Private Tales Survival of the Fittest.

[Brandr]

The lightening was like a lash against the skies, and it groaned a deep and furious sound that Brandr felt tremor along his bones, the scent of sulphur already thick on the air.

He slowed as Aey did, his grey eyes wandering the ruin of a town for any signs of life, but there were no people or livestock, nor any smoke or flame that he could see. His gaze followed her pointed finger then, to the mouth of a mine.

"Well, at least we have shelter.." he said gruffly as the first drops of rain splashed down about them. The lands were darkening quickly at their backs, as though shadow chased them toward their sanctuary and the heavens opened in a torrential downpour in the few seconds before they'd reached their shelter. A few seconds had been enough to see them drenched, and Brandr dropped his sodden hood to take in the rock-ribbed hall around them, his gaze narrowing on the dark void that led further into the mines..

"They must have lived here for years.. I wonder what happened." he murmured more to himself than to anyone else.

"Well.. Looks like this is home until the storm passes." he said, slipping down from his saddle with a gravely thump and a wince as pain lanced through his shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asked, offering a hand up to the wild woman should she need it. He doubted she would.

 

[Aeyliea]

Water streamed down her body, cold and unwelcome. She was of this wild part of the world, though, and although she detested the damp, she bore it well enough. The monumental crash of thunder every time a bolt stabbed from the dark skies didn't make her flinch, even though her mount was unappreciative of them.

"Fine," she lied. Weariness weighed on her like a ton of bricks, and the ache had worked its way deep into her arm, such that it would not likely go away any time soon. She considered the offered hand for a moment, considered turning him down again - she had no need of his help, after all! - and then shook her head. And took the offered assistance. As she landed, the pained draw of breath and sudden sweat told the lie of her answer, but before he could say anything, she brushed past.

The portal was quite tall and wide here, but further in it narrowed considerably. Here, at the portal, the remnants of cook fires and the bones of animals slain and eaten lie here and there. She eyed it all while trying to ignore the ache in her bad arm.

"Them, we killed," she said in answer to his low questions. Had he sought an answer or not, she at least could give it. Even though she had not been here, she was certain of the truth. "Trespass on land. No leave, blood and death," she said. She shrugged, and immediately regretted it. "Storm big," she said. She could feel it in her mind. She stopped some distance from the entrance, and sought to removing her sodden clothes in so much as she could. "Need fire," she added.

 

[Brandr]

He failed to hide the hint of surprise in his expression as she accepted his hand, nor could she hide the obvious pain she was in as her feet met the gravel. He'd been about to insist that she sit and rest when she moved past him, and he huffed out the wasted breath instead..

A hand stroked down the face of his horse as he looked around, the beast unsettled by the violence that pounded into the lands from the skies outside. The man's brow furrowed, his attention snapping back to the white-haired woman as she claimed that her people had been the ones to rid this town of life. He drew in another breath intent on asking her questions, on voicing his disapproval on such ways, but he remembered who and what he was and the hypocrisy of such judgement.. And, he remembered who he was speaking to - a creature so stubbornly set in her ways that there would be little point in wasting his energy. It wouldn't bring life back, it didn't matter.

"Will you sit before you fall." he growled instead. "I will see to the fire. You can prepare these." he added gruffly as he pulled the pheasants free of his saddle bag and tossed them at her.

Luckily, there was enough dry wood and tinder around to build a healthy enough fire that would see them fed and warmed for most of the night. He set old buckets in the cavern's opening, which filled up quickly with rainwater enough for them and their mounts, and before long their camp was cosy enough to ward off the chill of the storm outside.

The dark tunnel of the mine was an unsettling guest however, and Brandr found his gaze drawn to it now and then, the darkness only intensified by the warm glow of flickering firelight that currently illuminated his features and warmed his hands.. "What d'you suppose they mined here?" his brow quirked.

