Private Tales In the Pursuit of Power

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Well, Dauner didn't know whether to feel relieve or disappointed, that he wasn't fighting godly entities this time either. How great would it be, or perilous thereof, if his enemies were the Dark ones themselves? However, he didn't have time to wander away, far into his thoughts now.

"Well, I do have to admit, there is no better foe to crush beneath heel, than one who fancies himself invincible" Dauner said with a mischievous grin. The sadist in him had always loved knocking people with their noses in the clouds off their high horses. He enjoyed watching the look on their faces when it happened. The realization of inferiority. The truth about their 'invincibility' they oh so trusted. It was situations like these that made him look more demonic than ever. He believed it simply absurd for anyone to claim themselves invincible. Even if they were a god.

It wasn't lost on Dauner that Khorvayne's knowledge of Kristen's name was weird. But what was more peculiar still, was that he could feel a creeping sensation from the crow's eyes. For a split second, the color of his eyes would shift change to pure black, with a red pupil, as his gaze had also shifted from the projection to the crow that projected it.

"That, I'm sure you do" he said with a playful smile, as he returned his gaze to the projection. "I do wonder, but do you usually also stare at people in the bath? I'm not trying to sound offensive. I just want to know if I should be worried about being spied on next time I'm I'm naked" he added. Anyone looking beyond just the weirdness, and somewhat narcissistic nature of his question, would realise he was making allusion to Khorvayne's eyes being able to see far.

"Anyway, I believe I'm not the one who needs to be convinced here" he said, extending his hand, the caged heart in it, to Kristen. Doing this, he passed on the decision of whether to accept Khorvayne's proposal to Kristen, while absolving himself from any responsibility that would come with that decision. It was much easier to criticize decisions when you weren't the one who made them, but much harder to make a proper decision yourself, when so much was at stake. The weight of the responsibility that would follow sometimes felt overwhelming, even before the decision was made.
 
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I do wonder, but do you usually also stare at people in the bath?

"Only on occasion," Khorvayne said, smiling with no hint of shame. "Ah, life's little indulgences."

Kristen looked then to Dauner, crossing her arms in a contemplative manner. Yes, it was she who needed to be convinced. Would that circumstances were different, their situation less tenuous, their progress investigating the Desecrators advanced further along and with great certainty! Alas, the domain of wishful thinking. The problem, Kristen begrudgingly had to agree, was time.

And between Khorvayne and the megalomaniacal mastermind behind the Desecrators? Dauner and Kristen had a fairly firm idea of what the mastermind had in store: the murder of Celestialists surely, some grand catastrophe most likely. Khorvayne? Mayhap it was less than this (though that might well be wishful thinking too). They just didn't know, and it seemed folly to think she would be forthcoming concerning her goals.

Yet it remained that the mastermind wished massacre on a large scale. Lives were very clearly at stake the longer he was allowed to continue unchecked.

Kristen lowered her head, her chest heaving with a great sigh. She looked up to the crow and the teal image of the sorceress projected from its beak. "Why should we trust you?"

"Because I trust you. I shall tell you all that you need to know." Khorvayne's eyes in the image appraised Kristen, reading her. "Still you doubt? Very well. Before we even make an accord, I will impart free knowledge with which you may do as you please: north of Yslan you will find the place whence these Nine Desecrators who will soon assail you have come. An old iron mine, called Coogan's Depths, and therein you will find a lackey in the employ of my dear, raging, 'invincible' friend. Her name is Naya Indigo. You might be interested to know that she created the very same Desecrators who attacked the Chapel of Our Lady of Stars in Alliria. As well, that she's quite lonely now that her fellows in the particular Allirian cult she was sworn to were all annihilated. Take care, though, for Kodan forces are nearing the area."

A parting wave in the image, Khorvayne's fingers cascading down one after the other. "Remember...I am never far."

The crow swallowed up the magical image, the glow left the bird's eyes, and it took flight and flew away, a sight as common as any other.

Kristen wrung her hands, and with a tight expression of uncertainty did she turn her gaze to Dauner. "The path forward only becomes more treacherous, fraught with peril after new peril."

