. The ash had been pews, tapestries, icons, worshippers. No useful ghosts remained except the slumbering spark, more felt than seen, at the bottom of the pit. Harrier paced along the crumbled edge against the wall, in search of a stable way down. She unslung her clattering pack and held it in one hand, ready to drop it if she needed stability.

 

[Selene Avar]

"What makes you think it turned against him?" Selene asked calmly as she began to look around the ruins of the main hall.

Slowly the Dreadlord made her way around the perimeter, looking at the stone work that remained and peering down the broken pit. Much here had been burned to ash, but there were small spots that oddly remained untouched.

Fingers slowly floated over the stonework, her eyes catching the glint of colored rays of sun.

Slowly Selene looked up towards the left, spotting a massive stained glass window. "Huh."

The Dreadlord said softly.

"How do you suppose that remained?" She asked of the necromancer, walking closer to look up at the window. The scene depicted upon it was of a man in gold offering a strange horned chalice to bedraggled man on bent knee.

 

[Harrier]

"What makes me think it turned against him? Well, he died, so there's that."

Harrier finished edging around what remained of the cathedral's main floor and into the same side gallery as the Dreadlord. That left them within about five yards of each other, which was as close as Harrier was comfortable with.

The stained glass looked innocuous enough, apart from the symbology. The chalice probably referred to a gift of power or purification or promised immortality, but none of that was exceptional or unexpected. Harrier pulled out a ghostglass; it didn't reveal any soul bound to the mysteriously intact window, no haunting or any suchlike phenomenon. When she turned back toward the pit that had been the middle of the cathedral, though, the broken soul was burning brighter.

"I believe our High Priest is waking up. Slowly, though."

 

[Selene Avar]

"Lots of people want to die." Selene commented quietly, gazing at the window for a moment more before she turned around towards the pit.

Something beneath the ground began to quake.

She barely noticed it at first, a slight quiver beneath the rock, the smallest cloud of dust rising from the corner of the broken stone. One of the pebbles shifted, then slowly tumbled to the side. Her gaze followed the dark.

"He is buried I suppose." Selene mused as she turned and wandered towards the pit in the center of the hall. Fire danced across her fingertips. "Somewhere down there."

A small flame detached from her finger, and gently she flicked it into the abyss.

 

[Harrier]

"That's a fair point."

Harrier tensed, ready to conjure a ward, as the Dreadlord pulled fire from the air. She didn't relax when Selene threw the fire down into the pit. While she'd never yet seen fire harm a ghost, there were ways to wake a truly ancient shade and ways not to do it.

Then again, there was definitely a reaction. The fire whirled around that half-seen spark, caught but refusing to go in. Into what, Harrier had no idea.

"What doest thou here?" said a whisper. The disc of fire pulsed in time with the disembodied voice. "Where is my respect?"

 

[Selene Avar]

There.

Wordlessly Selene peered over towards Harrier. One of them was a necromancer, the other a pyromancer. The Dreadlord figured that her companion would have much better luck with communication than she would.

She offered the woman a small wave, urging her to speak.

Her own method would have been brutal, and very likely would end with Harriers pride in ruin. Not to mention her own.

 

[Harrier]

Harrier bowed gently and held up a ghostglass to one eye. In the material world, High Priest Sroga Sule looked like a wavering flame, stronger now that he'd consumed the Dreadlord's little spark. Through the ghostglass, though...

(source)
​

...he'd probably looked better.

<I greet thee, Sroga Sule,> she said in half a whisper, more felt than heard, soul to soul. <We are two pilgrims who come to learn from thee. The marks of thy power stretch for miles around. The fire thou didst call transcends even what this witch can conjure.>

Spoiler

HarrierToday at 9:58 AM
/r 1d20
Are you feeling lucky?BOTToday at 9:58 AM
Harrier: 1d20 = (14) = 14

The spirit eyed her for a long moment. "I smell the dead on thee and in thy baggage."

Baggage? Oh, you have no idea.

"But thou..." The voice grew clearer, and so did the image visible to the naked eye. He wasn't just a little fireball anymore. He was well and truly waking up, and his focus shifted to Selene. "Thou knowest the flame, girl."

 

[Selene Avar]

"More than most." Selene agreed with a nod of her head.

She was weary of revealing too much with the necromancer here, but Selene had done much to gain power in the last year.

Competition within Vel Anir was fierce, and attaining the level of First had been difficult. Her trek through the spine had ended in the blood of Dragons, but even that power had now proven to be insufficient. She needed more if she was to be Archon.

It did not matter the sacrifice she had to take. "I need to be more than I am."

She called to the spirit.

"More than even you were." Her gaze briefly flickered to Harrier.

 

[Harrier]

"I chose to pay a great price for my triumph," the shade said. "This is the Highest Law. What price have you paid? What price will you pay tonight, to know what I know?"

