Completed The Veil in Ice

Tenrof

A Shadow out of Time
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The Northern Mountains of the Spine were no place for any mortal man to tread. Nothing but death would await one there.

Focraig'Diin being an ice mage still counted, as even his tolerance for the cold died a miserable death in the face of the harsh winds. Yet he had arrived. To the place whispered only in scant letters and scrawled images. The College of Elbion had served its part. Now, he would at last see if the legends of old held truth.

The mountain towered over the young ice mage, a monolith of ebony standing above the howling winds. But signs of architecture, worn by the passing of time, remained. Pottery and furniture. Faded runes and crumbling arches.

The Icy Veil, it had been called. Home to a figure existing long before anyone born eons after could dream to die.

"Keeper of Crows," breathed Focraig, his eyes glowing icy blue.

"Here I come."
 
A piece of string, bits and pieces from the bottom of her pockets, and a few items picked up from her surroundings. Weaving the string between her fingers, Nina watched the fire. It’s not good to think too much about cantrips. They don’t work if you think too much. How long a piece of string, Nina had asked her grandmother. How many items? How large? The fire crackles. Her fingers tangle themselves in the string. You’ll know, her grandmother said. You’ll know when you need it. The voices ring vividly in Nina’s mind, along with the scorching memory of terracotta stove that she used to curl against, the way her chair would squeak when she shifted on it.

Under her heavy woolen cloak, her back tenses against the cold.

The string is red yarn, just a thread ripped from her socks worn from too much walking. In it, twirl a handful of items Nina had absentmindedly fished from her pockets: a stub of charcoal, a silver coin, a strip of leather too short to be useful, charcoal-covered breadcrumbs. Up and down they spin, like flotsam on the sea waves. Like water, a cantrip is also a mirror, for all things are connected. A few times, the items roll on the ground, and then she has to start again.

But a mirror needs to be accurate. Alongside these reflections of time, Nina needs to capture the place. So she adds: a shard of pottery from the ruins, the feather of a crow, a strip of bark pulled from one of the few branches she could gather for her fire, a tuft of moss. Inside the onyx-colored ruins, the wind barely reaches, and in her room, moss grows in the cracks of the pavement. Presumably, when the winds fade, the icicles in the ceiling melt, and light can flow through the cracks. Maybe the fact that the moss grows from a rundown runic circle has something to do with it too.

Absentmindedly, Nina toys with the string. She looks at the arrangement, and gets the vague feeling that something is missing. She stands up. The weight of her furs pressed down on her. Without them, she thinks, without the kindness of the orcs at the foot of the mountain, she would have died before making it even this far. From the distance she might even look like an orc, now, with the clothing that at least doubled her size, half her face covered by her scarf, and the rest of it shaded as she walks away from the fire. Her shadow stretches long ahead of her.

For the orcs it had been an issue of honor. One of their brothers had fallen into slavery, and on his way back, it was Nina’s grandparents who found him in a chicken coop with a mouth full of feathers. They beat him up with a broom; took care of him. Wise people, that orc said. Shamans. The ones around him nodded. One of the orc women even pulled Nina aside and taught her how to make these rags with absorbent hemp on one side and dried pine resin on the other, for that time of the month, though she didn’t phrase it as such. The waterproof resin meant one didn’t have to change them as often, and the fewer times she had to expose her naked butt to the elements, Nina thought, the better.

The traveler walks away from the fire, the fire she’d struggled so hard to build. This time, she thinks, she even had to use a dash of the turpentine she kept for painting. The frozen logs wouldn’t light up otherwise. Maybe she should use her fingers next time. She chuckles. The orcs called her ‘Twiggy’. Maybe this was as far as she could go. Maybe Gray was right.

In anger, she kicks one of the loose boulders lying around, and winces. Her eyes dart around.

Snowflakes. Right. That’s what her cantrip needed. She walks past the doorframe, and rises the tangle of string up to catch a few of them.

The wind picks up, and a gust of it suddenly smashes the young woman against the wall behind her. She glimpses a blue flicker. She cannot move. It howls in her face and, for a few moments, she cannot breathe. Then it winds back down.

Fallen to her knees, Nina looks down at her cantrip. A few snowflakes glisten on the coin. The breadcrumbs and have flown off, and landed in a strangely straight line. ‘Towards my goal, or towards safety?’ Nina wonders. She blinks as the wind flicks the black feather into her left eye, and puts it in her hair. There is a red splash on the snow. The wind had frozen the string until it cut like a razor. Cautiously she untangles herself from the string, and sucks on the wound.

A bad omen.

‘THE WAY IS BARRED’

The words on Nina’s forearm sting like frost.

“One more day!” She challenges the blizzard. Her voice rises hoarsely.

The closest she walked to this area of the Spine, the stronger that feeling became. She was nearly there, she was sure of it. Maybe close to breaking Gray’s hold on her. And the sharper Gray’s messages grew, as they appeared scratched on the inside of her arm. Before, weeks may pass before he paid her any mind. Now, her skin didn’t even have time to heal before that familiar pain irrupted. In the last week, the pain had been almost constant as a flurry of messages was etched deeper and deeper into her flesh. Overimposed as they were over the previous ones, they became difficult to read.

‘TURN BACK! TURN BACK AND GO AWAY! ‘
‘FOR COME WHAT WILL AND COME WHAT MAY’
‘NOT YET IN THIS TIME OR PLACE’
‘MUST YOU AND HE MEET FACE TO FACE.’
‘TO YOU ALONE, O CHILDLIKE ONE,’
‘THE WAY IS BARRED, TO YOU ALONE’


“One more day,” Nina tells herself. “Then I’ll go back.”

[ooc: I hope it’s all right if I join! Also, the poem is not mine, but lightly adapted from a book (The Neverending Story)]
 
The mage trudged on forward, against the winds and onto solid earth, off the snow that covered this desolate land. Just as the illustrations showed. The structure he spied at the uppermost regions was unmistakeable - The statue of a crow carved into its face, partly visible before the frigid winds. He only hoped the dweller within hadn't croaked, even if the legends spoke of the entity's incredible longevity. His shoes were crusted with ice, from the sheer distance he had traveled. He breathed mist as he knelt upon the stone, wiping off the icicles from the leather. Said action swept aside the snow shifting on the cold earth, revealing the remains of a cobblestone path. And footprints. Recent ones.

It appeared he wasn't alone. Rising to his feet, eyes gleaming faintly with magic, the mage followed the trail, his steps more aloof from not having to march through white snow that came up to his knees. The path had split off - the footprints went in one direction, while the road itself led towards a gate built into the mountain, surrounded by statues of frozen skeletons. A right trap if he ever saw one. But he followed the foot tracks first, his conscious concerned at the poor soul whom trekked into this frozen land. As he followed into a path surrounded by cliffs, he spotted smoke rising further ahead. He doubled his pace, hoping the fellow adventurer hadn't succumbed to the cold.