Dauner
 
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Dauner smirked at Khorvayne's response to his questions. The truth was he couldn't agree more to the last part of it. In truth, he'd indulged in quite a number of peeping incidents in his younger days. Usually, it was quite easy for him to seduce girls back then, due to his incubus charm. However, there were always the few rare girls that would resist this charm. He was never one to force himself upon a woman, so he made do with the perverted habit of peeping. Even now, he would occasionally peep on some women in the order when he was especially bored. He'd never admit to that, though. Ayana had a bow, knew how to use it, and wasn't scared of using him for target practice.

His smirk, however, disappeared when he heard the words, 'I trust you'. If you ask Dauner, never before has there been a lie as big and as damning as this one. As far as he was concerned, what she trusted wasn't them, but their interests. They had something she wanted, and she, something they wanted. It was a fair exchange in a way.

Then came information about a certain Naya Indigo. Apparently, she was a part of a cult in Alliria that was recently wiped out. What a coincidence. Dauner had also recently wiped out a cult in Alliria. Then it hit him. He was the one who wiped out her cult. Like one would expect from someone like Dauner, the first question to go through his head was, 'Is she pretty?'. Even before processing any other information pertaining to this woman, he was already wondering what she looked like. Thanks to this, he pretty much didn't pay attention to everything else that was said afterward.

When Kristen expressed worry to him, he nodded. "Yeah. I just found out I created a damsel in distress. I now feel duty bound to saving her" he said, with utmost determination in his eyes. If there was one thing anyone could tell, it was that he seemed dead serious. "We must depart at once… after finishing those guys off" he said pointing to the dark robed figures that were approaching them.
 
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Those familiar dark figures. Tall, gangly, the hoods of their robes freakishly slim and their faces, if they even had any, obscured by darkness. Pallid hands at the end of their sleeves were the only evidence that they had any material substance to them beneath their robes. As well, those ghastly hands were the only evidence that they had once been human, pursuers of dark power which they ultimately could not handle and which had twisted them into this fate.

Nine of them. As the sorceress Khorvayne had said. They were approaching in a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, just at the periphery of Yslan.

They stopped.

And that was when the first Dark Bolt flew at Kristen and Dauner.

Kristen scrambled for cover, the Dark Bolt gliding just past the tip of her trailing ponytail. She dropped down behind a crumbling brick wall of a small ruined granary. The Desecrators likewise began to scatter, fanning out wide: three stayed generally in the center, facing down Kristen's and Dauner's position straight on; three swung out to the left, three to the right, taking wide approaches each in their maneuvering to flank and envelope them. This flanking would take time.

Kristen peeked out from her cover. Choices: she could use her Withering Chains on one of them (not proficient enough yet was she to Chain two or more targets), crushing and killing it as she had in the Chapel. She could conjure an Ashen Crucifix, see if that was likewise as effective as her Chains and see what precisely what it would do to the Desecrators. Or, she could Curse the three Center Desecrators en masse which she had eyes on now.

She went with the last option.

"Assailed will your sight be by the light which you abhor," Kristen said, her voice low and vibrating with ancient portents. Her pointing hand was wreathed in a corona of ill intent as she spoke the Curse, a horrid and subtle light. The air around her trembled as if a dread bell had been struck and its sounding heralded the imminent descent of doom.

The three Center Desecrators stopped launching Dark Bolts. They shrieked their unearthly shrieks, those sickly hands of theirs all clawing and clutching at the misty darkness inside of their hoods. The formidable creatures staggered about like men blinded by a sudden burst of light.

Dauner
 
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Dauner stood still, only making minimum movements to dodge the initial onslaught of dark bolts, before taking cover behind some ruble as well. It wasn't like the bolts could hurt him, but since he decided to do everything with caution this time around, he wouldn't try testing it out. Killing them wasn't really hard. Correction. It wasn't hard at all. It would prove pretty easy, actually. And he had a myriad choices he could make. There were lightning based attacks, spacial attacks, and demonic energy based attacks. But out of all of them, he picked none.

Dauner still wanted to see what Kristen was capable of, so he took handling the desecrators as a secondary task. He picked the three attacking from the left, launching himself at them, sheathed sword to his side, and his hand ready to draw it at any time. But he wouldn't draw it yet. A few dark bolts from them, all dodge with relative ease, as Dauner zoomed faster than they could react. Finally, in a flash, he drew his sword, one desecrator split in two as he did, and landing behind the other two. They quickly turned around to face him, only to feel the cold steel part both their necks from their bodies. It was only then that Dauner remembered he was supposed to drag it out longer. Anywho, he'd simply stand by the side, and watch Kristen to see how she'd handle the remaining six. While he did so, he'd prepare a burst of lightning in his left hand, just in case.
 
