Private Tales The Road

[Septimus]

​

Blackwood was generally a picturesque example of a forested mountain range. But as the forests fed down the slopes and towards the swamps, things became much more ominous. These remnants of the Lost Harvest are a reminder of a time only a few years past, when the dead rose up and swarmed across the land, devouring villages, towns and keeps in their rush to take as much territory as they could.

Stopped only by noble sacrifice, the decrepit remains of their warpath still littered the marshes in the form of muddy roads, forgotten homes, and rotted trees. Many avoided these paths; Septimus did not. While he wasn't the only monster hunter who braved the forgotten trails, he was the only one out upon them today. At least that he had seen.

His horse, a midnight black destrier, was well accustomed to these areas and ambled along with the easy confidence of it's rider. Garbed in the mixture of plate, chain and leather so common to his people, he kept his pale eyes scanning the treeline.

Werewolves weren't uncommon, though he'd heard whisper of a wendigo in the region, created from a particularly onerous hermit who'd finally succumbed to near-starvation by feasting upon the rotten, human flesh he found around him.

It was hard to say, really. Often these trips went unremarked and without incident. If he were lucky, it would remain that way.

Fieravene

​

 

[Fieravene]

The whistled tune sounded from a distance at first, lingering through the mists and the dark shadows of the trees. A moving silhouette morphed across a footpath, largely ambiguous and tagged by a roving cluster of glowing red lights. As the armored man continued on the shadow became clearer, following on converging trails, and eventually took the shape of another rider set atop another black horse.

They met at the crossroads, whistle winding down from the lips of a dark-skinned she-elf and a band of amorphous shades bobbling around the legs of her horse.

"Evening," said the elf, red eyes sliding over the dull glint of steel weighing down the man's steed, "are you familiar with this here wood? I've come up a bit lost."

 

[Septimus]

The whistling was disarming, if only because he hadn’t heard anything whistle in these woods for many years. Now, the only companion for these trips was the tune whistled between dead, bare branches that made a gnarled canopy of neglect overhead. So to say he was on guard was putting it lightly, but it wasn’t obvious. Rather, he simply became more alert with the sweep of his eyes and the loosening of his hands on the reins.

With a raised brow beneath his helmet, he studied the lithe elf who approached. Magic was clearly her game, in so respect. In years past, he might have killed her on sight - or at least made the attempt. Now? He wasn’t so sure.

“I am.” He replies, keeping a wary distance from her, his horse halted and posture relaxed. “Where are you headed?”

 

[Fieravene]

"I-" began the elf, as if preparing for a noble dissertation, and drew out a sheath of parchment from a foreward saddle bag, "am looking for someone. A-"

She tilted her head to read down her nose, eyes narrowed and finger lightly tracing along the symbols written across the paper, "Warren Stirgutt. Said to reside at the southern path of the Blackwood Wallows...Hallows? Well," a blink, parchment folded with a snap, "whatever it is, this place is dreary as a ghoul's anus. I'd be appreciative of any guidance."

 

[Septimus]

Looking for someone? Here? Actually, pretty damn hilarious. He snorted at the hilarity, pale eyes obscured as he closed his eyelids and snorted again. Hilarious.

“Your information is likely out of date.” By a wide margin. “No one has lived here for years....” A brow rose high, and then he scanned the pathway behind her.

“Save for monsters.” He inhaled deep, and let that exquisite thought pass through his nostrils on a brief gust of air. “Unless Warren is our wendigo.” He nudged the horse into motion to pass by her, moving on in his hunt.

 

[Fieravene]

She followed his progress forward on the trail with her gaze, nudging her own mount to follow, interest peaked at the last statement, "A Wendigo? Really? Mmmm," that was the sound someone made when they smelled freshly baked pie, not when they heard the word wendigo.

"Fetching."

"Either way, I have an obligatory need to find Mr. Stirgutt," a shrill call in the distance gave her curious pause, "or whatever is left of him."