 

[Aeyliea]

When she came back to the fire, she had doffed the leather vest down to damp linen. She reached out to catch the birds, but with another stab of pain twisting her face, the slipped through her fingers. She had tried to catch them with both hands, but one of them did not work right. She made a frustrated noise at the back of her throat and then stooped to the work wordlessly. It required no thought or effort to dress the animals, and by the time he had a fire going, they had been neatly plucked and eviscerated, the entrails at the fires' edge where they would burn and hopefully not attract scavengers.

She looked up as she settled the creatures on spits over the flames as he spoke. She looked over her shoulder into the deeper darkness, shook her head. "Not knowing. No iron, gold, silver." The mines where such treasures could be found lie westward in the dry lands outside the desert and onwards, or far to the east - across the Strait of Allir, in and around the Spine. "Not understand outlanders, things they do." She picked up a stone, wasterock from deeper within, and chucked it out towards the entrance.

Now that she had been made aware of it, the darkness pulled at her, too. A mine, here in the middle of the grasslands, was highly unusual. There were very few geologic features that would attract such prospecting, this being the only one in a hundred miles or more. "Whatever the....they dig, must be much value. Here, dangerous. Trespass, know it." Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head in confusion. She could not understand why anyoen would fight over a hole in the ground, but these had.

 

[Brandr]

Brandr considered all she had to say as his gaze ventured deeper into the darkness. It seemed to close in the longer he stared at it, and he had to blink hard as he looked back to Aey's pale features illuminated by the warm glow of firelight..

"I'll take a look.. after I've eaten.." he muttered as he dragged a hand down his face.. Aey knew far more about this land than he did, and if she had no idea what they were mining.. It tugged at his curiosity, button his stomach was far more important right now.

The birds didn't take long, and he ate unceremoniously from the spit. "Do you need a healer?" he asked quietly in between bites. She was not alright, regardless of whether she tried to convince him, or herself, otherwise.

 

[Aeyliea]

She picked at the bird without much appetite. She was hardened to pain, hardened to many things if it came to it, but the last many weeks had been a trial unlike any she had faced before. There was no enjoyment of the feast, only the mechanical motion required to restore her depleted strength.

"Healer had," she said. She tried to flex her bad arm, and visibly paled further. "Why hurt so," she whispered, and shook her head. At his inquisitive look, she shrugged and tried to play it off as nothing. "Captured, I was. Vel Anir, in prison." She did not mention the beatings or the starvation, or any of the other indignities afforded to her by her captors. Although not so high on the list of national threats as to warrant a pogrom, her people were nevertheless a thorn in the side of any who would try to claim their territory for any reason whatsoever. Their rampant and unending murder of any who strayed into their territory made them a prize when it was possible to capture them alive.

"Fighting free. Many men, some...some...dreadlord? Kill many, but..." She lifted her bad arm, and then patted her chest where the point of the cursed sword had pierced a breast but - thankfully - no further. "Hurt go poison. Much fever, near die," she said, and then fell silent.

Left unsaid were the agonized days spent trying to stay alive while wracked by merciless fever, while blood and pus dripped from a hole in her arm. The good samaritan that had found her on the ground at death's door and brought her back from the brink had saved her life, in a way. It was just that the injury, though healed, had left her crippled. Her pride had been badly bruised by being captured and was now torn to shreds by the fact that simple survival had become so difficult whereas before, it had been so simple. If she could just wield a bow...

...and if the damned thing would stop sending picks of pain up into her shoulder! She stared into the middle distance, bird in her good hand forgotten.

 

[Brandr]

She didn't need to mention the treatment he knew she'd been subjected to in the clutches of Vel Anir. That she had managed to free herself was a miracle in itself, and he'd been watching her with some degree of guilt and awe before she mentioned the Dreadlord and his gaze fell back to his meal. He swallowed with a nod in distant thought before he cleared his throat to continue.

"You're lucky you weren't killed.." he muttered with a shake of his head and another bite of the greasy white meat, his tongue rolling over his lips before he continued. "Dreadlords are not to be messed with." he frowned. That she had not only killed many Anirian guard but Dreadlords as well spoke highly of her talents. He had been a Dreadlord, he'd trained at the academy and he'd learned as well as the rest of them to follow orders and ask no questions. He'd been good at it too...