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Dauner zipped past, the wind trailing in his wake enough to billow Kristen's ponytail like a pointing finger. He would dispatch the Desecrators on the left. That left her to charge right up the center, running down the pathway to where they stood, hopefully fast enough before the other three flanking right even discerned what all was happening.

Kristen drew her own sword as she broke from cover and ran toward the blinded three. They could be killed with mundane means, she'd seen Syr Dorn do just that back in the Chapel in Alliria. They were possessed of terrible offensive magic, their Dark Bolts able to devour and disintegrate flesh and armor with ease, but they seemed to lack defense.

In wild desperation, the three Desecrators flung their hands out and hurled Dark Bolts in a chaotic blindfire. Kristen had to weave carefully, watching their hands and juking left or right if she thought their unseeing trajectory might come too close. Foul magic flew around her in that feral flurry.

In range then.

A slash up at the neck of one Desecrator. No time even for a shriek as its hood fell away and then its robes entirely, what body it may have had beneath vaporizing into black mist. Kristen spun with her own momentum and launched herself into a thrust for the next Desecrator, dead center on its chest. It didn't perish immediately. Instead, its palm lifted and was thrust into her face. She jerked her head to one side and felt the vile, sickly coldness of a Dark Bolt slice past her cheek, her ear. Wrenching her sword out, she drove it back into its chest where its heart might be. Mayhap Desecrator still possessed one, mayhap not, but the creature hissed as it burst like its brethren into black mist, its robe descending to the earth.

As the cloth fell it was like a curtain being withdrawn.

To reveal the third Desecrator.

Its hand already pointed at her chest.

The Dark Bolt slammed into her, and Kristen was thrown to the ground, dust from the pathway kicking up around her. She looked down and let out a small yelp to see her tabard being consumed, the metal of her mail hauberk sizzling with the black and purple as the links were slowly shriveling like paper before a fire. That yelp morphed into a cry of trembling panic—she needed to get out of her armor before the corrosive magic seeped all the way down to her flesh.

First though: Kristen hastily spoke her verse and Withering Chains erupted from the ground around the last center Desecrator, each Chain pouncing on the creature like the starving heads of a hydra, coiling around each limb, its torso, its neck. The Desecrator screeched and howled in agony, completely paralyzed and convulsing. Steam hissed furiously where the Chains touched the creature.

Trying to stay calm and only halfway succeeding, Kristen began to tear at her pauldrons—she needed to remove those first before she could throw off her tabard and her hauberk. Trembling fingers fumbled at the securing laces.

"Come on...come on...!"

Words echoed from before. Back in Vel Acan. But she couldn't fail. Not again.

Dauner
 
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As the battle unfolded before Dauner, he bore no sense of worry about Kristen, as she seemed to struggle with her opponents. A dark bolt grazed her, missing by a hair's breath. Still, Dauner showed no shift in expression. He was like that stoic and strict instructor, who'd drop you in a dragon's nest and let you fend for yourself, all the while watching you, and only intervening when the situation seems mortal, which is what he did.

As soon as Kristen dispatched off the second, she got hit by a dark bolt from the third. Her actions afterward spoke volumes about what kind of person she was. While her life was at risk for as long as she continued wearing her armor, there was still an enemy before her. Scrambling to take off the armor, while ignoring the enemy, would only make her a juicier prey. Dispatching of him first, so he wouldn't be a threat anymore, before scrambling to take off her armor, was definitely the right thing to do.

But there were still three desecrators, closing in on Kristen, and with dark bolts fired fresh out their palms. Dauner judged it right to intervene now. He'd already gotten enough information on her capabilities.

As three dark bolts flew for Kristen, so too did three bolts of lightning fly to intercepts. Right before the dork bolts could hit, they were disintegrated by the collision with the lightning bolts. Barely a second after, Dauner would place himself between the desecrators and Kristen. His hand stretched forward, and his lips parted. The words he uttered next resonated with power.

"You who live in the darkness, answer to my dominion, and obey my command. Tie down my enemy with shackles of dreadly night"

He honestly didn't need to chant anything when using his powers, but he did it anyway, because it was all part of his aesthetic. In the wake of his words, darkness sprouted from the earth, binding onto their position, the three desecrators. Restrained, they would neither be able to attack nor defend. They won't even be able to move.

