Private Tales Monolith Rising

[Leah Kadashal]

GILD​

"Who are they?"

Leah, Boesarius, and a city guard stood in the house. Outside, a full cordon of guards had been established. Inside, the bodies of two unknown warriors, their armor and garb dark and patterned with strange designs; elsewhere in another room lay the bodies of the Gildan family, they who had perhaps been deceived or who had perhaps been coerced, all of them slaughtered, their stomachs hollowed out pits with their entrails removed for some foul purpose.

Boesarius didn't look at the guard who had asked the question. He just stared down at the corpses of the warriors. "Heretics. Blasphemers. The final result of a mind corrupted by magic."

This matter had been all of sudden. Unexpected. Leah and her Regulator mentor Boesarius had simply been walking through the streets of Gild, and Boesarius, as was his wont, casually used his Pulse. Inside of this house he detected magic, and swiftly did he and Leah storm the premises and dispatch these two warriors, catching them unaware in a violent ambush.

The city guard then asked the question which clung mightily to Leah's mind, an obsession forming over it: "Are there more of them?"

Leah looked to him, saying simply in that moment, "We do not know."

* * * * *

THE TAAGI BAARA STEPPE​

Boesarius ordered Leah not to pursue it, her pet investigation. Though she respected Boesarius immensely, it was not his word that she followed in this case, but Regel's, for she did not believe in coincidence, and this was no rote duty upon which she was embarked. The god of Jura himself had placed both of them at that house on that day: Boesarius to detect those Curites, Leah to pursue them.

Curites? No. These were no mere Curites, mere slaves to magic. In her investigation, gathering what scant leads and clues as she could, Leah had come to know their true name.

Monolith.

They held enmity against Gild—this was known, though their exact aims were not. This made it strange, of course, that Leah's latest lead pointed her far from Gild, pointed her to a place not even depicted on many of the versions of maps contained at Gild's War College. But it was there that Leah could perhaps find answers, truths into the nature of the faction known as Monolith. The safety of her homeland, of the Jemaat, depended upon it.

So against orders she had departed from Gild and began her long journey across Campania and her long voyage from the Sayve River all the way through the Allirian Strait and to the docks in the vicinity of the Steppes Stone and Dornoch.

And from there Leah Kadashal rode for Valenntenia.

* * * * *

TENEBRON​

At last in the shadow of Valenntenian territory, Leah came to rest for the night in the town of Tenebron. A strange place to her eyes, yet, all outside of Gild and Campania was strange to her. Horsemen called "centaurs" made up a significant portion of the Tenebron population. The humans who inhabited the town called themselves by a different name, "Descendants". Some of the buildings of the town were solid fixtures, constructed of locally acquired stone and other materials, but other "buildings" were in fact yurts, and could be packed up neatly within an hour.

Leah rode her horse to the hitching post of the local inn (one of those solid fixtures), and she dismounted and tied her horse to it alongside a few others. She had barely even begun to walk toward the porch of the inn when several local men standing on it approached her with a hopeful look shared among them. Her garb, her foreign air, apparently had made her stand out.

"Are you her? The Guardian?" said the first.

"You've come to help us, right?" said the second.

"It must be!" exclaimed the third, excited and relieved.

Leah stood for a moment, confused. She had not expected such an exchange, but...in the unexpected did often work the essence of providence. Was this not the very driving force which had led her here to Tenebron?

She took off her hat, that they might better see her in the low light of the evening, and said, "It is not I whom you seek, for I have come from afar."

Despairing of hope, the men let out a collective sigh. They started to return to their posts beside the inn's front door.

"Impart upon me the name of this...Guardian."

The first man stopped and turned back to Leah. "Why, it is none less than Vazia Ferreira. Guardian of the Void."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

It was quiet.

Evening was falling quickly, casting long shadows upon the street. Away from the bustle of Old and New Town and the center of Valentennia, the streets were quiet. The few people out and about kept their heads down and their mouths shut, trying not to look directly at the strange woman walking- no, gliding- past them. Her hair was moon white and her eyes a white to match. Her expression was blank and devoid of any sort of emotion, and naturally others recoiled in her presence. Most of them, at least. There were some who were stupidly curious or feeling something that they did not care to feel. They would seek her help and she might give it. Their view of help and hers differed, however.

Vazia Ferreira was in between towns. Having nothing better to do, she had walked outwards from the center of Valentennia. Those that saw her thought she was just walking around to scare people, others thought she was on some secret mission for the Absalon. Both were wrong.

She supposed a reason for her wandering could be explained by a recent assignment. It had been requested that she visit Allir Reach. Unfortunately, when the request had been made, her stone had been sitting on a table in her room, so the mention of the location left her a little bit unsettled.