"Eat.." he beckoned as he watched her apparently fall into distant thought.. "I've known of those who can take pain from the mind.." shrugged a shoulder and winced himself, glancing down at the bloody patch of punctured cloth. "Perhaps we might find someone with better talents than that of your last healer."

 

[Aeyliea]

She blinked twice, and then shook her head as though dispelling some unwelcome thought. Which was true enough; the dark entity in her mind had not gone away, although it lie quiescent for the moment. It is in my head! The thread of fear still snaked its way through her, though she crushed it mercilessly. Just another enemy in a world full of enemies: to be crushed, subdued, and buried. "Dreadlord same as other outsider. Strong of arm, weak of...conviction?" She turned her head to look at the man, shadowed eyes in once-bronze face regarding him in a different way. "Not fear." Certainly true. It was the things inside her that she feared. It was her own weakness that she feared, not others that purported to be strong.

She picked at the bird, her appetite still weak. She gestured at her right arm and her neck. Blue-grey scales that matched her eyes gleamed dully in the firelight. "No help. Savage, wildling. My people not people to those outside Sea." It did not help her case that even among those few of her kindred that eschewed the life of the No'rei, violence was a way of life. They were born and bred to it, after all; as soon as they were old enough to wield a weapon, the winnowing began. Already a tough race, well suited to the harshness of the wilderness, those that survived their younger years became living weapons in a way that quite well mimicked that of the Dreadlords themselves.

Except Dreadlords were human. They were weaker to the elements, to hunger, to thirst, to disease, and even to pain and injury. She was living proof of the unmitigated life that had been kindled by the Seven in her and her people. They were superior, and the only thing that stopped them from expanding into the wider world was the words of their Gods.

"Pain will go," she said at last and not without a hint of bitterness. The pain would go, but she would still be crippled. She had paid for her freedom by crippling her future. It was a very bittersweet trade. "Maybe when back with People, they kill me. Weak, no use to tribe." She shrugged as if it didn't matter, but it was a bad lie. Her Name was important, but no matter the circumstance of her birth and the importance that came with it, those who could not contribute were not tolerated.

 

[Brandr]

Flickering flames danced in his grey eyes as they settled on her pensively, his expression stoic as he considered whether her estimation of Dreadlords was true. They were indeed strong, as they were trained to be, but her comment on their weakness caused a bitter sense of shame to weigh down upon him. "You assume they are all the same.."

"They are trained to be nothing more than weapons but underneath it they are human. Humans are flawed." he frowned, tossing the bone of a leg into the fire after tearing the meat from it. His gaze narrowed as it swept over the scaled skin she gestured to.

"Why return then? My people would kill me too, if I returned.. I'd rather live than afford them such satisfaction." he growled to himself.

 

[Aeyliea]

She felt immediate shame at the question. Just admitting to her own weakness was shameful enough, but to do it not only to a stranger but to an outsider made it even worse. The man had saved her life, and therefore honor required some concessions be made in his favor. Stripping her soul bare, even in so innocuous a manner, was too far.

The trouble was her, of course. She had been promised a bright future, heralded by the very stars that ordained her Naming. Hers was one rich with history and import, but even though she bore it and that title of Seer, weakness was not to be tolerated among the people. The Seven had made them to fill a role - the role of preserving the Sea. Even if they and she understood not one reason for why it was so, it was still so. The weak could not stand against the world. The weak would only bear the strong down under the weight of their need.

It came round to the same question and conclusion she had stated. It was the conviction of her people that mattered more than the strength of their arms or the resolve of their flesh. "To not return is dishonor. Weakness of spirit. Weakness of mind. The Seven decide fate. My fate is the will of Seven."

Although she could not express the idea, most especially because she was a member of the faithful, it was the fact that the No'rei were fanatics of their gods that made them so terrible and terrifying. As far as she was aware, the Dreadlords served no such being. In fact, they might not even serve any such higher ideal. They certainly did not all serve the same ideal.