Dauner would then sheath his sword, and turn around to attend to Kristen first. He'd help her get her armor off as quickly as possible.
 
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Kristen gasped, helplessly pausing in awe as she watched the Dark Bolts vaporize to nothing as the lightning struck them. Dauner emerged from his fight (Kristen didn't yet know how quickly he had dispatched the Desecrators on the left flank). He stood before her and the right flank Desecrators wheeling around to their position, coming around the hollow remains of an old home and shed burnt to almost nothing.

He invoked a spell, the very air about them trembling with each word.

Kristen couldn't gape for long. Shrieks of protest from the Desecrators assailed her ears like stabbing daggers, but she had to focus on getting her armor off. The Desecrator constricted by her Chains soon perished under the squeezing pressure and holy bane of Aionus's Conjuration, a poof of black mist signaling its death, but Kristen paid little mind to it—such was a foregone conclusion.

She got one pauldron off. Dauner came to help. Her other pauldron and her gorget flew off quickly with two pairs of hands working the laces instead of one. Her belt went flying away as she undid it and tossed it. She sat up quickly and, very carefully but as fast as she could safely manage, swiped off her tabard and her mail hauberk.

"...aaaaAAAHHH!"

Some of the Dark Bolt's consuming magic had seeped through the links of the mail armor and was eating away at her arming doublet in scattered pockets. With the strength of adrenaline, and with some of the laces already destroyed, Kristen ripped open her arming doublet and yanked her arms from the sleeves and flung the doublet away as if it were a venomous snake.

She'd but her plain beige shirt now—thankfully, untouched by the Dark Bolt's magic. A curious sight, how her lower body was still armored and her upper body bereft of it.

Kristen sighed heavily. She ran her flesh and blood hand down her face, stopping as the tips of her fingers touched her cheek. "Too close..." she said to herself.

Then she looked up to Dauner. "You have my gratitude. What clearer evidence that I am still but an Initiate, a learner, than this? Long is the road to mastery, and far have I to go."

Dauner
 
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Again, Dauner's mind wandered away from the issues at hand. As soon as the danger to Kristen had been averted, he began to wonder. What if he had been just a little slower. Mind you, he didn't think so in relief, but in slight disappointment. Not because he wished Kristen harm, but because he wished it rather to the shirt that remained as a last line of defence between her and nudity. If he had taken a little longer, the shirt would have been affected by the devouring darkness, and Kristen would have done away with it. Dark though it might have been outside, Dauner had eyes that saw through the dark of night, as the would in the light of day. It took Kristen addressing him with words of gratitude to snap him out of his perverted thoughts.

"We need not say such things to one another. It is after all my duty as your partner to lend you a helping hand wherever necessary. What sort of partner would I be if I failed at such a basic task" he added, reassuring her that as long as the label stuck, she could expect him to come running to her rescue whenever she faced peril. He then took his jacket off again, and handed it to Kristen.

"Put this on. You must be cold" he smiled. He then turned to the desecrators who had been bound. The darkness that tied them down was already half eroded by time. An obvious outcome given there was no source of magic to sustain it for long. It would only take about a minute for the desecrators to break from the binding.

"Now, what do we do with them?"
 
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We need not say such things to one another, he said, and yet Kristen had put to voice the contents of her heart anyway. Count your blessings, be grateful, and a better person you shall become—words she strived her best to live by.

And speaking of gratitude.

Kristen stood and accepted his jacket, said, "Thank you," and slipped it on again. Curiosity intruded, of course, as she pondered once more about the jacket's special qualities.

She picked her sword up and sheathed it, turning her attention then to the Desecrators locked in place like horrid statues by Dauner's spell. The mysteries of the jacket paled before the mysteries of its owner. Kristen had her methods of combating these spawn of the Dark Ones, but Dauner had just...stopped them dead in their tracks. With congealed darkness itself, so it would appear. A great foe indeed for these Desecrators and their vile master.

"We must destroy them," Kristen said, surveying the frozen Desecrators. "These are creatures beyond redemption, things twisted into the corrupt image of the Dark Ones. The ancient lore condemns their existence, and Arethil should not suffer their taint longer than it must."