Now, she curled her fingers around the cool, smooth edges of her stone. Silence surrounded her as she walked wordless down the streets, into another town. Now, it was not so quiet, and now, she recieved more glances, and now, some even stared, looks of awe on their faces. Vazia looked right back at them, meeting their gazes.

If you look long enough into the void, the void begins to look back through you.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

Guardian of the Void.

Leah scarcely knew what the man meant by that, for precious little did she know of this faraway land. But that word, void, held significance. Great significance. Was this not plain evidence for the workings of fate? Leah believed it to be so. For in the course of her investigation back in Gild, she had uncovered a damaged parchment. Writ upon it, the two and only words unmarred by its damage: Hail Abbon. Abbon. From the Celestialist canon, the Dark One, the Aspect of the Void.

Could it be? Could this be the reason for the possible presence of Monolith here? Yet, even if such were so, what was the connection between their plot in the Steppe and their plot in Campania? More pressingly, how vast were their numbers? What was the true scale of their threat?

Leah ascended the steps up onto the inn's porch. Stood opposite the three men, leaning on the railing.

"Shall we introduce ourselves?" she said. "My name is Leah Kadashal, and my home lies far to the east."

"Benjamin," said the man who had been initially excited and relieved.

"Calco," said the man who asked if she had come to help.

And last, the man who had told her of the Guardian. "Haku."

Leah dipped into a small curtsy, then removed her hat, and resumed leaning on the railing. "Is she coming?"

"Guardian Vazia?" Haku said. "Yes, of course. Of course she is."

"This is something you know? Or something you hope?"

Benjamin and Calco shared anxious looks. Calco said, "Well, the problem...Valenntenia has been having some troubles of its own."

"Political troubles, so we hear," said Benjamin.

"She'll show," Haku said. "Someone will show. Tenebron won't be abandoned."

"What is it that ails your town?" Leah said, gently pressing for information. She glanced left and right for effect. "All seems quiet. No?"

Haku hesitated. Averted her gaze. Looked a bit torn between wanting to answer and holding back. The latter impulse seized him, and he said, "Maybe...well, maybe it is best that we not trouble you with our plight. I mean not to be cross or inflict offense or insinuate anything, but...you're an outsider. An outsider who only just came to town. There's just...a lot we don't know."

Benjamin echoed this by saying, "She'll come. Guardian Vazia will be here soon."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Distant thunder echoed around the small town of Tenebron, and Vazia paused when she heard someone mention her name, carried to her by the wind. She walked around a corner to face an inn, where three men and a woman were talking outside. The inn on was on the outskirts of town, the buildings looking a bit more rundown. What few permanent buildings were here, anyway.

Vazia stood there, just off the road, watching the group in front of the inn. One of the men, likely feeling her empty gaze on him, turned to look at her. He nudged the other two men and not so subtly pointed at her. Now all four of their gazes were on her (and now the gazes of other townspeople as well). She met them gaze for gaze.

The three men had the look of hopeful dreamers on their face, as if they had been waiting for her to come. But why? She brought nothing but emptiness, she could not fix their problems. Or was it something bigger? Did they want an escape from their problems? Or was it the unease stirring in central Valentennia, the riots that had taken the Guardians' attention?

Only one way to find out.

She walked forward, moving suddenly so that others who were watching her jumped as if shocked. She stopped in front of the porch of the inn, where the four stood. Up close, Vazia could tell the woman with them had the look of a mistrusting skeptic. She wondered how the men had met up with her, but did not ask any questions or say anything. She knew one of them would be the first to speak.

For whatever reason, they had been waiting for her.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

Vazia's sudden appearance, and especially so from its unexpected angle and timing, did indeed catch not only Benjamin, Calco, and Haku, but also Leah, by surprise. This was to say nothing of the unorthodox way in which she moved. Awed by the majesty of Vazia's station, the towering prestige of her Guardianship and the power, therefore, that she commanded, the three men were all made nervous by her very presence—Calco more so than Benjamin and Haku.

Being the outsider, Leah herself held no particular awe, but what was abundantly clear to her was Vazia's appearance. Out of all the people Leah had encountered since disembarking from the ship near Dornoch, Vazia stood out the most. A mere painting of her, should a painter to be so commissioned for the task, would be unable to capture the subtle otherness exuding from the woman herself, and this seemed something beyond the simple possession of magic.

But was it her? This "Guardian Vazia" of whom the Tenebron villagers spoke? Benjamin, unwittingly, would answer Leah's inner question by saying in a whispered and near incredulous voice, knowing this time beyond a doubt, "It is you. You came...G-Guardian."

While the three men were each in their own degree stunned in that moment, Leah spoke up. "Greetings, Guardian," she said, making a small curtsy again as introductory custom. "There seems something amiss here in Tenebron."