But then he saw a splash of blood just a few feet from the dying campfire, and feared the worst.

"Is anyone there?"

((Feel free Nina! Welcome to this little adventure! Consult the guidelines if you're still a little unsure about Rping!))
 
Nina had walked off to a side room, where a crack in the wall let in enough light for her to bandage her hand. The blood froze almost before she could do so. Not good, she thought. She folded her fingers. And the constant wind outside was getting on her nerves. The way it kicked loose stones around, it almost sounded like…steps. These ruins were going to drive her mad.

When she heard the voice, the girl grew very quiet. She eyed the crack in the wall again, wondering if she could jump up to it and sneak through, if needed. She drew her fingers over the wall. Bandits tended to inhabit these godforsaken lands. She rubbed her hands. Did it matter? Without her backpack, which she’d left behind, she stood no chance against the weather either way.

Quietly, she turned back. She stepped forward in the firelight.

At first she saw a shadow. It took a while for her eyes to adjust.

As for her…she was female, that’s what about you could tell. Young. A heavy yak pelt was wrapped around her. Her hair, adorned with beads, was stuck to her forehead under a fur cap, and on occasion one might catch a whiff of clothes constantly worn for weeks. There was a bandage around one of her hands, while the other was wrapped in a heavy mitten. Her lips were awfully cracked by cold, and there was a crumble of bear pastrami on her eyebrow.

“Who are you? Only mages and fools roam around here.” She said. Her voice was hoarse after not talking for so long.

As she spoke, a drop of blood trickled from her cracked lips and, annoyed, she wiped it off with her sleeve. She eyed him curiously.

He looked, undoubtedly, human. A relief, in these strange places. No obvious weapons. The sort of figure you’d expect to whip out a notebook and ask you about your taxes. Yet she was careful to keep the fire between them.

Still…Nina’s eyebrows raised along with the pastrami crumble. The oddly shining eyes, and...Wasn’t he wearing slightly too little for such harsh weather? Not letting him out of her sight, Nina took out a small pouch from her sleeve and proceeded to rub ointment on her lips. The smell of bear fat and marigold filled the room. She waved at him with a finger full of grease.

“You’re not one of them undead, are ya? One of them vampires or lychees.”

((ooc: Thank you!))
 
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Alive, but just barely clinging to it, if the weak voice was any indication. She was a bit more suitably clothed for the weather than he was, thankfully. He would hate giving up his own cloak to the girl, even if his disposition meant the cold was to him like how the desert people felt the summer sun. Trudging half naked in the frozen wastes was suicidal, no matter the vivid memories of his mentor forcing him to do so would suggest otherwise.

Damn that training regime to hell.

"I'm a mage, young traveler, neither dead nor afflicted with the moon curse."

He gazed at her bandaged hand, and the wariness in those eyes. He could see the determination in them. He would appreciate such vigor were the circumstances different. The landscape.

With a brief release of magic, the area around him was instantly vacated of snow, revealing the stone beneath the icy layers. He took the additional effort of absorbing the residual chill from the air, and the embers of the flame sparked with more life, as it consumed the now even air, no longer as cold. It wouldn't do for one to freeze here, not when they came as far as he. Surely their goals intersected, perhaps?

"We can help each other."

He settled on the stone, grimacing as patches of ice formed where his hand was. Evidently his control was frayed, from the constant travels. Normally, digesting the chill would have taken mere minutes, without any leaking of magic whatsoever.

"None would venture towards the Icy Veil without cause."

He set a hand on his chest in greeting, eyes still alight from magic.

"I am Focraig'Diin. An Ice mage."

Nina
 
“Young one?” Nina grinned, eyeing the other’s fine-featured face. She avoided the eyes. “You’re…” ‘just about my age’, she was about to say, but something got stuck in her throat. “…not hundreds of years old, are you?” The woman finished quickly.

Mages. They weren’t always what they seemed. Gray had the same ageless look, and he didn’t even have the dignity to call himself a wizard.

This one was a mage no doubt. Nina’s eyes went wide open when the room warmed up. “Careful!” She hissed. There was a twang of energy that went across her. ‘Music, played backwards,’ she thought.

Yet, no matter how wrong it felt, unbidden, tears were flowing down her cheeks. It had been weeks since she felt this warm. Spasms ran down her back, as muscles that had coiled to keep the warmth inside her could finally relax. She winced. Her hands were shaking.

“I mean…Thank you. Sorry. Just felt…” She touched her forehead. Unable to find her words, she raised her palm and rotated it at the wrist. “Twas mirrored, wasn’t it?” Not the sort of mirror she used. Not a reflection. ‘Reversed’ was the word Nina meant, but the weeks of solitude made words difficult. This, on top of words only being tangentially related to the images she felt. ‘A river flowing backwards’. Auras, Gray had called them. Vague concepts of images in a mirror losing power with every reflection flickered in her mind. Of costs that were subtly different as one passed through the glass. She felt stupid. As if he didn’t know his magic! Whatever magic that was, as it was still moments before Forcraig introduced himself. Her voice vanished as she murmured. “Mirrors can be sharp around the edges.”

She’d said it, hadn’t she? There were two types of people around here. And she wasn’t a mage.

“Focraig’Diin.” She repeated. “I’m Nina. Travelling painter.” The girl spoke slowly.

She walked away; not far. Just far enough to pick up a log that she’d dropped in the doorway when she’d built the pile. She’d seen his hand freeze, and wondered if his insides would freeze, too, if he tried to warm up too much. If his heart would stop. She wondered if that had been a show of trust from his side. Nina stared at the once again lively fire. What was safe to share? What could be turned against her if spoken, and what would kill her later if it remained unsaid? Her lips trembled, silent.

“I’m cursed. That’s why I’m here. It felt…that this place might hold an answer.” Nina finally spoke. “It drew me here.”

Pause.

“Nothing contagious. That I know of.”

She thought of the way being among people overwhelmed her now in more ways than one. Of how, in the middle of the wilderness, that pressure disappeared and quieter sensations could be sensed. Like stars that can shine once daylight fades. She’d followed a star.

“I’ll help you. You help me…” She nodded in approval. She nodded again, for certainty. Her voice picked up, along with the corners of her mouth. “As long as it’s not, say, a human sacrifice you need help with. Very inelegant, human sacrifices.” Half-joking.

If the man was clumsy enough, Nina thought, to have needed a proverbial virgin and forgotten to bring one along, she figured she’d have a high chance to tickle his ribs with her swordbreaker before he got funny. Nina eyed his chest. Better an eyesocket, she decided. Winter clothes were better armor than gambeson when it came to stab wounds.

“Apple?” Nina asked, picking the fruit from her backpack, and juggling with it. She cracked it in two and offered half. It was withered and sweet, almost like a raisin.

Moments later, thoughtfully, she tilted her head to the direction of the gate. The direction that felt right.

