Quest The Price of Return

[Nasir]

Nasir did not speak, nor further illuminate his situation. Instead he followed her in silence.

Speaking too much of the city within the dark had once been a cause for execution. He still remembered the days of punishment. His father had told him that in his own early lifetime things had been even more severe.

No one had been allowed to venture outside the city, and those that did were barred from ever returning. It was all a measure to keep safe, at least that was what the Elders had always claimed. It had all been lies, lies told for control.

Nasir knew that truth better than most.

As the two companions moved down the tower they would find their journey far more ordinary than before. The beautiful stonework had returned itself into twisted heaps. Cracked foundations and broken columns presented themselves more often than not, and as they reached the base of the tower Nasir couldn't help but wonder how the structure had remained standing at all.

His gaze swept around the circular graveyard as they headed east. Eyes focused on the numbers, noting that most here had died centuries before the current day. "I wonder if he found this place, or he already knew it."

Nasir stated as they left the graveyard, a nearly faded path taking them towards the mountains.

 

[Callisto]

For someone who was so implicitly put off by small conversation and trivial topics, this conversation seemed to hang delicately close to the edge of pleasantries. Chrys didn't immediately respond to the comment, instead weaving slowly through the graveyard. It was an uneven and random mixture of grave markings: polished tombstones, eroded stone placards, flats stones poorly carved and recessed in the ground, overgrown boulders, godly symbols formed in wood and wicker bindings, and unmarked kurgans.​

She stopped occasionally, kneeling down delicately as to prevent tearing the seams of her skirt, and read over the varying inscriptions. And if she weren't reading, she was playing the part very well by her own measurements. Ochre gaze shifted back and forth, line after line, and then she moved and repeated.​

"This place holds very little geographical value. It's not strategic, there doesn't seem to be a large surplus of crops, and clearly there is no tax paying population to speak of. It's nothing more than a necropolis. But not an ancient one." Sporadically, the markings indicated date ranges that had widespread beginnings and far more narrow ends. The sort of ending that seen anywhere else, would indicate some sort of catastrophe against a town.​

"I think he created this place...or..." She stood up and looked around. "At least benefited from the tragedy. Perhaps a war or...a plague? That sort of dismissal of energy can be a potent conduit for the arcane." It would make sense, in her mind. Wait for a large death event, set up shop, sup on the entropy and released energy, and move on when the well ran dry.​

Only problem is they had gotten there and screwed everything up.​

 

[Nasir]

In Nasirs mind it all but confirmed what they had thought of the tower.

Everything had been a trap, one set for fools that expected to come across their own rewards. All of this had simply been a lure to gain more power, or perhaps insight into something else. Death was a fuel like any other for the magics in this world, and it seemed that the mage behind all of this had a deft understanding of that.

Of course it did not escape him that he had been one of those fools seeking reward.

"Power for the sake of power?" He conjectured out loud, considering for a moment. "Or something more?"

The mageling atop the tower had clearly been interested in only one thing, but that did not mean it would be the same for his master. Nasir did not think highly of humanity, but creating an illusion such as this took more forethought and vision than the average.

"I am eager to find out." The drow said as they continued their journey out of the cript and towards the mountains.

Before long the ground they covered began rocky and barren. Trees and plants had long ago withered, and the earth itself seemed as dry and destitute as the Graves that they had earlier crossed. There was no sign of wildlife, and even the insects seemed to have fled this place long ago.

A valley opened up before them as they walked, the sound of boots crunching on stone ringing out.

 

[Callisto]

Her desires seemed to grow in parallel to the Drow, though she was hardly keen on spending breath to announce it. The camaraderie between the two companions waxed and waned, swelled by mutual interest and dissolved by the ever persistent distrust that was only to be expected. After all, were it not for her own concern for profit, she wouldn't have agreed to take this voyage in the first place. Her continued participation hinged on that and the almost palpable interest in the events that would follow, unfolding in ways she couldn't seem to predict. ​

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It was, perhaps, her inability to predict the outcome that most strongly tethered her to the path laid out before them. Murkiness and a lack of elucidation was largely uncharted territories for a sorceress of her experience.​

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As they moved through the burgeoning mountainscape and descending valleys, Chrys followed trails cut by watercourses and snow melt with an almost vacant gaze. At the tip of the peaks, white caps covered the geography with a profound line as if purposefully drawn with an unsteady hand. Below, ridges and plateaus of basalt and flint were marred by deep grooves and peppered by monstrous boulders. The descent into the valley was heralded by a motley of gravel patches and heather, growing like mange across the landscape.​

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It was far from picturesque. Though the sound was what caught Chrys most off-guard. Every footstep across the rocks seemed to echo indefinitely and the sound of randomly displaced boulders, moved by settling or the aggravation of wind, bounced back and forth between the mountain peaks. If life had once flourished here, the clues were all but gone.​

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"A cavern with a wyrm..." Chrys uttered, tightening up the shawl as a gust of wind howled passed them. "You don't suspect the Magician put a sign up to greet us?" She smirked as her gaze lifted upwards towards a peak. "Our time would be better spent divining the location. Assuming the wards don't protect against it." That was likely, she thought. Though a cavern occupied by a Wyrm would undoubtedly be extensive, the sort that could rival the subterranean expanses of Belgrath. Such a thing would be difficult to hide, no matter the power of the sorcerer.​

 

[Nasir]

Nasir looked around the landscape, bright blue eyes shifting over the barren rocks and gravel that composed every inch of this place.

His lips thinned. He was oddly reminded of the Undercity, or rather the tunnels beneath. He remembered them well. How they seemed to go on and on with no real direction to them. Nasir closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the wind rush over the rocks.

