Private Tales The Road

[Fieravene]

Lost track of the man - unusual given her innate abilities. This dark was not a natural dark. She followed the sound of his voice, eyes narrowing and attempting to track the movement of what should have been his shadow. His words sounded as though directly before her, but when she found herself at a split hall he was not there.

His voice had rather suddenly faded, obscured by something in the air.

Hmmm.

"Are you there?"

No answer, no hint of the light from his torch.

"Hello?"

Her own voice seemed to echo down the right path, a faint gust of cool air puffing from the darkness. With a sigh like a mother tired of playing games with mischevious children, Fiera stepped off down the right, her shade babbling as it hovered at her shoulder.

 

[Septimus]

When no answer came, he knew that Terold would be eager to keep him this time. He still, after all these years, wasn't sure what malevolent entity kept up these games, or how much foul magic was required to keep it going all this time. But the maze was ever-shifting, and the keep's hunger seemingly all consuming.

A hundred feet down the path, he found the same gouge he'd made previously and frowned. A prayer came to his lips, and with renewed vigor he plunged onward, a few more minutes finding Fiera's back just ahead of him, barely lit by the glow of his torch.

"Ah, good." He remarks, "How long have you been walking?"

 

[Fieravene]

Without much else to do other than walk in thick, viscous, dead-energy blackness, Fiera began to whistle her tune again. The path dipped and twisted to the right, seeming to pitch at an odd angle in a way that would put one off their balance. One hand pressed against the far wall to steady her, Fi carefully navigated the bend. As it flattened out she thought she saw the faint glow of a torch up ahead. Her whistle stopped, her feet paused.

Ah, good.

That gravelly voice was difficult to mistake. She resumed on her path, the glow growing brighter until it shone off the gleam of armor.

How long have you been walking.

"Stop-" she was behind him, voice low but carrying, half a dozen feet or so, just out of sword range. She could see a shadow past him, just out of the light of his torch, "don't. That's...not me."

The shape in front of him emitted a guttural rumble.

"Come back...slowly."

 

[Septimus]

When she spoke, he immediately lifted his hand from his sword, extending it to his side, palm towards her to ward her from coming any closer. This was, truth be told, the closest he'd come to whatever haunted this keep. Part of him desperately wanted to kill it, and he knew - from experience - that most magical creatures could be taken down with a sword swing.

The problem, of course, was getting close enough to make the swing; and, beyond that, actually making it connect.

With the figure facing away from him rumbling, he took a few steps back, letting the glow fade the shadow once more into the darkness ahead of him. Stopping just shy of where he'd heard the voice, he didn't bother to look back, knowing that Fiera was likely gone yet again.

So he took a few steps forward, the glow showing him that the figure was now gone. Or, at least, it appeared to be. "Always an adventure." He mutters wryly, quite used to the psychological games the keep liked to play.

"Warren is still fucking me from the grave." He adds, muttering darkly as he began moving forward again, much more cautious this time.

 

[Fieravene]

Gone in the darkness. The elf winkled her nose, lips thinning in distaste. She had an inkling of what was going on here and it made her none-too-happy, but she wasn't given much chance to consider things before the man was on the move again.

"How generous of him..."

The path continued forward, twisting left this time, pitching off-kilter and into a downward descent. The flattened stones etched out into steps and into a steeply wound spiral staircase. Fiera kept herself well in sight range of him, giving him no opportunity to slip from her view, and nearly bumped into his shoulder from the higher steps as he came to a stop.

There, at the bottom of the staircase, was that same stubborn metal gate from before and the cell block beyond.

Fiera released an audible groan.

 

[Septimus]

He smiled, giving the gate a tug back into place. "Up the stairs." He says simply, turning to go back up the spiral staircase, which wound and wound and wound, until it finally deposited them along one of the walls that made up the battlements. In years past, archers would have lined these walkways to skewer invaders in the courtyard, but now the only thing that whistled down from these heights was the wind.

"Fifteen years backpay not enough for this?" He asks, the darkness outside now total, the moon obscured by dense clouds that let out a pathetic mist that did little more than make everything look as though it was covered in dew. Down in the courtyard, torches flickered in time with the splattering of drops as the mist oscillated from mist to drizzle and back again.

He paused to look at the gates, which were now closed rather than broken - and then continued onward and into the adjacent tower, with another staircase that led them upward.

 

[Fieravene]

"You mistaken me, darling," she replied, sidestepping a gaping hole in the stone that made up the wall and toeing a sturdier ledge for good measure, "for some greedy retch pawing at coppers."