 

[Septimus]

Grunting noncommittally, he let his horse carry him along the marshy ground, hooves sinking in before suctioning their way up and out of the muck. "And this obligatory need...." he begins, as wary as ever, "...comes from.... what? A debt left unpaid? Family long since lost?"

He shrugged, knowing no elves had truly called Blackwood home, as they were an insular, human-centric people. "Either way, we may be looking for weeks, as the paths have changed over the years - the Southern Path of the Long Summer isn't the same Southern Path we may yet search now."

"And what might I call you, sorceress? These woods are haunted, dark and deep, and a name is a powerful thing."

 

[Fieravene]

"A missive," she filled in the question, "of utmost importance from his sister Eddalynn."

Her horse stepped on behind his own, cloven hooves sticking and unsticking in the muck.

"She's waited over fifteen years thus far, a few weeks more is of no consequence."

Shadows flitted and flickered about them, the elf's shades nattered and garbeled as they bobbed about and ahead, seeking out the path they traveled, consuming bugs and small creatures as they went. The elf seemed at ease here, dark and deep and haunted as it was.

"A name is it?" getting cozy quick, she liked that, "You may call me Fiera. If you're feeling friendly you may call me Fi." Smirk.

 

[Septimus]

"Slow post." He replies, apparently trading vocal inflection for the world's most deadpan sense of humor. Ahead, he knew, lay old Terold Keep, it's doors hoved inwards by a battering ram which - if he recalled correctly - had been made of the bones and gristle of a few hundred people. He preferred not to think of that particular scene if he could help it.

The memory of it sent a shudder along his spine, the wet snap of each impact raising the bile in his throat. Gripping the reins a little tighter, he mentally calmed himself with a few much needed - and quite deep - breaths before nodding once.

"Fiera." He replies, "How does a Dark One come to us, surrounded by shades and riding a black horse, only to deliver a message fifteen years late?"

 

[Fieravene]

A low laugh sounded from the elf at the joke, thick with mirth and humor. It was not an unpleasant laugh until her shades chimed in, then it was just eerie.

And her smirk persisted at the new nickname, "Dark One...I like it," uttered mostly to herself. She'd been called some doozies, but this one had a good ring to it. Powerful. Spooky.

"Late? No no darling, my services are rendered precisely on time. It merely took her 15 years to pay for them."

 

[Septimus]

He swayed with the gait of his steed, drinking that in. Passing below a willow, still festooned with frayed rope where the bodies had long since dropped, he continued breathing quietly as they rode. What missive cost so much it took fifteen years to pay for? It made little sense. While the shades themselves were worthy of caution, the idea of a missive being so expensive and so late, while still being delivered?

Preposterous.

"So why bother if you know you won't find more than a grave?"

 

[Fieravene]

"Because I," declared the elf, reaching up to one of those ropes and giving it a yank. It didn't budge.

"Hm, stubborn one-" a whistle drew the nearest shade upwards into the boughs where it somehow sliced the rope free to fall into her lap. Fi took a moment to look it over, study it, and remark that yes this would do nicely. A short flick sent a caterpillar sailing through the air to be caught and gobbled by a shade before she stuffed the length of rope into a saddlebag.

"am an elf of her word."

 

[Septimus]

He knew the sound of a rope being worked loose when he heard one, and he tilted his head before nodding. "And an elf quite obsessed with the remnants of the dead." He replies, leading her down an incline where the branches showed some vestigial signs of life in the form of an achingly sparse canopy.

Somewhere ahead, in the mists, a bastion rose as a broken monolith to the folly of life. The first tower of Terold Keep was always the worst, but he was pleased to find he didn't suffer any particular _episode._

"Though, given your company, I'm hardly surprised."

 

[Fieravene]

A sanguine smile full of pearly teeth followed after his comment, the elf's middle wending and bending in stride to her horse as it took to the decline with steady, sure hooves.

"Don't sell yourself short, darling," she tickled at a shade as it bobbled by resulting in a high-pitched reeeee from the thing, "you're a bit grim but you've got charm. I'm delighted to have you as company."