“What do you think? Is it a challenge that we need to plan ahead for, or would some casual breaking and entering suffice?”


@Focraig'Diin
 
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At least she was receptive to offers of assistance. He reached out to the patches of frost, and the ice literally peeled off the stone, becoming specks of azure that flowed back into his hand. Unfortunately, the limb itself turned transparent, like an ice sculpture. Evidently he had reached a limit for the hour. Any more use with said hand he risked losing it entirely. Flexing it in view of the girl, he hoped the display would ensure a bit more... trust between them. That his efforts of friendship was genuine. At her observation, he blinked owlishly, before remembering a common quirk among wizards.

"Not old enough to see empires come and go."

He chuckled briefly. He was well aware of the nigh-timeless look most seasoned mages were oft to wear. No stranger to it himself, but it was more an effect of his practice. Setting the frozen hand towards the crackling fire, he flexed the icy fingers to help the magic recede. With a good enough flame, he would be recovered in several minutes. And as the girl brought more firewood, he made sure the surrounding chill did not pervade the area, adjusting the current of the atoms into a linear pattern above them, and forming a makeshift canopy of invisible air.

At her usage of the term, 'mirrored', the mage blinked twice before catching on. With the icy hand, the appendage reflecting the fire before it, he let the excess magic leak out in trails of mist.

"Not mirror. Alteration. Change and absorb."

And it was a bloody annoying craft to use. Literally soul-crushing at times. Useful in situations such as the one he found himself in, but still a peculiar craft.

As the fire grew in heat, the ice receding enough for the flesh to reappear, he listened to the girl's tale.

"Curse... and one that drew you here?"

Perhaps she was meant to come here, opposed to him who sought this place of his own free will, for answers most vague.

"It is said an Elder lives atop this mountain, older than eons. Perhaps he crafted the spell that was cast on you."

As for the remark of human sacrifices, he chose to remain quiet, instead accepting the fruit from her. Taking an absentminded bite, very sour to his own tongue, but tolerable, he noted. He followed her gaze to the gate, where the frozen blocks of skeletons lay. He wasn't betting on them being inanimate. What kind of legendary elder leaves his home's front door practically unguarded?

"We will be receiving a cold reception either way."

((Nina ))
 
They’d shared a fire, and they’d shared food. In the wilderness, that was enough for trust to blossom. Nina sat herself more comfortably, legs crossed, her chin resting against her palm, her elbow on her knee.

He told her about his magic. She nodded, and tried to make sense of it in the light of what she was sensing. With her eyes half-shut, she gazed through her eyelashes on which the flames were weaving golden reflections. She asked if it would be easier on him to maintain a bubble of warm air if she stepped closer. She told him about her curse, and he listened. That was important. He spoke to her about the elder on the mountain, and wondered if it was him who cursed her.

“No.” Firmly, Nina shook her head. She clenched her fists. “I know the one who cursed me.” [/color]She clenched them so hard that she could feel her pulse, along with the pain in her forearm, and in her mind they sounded like the ticking of a clock. “You…never heard of the Clocktower, have you?” The hope in her voice piped down. Even an ancient mage… “Or the Azure Archipelago, in the east? Thought as much…” Wonder and hurt entwined in her voice. “It’s more like…my curse has a song, and I’ve heard a similar song coming from here. Thought it might hold an answer.”

Her shoulders slouched. A stupid hope, perhaps. Maybe Gray had learned his powers from the old man. Maybe all she’d find here was an even worse curse. Gray told her not to come here. Which meant that either the assassin didn’t want her here, or that he very much did. It was impossible to tell, with him. He wove strings within strings within strings.

“Have you ever thought of your magic like a curse?” She asked.

She listened. It was strange to talk so casually to a mage. The ones she’d met on her travels often kept to themselves, either because of distrust from those around them, or due to their own pride. She’d very much distrusted mages after what happened to her. After a while, the woman would finally speak.

“I sense things, sometimes. Not always making sense.” She massaged the knots she felt in the back of her neck. “Like now. You’re an ice mage. Felt strange to feel warm.” She gazed into the fire. Was she really feeling warm, though? Or was this the last dream her mind was crafting as her skin was turning blue and her eyes were being grown over by frost flowers? Her fingertips reached forward as if to touch the fire; she stopped, and instead pressed on her forearm until the familiar pain shot up her arm. Even so, the talk of magic and death was oddly dream-like. She gestured, as if trying to pick the right words from the air. “As if it’s not the most direct use of your…magic.” She whispered the word. Warmth was created, but warmth was a side-effect. So it felt. Change, alteration. “I guess it might be a bit like redirecting the water of a river. If you know enough about a river, you can make a bit of it flow upwards. For a bit. Is that…so?” Again, she went quiet. Presumably to the mage, it felt like chatting to a rather slow toddler.

Yet, as fascinating as the discussion was to her, they would have to move at some point. Deadpan, Forcrag commented of the cold reception expecting them. Nina stared at him. A muscle twitched on her face. ‘Cold’, he said. Then she couldn’t hold it in. Laughter engulfed her, and she hugged her abdomen, bending down until her hair touched the floor.

“And I who was hoping for bread and salt.” Breathlessly, Nina whispered, before falling into another fit of chuckles. It almost hid the fact she spoke the truth. “Thank you.” She said, wiping her tears. A large smile lit up her face. “Do you need a longer rest, before we head on? I can go and get more firewood.” Fidgeting, she mumbled to herself under her breath. “Might be wise to pick up a few branches either way…And if we’re going anywhere near a place called the Icy Veil, might be good to get us some tea...”

Half of adventuring was preparation, people said. Although she imagined a mage was less concerned with mere equipment. Soon, a pot with a mixture of herbs was warming near the fire.

“Basil…honey…oh, and this herb from the summer lands.” She waved holding a dry, silt-colored root. Grinning. ‘Ginger’, they call it. It can almost wake a man up from the grave, I’d say, if that weren’t necromancy.”

Carefully, Nina sliced some of the root with a swordbreaker over the pot, in slices that would’ve been as thin as paper if her hands weren’t shaking. She went to get snow for the water. Afterwards, she’d busy herself with all sorts of work, from sharing the tea when it was done, to pouring the remaining liquid in her waterskin and any container the mage might share, to picking up some of the embers to store on dried moss, inside a horn, for later.

“While the tea is boiling, can you tell me more of what brought you here, too?”


@Focraig'Diin
 
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An earnest soul, he thought, as he watched her recount her tale. Who braved nigh-impossible odds to reach this place. All to find a countercurse. Or a cure. He was certain she could find answers here, else he himself would attempt to release her from it.

As for her drive, he could respect that. Even be a little shamed, for his own search was for naught but knowledge. Admirable, but bland. At her question to his magic, Focraig glanced at his hand, still frozen.

"I suppose you could call my magic... cursed."