"I have no need for coin or material compensation," black hair framing her dark face began to stick from the dew and drizzle, slowly slicking down around tall, pointed ears, "it took that woman 15 years to die. Heartbroken and lamenting her past, but otherwise healthy."

Boots quietly claimed new steps, her shade zipping upwards to weave about his torch playfully.

"I deal in final wishes."

 

[Septimus]

Her response actually made him bark out a laugh. It was sharp and truncated, and utterly lacked humor. "And I thought this maze was the most macabre thing I'd deal with today." Pausing as he reached the top of the steps, he opened the door slowly into a well lit hallway, the generous orange glow dimming as he stepped forward and felt his foot sink through what appeared to be a carpet.

A thin coating of water lined the floor, and more began to bubble up as he went further, the flooding stopping around mid-calf. Dragging his armored legs through the water, he frowned as the torches began to go out as they passed.

"And what was the Madame's final wish?"

He was starting to get the impression that perhaps it was important.

 

[Fieravene]

The elf smirked at his laughter, red eyes narrowing at the peculiar nature of it. Hearty and hollow - was there really a man beneath that armor at all or had she been following a geist all along? Wouldn't surprise her in the least.

Another sigh as she paused, watching him wade into the waters. Wet feet, perfect. She'd rather be back down in the dungeon tunnels, "Fraid I can't tell you that. You're not a dealer. But-"

Shlorp. One foot, ugh.

"You know the saying dead men tell no tales?" plunk, she cringed as she waded in, careful of her foot placement now that she couldn't see where they were going, "Rubbish. The dead never stop talking."

 

[Septimus]

"It's not the floor you need to be worried about." Halfway down the hall, the torches guttered out as if in a swift breeze, leaving them alone in a gentle glow that could scarcely dream of caressing the rafters above them. The dead never stop talking, it was true. He'd learned that firsthand.

But he was getting the sinking suspicion this wasn't the dead. Or, if it was, they still believed they were very much alive. "We never knew how we lost the castle." He admits a moment later, stopping as ripples fed out into the dead waters around their legs. The light cast shimmers on the liquid below, and it, in turn, was reflected from the smooth stones above, giving the impression they were being flooded from above and below.

"Every time we'd retreat to the next stockade, the men were missing. Blood, entrails, limbs - but no men. It was like they'd been torn apart, but there was no intimation of what had done it."

Leaning forward as he heard something sloshing towards them, he could see only the vaguest impression of shadows moving against a backdrop of the purest black. The ripples in the water told him all he needed to know. They weren't moving - something else was.

"I've always wondered if the Maze was responsible. I believe now I know the truth." Drawing his sword, he kept the torch out in front of him, even as the ripples grew in intensity and frequency.

 

[Fieravene]

The far torches going out was her first clue. The weird way in which the castle seemed to be of its own mind was the second. Fiera narrowed her gaze, turning her back to him and keeping an eye on their rear. Something told her they'd been cornered.

"You know there's an old wives tale about demon houses, the Dionae. Buildings that consume the living and trap their souls. If I didn't know any better-" and she didn't, because it was an old wives tale with no proof behind it, "I'd bet a fat sow you've got a cheap imitation here."

Her red eyes began to glow again in the waning light, catching the movement in the shadows. A gloved hand moved to withdraw her dagger - the lone weapon on her form of physical nature, "How did you get out of here before?"

 

[Septimus]

He had never heard of a Dionae, but it seemed apt. "I'm not so sure it's an imitation." He admits, taking a step back towards her to close their guard. The hallway was suddenly oppressive, as though a great pressure were attempting to worm it's way into his skull from the outside.

It made it hard to concentrate, and he heard her draw a weapon, though he couldn't see what. But, before he could answer Fieravene, he felt that pressure slip into his being, and with a groan of utter agony, he disappeared - quite suddenly - beneath the murky waters in the hall, taking their lone working torch with him and returning the hallway to darkness; until the torches flickered back to life, providing illumination once again.

----

He wasn't sure if he'd blacked out, or had a momentary bout of amnesia, but he couldn't remember how he'd wound up in the cell he found himself in. It was unlocked, and with a grunt he pushed it open, fighting the rusted hinges.At that moment he realized that every bit of metal in sight was rusted, save his own armor, and the stone walls had long since overgrown with lichen, the mortar between rotted and dirty.

Stepping out into the hallway, he found his cell alone, a misty, moldering light straining in through the windows. With sword still in hand, he made his way cautiously down to the lone door that provided entry and exit. The wood here was rotted too, it's iron-fittings as rusted as the cell he found himself in.