"Greed. Pride. Arrogance," she said slowly, then stripped a piece of now cold flesh from the carcass and ate it without any real enjoyment. "Outside world, things important." She gestured at the portal they now sheltered in. Remnants of the greed of people from outside the Sea, seeking fortunes in material wealth as opposed to serving a higher purpose. "Gold, dirt, water. Possession. Not things to make conviction, only things to make want more things. Things and stuff not important for life, so not value high." She was uncomfortably aware of her own pride and arrogance, but hypocrisy was ever a fine art. She chose to ignore her own inadequacies while judging those that did not belong.

Perhaps it was why the Seven pushed her away. Perhaps it was a failure in following their ideals that led to this place and time.

She finished what she would eat of the cooked animal and tossed the rest aside. She had little appetite now, and the violence of the storm outside forced her to remain here. Here, in this hole in the ground, she felt ill at ease. This place seemed...profane to the senses she had developed among her people.

She cast a sidelong look at Brandr, her deceptively slight and feminine form silhouetted against the fire light. The light danced in her hard eyes, gleamed off the dampness on skin and cloth. "You? Seek things or...?" There was a touch of curiosity in her voice, the first trace of something other than the gruff outward presence she seemed to maintain as a method of defense against the outsider. Even in broken common, it was clear that she was puzzling out what it was that Brandr was seeking in his life. After all, she had crashed his proverbial party and sent the shards of his life spinning into the void. There had to be something driving the man beyond simple existence.

 

[Brandr]

"I believe your fate should be your own." he commented bluntly amidst another mouthful of pheasant. "What better strength is there than to know your own mind and make your own decisions? To live your own life as you see fit and not how you are told to live it?" he swallowed.

Her question caused a muscle to feather in his jaw, and he was unable to hold her gaze in the dim, flickering light. He was a simple man. Gold and possessions were of no interest to him. "I lost all I had. A peaceful life is all I seek now.. That was workin' out not too badly for me until I met you.." he added with a glance up at her and a quiet snort.

He tossed the picked carcass into the flames and stood, wiping his hands on his breeches and rolling his shoulder with a wince. "Care to take a look?" he asked, jutting his chin toward the tunnel of darkness that led into the mine.

 

[Aeyliea]

"Choice is mine, fate is Seven," she commented every bit as bluntly as he. "Seven judge on choice in life. Some things not chance," she added, as though that explained everything. Perhaps, if she were more articulate in his tongue, she might have been able to make the sentiment somewhat less cryptic. She could have explained that the Seven laid the road of all lives, and the many forks upon it were all trials designed to determine the worth of a soul.

The complexity of No'rei belief defied simple explanation, though. Life a trial, death a reward; rebirth a reward or a prison for the sins of the soul in its previous iterations. It was the system to enforced honor among its people, and bound them tightly to the will of capricious gods that still bore chips on their shoulders for injustices done long in the past.

"Peaceful?" She didn't have the decency to be ashamed of the things she had caused in her wake, but in this particular case it was justified. The notion of peaceful life was a strange one. No true-blooded No'rei would understand the idea; their lives were fraught with violence and danger. Violence between the outer world and themselves, and more telling, violence between themselves. Even violence within their tribes and clan. It was all as their gods wished it: strength was cherished above all other traits, strength and the indomitable will to live. The only proving ground for that was bloodshed and violence. "Not know peace. Peace breeds weakness. Weakness is..."

She trailed off.

The No'rei were very, very good at being violent.

She looked into the darkness and felt the breath of supernatural dread brush her cheek. The air in this place was strange, and the feeling of familiarity that she had noted at the outset stranger still. Something hung heavily here, either the spirits of those slain by her brethren or some other spiritual malady inherent in this place. The senses that her training as a Seer had enhanced practically hummed their warning to her.

"See what outlander want," she said as she looked back into the abyssal darkness of the adit. "Why dig in earth, not know."