Few crafts could bring back the dead. Or burn Time itself to revoke what was lost. Dry Ice had the misfortune to be both, and the price all too high. Mentor paid the price for it. He had sworn to master the craft to never repeat that same mistake. And even after, when he exerted himself too much with the magic, the utter emptiness he felt after was... alien. He was sure no mage was to feel a hollow void within their mind and soul when their reserves emptied. And have it present itself as ice with a heart blacker than night. And the empty sensations were becoming more frequent. And stronger as he drew closer to the Veil. But he wrote that off as overuse of his craft. An obstacle he was bound to encounter sooner or later. He would rectify that.

At the girl's crude explanation, the mage smiled slightly, impressed and amused. She had some experience with the crafts. No doubt due to that inscription on her arm. And in singing, music form no less! Quite the opposing craft.

"Correct, in part. Instead of a river, I would use the term... weaving. And obviously, climatology, meteorology, cryogenics - ah, apologies. I digress."

He chuckled. He had a habit of delving a bit into his craft. "Simply put, I know how certain things happen, and have the skill and strength of mind to... nudge its creation. Using your term of river, it is like building one, rather than redirecting an existing flow."

'Course, the more abstract craft he used, the more her explanations would be correct. But he had yet the skill or strength to bring forth literal blizzards or meteors of ice. But that was neither here nor there.

"As for my... reasons, rather simple, I'm afraid, compared to your own."

He jerked a finger at the mountain. "The one rumored to live here is old. Old enough to have seen the eons pass. And the knowledge it supposedly has is all knowing, having accumulated it during its lifetime. Nothing in all the land is beyond its reach. I seek it for answers regarding my own magic, as to why it exists.

Setting down his Cryocodex, he flipped open to the section where the various magics he had studied over the months lay written. "Nothing of the arts I have seen in my travels compares to mine in function and use. Like comparing water to oil. Mayhaps the elder here knows its true purpose."

Closing the tome, he settled for watching the girl prepare. "I'd rather you finish cooking. And mayhaps rest for a moment. It has been a long journey."

Nina
 
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“And if we were to use your analogy,” Nina continued, “it would be like tugging on a thread, or a few, to shift the nature of a fabric during weaving. Right?” Her eyes sparked with a bitter-sweet light. She’d always been a little curious thing, but to think that soon, conversations about magic will be once more outside her grasp… “Like spiders weaving different shapes of webs for different purposes.”

She let her heart fill with that sweet bitterness, and her thoughts flew over abstract realms. That his magic was more of a weave than a flow, suggested to Nina that it was a fairly controllable sort. She peeked curiously at his book, pulling back quickly when the pages were turned. A magic book. She held her breath. Magic that was pinned down on paper tended to be tamer, she assured herself. She distracted herself by turning over one of the logs in the fire with the tip of her swordbreaker. Magic, she reminded herself, was not for mere vagabonds like her.

It was if her feelings had been frozen during the timeless moments she had risked her life climbing the mountain, and could now finally thaw into a rush of emotions. Hot tears stung her eyes. She smiled, and gestured as if waving off smoke. The magic sense that accompanied curse had opened her mind eyes to colors as vivid and to shapes more fantastical than she’d ever seen in dreams.

Soon, she would have to scoop those eyes out.

So she bonded with the mage over magic, and over the hurt they both carried about it. It was, as far as she knew, her last proper conversation on the topic. It was a heart-aching high. As for the mage, it seems it was magic that brought him here too. He wished to know more about it.

“I can empathize with a thirst of knowledge.” Nina said. You could hardly travel as much as she had without the capacity to wonder at new discoveries. “Less concerning than a thirst for power.”

They talked of magic, and they talked of cooking. Although Nina’s heart skipped a beat. There wasn’t much left of that for her, either. On her return trip she might have to hunt on an empty stomach. Nina nodded to herself. From her backpack she took out packets of leaves, which she unrolled to reveal chunks of smoked goat meat. She’d disappear outside, and it wouldn’t be long until she returned with two thin branches, which she sharpened into spikes, to hold the meat over the fire. The woman would then ask Forcraig to watch the over meal while she went to get more logs.

It felt strange to venture outside when she had a warm bubble to return to. Almost like she had half a chance. Her mind felt strangely faster, and she wondered if she could have really survived another day without the ice mage. Cold was insidious. A snowflake hit her in the eye, and once more she was back to thinking about magic.

Snowflakes were little tiny crystals. Was Forcraig’s magic tamer because it was crystalline?

“What will you do, though, if it turns out it doesn’t have a special purpose?” Nina asked once they started eating. “Your magic. If it’s just something that somebody developed to have power over others?”

A magic with such a steep price…Nina eyed the other’s frozen hand. She hoped the tea would help. They would have food, and hot tea, and Nina would tell the story of how she hunted the mountain goat they were now eating, and where she picked up the herbs to season it with. She stopped mid-sentence, once, when she’d though she heard something like a flutter outside. It was the only sign of life apart from the mage.

From the entrance, a white raven watched them with glistening black eyes. Nina smiled and threw it a piece of meat. It picked it up and flew away

Yet, once they were ready, they’d have to go too. The wind had stopped, Nina pointed out, and they couldn’t rely on good weather for long this high up in the mountains. Her preparations were also finished. On top of her usual equipment, she carried a few torches, their ends wrapped with rags (one being an old sock) smeared with resin. They might be helpful indoors, she thought. She had also prepared two small boxes of embers.

In the clear air left behind by the blizzard, the gates towered over the strange black-and-white city. It was silent, their steps the only sound. The gates were so large that they fooled the eye into believing they should be closer. A road made of black cobblestones, broken in some places, led to it. Along the road, skeletons. Not all of them just bones – many had skin left, in the manner of bodies dried out by frost.

“Looks like there’ve been people from all over…” Nina whispered. “I don’t even recognize a lot of these clothes.” The phrase ‘the past is a foreign country’ rung in her mind, but she didn’t fully grasp it.

There, a dwarf in full armor. Elsewhere, an orc skull, with golden fangs. A human skeleton wearing nothing but a belt and a codpiece, all else having rotted away. On her cheeks, a strange, constant itch. Nina closed her eyes.

“Watch out.” The painter pulled on Forcraig’s sleeve. “It feels…” She gestured, as if trying to pick the right word from the air. Pointed around. “Like magic. Probably magic items that these people brought with them. Or magic that seeped from them into the ground. The frost kept it still, but…” She bit her lip. Looked around. A staff made of violin wood, with its top end like a lightning strike. A rusted pendant, waving in the breeze around a skeleton’s neck. The right word. “Decay. The weaves untangled. Sometimes that meant losing power, other times…losing control. It feels like even a touch would trigger them now.”

“I’ll go ahead.”


((ooc: If my pacing has been too fast/slow, I’m happy to edit my post!))
@Focraig'Diin
 
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"No. The Laws are in effect. That which determines all magic, in the world."