 

[Septimus]

It wasn't the worst sound he'd ever heard a creature make, but it was far from the most appealing. He placed it squarely between the sound of a werewolf choking on a femur and a ghoul tumbling down a mineshaft. She was almost insufferably happy, which he would have been perturbed by if he could bring himself to care.

The slope leveled out, passing beneath a broken-backed tree that arched sharply over the pathway like a dislocated elbow. One bastion had become two, and the tops of the walls were just beginning to break through the mists. Though he hadn't been referring to himself, he was far from correcting her on the matter.

"That makes one of us." A bird, startled by their approach, took flight, revealing itself to be a rather starved crow that flapped, quite pathetically, away from the travelers. "Welcome to Blackwood Hallow." So-named because it was almost like a small valley within the middle of the marshlands. Otherwise, there was little to differentiate it from the gloomy mists they'd left behind.

 

[Fieravene]

She knew exactly what he meant, but that was dark elf humor for you. Or perhaps just Fieravene humor.

Haw haw HA-K-

The crow disappeared in a puff of ebony down and a fat looking shade skittered off trailing patchy black feathers. Fiera pulled her lips in to a humored smirk at the little rapscallion. Shifting her gaze at the introduction, the elf surveyed the Hallow with a bright gleam to her eyes, "Lovely." Said like someone admiring a potential summer vacation home.

Nudging her steed forward to catch up with the man now that the path had leveled and widened, she drew up along his left, "And you are, what precisely? A Warden of the territory?"

 

[Septimus]

He supposed it was better to be eaten than starve to death. Though, that damn wendigo meant at least someone disagreed. Selfish prick. He'd cut that beasts head off one day, he was sure. With the keep growing ever larger, it's walls long since covered by moss and the stone of it's construction tumbled out around the breaches like intestines from a sword-gash, he took a side-path that lead up towards the decaying edifice which had once commanded the trade-road.

"A Warden, yes." He replies, though of what, he wouldn't say. "Terold Keep hasn't seen visitors in years - I suspect our welcome will be rather mute."

 

[Fieravene]

If Fiera hadn't been intimately familiar with a few dozen other ruins just like this one she might've inquired as to its fate. Fact of the matter was, in the end all those stories were usually the same - regardless of who perpetrated the death and destruction. That they would be received with reticence was of no consequence to her.

She much preferred the solitude of a barren and broken realm to the hive of activity that flourished across Arethil's many cities. But even the living had their uses.

"I saw a great tower to the north as I came over the mountain pass into this valley, do you know of it? I will have need to make a correspondence once this matter is settled."

 

[Septimus]

The ride to the gates was swift, and he dismounted just outside the dislocated remnants of the bastion's rotted doors. Clearly beaten inwards, only one was still partially attached while the other was flat in the courtyard. Climbing down from the horse, he looked to her with a nod, palm finding the pommel of his sword.

"I do." With that, he turned to stride into the keep, a set of stables off to the right still blessed with a partial roof. The dark stains beneath told the same tale as the rest of the destruction more easily visible in the waning light of day.

Pausing at the top of the steps that lead into the keep itself, he whispered a gentle prayer atop the shattered remnants of a barricade. Going inside, he scanned the rafters and the side corridors before turning to face her. "Warren Stirgutt?" He asks, just wanting to confirm the name before going further.

 

[Fieravene]

The locale was abused and dreary, much like the swamp leading up to it. Reds took in the site from below as they neared, her horse coming to a halt at the right of his own. She whistled, mildly impressed the place was holding together for as woe-begotten as it appeared. Peering next to watch the dismounted Knight make his ascent, the elf raised a brow as he paused - keen ears picking up utterances without context.

Prayer, a novel thing. She preferred her own a la mode.

A softer smile followed, less of mirth and more of some wane sense of compassion for whatever he felt would help his cause. It certainly would do her no good.

"The very same," she replied, leaning to dismount and follow at distance. Keen not to interlope on hallow ground, if that's what this was to him, she was left to wonder just how well it might support the weight of the man and his metal.