Dauner
 
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Thinking about it, Dauner didn't really have any use for the desecrators either. There was nothing in particular that they could do, that his warriors at the order couldn't. And they were subordinates, bound by a godly power in the service of higher beings. If anything, they were a liability. He wouldn't let them work for him, even if they begged for it. There would always be that knowledge that their loyalties didn't lie with him, and his orders could at anytime be eclipsed by those of their true master. Such servants, Dauner had no need of. In addition to all that, their minds had been warped by the power of the dark ones, and now it would prove very difficult for Dauner to decipher them and read their memories. The effort outweighed the gains yet again.

"Yes. That seems about the best course of action" he said. His left hand held the sheath that was strapped on his left hip, his thumb giving the sword's hilt a push, slightly unsheathing it. He began his walk towards the desecrators, grabbing the hilt of his sword with his right hand when he was close, and with one swift slash, against their ear breaking shrieks, he quickly dispatched of all three of them. The darkness that bound them quickly faded together with what remained of the desecrators, recognizing that there was no life left within its confinement. Then, he whistled.

"Under normal circumstances, it should take about a month before an all out war breaks out between the order and Koda, but I'm afraid if we wait here any longer, it would only take several minutes before it becomes so. We should leave with due haste" he said, grabbing the reigns on his horse and lifting himself onto its back in one fell swoop. When it had gotten to there, was a mystery, with no sounds of galloping having preceded its arrival. At this point, it would only prove wasteful for anyone to be surprised by the constant stream of mysteries that came with travelling with Dauner. It'd probably be best to just add one more to the list, and move along. Behind his horse, was Kristen's, running to its master. Again another mystery. It almost felt like he could communicate with the horses and had called on them, but that idea just sounded as absurd as it could get. Still, one shouldn't put such above Dauner. It still remained a mystery what he could and couldn't do.

"Our quest takes us north. So north we ride" he'd say as he waited for Kristen to mount her horse. There was no need to worry about the cold. Kristen would be kept warm by the jacket, and though Dauner now only had a very thin and short-sleeved shirt covering his torso, he simply wasn't affected by so mild a temperature.
 
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One wide slash, and all three of the bound Desecrators perished and burst into that signature black mist. Their dark robes all fell to the ground in tandem. Kristen had a moment to consider what might have happened had she failed to secure any aid and went off in search of the Desecrators herself. Riding high off of her success in the Chapel would she have been, forgetting humility, letting her sense of caution be dulled, likely thinking all she needed to be equipped with was her sense of justice and faith in Aionus. The miasma of the Black Heart would have claimed her, or this troop of nine Desecrators (it would be unwise to forget that, though she did find success in the Chapel, she was not the only one fighting there).

Yes, she was pursuing power herself at the Academy as a Dreadlord Initiate. But the process of learning in this domain of battle both martial and magical was an unforgiving one. Mayhap many a warrior passed through this same gate, but Kristen reckoned she was passing through it now: to know firsthand that confidence was healthy, but overconfidence was perilous.

Pride needed tempering with humility.

Kristen heard a soft whinny not long after Dauner whistled, and then came not just his horse and but her own from around a corner. They trotted up beside them. Hmm. Her success with that with her steed was about half and half. Sometimes her horse listened, sometimes she didn't. A man of many talents, Dauner.

Kristen hopped up into the saddle (one of the few benefits of her height, otherwise a source of chagrin). Even the blooded sky of the setting sun, firmly establishing the west, wasn't needed to reckon their direction; they merely had to start off in the way from whence the Desecrators came.

And north they would ride.

Kristen struck up conversation. "I can see how you've garnered the loyalties of so many men and women," she said. "And, as well, the enmities of others."

Dauner
 
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Dauner smiled at Kristen's words. Perhaps the first smile since he met her, that wasn't an act. For a guy who had long ago lost a great deal of his ability to express emotion, he, on the rare occasion, always dropped a few genuine expressions here and there.

He was strict, yes. And harsh, sadistic, sometimes overtly narcissistic, and sometimes just a plain jerk. But he was also someone who knew how to take care of his own. This quality of his just seemed to attract others to him. As for their loyalties, aside from a few pieces of insurance, he just acted as he'd normally always do, and apparently, that seemed to be more than enough.