He bent to grab a handle of a rusty axe, faint with magical power. The contact made runes gleam on the metal, before the entire weapon simply wasted away into dust. Ice dust, odd. Inspecting the material on his hand, he looked upwards to the mountain, the bird from before perching on the gates. Whiter than even the snow around them, its eyes clearly showing an intelligence he had missed the first time. He inwardly chuckled.

The legends had some Truth, after all.

"Nothing lasts forever, and magic is no exception. Whatever was on that weapon, the metal itself wasn't able to bear."

That was his hypothesis. And as they approached the gate, Focraig following Nina's lead, the field of skeletons came into view, frozen in blocks, pillars of clear ice. Different from the frozen corpses, these were naught but bones adorned in armor. The mage in turn, held out a hand towards Nina.

"You may want to stand behind me now. Clearly it is a - "

Crack!

"Trap." He finished, moving just as a pillar shattered in an explosion of ice, the undead within leaping forth, brandishing a sword. Its skull flashed with icy blue orbs of magic, clearly animated by some unseen force.

Dashing in front of the girl just as the enemy was in arm's reach, he willed the snow beneath his feet, raw intent and focus filling his veins with frost and rime. The ice shifted, then exploded beneath the undead's feet with spikes as tall as a man, scattering the bones in an instant. His own eyes glowed as the ice in his veins thrummed with energy. But as if it were a cue, more pillars began to rattle and shake, the corpses within coming alive. And with such numbers, Focraig did not take any chances. Clearly dozens of them, all in range.

"Nina, apologies, but come close!"

Taking the girl within one arm, close to his chest, he honed the icy energy in his veins. He breathed mist, not as air born of body heat, but a chill eclipsing the mountain's frigid air. He glared at the approaching skeletons, the grim stare a reckoning to come the next moment.

"Breath of Murath."

And the World froze. The skeletons white as snow, armor and all. Then, they crumbled to dust, brittle and and unstable.

Focraig coughed up bloody ice. He had overestimated himself, severely.

"Head... gate..." he rasped, nearly falling on the girl.

Nina
 
A world of snow and stone, splotched by pools of lost magic. An unassailable citadel, with open gates. Undead that spring to life, and the mage bringing her closer in a protective hold. Words of Power rush past her ears, or at least what she thinks are words within the voice of a blizzard.

When Nina turns around, the undead are naught but dust drifting in the still air. And the mage’s blood splashes on the black stone.

She puts an arm around his shoulders, and helps him forward, towards the gate. “Really, now…” Softly, a part of her whispers. Another part wonders if he would have needed to push himself this hard if he hadn’t been concerned with another’s safety. Yet another part, occasionally, stops and tries to sense the magic around her for traps, but the dust makes it like looking for butterflies in a glitter storm.

Old snow crackles under their steps, and new snow squeaks. Bone dust rasps the hearing. Nina’s back is tense, ready to dart at any moment with Forcraig’Diin in tow. But no more traps are triggered as the two adventurers sink into the shadow of the gate. Nina wonders who had lived in these black stone buildings, who had walked these black streets up to the citadel until stone slabs bent into impressions of their steps. Priests, smelling of incense as they gathered for the daily worship of their deity? Warriors, no longer raising their mugs of mead? Librarians, running with their arms full of tomes? Was the elder in the castle feeling alone now?

With these thoughts running through Nina’s mind, they reach the gate without incident. The woman looked up and around the sharp, imposing structure. It seemed to be made of the same black stone, apart from the foundation, coarser and coal-like. She reached one hand inside. Cold.

There was no magic she could clearly sense, she told Forcraig. But her uneasiness lingered on her face.

As she walked between the walls, still supporting the mage (unless he’d decided otherwise), Nina’s eyes were drawn to the cracks in the cobblestones. They glistened with frozen water, and indeed looked much like rock broken by ice, but they also looked a bit like the runes she’d seen covered in moss. When she tried to look too closely, her vision faded in a blur, and Nina told herself it was the shadows. The woman wondered if she should tell Forcraig about it, but she didn’t feel strongly enough about it. She noticed that the paving stones were smoother until about half the way in, where they became less worn. Her nerves were tight as she stayed on-guard for a trap. Sheltered from the wind, the corridor was even quieter than the outside. She couldn’t even hear her own steps.

She couldn’t hear them because she wasn’t moving, Nina realized a minute later. Halfway through, the travelling painter fell to her knees.

The spell had been insidious. It was a weave of two of the oldest magics, or at least two of the oldest that hadn’t yet been forgotten. Runes and Empathy. It drew out a person’s Desire until they had no motivation to move forward, or anywhere at all. Not for long. Just for long enough for the chill to bite in their bones. It drew out their Misery, too, so their last moments would be joyful.

“I understand now.” Nina told Forcraig. Her lips were curled in a smile. The skeletons. The footsteps in the stone.

But even Forcrag’s presence was becoming meaningless. She rested against the foundation stone, not because it was something she wanted, but as pure reflex.

“Warm.” She said.

Her hand brushed against the stone, by accident. Then again. This is how she discovered that the foundation wasn’t coal-colored stone, but actually white marble, covered by the dust and grime of many hundreds of years. The marble wasn’t smooth, but rather cracked in round ovals, in the shapes of scales. From the way the foundation jutted out in the edge of a circle, it almost looked like…

“My grandparents’ house had one of these too. A house snake. It’s a legend, it protects the house and works as a clock. It enjoys milk.” Her voice stumbled over the words, long pauses interrupting ideas just as they became important. It was only because it was irrelevant that she could speak it. She chuckled. “But ours was just a line of whitewash on the wall.”

“Pity I don’t have any milk with me…”
Nina said after a few minutes. “Hmm.”

With stumbled, reflexive gestures, she reached into her sleeve for her ointment. The skin on her nose was peeling off from the cold, but she didn’t reach for it. Instead, the travelling painter’s reflex was to draw.

She drew a glass bowl filled with milk, with her finger, in ointment, on the floor of the corridor she was expecting to die.

Then Nina was pushed back as the foundations of the citadel started shifting.

She couldn’t tell how long it took. Until the rumbling stopped, and the dusty scales stopped back in place. Now, there was a sculpture of a snake’s head eying her with amber eyes. It opened its jaws, and Nina saw fangs as long as her fingers. The snake had held its tail, but now it took it out, a tail like a rattlesnake. As it moved, it ticked like a clock…or like her curse.

The stone snake turned around, stuck out its tongue, and investigated the drawing. It lapped at it, its split tongue the only detail detaching from the bas-relief, and color disappeared. The bowl, much too small for the titan, tilted around almost to the point of tippling over. Then it was finished, a scrawl of an empty glass bowl sketched in ointment left of the floor, and a bas-relief of a giant snake resting with its eyes closed.

Then the snake moved again, sinking into the floor. Nina barely took a breath before the ground undulated under her, and both her and Forcraig’ were picked up and thrown into the inner courtyard, in the sun.