Amiss. One of those words Leah did not truly believe herself, but said anyway to convey shorthand meaning. Far from "amiss", what was happening in this small town, in Leah's eyes, involved nothing less than the proceeding of fate and providence, making real at last that which was destined.

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Vazia tilted her head at the man who spoke first. Vazia had rarely recieved such awe-inspired gazes in her presence. Frighten people and haunt their nightmares, she could do. But recieve praise and adoration? That was another story...

She turned to the woman when she spoke up. After her last statement, Vazia guessed that she wasn't from around her. Anyone who lived in Valentennia or near enough to it knew what was happening.

"There are quite a few things amiss," Vazia replied evenly, not a flicker of emotion in her face or body. The stone pulsed solidly against her leg in her pocket.

Her blunt honesty and dryness was not a trait many admired, but Vazia thought it really just revealed more about the judger than the one being judged. They may even be right, on occasion.

"What specifically seems amiss to you?" Vazia continued, shifting her gaze, directing the question at the white-haired woman.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

At the question, Leah glanced over to Haku, smiling, knowing that his due appointment prescribed by fate had come, and only shortly after his reluctance had stopped him earlier. "Now would be a good time."

Yet still he was wary. He looked to Vazia as if for approval. "Is it...alright if I speak on it? Here? With...?" He eyed Leah, the outsider, as of yet a part of the lot we don't know he had mentioned.

"What trouble can it be? We know their number is seven," said Calco.

"It could just as easily be eight. Eight of them. Or nine. Ten. Who is to say?" countered Haku.

Benjamin gestured to Leah. "She doesn't even look like them."

"She doesn't have to look like them to be working for them." Realizing that this came off as far more suspicious and accusatory than he intended, Haku gave Leah an apologetic look.

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Vazia did not say anything as the three men debated on whether or not to explain what was troubling them with Leah in their presence. Vazia glanced at Leah before looking back at the men.

"Where are you from, foreigner?" Vazia asked, slowly returning her gaze back to Leah. The men didn't know if it was ok to speak in front of her, and, depending on what the problem was, some of the details might be sensitive. Vazia was not stupid.

The hints that the men had foolishly dropped led her to believe that Tenebron's problem likely was not related to the riots and problems that the Guardians were dealing with in Valentennia. She wondered if the Absalon knew of something amiss in Tenebron, or if the problem here was even important enough or a big enough deal to warrant the Guardian's attention. She had just stumbled across it, after all.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

Concealing her identity through deception would have done her no good here—especially given the story she had carried with her across the vastness of her travel. Indeed, a thread of fate tied together two disparate peoples of the world, and that thread bore a name. And in that name, a common enemy.

"I am Leah Kadashal, of the Kingdom of Gild, far to the east of here."

Benjamin gave it a moment's thought, then said factually, "Never heard of it."

Leah continued anyway. "I have traveled this great distance in pursuit of a foe who has not only committed a foul crime against my people, but who, I believe, has even grander designs. What these are I do not know, but of my foe I know this: their number seems to be well more than seven, they are worshippers of the Dark One Abbon, Aspect of the Void, and their name...is Monolith."

All three men looked surprised that Leah knew the name of the fearsome band of men who threatened their town, but none more so than Calco. He had gone a bit pale, for his position was a dangerous one.

* * * * *

"You will ensure that the Guardian of the Void, none other, is called to Tenebron in your defense. If you do not...then your wife, your children, will meet their end at our swords."

Calco, many days ago staring into those formless black faces hidden beneath those hoods, felt he had no choice. It would be all he could do to lie to the other townsfolk if they asked about his family, say that they had taken illness and were bedridden, and he would have to press, press as hard as he could during the town hall, for their plea to Valenntenia to ask specifically for Vazia Ferreira.

"It...oh gods, it will be done."

The baleful warrior leaned in closer to him. "Pray. For all the good it will do for you."​

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Vazia listened as Leah explained her purpose in Tenebron. If she was perfectly honest, and she nearly always was, she had never heard of the Monolith before, but the mention of the void had her curiosity piqued and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, as if she were being watched.

"The void?" Vazia said, softly and calmly. "Who is wielding the powers of the void?"

She noticed one of the men seemed more on edge than the others. He had gone as pale as Vazia's hair, and it made him look as if he were on the verge of death.

Vazia pinned him with a stare, her blank white eyes searching his own. "What is the matter? Does the void frighten you?" she asked him, her suspicion not present in her voice.

What a strange day it was turning out to be.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

Calco's stance solidified with a paralyzing fear when Vazia set her unblinking gaze upon him. "We..." he started, having to swallow, and start again, "...we are all frightened, Guardian. These warriors are like something f-from another world." Seizing the opportunity to bridge the conversation back to Leah, he gestured to her and said quickly, "It is shocking to hear that the same foe which threatens us has also done so to Leah's people. Their reach is..."