The bulk of his focus appeared to rest on Selene, which Harrier took as a good sign or at least an opportunity. She began working a surreptitious spell, a necromantic web that would lay the foundation for an eventual capture. Whether he'd notice was an open question.

HarrierToday at 10:30 AM
/r 1d20
Are you feeling lucky?BOTToday at 10:30 AM
Harrier: 1d20 = (7) = 7

The shade's head pivoted toward her, and her spell vanished.

 

[Selene Avar]

For a few seconds Selene thought.

The price she had paid had already been deep. Her upbringing had been torture. Her life a constant race to the top. For the power of Dragons she had slaughtered a beast that not only trusted her, but had been her friend.

It's flesh had become her own, and a piece of her soul had been tied irrevocably to something alien. Lips thinned.

How much more could she give? "I have brought you this woman."

Selene didn't even twitch.

"And all the lives she carries." The Dreadlord took a step away from Harrier. "She would take what is yours. She would claim you as her own, but instead she is the price I offer you."

Her fingers came together in a snap, and suddenly the earth below Harrier's feet would lash out in a massive hand in an attempt to grasp and hold her.

 

[Harrier]

A basic College Magic levitation charm was quick, easy, and one of Harriet's favorite tools. She'd assumed she could flip a coin on whether the Dreadlord would backstab her. When the broken stone lashed out to grab her, she cast the charm and crossed her fingers.

Harrier: 1d20 = (15) = 15

The charm sprang her up toward the edge of the pit. Before her foot touched the stone, the undead in her bag fell apart into loose bones and slack leather. The dry dead burned too easily to be useful except as sacrifices. She'd invested heavily in their creation and binding. At best she could recoup four-fifths of it, hence the sacrificial nature of the drain - but that was still quite a bit of banked strength, enough to empower plenty of options. For the moment, she refrained from striking back.

The spirit's laughter filled the cathedral.

 

[Selene Avar]

Selene turned towards Harrier who was now floating in the air, the spirits laughter echoing throughout the cathedral.

"DO IT! BRING ME WHAT YOU OFFER AND YOU SHALL HAVE EVERYTHING YOU PLEASE!"​

The words rang through her skull so soundly that Selene wasn't even sure that they were spoken. As soon as she heard them something filled her, a pale echo that resounded through her entire flesh. She could feel the scales within her skin prickle slightly, her skin growing hot.

Eyes lit a bright red, and then her hand raised.

Upon each of her fingers a small dart flame formed, shooting forward into needle like strings that lanced out towards the floating Necromancer.

At the same time her other hand came up, fingers reaching out as if they attempted to grasp the woman from afar. The ground quaking again, moving in a forming hand as she attempted to herd Harrier into grasp.

Spoiler

@Not Kasim: 1d20 = (20) = 20

 

[Harrier]

Defense: /r 1d20
/r 1d20
Are you feeling lucky?BOTToday at 12:14 PM
Harrier: 1d20 = (12) = 12
HarrierToday at 12:14 PM
Attack:
/r 1d20
Are you feeling lucky?BOTToday at 12:14 PM
Harrier: 1d20 = (10) = 10

The last gasp of the levitation charm bounced her up from the ledge, and a standard College Magic shield spell generated a disc of hard light underneath. The stone hand smacked against the disk and jolted it and her up into the air, hard.

Hard, but not fast enough. The fire slashed into Harrier's legs, scorched through her dress in a heartbeat. The pain came with a dose of real fear. Airborne on the drifting shield disc, she threw magic down over its edge, a nasty magic-eater spell she'd learned at a strange gathering in the Shallows. The spell took the form of a flaming serpent, moving straight through the air with the speed of an arrow. Not the most appropriate tool against a pyromancer, but Harrier's repertoire of actual combat magic, which wasn't much, the magic-eater ranked fairly high.

 

[Selene Avar]

The flaming serpent lashed out towards her, and without much thought Selene caught it in her left hand.

Her hand wrapped around the creature, seizing the fire. No pain lanced through her at first, the flames lapping against her flesh as water might against an ordinary person. Then suddenly something else happened.

She felt a tug. Her eyes bulged, and an odd blackness spread across her finger. It quickly lanced down her hand and through her forearm, rushing over her arm and consuming.

Black Fire suddenly erupted within her right hand and she quickly reached over. With one single quick strike Selene severed her arm beneath the elbow. Her hand and the serpent it held went tumbling to the ground, the creature wriggling ferociously as it tried to grasp at more of her power.

The appendage on the ground seemed to whither, growing to a thin husk within mere moments.

Fury filled Selene's eyes as she looked up at Harrier, an odd almost serpent like pupil growing within her iris'. She took a step forward, moving away from the flame as the ground of the cathedral began to shake and squirm.

From her feet molten earth began to form, and the ground itself rose up into a serpent of magma and flame.