“What was that?” Nina gasped, when she’d recovered enough from the enchantment that things once more had meaning.

She had the distinct feeling that they had defeated the gate in a different way than was intended.

Trembling, she oscillated between rubbing her arms and rubbing Forcraig’s shoulders as a way of getting back into the right state of mind. She felt a vague dread at the fact that she wasn’t yet physically capable at fully perceiving dread.

The ticking continued, and it was too late when she realized that it wasn’t the snake, which had disappeared back into the walls, but a figure descending down a long set of stairs. The figure was dressed in the sort of clothes a pirate captain might wear in a story, down to black boots and up to a skull-and-crossbones hat. He (or she) was also unmistakably dead, or at least as dead as you can be while being a skeleton who is also walking and whistling. Behind the fluttering rags of an jacket, kept open (which made Nina decide for ‘he’), the skeleton’s ribs were adorned with written pieces of paper. Instead of a heart, he had a glowing green gem.

The skeleton stopped right in front of the intruders, and tipped his hat to them.

“I am the gatekeeper of this place. My name is Kipling. Congratulations for making it this far.”

“If you wish to proceed, there will be a test. Do you still wish to take it?”

@Focraig'Diin
 
He coughed once. Twice. And felt better.

Patting on the girl's shoulder and rising to his full height, he was about to speak when the same crow from earlier perched on his shoulder without so much as a caw. White as the snow, and with that intelligence still gleaming in its eyes, he would have moved to pet the animal on reflex. But the talons on the thing were tight, and while not enough to pierce the skin, was still irritating and seemed like a warning.

He had a feeling this one would be a constant companion for the moment.

His gaze to the pirate undead, his eyes once again gleamed with icy magics.

"We've come long enough. No sense in stopping."

The one named Kipling nodded in recognition, and the chamber shifted into a moving platform, suspended in the air by a single pillar beneath. Focraig and Nina were at its center, and the undead on another platform some distance away. With a voice quite unlike before, almost like another were using it as a mouthpiece, the undead named Kipling sounded the challenge.

"Solve the riddle thus, and you shall pass unimpeded. Fail, and die."

And the two heard a whisper in their heads. Soft, hushed, but the sinister mocking tone promised a swift and horrible end, were they unsuccessful.

“To all things and men I appertain, and yet by some am shunned and distained.

"Fondle me and ogle me til you’re insane, but no blow can harm me, cause me pain.

"Children delight in me, elders take fright.

"Air maids rejoice and spin. Cry and I weep, yawn and I sleep. Smile, and I too shall grin."

"What am I?”


And from here Focraig was quite annoyed.

((Nina. This riddle is from Witcher 3, a personal favorite of mine XD))
 
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They were high up on a floating platform now and Nina was down on her knees, holding onto the stone. The cold radiated through her shins. It’s not that the woman didn’t like heights. Her eyes went wide and her lips trembled in a silent chuckle. It’s more that she loved them so much that she didn’t trust her brain not to run to the edge of the platform and jump.

A riddle was spoken. In her mind. Nina’s eyes darted to the ice mage, wondering if he had heard the same. She thought of how campfire stories couldn’t quite capture the tension of taking such a ‘test’ with one’s life on the line. The scent of snow. The sensation that she couldn’t breathe freely. The acknowledgement that in their high castles, mages could play whatever games they wanted, and their results didn’t have to be fair.

Nina closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Could I listen to it again, please?” She asked Kipling.

Rare, clear words. Nina jotted it all down in her sketchbook. As soon as she put pencil to paper (an expensive pencil, with a core soft and fat enough to work in the cold), it occurred to her that the riddle was meant to be solved from end to beginning. From more specific, to general enough to be meaningless. Arrows, highlights and words sprouted on the page under her pencil.

Smile. Lips. Eyes. Face. No, not quite right. Age? Somehow each part of the riddle broke down into different words. The strongest image she had was that of a mirror. Yet mirrors could be broken. She needed something unbreakable. Maybe a puddle? No. Even more unbreakable than that.

A concept.

“Reflection, of course.” She said.

The platform trembled, and Nina gasped at having cursed both of them without even checking with the ice mage. She’d been so sure…So secure in the elegance of it, where the answer to the riddle being the same as the act of solving itself.

Ten seconds later, she cracked her eyes open and discovered that the falling sensation was just in her mind. The trembling was simply the sound of their platform expanding, as cobblestones flew up and attacked to one end. That, and her own shaking.

“Why does there have to be a test, Kipling? And are you really a pirate?” She shouted.

“There is always a cost. The cost of keeping knowledge is that too many people wish for it.” That cold voice in the mind answered, like the back of a knife drawn across her scalp. It merged with the undead’s physical voice. “The cost of my life is that I guard this place, and the cost of that is that the souls of the strays who fail my tests will feed my own soul.” The skeleton scratched his ribs, and fidgeted with the paper ribbons tied around them. “Also. I’m not quite a pirate. I’m a metaphor.”

“A metaphor of what?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know.” Kipling sighed. “It’s been a long time.”

By now, the platform had finished assembling. Nina scuttled forward, and crouched back down. She looked at the ice mage and nodded in encouragement. She expected Kipling to give them another riddle, but the skeleton with the glowing gem heart was silent. Instead, she followed his gaze (how did she even know where he was looking?! He had no eyes!), and her eyes fell upon gaps in the platform. There were three square holes lined in gold spaced at regular intervals, from which cobblestones seems to have been taken out. To the side of the row, there were four more such holes, each with a cobblestone in them. Each cobblestone had a word on it written in gold:

‘Trust’
‘Knowledge’
‘Lies’

Then, scattered around, there were seven more black cobblestones with gold writing. Their labels were: ‘war’, ‘passion’, ‘loyalty’, ‘history’, ‘perjury’, ‘godhood’, ‘silence’. Upon closer inspection, Nina noticed that each gap was not completely square, but instead had nicks to the side, allowing one to easily slot in and out the cubical stones. Even the original three pieces, she noticed, appeared to be removable.

“Choose wisely, or not at all.” The mind-voice whispered.

((ooc: Thank you. In return, this is my favorite riddle, designed (or possibly adapted) by my DM for one of our DnD sessions. Sending the answer as a spoiler in a PM))

@Focraig'Diin
 
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The mage bent to examine the puzzle, befuddled but not inconvenienced. He had an idea here. Tricks like these always lay in the phrasing itself, and not like the utterly mind-bending nonsense Mentor would often play with his own mind.

This would be fun.

- Some time later...

"Are you giving up?"

The ice block shattered with a fury, Focraig's eyes aglow with magic. The visible twitching of his eyebrows indicated the man's composure was cracking slowly. But surely.

Justified, since he was doing the puzzle for about half an hour. Each combination was wrong. And the punishment was diverse. From shocks to burns, a rock tossed up his loins, and so on.

But freezing him in ice? Bad move.