As they still had a ways to go before reaching their destination, Dauner thought of having a nice conversation, now that he was feeling bubbles and rainbows in his chest. Who knows when next he'd feel this genuinely, in contrast to putting on an act to fit the situation.

"Say Kristen, just out of curiosity, what discipline do you specialize in at the academy?" he asked. She'd notice, as it was very obvious, that the tone in his voice had changed. Till now, he spoke to her in a tone of dignified nobility. But now, he had changed to a more relaxed and casual tone, void of any pretense. A sign he was finally opening up to her a little.
 
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Kristen, as well, spoke in a lower and more casual register to match Dauner's own. Certainly they were more than mere acquaintances by now, so such was quite appropriate.

"I practice Divine Magic, and I am continuously grateful that my gift matches my inclinations. I'm lucky, certainly, that my faith is tied intrinsically to my magic—else my belief in Celestialism would not have been overlooked."

Kristen remembered her mother's dire warning to her when it was clear she could not be disabused of her newfound religion. Never show it public.

"There are six Aspects of Divine Magic, though Aionus has never been known to have an affinity for Evocation or Illusions. My strongest Aspect is Conjuration, and more recently I am learning the ways of Curses."

Yet...neither of those were what she really wanted. She longed for another Aspect, which Aionus had not yet seen fit to bestow upon her.

Dauner
 
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Divine magic! Dauner had a similar affinity too. Though, his was very different from what you'd expect divine magic to be like. He owed his faith to no god but himself, and as such his conceptual divine magic, as he called it, was better geared at restraining other divine magics, rather than darker and more impure forms of magic. This was understandable since he created it with the aim to go to war with gods, so having a way to restrain their aspect of divinity was an essential tool in his shed. That, and it helped complement his demonic nature, almost eliminating his natural weakness to holy magic.

"Divine magic? Now, why am I not surprised?" he asked jokingly. Kristen had revealed herself from day one as a very religious person. The kind who would be more likely to have an affinity with the divine.

"Up until now, you've always struck me as more of a priestess than a student of a martial academy" he chuckled. "Ever thought of becoming one? A priestess of Aionus, I mean." he asked, sort of having a rough idea of what her answer was going to be.
 
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Kristen laughed genially. "You plucked the thought right out of my head! Only just today, in fact, has the thought crossed my mind in earnest."

And what better impetus was there than this, the whole chain of events originating with the Chapel of Our Lady of Stars? The idea of becoming a priestess had occurred to her before in brief episodes of fanciful pondering, but never had it been enough to overcome her contentment with being simply a devoted follower.

"Yes, I do think I will endeavor to become an ordained priestess. One day I shall make the pilgrimage to sacred Mount Dincia in the Spine, to the Holy Temple of Astra. Since my home of Vel Anir has within it no temples of its own, there is no other place I would rather be ordained than in the very temple the Goddess Herself attended to her Court while dwelling upon Arethil."

Dauner
 
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Now, why was he not surprised? She was thinking of becoming an ordained priestess after all. Dauner sort of started feeling jealous of Aionus. He wished he'd one day have as devoted a follower as Kristen. Though he now mingled in the affairs of mortal men, that did not obscure his original goal by any measure. He was still determined to become demon god. It might take a while, but he'd get there eventually.

"Under the Celestialist faith, are priests and priestesses allowed to marry?" he asked, somewhat curious about how it worked. In Segora, some religions banned their priests from marrying, while others actively encouraged it, so he was a little curious about how the Celestialists handled that aspect of the faith.
 
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"Mmmhmm," she agreed, nodding her head for the extra emphasis. She didn't know overly much about the tenets of other religions across Arethil, but she was familiar with vows of chastity and the like. "Why, if such was forbidden among the Celestialist clergy, then I'd make do with merely being one of the faithful. Though I can imagine Metisa herself descending down from the stars if ever such a tenet were instituted, quite firmly lecturing those responsible. Mothers and fathers are more so the foundation of civilization than any construction of mortal hands. A home is not a home without a family to make it so. The same could be said about a nation and its people."

She swayed slightly in her saddle as her horse maneuvered along the northern road.

"My," she laughed lightly, "can you tell that I am passionate about this subject?"

Dauner
 
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Dauner chuckled lightheartedly at the joke. Somehow he was a little relieved there wasn't such a tenet to the Celestialist faith. Why was that? Well, safe to say, unless someone ever learns to infiltrate the death trap that was Dauner's mind and live to tell the tale, no one would ever know.