She wasn't afraid of the dark. She told herself that several times as she turned to face the black, making an unconscious warding gesture with her good hand as she went back to get her weapon. She did not don her leathers again, though, choosing to remain in the linen undershirt that still steamed as it dried in the cool of the portal. She waited for him to do likewise.

 

[Brandr]

Brandr waved a hand dismissively as she spoke of the Seven again, and he chose to clench his jaw rather than bother arguing with her about weakness. In his mind, he was weak when he bowed to the will of the state, when he killed for nothing other than an order, when he'd suffered the brutality of his training and watched his friends die without being able to do anything about it. The strongest he had been, had been the day he'd left.

The No'rei had her beliefs, and he had his, but fanatics terrified of their Gods were far less likely to accept reason or views from any other, and so saving his breath seemed the wiser choice.

He cast a look through the mouth of the cave, the storm showing no sign of desisting it's assault on the lands, and he shrugged. "Might as well.." he muttered, having little more energy or patience left for talking. He armed himself and quickly assembled a makeshift torch which he lit to push back the abyssal darkness as he took the lead into the mines.

 

[Aeyliea]

If only she could be as blithe. The darkness pulled at her soul, whispered things she could not understand to her. Thunder cracked outside, echoed strangely down the throat of the adit into the depths of the world. Looking one more time back towards the surface - suppressing superstitious dread - she followed in the wake of the grizzled fellow.

The passage was wide, carved from layered stone. Running down the middle were rusty rails; ground fall edged the passage as it sloped down into the depths. There was no evidence of whatever it was the miners had sought. No seam, no fault, no vein, simply a path carved through stone leading down. The light of Brandr's torch cast wild shadows on the uneven walls and ceiling.

The amount of effort it would require to dive into the depths was impressive, even if the reason for it was as clear as mud. "Why dig?" she mused to herself. Her voice echoed oddly in the enclosed space. Almost as soon as she said it, the adit began to wend back and forth through the stone, making wide sweeps.

As though the miners had been looking for something.

The ground beneath them changed. No longer was the floor even and solid, but instead seemed to be of fill. Gravel and chunks of stone big as her head and difficult enough to walk on that using the rails and walking on them was far more preferable. Ahead, the floor changed again, shifting from broken stone to dark wood with the rails tied directly into it. Not far along the track turned sharply, the passage disappearing round a bend.

The feeling of unease only grew stronger the deeper they went. The thunder of the storm was distant now, and the odd echo of the place had vanished entirely. The path they walked now was eerily silent.

"Vel Aniri?" She asked as they approached the stretch of false flooring spanning some fathomless pit that remained unseen.

 

[Brandr]

Confusion clawed at his mind, but curiosity drove him further into the belly of the mines. He ignored her pondering for no answer nor suggestion of one came to mind. His gaze fell to his boots as the ground under them changed once..and then again, and each time he paused and muttered to himself in uncertainty.

He'd never felt unsettled by darkness, nor the unknown, but he'd never felt something consume him quite as this mine, and he felt his breaths grow tighter the further they ventured. The distant sound of the storm was something of a comfort, that they had not gone so far as to have lost their way out, that above them there were clouds and rain and sky, no matter how violent.

Brandr stopped once the silence set in, raising the torch with a squint at the floor. "Lets hope not." he answered. "We should go back.." he frowned.

 

[Aeyliea]

Oppressive silence, oppressive darkness. She slowed as she stepped out on to the false flooring before the bend in the track then turned to look back at Brandr. She nodded at the sentiment - at both of them - and was only too happy to oblige. She tooked a step...

...the sound of the wood beneath her creaking, shifting, crunching...

...the feeling of an other dragging mental claws across her mind, and she knew - just knew - that Brandr felt it as well...

...and then she was tumbling into darkness. The floor gave way beneath her - boards neither rotten nor damage suddenly gone - and she fell. It was not a long drop, perhaps twenty feet, but she hit a slow of gravel and broken stone hard enough to rattle her bones. They did not break, but as she rolled uncontrollably down a slope in the darkness, she came down on that twisted limb multiple times, and every time she did elicited a shriek of pain.