He settled for smashing the damn puzzle thing. With an explosion of ice. Literal frigid force in a concentrated burst. And the skeleton chuckled. And spoke in a tone the mage found a twinge too familiar. And impossible.

"Lesson one of Destruction, a will of adamant. Controlled, directed, and most of all - "

"Cold."


He mumbled, matching the skeleton's tongue. First and only lesson he had received regarding the craft. He had attempted Dry Ice the day after, leading to the accident. He formed a ball of ice, and gave it spikes. The size of a ball, but denser than it appeared. And gave it a savage kick towards the Kipling skeleton. He shattered its skull.

"Echo or imitation or not, that dead bastard owes me that much."

As he spoke, the stones formed around them and into the platform, and as it grew larger, runes came to life in shades of blue, around the area in concentric circles. And the headless skeleton spoke, without its head.

"Crude usage aside, it has been eons indeed, to witness those whom bear a Mark, like the girl, and a practitioner of the Rith Aeonic Crafts."

Focraig blinked. "What?"

The white crow, still perched on his shoulder, somehow surviving the ice mage's tribulations, cawed once, and flew to perch on the headless skeleton's own shoulder. It preened as a bony hand rose to stroke its feathers, and its other rise with an intact skull, complete with its hat. Fixing the bone in place with a crack, Kipling bowed, speaking... normally, without any echoes whatsoever.

"Your craft is not a magic to be used in this age, mage, thus an honor to meet one who practices it. Please stay where you are. The Crowfather will see you in a moment."

((Nina!))
 
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((ooc: sorry for the rambling post…^^’))

She wasn’t going to last much longer. Her ribs were bruised and her eyelashes were singed, stray spells flew around, and she couldn’t stop shuddering. The riddle had become a game of chicken in which the two of them would barely tilt another cube into its place before leaping away from danger. Pages upon pages of the sketchbook were filled with ideas, from grouping words based on topic, to counting letters and even a crossword. The number of combinations, especially if their order mattered, was practically infinite. Nina had had stern words for their ‘examiner’. Who in this age would know what values were ‘wise’ for a being older than the mountains? Yet Kipling firmly insisted that all that was necessary for solving the riddle had been given to them.

When a gust of wind magic pulled her sketchbook out of her hands and scattered it over the courtyard, Nina broke down. She fell to her knees, head against the ground, and burst into tears. She curled into her mind, loose threads of memories brushing past her cheeks. ‘Could I listen to it again, please?’ Her earlier words to Kipling echoed. ‘I don’t know. It’s been a long time.’

‘Choose wisely, or not at all.’ Repeated in her mind a voice that wasn’t hers. The girl’s tired mind picked it up like a refrain. ‘Or not at all. Or not at all.’ She mused.

A terrifying CRACK pulled her out of her thoughts, and she raised her head to see the platform they were standing on breaking, and her ice mage companion angrier than he’d ever been. When the dust scattered, when one loose cube hit the ground, Nina’s mind lit up as if struck by lightning.

“Well you solved it now.” She whispered, terrified. ‘Not at all’ was the solution. ‘Not at all’ had been one of the options all along. She stared at Kipling’s broken head, uncertain if to feel sympathy. Or was it the solution?

‘Manners, though…’ The knife-edge voice continued under her temples.

‘Manners?! You dare talk about manners?! How about trying not to kill people, that’s manners.’ The effort of replying to the unknown telepath made Nina once more burst into tears. She barely pulled herself together as blue runes lit up all around them. Kipling’s skull re-formed. Her hand reached out for the ice mage’s sleeve.

There was a swirl, of a wind that wasn’t wind. It seemed to pick up soot from the black stones and as it swirled closer around them, Nina thought she saw it form feathers. The feathers coalesced into a dark figure, in conversational distance from them. Kipling bowed to the newcomer. He – for it was a man - looked ageless, or at least any age between 30 and 50. His outfit was the black of soot, with a cape and cowl. His white hair was caught in a ponytail, and his eyes had something of the frost of the mountain sky.

“Greetings.” The man said. His lips curled in a slight smile. “I am the master of Crows”. Nina’s hands dropped by her sides like lead.

She knew him. It was the same man who had been writing messages in her flesh all these weeks, telling her not to come here. Gray, the Master of the Clocktower, assassin of the Azure Dynasty, executioner and torturer for anyone important enough to waste his time (as he put it)…could he also be the Master of Crows?

“Laugh, then.” The woman told him. She struggled to push the words past her lips, as one would struggle to raise a sword after they’ve been stabbed in the gut. Her voice swung between mismatched pitches, in the manner of one fighting back hiccups. “Forcraig, don’t trust him. He toys with people’s minds.” He tortures people, she should have said, but her mind had frozen. “I’ll be going now.”

“Is this how you react when faced with your greatest fear? This is the last test, you know. People are complex, and not always who you think they are.” The man smiled. “Disappointing.”

It was a smile she knew well, a smile without any emotion but interest or disinterest. There were words in there that she should have heard, but the smile dug like a screw through her temples. Nina countered:

“You know what I want.”

“Say it. Words are powerful.”

“I want you to take away this curse!” Nina shouted.

“Let me have a look.” The man stretched out his hand. He stood like that, in his characteristic manner, seemingly frozen in place until Nina reacted. It unsettled her that even in this superficially subservient posture, he still had all the power. The man carefully pushed the sleeve of her coat up to her elbow, then the sleeves of her other layers, until he revealed the bandages underneath. Then he started to peel them away, layer by layer, gently pulling bandages away that had been glued with dried blood, as Nina winced. The last layer was drenched in fresh blood, and as the last bandage fell spiraling to their feet, Nina saw new words budding under the man’s hands over the tangle of letter-shaped scars. Capitals. Gray had never used all capitals before.

GOOD LUCK.
YOU SURE AS HELL WILL NEED IT.

“So you want me to end the effects of…this.” He checked. Nina nodded. “Ah. Simple. You have to jump down.” He pointed.

“Jump.” Nina repeated, dizzily.

“Down. Yes.”

Nina walked past him, to the platform edge. Before she or anyone else could do anything, she peered over the edge and let herself go. Later, she wouldn’t be able to tell exactly why she did it. Something about a day filled with magic, about being pushed to the brink with riddles and the culmination of weeks of privations, had brought her to a trance-like state. Part of her expected herself to fly through the air.

The Master of Crows turned to address Forcraig just as the sound of Nina’s body hitting solid rock echoed through the courtyard.

“Now that this is out of the way…” He said.

Moments later, a giant snake of white marble spiraled up through the air, climbing a staircase of loose stones that flew up from the ground just in front of its forked tongue. The snake looked for a moment at Forcraig, before resting its head between him and the Master of Crows. Inside its open mouth there was a very bruised, obviously very scared girl, holding onto its meter-long fangs for dear life. She was covered in chalk dust. Careful observation of the previous moments would have seen the giant snake leaping from its wall to catch the traveling painter just before she struck the ground.