With a push, he opened it, nearly gagging on the smell of decay that assaulted his nostrils with the suddenness of a cavalry charge. Recoiling, he was of a mind to go back into the cell, but he would find nothing there but a lingering death. He didn't need to know where he was to know that. Below his feet, a crumbling staircase of brick appeared, though he wasn't inclined to believe it could hold his weight.

"Welcome to the Garden..." The voice burbled as if from lungs bursting with fluid, and it rattled leaves and branches and set the local wildlife into disarray - if it could be called wildlife. He was fairly certain the frog he'd almost stepped on was wearing it's insides on it's outside, with five legs and seven eyes.

"Warren?" He asks, finding a pathway opening before him at the base, snaking deep into a swampy morass he was intimately familiar with.

"He is but one of many voices in the Chorus." Somewhere at the edge of hearing, flies buzzed.

"How annoyingly enigmatic."

Ahead, branches snapped, and a rusted suit of armor stepped into his way. Half the size of a giant and bloated as if someone had molded the armor to a merchant's heavy gut, he was surprised to find it not only rusted, but bearing significant battle damage. A sword nearly as long as Sep was tall was pulled along behind it in the manner a lazy child might drag a treasured toy.

"The Chorus."

"A funeral song, composed in the event Terold managed to hold it's walls."

"And how many voices?"

"Four thousand, seven hundred and seventy three."

"So you're missing one."

The suit didn't nod, nor acknowledge his remark verbally, but it did heft it's weapon in rusted gauntlets. He had an answer, of a sort. He just wasn't sure how to communicate it to the elf he'd left behind, either to struggle on her own, or marvel as to where he disappeared off to. Warren had been swallowed up. But Septimus had been too.

 

[Fieravene]

Huuuuunnnnnnngggggggh-

Blub.

Fiera's ears twitched at the sound of a man in a full suit of armor getting sucked into the belly of a Dionea. Lips thinning and nose wrinkling in disgust, the elf slowly pressed her boots beneath her through the water to stand straight. Red eyes passed along the glow of reignited torches, arming her surroundings with a look only a mother would give a child who'd played one-too-many-tricks for the day.

With a snick her dagger found its sheath, fingers leaving the hilt to gesture through the air. The torch flames sputtered from their mounts, flaring outwards into her palm until they formed one central flame amidst the burdened darkness.

"That's quite enough for one night."

And then she smashed the flames into her own face with a shriek.


...

...


Fwwwssshhhh.

Fiera's shriek died into a sputter. Coughing, she waved away at smoking flames filling her vision, "Really Delsemer, you're supposed to leave the flu open." She looked up from where she stood, a red and heady vision in the flames looking outwards into the abyss that looked back at her with far, far too many eyes.

"You have to let the fire breathe, darling, you're going smother it."

A grouping of eyes leaned in within a shrouded, shapeless shadow. It issued a questioning rumble that would have split mountains in the mortal realm. It didn't sound particularly happy.

"I'm calling in a favor owed... Don't give me that look, you know damn well what I'm talking about. Haexenkopf ring a bell?"

The eyes rolled in unison.

"I require the Eye of Gep. I've stumbled upon a Dionea - strong but not particularly ancient. At least, not by our standards."

A long, low hiss emitted from the nether that made the flames and image of the elf shiver. It grew in intensity until the flames fluttered and danced chaotically, dissipating in an uproarious snarl. Fiera drew in a wheezing breath, keeling sideways onto one knee in the waters. Her face was blackened and raw beneath layers of burnt flesh, eyes burning red in the darkness.

Her fingers once holding the flames now curled closed around an orb the size of a grapefruit.

"Oh," she whimpered with a painful smile, "always a pleasure, love."

 

[Septimus]

Nearly immediately, he hefted his sword and switched into the plow guard. It was meant for thrusting, and normally, the tip of his blade would be pointed at his opponent's neck, creating an immediate threat that would keep them from lunging at him.

But whatever this beast was, simply stabbing it wasn't going to suffice. And he couldn't parry or block, either, as he was fairly certain the blade would just crush him without a second thought.

He rather enjoyed not being a stain on the proverbial floor.

Which meant he had two options - cut the rusted knight until it stopped moving, or survive. He didn't really look at dying as an outcome, if only because he was certain his essence would be absorbed into whatever the hell was in front of him.

"Alright, Warren." The words passed his lips as a sigh, and as the greatweapon descended and he shifted his stance to sidestep it's impact, he was counting the moments until Fi figured out just what she was going to be doing.