And then it was over. She lay on a sloping floor covered with broken stone, dust wafting into the darkness around her. That strange gift of night vision was still with her, even as she groaned and sat up. She would be bruised and scratched and cut, but nothing had broken on the way down. Her left arm was an enflamed brand of white-hot pain, though, and she just sat in the darkness for a moment clutching the thing to her chest, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes.

In the darkness in front of her, something stirred. And she was uncomfortably aware that she and her companion had unwelcome attention fixed upon them.

 

[Brandr]

There had not been many times in his life that he could recall being truly unsettled by whatever situation he found himself in. Whatever unseen entity that raked its claws through his mind caused the torch to fall from his hand as he whirled on his feet, grey eyes scanning the darkness as his hands clutched at his head. The flame remained, and so as he turned back toward the sound of splintering wood he was able to see his companion as the floor opened up and swallowed her.

"Aeyliea!" his echo grew larger and louder, rather than smaller and weaker as it bounced around the walls of the mines, rocks and stones here and there trembling from their nests and clacking to the barren floor. Brandr dove, his hands shot out though he had been too late to catch her and could only peer down into the void over the lip of the gaping wound in the ground.

He could hear her fall, grimaced at the sound of impacts and pain, but the darkness was too thick to see. "Aeyliea? Answer me!" he barked, and the walls barked back.

 

[Aeyliea]

It took a long minute before she could speak again. When she did, choking on the cloud of dust that drifted on the dead air, it was only to say, "Alive," so that it echoed through the open space. She did not try to rise yet, still favoring her healing arm and the numerous bruises and scrapes that oozed blood.

Those magically enhanced eyes adjusted to the gloom quickly. As the dust slowly, ever so slowly settled, she could see that this was no mine shaft. It had the look of a natural cave, chunks of stone piled here and there among the vastness of its emptiness. Easily thirty feet wide and taller still, the floor sloped down sharply into darkness. For a moment she saw the strange shelf of stone above into which the mine above dove sharply into the earth beneath.

Into the dark silence below.

Looking around, she could see images carved into the stone, and pieces of ancient artwork. Her eyes tracked to the pile of broken stone that choke the way up, and to the wooden platform where the miners had punched into this space.

The floor that had fallen out from under her lie in splintered pieces on the slop. And the drop from where she had been standing to the scree...

"Long drop. No way up," she said into the echoing darkness. Her words carried clear, and clearly strained and barely spoken through gritted teeth. She stopped suddenly, and stared into the inky black even her enhanced sight could not pierce. Something like a breath had washed down the passage. The No'rei felt the otherworldliness of it and froze for a moment in superstitious dread. Her blood had turned to ice and she had no idea why.

 

[Brandr]

Feeling another presence in this place, in his mind, had been enough to shake him. He had dealt with mental pain, had known those who could speak to his mind and torment him, who could make him see and hear things that were not there. He had known those who had lost their minds entirely, and to Brandr, there was no greater fear than madness.

His eyes strained through the darkness, but he could see nothing. But whatever the No'rei could see or sense, he was aware of it also. That they weren't alone down here.

"There must be a way." he grunted, rolling himself to his feet and striding toward the torch he'd dropped. Shadows shifted out of his way as he lifted it, waving it through the air, turning one way, and then the other as though there might be something lingering just beyond the ring of light that his flame cast.

He returned to the edge of the void Aeyliea had fallen into and squinted across it, his gaze snagging on rope hanging from an overhanging plank of splintered wood. Brandr huffed at how out of reach it was. He'd have to go around the ledge and hope the remaining planks were sturdier than the tinder now at the bottom of the crevasse.

"I'm gonna need a minute or two.." he muttered..

 

[Aeyliea]

Something in the abyssal darkness stared back at her, and she found herself licking lips that were too dry and flexing fingers that were too cold. In fact, the entire cavern had grown cold as death itself, and her breath misted before her.