Haku picked it up, voicing the thought he and Benjamin, and even Calco, had, "...larger than we could know."

Leah donned her hat again, making no outward notice of Calco's nervousness, and said of Vazia's earlier question, "These Monolith warriors perform foul rituals in service to the 'Void': to appease their dark god, to gain power, to spread fear, who is to say?" Maybe all three. "If they intend to do anything like what they have done in Gild, then Tenebron is dancing with grim peril."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Vazia kept her gaze on Calco, even as Leah spoke again. "And how do you know they are in Tenebron?" her question was not directed at anyone of the gathered in particular.

She did not think she would be able to do anything for Tenebron without going first to someone else, whether it be another Guardian or even the Absalon himself.

"There's a lot of things in our world that you know nothing about, so how you can you see it is as if it is from another world?" This question was directed to Calco.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

Vazia, her diction, her empty gaze, her overall unnerving demeanor, brought to Calco an ever-increasing level of fright. "Because, Guardian...they had no faces..."

Leah glanced Calco's way, but made no mention of anything yet. Far be it for her to interfere in this business of the Guardian's, this in a place where Leah had no jurisdiction, but...she detected in Calco's voice a distinctive sort of anxiety. The kind she heard from the weak-willed when she attended one of Boesarius's torture sessions. The kind that betrayed hidden secrets, and the despair that they would be revealed.

For Benjamin and Haku, the tremor of fear in Calco's voice both men took to be in reference to the Monolith Warriors. And why not? They had seen them too. And those Warriors were dreadful sights to behold, not...not unlike Vazia herself.

Benjamin said, "No faces. Just...emptiness, darkness, where they ought to be."

Haku took it upon himself then to answer the Guardian's first question. "They came to us not long ago, Guardian, riding into town upon armored skeletal steeds. They demanded...money." He said the word as if he himself couldn't believe it, as if there was a perplexing mismatch between the fearsome Warriors and what they sought. "Precious metals, gems, anything of value. They said they would return in seven days for their prize, and that we had best meet the sum they ordered, or they would slay half the town in vengeance."

Haku swallowed.

"It has now been six days since then, Guardian."

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

No faces. Certainly interesting and strange, but not so much so that it could be from another world. Vazia had definitely seen some strange things in her life, and at the mention of 'no faces', she was only mildly intrigued. The mortal mind seemed to inflate and exaggerate things that frightened or amazed them.

She listened as one of the men took over speaking for the nervous one. "They demanded money," she said, arching a brow over a blank eye. "And did they say what they planned on doing with this money they are hoping to receive?"

She wondered on the reliability of this story told to her. What would warriors of the Void want with money? If they knew anything about the Void they would know money was temporary, and served no true or meaningful purpose. Money seemed to be the catalyst for evil, but the Void was not evil. Nor was it good. It was merely there. Existing.

Leah Kadashal

 

[Leah Kadashal]

Haku answered dutifully. "No, Guardian, they did not. And none among us dared ask."

Benjamin shrugged heavily, the gesture almost despairing of hope, and then he lamented aloud, "Why us? Tenebron is hardly overflowing with riches! Why would they even covet what little we have?"

Leah knew the time had come for her to speak. To speak precisely, and with a pointed purpose behind merely the sharing of information. Calco had been showing signs of anxiety, yet certainty in the reason for it was at this stage elusive; and Calco's anxiety did not preclude the other two men from perhaps having hidden secrets of their own. Mayhap the shock of her gruesome details would help reveal something.

"Is anyone in town missing?"

All three men looked to Leah.

"In Gild, Monolith Warriors managed to kidnap and slay a whole family in secret. They butchered them like animals. Carved open their stomachs and removed all of their entrails—which have never been recovered."

"Gods!" Calco exclaimed.

Vazia Ferreira

 

[Vazia Ferreira]

Vazia listened as Leah spoke up. Still no explanation as to why the Monolith Warriors were targetting Tenebron specifically, but she had an inkling.

"How much do you know about this group?" Her question was directed at Leah this time, since she seemed to know more than the other men, and seemed more in control of her wits, even as she spoke such gory details. The description was obviously disturbing, but Vazia had seen worse.

There were holes in their stories, and she couldn't exactly help them or get someone to help them if she didn't know what was actually happening or why. But now that she was presented with this patchwork story, she couldn't walk away, either. Tenebron was close enough to Valentennia to draw the attention of the inner city, and she knew they had enough to worry about already with the political state of the city and gaps in their ranks; so it would be beneficial if Vazia could deal with this before it got too bloody.

Leah Kadashal