 

[Septimus]

Another nod, and he lead her across mossy stone. It was during the Harvest this keep had fallen - the first to try and break the true might of the hordes streaming in from the swamp. They had failed miserably. Despite fetid pools of water, smooth stone and rotten wood that seemed already strained to near-break, he moved confidently to the stairs that lead down to the dungeon.

Motioning for her to follow, his hand now gripping his sword more firmly, he warily made his way down the spiral stairs designed, as with most castles, to elongate any attempt to breach the true heights of the keep. Though, in this case, it was more so that if anyone tried to escape the dungeons, they'd simply die in the attempt.

A rusted gate greeted them at the bottom, miraculously intact, all things considered. With a grunt, he broke the lock and pushed it open, the metal screeching it's way across stone before it locked into place, leaving him just enough room to squeeze through. A few cells, all still closed, skeletons locked in place where they'd likely been left to starve.

All save the last, where the skeleton lay separate from the skull.

"Warren." He says, gesturing vaguely. "The first time we realized the dead had spies among the living."

 

[Fieravene]

He moved quietly for someone stacked with steel, but if he moved quietly then the elf moved like a shadow. Soundless, light steps followed those that made the boards creak and protest. Slipping in through the opening of the stubborn gate, she eyed the cells through the darkness with a crimson gaze backlit by what might've been the fires of some odd hell.

Poor, unfortunate souls left to shrivel and rot, their binds still clung to them in perpetual purgatory. There were souls trapped in here but not ones she had any vested interest in.

Warren Stirgutt, however...

Fiera made a sound of interest, striding up beside the taller man to peer in to the cell. Her sense of enthusiasm nigh wilted immediately. Lips pursing, she released a long, low whistle.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr- the tiniest of growls as a shade flew in down the stairs and stopped at attention before her, beady eyes glowing the same red as her own.

"Fetch," gloved hand pointed at the skull.

With a chirrup it fluttered in, engulfing the skull and - with some further effort of its own - bobbling back out through the bars to deposit it on her waiting hand, spirit ichor coating the bone.

"Hmmm," she frowned, brow furrowed, and tapped at the skull, "no. He's not here."

 

[Septimus]

Beyond the last cell lay another door, down into which a tunnel stretched. While she did what she did, he pulled a torch from a sconce and ignited it, not surprised to find it still flammable. This place was part of him now, and always seemed to have what he needed. "That's him." He replies, knowing for a fact that the individual he'd killed that day was Warren.

Unless something had come through and swapped out the skull.

"If whatever you need isn't there, then I am of no further help." He leaned his shoulder into the door, pushing it open until it stopped, dirt piled up behind it like a makeshift doorjamb.

He stretched his left arm out, sending the orange glow of his torch down along a dirt tunnel lined with roots and dripping with condensation. "Don't try and go back the way we came, Terold likes to keep what it finds."

 

[Fieravene]

"It may very well have been," she replied, stuffing the skull into a leather cross-body bag, "but he's not here. Not like the others..."

A sigh, the elf began muttering something under her breath while massaging fore and thumb at her brow line, interrupted by his warning.

"Indeed," she said, passing a glance about before looking to the flame of his torch. A nod was given, indicating for him to lead the way, and she followed with the shade floating at her shoulder, "Where did this man live? I must find his home."

 

[Septimus]

He was already gone before she nodded, disappearing into the damp, murky blackness. Despite the glow of the torch, the darkness seemed intent upon swallowing the light, and even as they descended he could feel that they were going up rather than down, at least for the moment.

"I haven't the faintest clue." He replies, much more on-guard now, though he kept his sword in it's scabbard. "All manner of beast lay claim to these lands. Any one of them could have what you seek, and I am no seer." He paused a few hundred yards into journey, a pair of paths leading off in forks.

There was little indication that either would lead them to safe harbor. With a sigh, he dug a clump of muck from the passage wall and then started down the left path, holding the torch in front of him as if to ward off a wolf.

"Fifteen years is a long time, and unfortunately, I doubt even if you found where he'd live that you'd find anything of value."