She took a step back from the darkness, and then took another...

Or at least, that was what she had intended. Her legs did not work any longer, and she found herself paralyzed in place, unable to speak or move of her own volition. And as though some ancient magic had kept it hidden, concealed the truth of this place... well, whatever glamour had worked on her and Brandr fell away then.

And suddenly.

The chamber was not merely feet across, but hundreds of yards. The downward slope leveled out quickly and at its base a dais of carved stone rose in three sharp steps. Untouched by wind and water, seemingly untouched by time itself. It was not the dais that drove a spike of terror into her soul, though.

It was the coiled, serpentine shape upon it.

Half rotted, half preserved, the dragon lie coiled upon itself. White bone gleamed in a sourceless light in the terrible rents in its scales and flesh. The head lie at an odd angle, the eyes cold and lifeless and staring up the passage to the world beyond.

And in the dead air of this chamber... something stirred.

...children... of...

Her blood had been ice before. Now it was winter itself. That....voice... had breathed into her mind, a wraith of a living voice. A dream of a dream, and she knew that Brandr could hear it as well.

For a long minute she stood paralyzed, and then whatever had gripped her spine released her. ANd the sense of something reeling itself in, pulling back from the wider world and focusing itself on this one chamber, this one place.

Aeyliea turned, and started back the way she had come swiftly as something laughed softly down their spines in cold amusement.

 

[Brandr]

Brandr stumbled back from the edge of the chamber as reality shifted, his heart and mind racing in tandem. He could only squint in confusion at the sight of the dragon, its decaying form coiled upon the ancient dais. The bone-white scales and lifeless eyes sent chills down his spine, but it was the haunting voice that reverberated in his mind that truly unnerved him.

"Aey...There's, a voice, but..." he called as he turned where he stood, holding up his torch. He had no idea if the speaker had a physical presence, or if it existed only in his mind. The former would have been his preference. He'd rather see whatever it was, and decapitate it.

Aeyliea's movement snapped him out of his initial shock, urging him to move quickly. They had to escape this mine before whatever malevolent force lurked within manifested itself fully and the darkness swallowed them whole. It was difficult to gather shadow in a place with so little light, but he held up the torch with one hand as the other reached out, gathering the ambient shadows around him, commanding them to take form. Gradually, the wisps of darkness coalesced into a thick, rope-like construct, reaching like a shadowy lifeline into the chamber.

"Grab onto the shadow! I'll pull you out!" he shouted, his voice filled with urgency and strain, hoping there was enough light to give the shadow strength.

 

[Aeyliea]

Cold.

It was the bitter cold of winter, biting and utterly merciless. Spurred on by the supernatural, the white-haired No'rei darted forward toward the proffered salvation. She was heedless of showing her fear so openly, even as her breath misted. Something was coming, and it was coming quickly. Her heart lurched as the scene before her shifted once - dais cracked, stone stacked in heaps, chamber half filled with ground fall, dust inches thick on the ancient floor. Back to the wide chamber, the rotted corpse of some great beast.

What clothing she wore crackled with ice, shards of it falling away from the dampness not quite gone from the rains.

She reached out to grasp the darkness, to allow his magic to touch her even though the idea of being touched by pagan sorcery should have revolted her. She didn't care. There were things worse than dying, and the swirling miasma of ... of whatever it was that filled this ancient chamber promised that. A fate worse than dying.

She touched the lifeline, and like that the cold fell away. The presence vanished, and even as she frantically scrabbled her way up the line of solid darkness, the cavern below became depressingly normal. There was no great wyrm down there, no throne, no dais. Just inky darkness.

She reached the edge of the passage they had descended down, clawed her way onto the dry boards and lie their panting for a long moment, literally shaking where she lay. Only for a moment, before she rose, white as a ghost, and grabbed hold of Brandr. There was no asking, there was no request. She hauled on him, pulling him back the way they came as quickly as she could without speaking a word, trembling with every step.