"You're right." He agreed.

It could them months to find the correct cavern, using magic to at least find the entrance would be a greater boon than just searching by hand.

"Do you know a spell?" Nasir asked. "My own talents do not lay in such things."

His gaze flickered from her towards the mountains that lay behind them. He could see where some of the jagged rock had been flattened long ago, likely the path of a wyrm from a decade before.

There was no doubt they were near what they searched for, but not close enough to make a guess.

 

[Callisto]

She frowned, mentally kicking herself over the question. It went without saying that divination and discerning location, nearing the power of astromancy but without all the necessary details of birth location, birth time, or other important characteristics, fell within her abilities. In fact, in many situations, it was the means for which she obtained her more common desires.​

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But there was a bit of an unfortunate requirement to it. "I do but...it requires attachment." She stated coldly, looking back towards the drow. "An item, either owned, produced, or desired by the person of interest. Say...a stone atop a tower?"​

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Her eyes narrowed, realizing that she may have been a bit short sighted regarding this whole endeavor. She would have, typically, thought ahead and grabbed something of value before departing from the tower. It occurred to her that the spat between her and the Drow may have set her off kilter.​

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"Alternatively..." She turned to look out towards the landscape. "Despite the banality of our banter, you aren't exactly a commonality. It could be that you, a Drow, are the interest and desires of our magician as much as he is yours."​

 

[Nasir]

How much did he want this?

A way home was always a gamble. A piece of himself did not come idly, and especially considering what lay at the heart of him. Lips thinned and he thought of the risk that he would take. Plus there was the chance that the mage did not want him at all.

Unless the man who had orchestrated knew him especially. Was that possible? Did someone on the surface know what he had done? Why he was exiled? What he'd taken from the priests?

Lips thinned.

There were a thousand assumptions he could make, but he would not know the truth unless he took the next step. Of course, that provided the Witch did not double cross him. Trust between them was thin even now. Fingers tightened.

If she tried, He could always ensure neither of them walked away whole. "Very well."

Was all that he said.

"we shall try." Though there was once again no guarantee of success.

 

[Callisto]

"We will do more than that." She confirmed with a confident gaze, looking for a bit of flat area around them with a proper view of the landscape in every general direction. She had neither the time nor the temperament when it came to estimations of her capability, or inabilities. Whether that depended on her talents or the alchemic and astromancy ingredients available, it simply wasn't in her to approach the task with pessimism and uncertainty.​

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"Stand right there..." She pointed with a sharp nail towards a piece of flat rock. Reaching into her bag, she withdrew and dagger point of amethyst, bound by a long cord of leather and ensnared by a cage of delicate copper wire. She began to twirl the stone slowly, holding an open hand towards the Drow.​

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"And think on your sins. Think of all the things you did, deserving of excommunication." Her sulfuric gaze shifted from the tall Drow to the surrounding area. "Think of all the disappointment you may have caused, all the opportunities that were lost. And dwell on it."​

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The basest principle of magic was emotion. It was the alpha and omega, never used for control but forever drawn upon for amplification. For those that taught the arts, most would suggest avoiding it like a moth should avoid a flame. But for those who could control it and empower it with emotion, it could add a dimension to magic that far surpassed standard tutelage. "What makes you angry?" She whispered. A beacon was far more attractive when it was brightly lit.​

 

[Nasir]

Death, misery, distrust.

Nasir had caused much of it over the course of his five hundred years of life. He had instigated a massacre, began a coup, lead groups of bandits. In his time he had ravaged countries and castles on a whim. He tried to think on those times, the negativity, the dourness of his quest.

All of it.

The people's suffering had been inconsequential. The tears shed nothing before his goals. Nasir had never cared for what he'd done, and that didn't change now.

The Witch Dug deeper, her words seeking his hatred. "This place."

He answered, his words seething with a slow rage.

"What I am forced to do." Lips thinned, and then he quietly added. "The gods that put me here."

In his mouth the word seemed twisted, rage boiling inside of him. In that moment Callisto would be able to feel something else within Nasir. Not just the Drow's rage, not just his anger, but something far deeper. Something that roared and reached in a mixture of anguish and unknowingly impossible rage.

 

[Callisto]

The twirling of the stone grew louder as her elbow arch, violently whirling in a cyclic motion. That was good, she thought, because it would drown out the hum of satisfaction escaping her lips. The energy pouring out from the Drow, charismatic and emotionally tainted, was like liking tasting honey for the first time.​

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"You hate yourself..." She stated, eyes drifting from the Drow and towards the mountains. "You hate the place you've been put, the levels of degradation. You cross an expanse of shit and mud at the shadow of a hope that it might turn out." She smiled, the crystal shard humming and whistling as it lost shape in the propeller forming at her side. ​

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"You take a journey that you despise. And that journey only lowers your estimation of self." Her eyes shifted in tone, like the sun blotted out by passing clouds. Chrysanthemum. Violet. Violet. Violet.​

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Chrysanthemum.​

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"Good." She whispered as the wind caught up with the motion, whipping her shawl about and shaking the scree beneath her feet. "Your anger is a beacon. A beautiful..." She gasped. "Dear god, you are repre-"​

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Her words cut off as the stone jerked forward, pulling her in a lunge as she clamped her feet down and slid across the rubble. Like a leashed beast, trying to escape, the stone shifted left and right towards the mountain. Clinching down hard, she twirled her wrist, wrapping the lace around and cinching it with her free hand. A bolt of energy snapped out and smacked against opposing mountain side, scarring the lower shrub line with a arch of fire and smoke. ​

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Gaining a bit of control, she sighed as the shard stood out from her like a spear in the direction of a crevasse along the face of the mountain.​