"I believe the hard part would rather be to not be able to tell. I mean, if you were trying to hide it, then so far, you've been doing a terrible job of it" he chuckled lightly still.

As they galloped atop their steeds, wind brushing past their faces, in the distance, Dauner could see it. Made obvious by the energy that radiated from within it. Coogan's Depths. The location their quest had led them to, and where their prize awaited.

"You think they'd have a welcome party prepared for us? I do love me a good surprise"
 
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Swift on their steeds did they ride. The wind from their hasted approach Kristen thought might be biting with its cold (my, the Allir Reach seemed to have more frigid nights than Anirian lands!), yet Dauner's jacket was a sturdy insulator. Her nose she felt might be turning a little red, but her core stayed warm and comfortable. Wow, if ever she was assigned to Winter Training in the mountains of Vel Draza—a crucible for Guardsmen and Dreadlord Initiates alike—then perhaps petitioning Father for clothing of equal efficacy would be in order.

Surely the jacket was enchanted? Surely it was enchanted.

Kristen was still pondering this when Coogan's Depths appeared before them. By now the sun had vacated Arethil in total, and by the shallow light of Lessat and Pneria shining down from a cloudless sky could they see it. A steep hill, like a great mound some thirty or forty feet in height, had carved into its one side the mine's large entrance, wooden support beams holding up the excavation into the hillside. Into darkness did the namesake Depths lead, a gentle slope down into the earth where once the iron flowed richly.

Kristen brought her horse to a halt before this gaping maw of an entrance. Indeed, to her it looked like the very land had grown a mouth and, though time had long petrified it, still the maw hungered.

"Mayhap Naya is expecting the Desecrators to return with the Black Heart, thinking us to be no challenge for them." She hopped off of her mount. "In which case, I suppose, the surprise shall be ours to give."

Arrogance she would prefer over paranoia. If it was so that Naya was indeed paranoid, then there might be a welcome party and more awaiting down in those yawning depths.

Dauner
 
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Dauner had hoped Kristen's assumption was wrong. He would rather fight an opponent worthy of his blade than one blinded by mere arrogance. And it should come as no surprise, but Dauner actually liked being on the receiving end of surprises. It added a hint of excitement to many otherwise boring ventures.

"I sure hope that's not the case" he commented onto Kristen's statement, dismounting as well. "Nevertheless, we ought to keep our guards up"

He then began to head towards the cave's entrance. One look inside, and it was clear as day that Kristen would be essentially blind once they got in. They could light a torch and take it with them, but that would require for Kristen to have one, since Dauner never thought he'd need any. He could see through the darkness, like he would during the day, so there was never any need to bring along a torch. He could also create a flame out of magic to light up the path ahead, but whoever was inside would likely feel the unfamiliar magic signature and be on alert. The same would happen if Kristen created a light of her own magic, which he simply assumed she could, without actually knowing whether she could or not.

All in all, those options would only be considered if Kristen didn't have a tool for lighting, so Dauner turned to her.

"Any idea what we'll use for lighting?"
 
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I sure hope that's not the case.

Kristen laughed. "A mighty fine joke!"

A delayed reaction as evidence settled in. The way he'd said it, his expression when he did, knowledge of the fact that a full six of the Desecrators back in Yslan had been felled with minimal effort by his hand, it all seemed to suggest...

"Oh...you're serious." Now here was a fine paradox in the aftermath of that fine "joke": Kristen felt both confident and worried. How queer, this fluctuating and heady mixture. It didn't last long (for how could it?) and in its place ultimately came reassurance. Dauner seemed not to be afflicted by overconfidence, and thus did he seem to Kristen secure in the knowledge that he could handle any surprise Naya might have in store.

From her travel pack on the saddle did Kristen secure some supplies. Once at the cavern's daunting entrance, these would come in handy.

She crouched down with her firestarter kit and freshly wrapped torch. "While I know some College Magic, a Magelight spell is generally ill-advised when one expects trouble, and I have yet to learn any dark vision spells. Thus, mundane means will serve, old and reliable for thousands of years."

A spark from her flint and steel, and the wrapped end of the torch glowed with embers and then flame and then it was burning steadily, giving off its radiant orange glow.

She stood, torch in hand. Leaning into the spirit of the fine "joke," she smiled in a somewhat feisty manner and said, "Let's go find those surprises."

