Open Chronicles In Hushed Whispers

[Torin Gemheart]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Wind danced in the mountain pass, surrounded by jagged rock at the flanks. Difficult to scale unless one had wings to fly between, but some might consider that cheating. Sunlight glowed in the sky above the throat of the valley, and further beneath was the mountain’s ground, on which any footstep would be surrounded by unforgiving rock for the one who ventured further into the deep.

Above the foundation, beneath the peak, somewhere in between the versant green as verdant woodland, and brown as bark in darkness, was stone shapen. As if the remnant of a giant golem, only frozen, and just as much was viewed as the limb of a statue, one abandoned with the wind, transfixed with time’s sigh.

Between four fingers and a thumb, however, hovered a landmark carved by hand, just like those digits from the wrist to the nail. Only it was different. This was no simple representation of a limb. Rather, within the vale, a bridge had long since been built, tethering one end of the mountain pass to the other flank, and that itself was a distinction to be reckoned with.

The wind whipped, shrill as a bird of prey, became its own predator to blow away anyone dumb enough to step too close to the railing and lean over. Peering into the depths of the valley was a curiosity to rob the heart, betray the brain, but the drop was far, and the base was deep.

From one end of the bridge, rock formed within the mountain, spread like a tongue over the depths of the mist beneath the feet, stretched to the other end and ran between the fingers and the thumb of the carven construct.

On the other end was another manmade countenance; the arched doorway of a dark chamber, manmade, leading into a vault unexplored before this moment. Pillars flanked the temple’s entranceway, cracked and jagged like stones left to a temporal echo.

On the bridge? Maybe a dozen figures, summoned to this position for one reason or the other, whether for the sake of adventure or to claim treasure. In their midst? A dwarf, garbed in armor, the color of charred copper, with a large hammer on his back beside a pack, and an axe on his hip, dagger adjacent, with other weapons and then some.

“This wind is treacherous,” the Gemheart told no one in particular as he made his way across the bridge from the base, toward the stone hand that centered it. “I warn you all to make no haste,” he finally decided to call so as to be heard.

“Wind like this can become a torrent before storm in only a moment.” Though, whether his traveling companions listened was their own decision. In this expedition, they weren’t his friends so much as company—hushed whispers in the wind.

If they fell then the Spine would take their cries, but the dwarf would not wait. Torin would make his way to the other end of the bridge and take his prize one way or the other, whatever it was.

 

[Archanae]

Spoiler: Image Reference

At the back of travelers, a figure wreathed in a long fur cloak traversed the ancient bridge like it belonged to her. She walked as freely as its long-dead rulers might have done behind a train of attendants and guards, though she boasted only fellow opportunists before her. The cloak consumed most of her wiry form, its fur so rough and uneven it looked ripped off from a dire boar, rippling and billowing in the capricious wind. And though the wind aimed to claim the cloak from her shoulders, its efforts only revealed flashes of her sapphire medallion, as well as the ghost-blue glow of the rough-hewn stone in her grasp, pulsing unnatural light in tandem with her eyes.

Yes. She could sense great magic here - old as the world's bones, unbowed by time. It charged the very air with its fracturing aura, revealing a faint, shifting mirage to her altered sight. It prickled her skin with promise, by now sensitive to its idiosyncratic touch.

They had certainly found the object of their shared desires. Her and this band. In exchange for their cooperation, she had had to discard her usual minions. Travelling with her golem entourage would unnerve most of these adventurers. And though their flesh might be more fragile, their skills were undeniably more . . . varied.

The wind died suddenly around her - as a force leaned in, killing its wild movement, and instead churning with its own muted integrity. Her hair fell down, once whipping in the wind, now limp behind her back - except for a single braid lifted by an invisible finger.

"Release me . . . sorceress . . ."

Archanae didn't miss a beat, still walking her tight-rope stride, one bare foot before the other, anklets jingling in the deadened wind.

"Hush now, creature. You will serve until your alotted time. Once I gain my prize, you gain your freedom."

The air itself hissed with impotent fury, drilling into her ears. She could see the faintest of silhouttes, lines where the air itself folded and crinkled like invisible cloth, hinting at curved limbs the length of a full-grown man, sharp as scimitars.

"You will . . . regret this . . ."

The wind sighed and murmured, relenting, and once again, natural wind basked over her.

“Wind like this can become a torrent before storm in only a moment.”

"It certainly can. The wind should never be underestimated. It may cut as well as any blade or push like a ram." She should know, having bound an elemental of that primordial force to her will. Archanae smirked privately at the back, keeping her smile and knowledge to herself. "Perhaps we ought to hasten to the abode of your ancestors, Gemheart. We ought not keep the dead waiting."

Torin Gemheart