 

[Brandr]

His hand dropped the shadowy tendril the moment Aey was safely over the edge, but his eyes were on the ditch, his torch held over it and his brow marred with unspoken confusion and his chest still heaving from panic. Other than the sound of the woman's ragged breaths, there was a silence so thick it was deafening.

"Aey--" he started to speak when she pulled at him. He wouldn't argue. There was nothing he wanted more right now than to get out of this place, and fast. His torch illuminated her ghostly features as he looked down at her, already moving. "Go. Go.." he nodded, if possible more unsettled to see the woman so horror-stricken.

He ran with her, taking care not to stumble as darkness closed in fast at their backs and the memory of that voice raked it's fingers across his mind. He craved warmth, and light, and sky- no matter how dire the storm. Brandr had no idea what they had encountered, but it had been terrible and quick and he had a gnawing suspicion that they were not free of it, whatever it was.

"There." he pointed ahead, where the flickering white light of the storm above served as a beacon, guiding them out.

 

[Aeyliea]

Cold claws scraping idly against her mind, drawing circles as though it were a table top. There was no defense she could mount against the intrusion. What defenses she had had been swiftly crushed as though they were a mere afterthought. As if she were an afterthought.

Religious terror thrummed through her. White scales, like gleaming bone ... or like the light of the moon. Her mind shut down any attempt to examine what it was she had seen, to try to understand. The answer of what was there, but she could make herself see it and speak it as easily as she could drive a spear into her own heart.

The flickering light of the storm ahead beckoned. Anywhere but this tomb of a demon [god] that was even now waking up.

No matter what horror the weather could bring, it could not compare. She ran past the smoldering fire they had made, outside into-

-sunshine. The sky was the clear, aching blue of spring before the heat of summer set in and seared the land dry. For a moment Aeyliea stumbled, staggered, as she fought with something that could not be seen. The stench of ancient magic swirled round her and Brandr both - burning tin, tinged with regret and low anger buried somewhere beneath it all. Whatever it was she fought ceased, and the world firmed.

She turned to look back the way they had come and found that the ridge of stone was taller than it had been, and the entrance into darkness was of cut stone instead of the rough face of some ancient fault. The wide passage leading down into darkness was no longer dark, shining orbs of light held captive within glass globes lighting the exceptionally wide steps heading down.

Turning again, she found low buildings made of stone, hide, and wood. Others of her kindred moved about, scaled patches of skin gleaming gold, silver, tan, blue, and a rainbow of other hues.

But something was off with the entire scene. Something did not add up, and she could not remember what it was. Only seeing Brandr recalled it to her, and if anything it made her more terrified than before. A glamour. This was a glamour they were caught in. Such a powerful glam was the province of fae folk and elder beings.

She stared a question at Brandr - are you seeing what I am seeing? - as she looked round.

 

[Brandr]

Brandr skidded to a halt as he rushed out into the sunshine, his arm raising to shield his eyes from the unexpected glare until they adjusted. The shadow fell slowly from his face, and he was able to take in the scene properly, but nothing made any sense. Emotions swirled within him, a turbulent mix of fear and rage and discomfort, unsettled by the abrupt shift in reality and the potent magic that deceived his senses.

His instincts screamed at him that they had stumbled into the realm of beings and enchantments far beyond their his understanding, and his heart pounded a warning drum in his chest.

He turned to Aey, his voice tense and low, "This isn't real, what we're seeing.." he growled, less a statement than a hope for reassurance. Brandr's gaze darted around at the surreal surroundings and the strange figures who looked much like his companion. "What sort of magic is this?.."

He reached out to grab to take Aeyliea's arm as he backed away, but as he glanced behind him he realised that the mine they'd just escaped was not as it was. He glared down at her. Something had happened in that mine, and now they found themselves lost in another world, be it illusion, vision or otherwise, but it couldn't be coincidence that those that he now saw shared such similarities to Aey.

"What is going on? How do we get back?" he demanded urgently.