Dauner
 
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She came prepared. Dauner realized his worries were now meaningless. She had a whole kit for the purpose of lighting a torch. Dauner may want to consider getting one himself, in the near future, he'd hoped. But that was of little consequence right now.

"After you" he'd gesture from the entrance. Assuming she had yet to know he had natural night vision, it was very likely that she would think he was letting her take the lead because she held the torch.

Before going in, however, Dauner would let out a shadow into the darkness of the cave. Though he knew he was strong enough to not be in much danger, he preferred to be cautious. 7000 years was enough to instill in him that instinctive caution. He knew even a cornered rat could bite back at the cat, and an army of ants could also take down and elephant.
 
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Kristen led the way. Soon the ceiling of stars was replaced by the ceiling of stone, and the earth swallowed them whole. The world condensed to corridors, great scars in the hardpacked walls showing the old pockets of iron ore. Broken and discarded equipment from ages past was scattered on occasion along the floor of the mine, the dust on these ancient handles and rusted pickaxe heads undisturbed.

"I presume there must be some chamber sizeable enough to house the profane works of a madwoman," Kristen said. Even keeping her voice low it sounded like the mine shafts carried it farther away than she wished.

* * * * *​

And there was one such chamber that Dauner's shadow might scout. Once a great repository of iron ore, now hollowed out in a flat oval shape, the chamber was quite lived in now. Naya Indigo had turned it into her own little den of horrors and propitiation to the Dark Ones.

Naya was an ancient human woman, her leathery skin tight against her old bones, her white hair thinned quite heavily and showing copious amounts of the scalp beneath. The bend in her back was permanent, and the smell of her uncared-for body might as well be, for she had little time these days but for delving into the secrets of the Dark Ones. To be granted their direct favor! To be given life and youth to further their work upon Arethil! That was all she cared for.

She had a habit of muttering to herself. She was doing it now as she stood on the edge of the Scar—an inky black pool from which Things could exit but not enter. Curse Arethil! Curse the Laws of Magic! If only it were just as simple as leaping into the Scar and thusly finding the embrace of Abbon, of Merke, of Therg! Many Scars had she made throughout the many years of her life, but she felt that this one would be the last. Her last chance!

Guarding the three separate entrances to Naya's chamber were Things which did indeed crawl out from the Scar: Dregdogs. Inky, dripping, canine-like entities, completely black save for stark white teeth and with no discernible eyes. Useful, expendable creatures, for they splattered dregs like swamp muck everywhere when fought, and if these dregs touched a mage they sapped their magic (thank Merke for this gift!). Being drenched in dregs brought on crippling arcane fatigue, and worse.

Presently, some of the Dregdogs stood up onto all fours. Made wet sniffing noises as they tasted the air.

And began to growl.

Dauner
 
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Dauner looked around the abandoned mine, unimpressed. All theses he had seen before. From the rust of the abandoned equipment, to the scars on the walls. The walk was long, and thus, he couldn't help but sigh internally. You'd think that for one as ancient as he, patience would be a virtue well learned. But no. He was just about as impatient as he was over ten thousand years ago. After the void, mayhap even more so now. But that all mattered little. For a brief moment, What Dauner saw through the eyes of his shadow, left him stunned, stopping in his track with a look of utter disgust on his face.

Rolling back to a few seconds prior, Dauner's shadow demon successfully made its way into the chamber Naya used for her profane works. At the entrance, were a disgusting looking breed of hounds. They seemed to have the ability to detect magic. No surprise there. The shadow demon stuck to the shadows, sneaking into the room, and that was where it laid eyes on Naya. Dauner's connection to it was cut off shortly after that. Most likely by the hounds.

Dauner didn't express his disgust so explicitly because of what he saw. True, she looked old, and a little disgusting, from having spent so long without giving her body proper care. But what disgusted Dauner most, was that in his assumption that Naya Indigo would be a beautiful young woman in her late 30s at most, Dauner had several perverted fantasies play through his head several times already. Now, realizing what the object of those fantasies really was, was a giant blow to him.

His disgust slowly turned to resentment, which in turn quickly turned into irrational irritation. He would avenge this humiliating experience, that he promised to himself. But first, he needed to regain his composure. He wasn't one to lose himself so easily, after all. Not anymore.
 
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