“Ah. Made some friends, did you?” The man in black commented, in a tone so flat that you couldn’t tell whether it was amiable or resentful. “Snake.”

“You tried to kill me.” Nina uttered. She wasn’t shaking anymore. She’d gone beyond that. Her eyes were wide and she didn’t seem to blink. “You tried to kill me.” She whispered.

“You were stupid enough to listen.” The elder mage brushed it aside. “I was expecting the one who killed the Master of the Clocktower to have a tad of common sense.”

“The one who…” Nina’s eyes widened. She didn’t look at him. “I didn’t kill you. You’re not Gray. You’re not the Master of the Clocktower, though you wear his face. Who are you?”

“I told you. I am the Master of Crows.” There was little expression on his face and in his gestures, just like the original. “I told you. This was the last test. And people aren’t always what they seem.”

Nina’s hands clenched against the fangs. When she realized it, startled, she let go and patted the roof of the sculptural snake’s mouth.

“You are a cruel old man and if you don’t start explaining properly, I will…” Nina’s anger bubbled into the most extreme thing she could possibly say. “…leave.” She felt free and cold.

“Leave? After coming all this way?” That smile. Not his, but borrowed, and hurtful even more.

Nina stared. Not at him. He realized, surely. The hike she would have to take down the mountain, for weeks, carrying the weight of her failure on her shoulders. The hunger. The gate with its emotionless toll. Even climbing down from the platform safely would require feats of ingenuity from her, a non-magician. He mocked her as if all that was nothing to him. Yet, she still had her dignity. Her pride. Nina fought not to cry.

“Yes.” She said.

“Ah. Forgive me.” He waved his hand through the air. “Most of your predecessors were…less than polite when visiting.”

“I wonder why.” Nina murmured through gritted teeth.

“So, about your curse-“

“And no, I will not.” Nina interrupted. The elder mage looked at her as if he’d been spit on.

“I will not forgive you.” Nina repeated.

The mage gave a curt, acquiescing nod before continuing.

“Every generation, almost, the current Master of the Clocktower makes their way here for information.” He started to explain. “It amuses me to test them this way. To appear as their greatest fear. Inevitably, always, what they fear most of all is the previous Master. Always, almost. The title is passed through blood, to the apprentice daring enough to assassinate their master.” He shot Nina a long glare. “That your predecessor isn’t dead - “ He waited for Nina to confirm, and she awkwardly raised her arm. The bloody writing had been covered by chalk. “-is concerning. There are Rules. The first Rule of the Clocktower is that there can only be one who wields its power.”

“I don’t have any powers.” Nina chuckles.

The mage, without any overt change in expression, looked as if he might kill her.

“Three generations ago,” he said, “a man came to visit me. He slipped through the undead unseen, and he carried enough bitterness inside him that he barely noticed the gate. As customary for those of the Clocktower, he worked as an assassin for the Azure Dynasty. There was a war brewing. He asked, no, demanded, that the Clocktower component currently in my care was given to the war effort.” The mage patted the marble snake. “I told him to ask it for himself. The Snake nearly ripped his head off his shoulders. The man went on to become a nightmarish legend, who thousands feared and still fear in a certain country, but he never came back."

Nina took the time to think that through.

“So you fooled yourself into thinking I have magic powers and tried to murder me for them.” She said.

“Dear gods, no.” There was an expression on the mage’s face, that if Nina had been less frightened of him she would have recognized as concern. “I just wasn’t expecting you to jump off a ledge.” He looked uncomfortable. “I…I can’t suffer fools.” His hands moved in complex patterns that seemed to flicker in front of her eyes. “Look! Look at what you call your ‘curse’.”

Nina looked down at herself, and let out a cry. She could see through her flesh like through glass. On her forearm, below the blood, the scars, below the veins and the arteries, there was a glowing string. Nina let out a weak cry as she traced it up her arm, and down the other, and through the whole of her body.

“That’s not it.” The mage said. “Those are the channels that your life energy flows through. Look closer. Closer. Do you see the cracks in them? That’s what we call a Mark. It occurs, rarely, when someone with a natural inclination to magic, but no training, pushes themselves far beyond their limits. Very powerful thing, a Mark.” The mage’s voice grew deeper. “It allows a human to surpass their limits. It allows unbelievable feats of heroism. There is a reason,” and his voice grew colder, “why those limits are there. Marks are rare, because they’re lethal. It’s like bleeding on the inside. Magic and life, seeping out. No one can see it. Then you die. Look.”

Nina narrowed her eyes. She brought her hand closer to her face. Wrapped around the glowing string, there was a faint flicker of silver. A silver thread, thinner than spider silk. It, too, spread throughout her body. Nina pressed a hand on her chest, unsettled to find her heart wrapped in silver threads.

“The thread. The silver thread. It’s stitching the cracks together.” Nina whispered.

“Masterpiece.” The mage whispered, and the woman thought she’d imagined it.

“I don’t understand.” She said. “Gray…helped me?” She found herself hugging one of the snake’s fangs for support. “Tell me! What happened?! Or are you naught but empty words and insults for those you think below you?”

“I’m not sure what it is.” The mage looked tired. “There are Rules, and…Gray must’ve broken them. Not the rules of Magic, evidently, but secondary rules that make the clocktower tick. I…I need to think about this. This is intriguing.”

The Crowmaster turned to Forcraig’Diin. His appearance shifted once more.

“My apologies for the delay. What is it that you wish to know, Rith Aoenic Craftsman?”

@Focraig'Diin
 
"No wait, before I would answer your questions, mage, how in the world did you come by this particular craft?"

Focraig grumbled for a moment, replying briskly. "My mentor passed it to me." He was tempted to try the same ice blast trick on this one for the mind tricks with Nina. Poor girl. She really had it bad, and was a non-mage as well.

"So the order yet lives in you. Ignorant somewhat, but the Maraji's cryomancy endures."

The feathered cloak was brushed down, and the glowing green eyes stared from the darkness of his hood. The pale crow cawed from its new perch on this man's shoulder, preening as a gnarled hand stroked its snowy feathers. With his other hand, filled with... something that the bird seemed to eat with vigor, the elder bowed slightly.

"Apologies, but the last time I saw a legitimate practitioner of this was during the eon dubbed as the... Age of Wonders, by the dwellers below. And that in itself was a miraculous encounter, the first and last time I saw them, till now of course. Your presence was... wholly unexpected."

The mage blanched - that old? He figured the magic was pretty ancient, but - "The last time?" He asked.

Nodding solemnly, the Crowfather's eyes gleamed in recollection.

"Yes. They were already dying out by that era, or so I heard, since to practice that art was to walk with death. Their approach was reckless, suicidal, and quite insane. But they stood out even in that wondrous age, for they took elemental magics a step and a half further than possible. Even I, with all the knowledge and power I myself have accunulated, can only hope to imitate their finest and most powerful of magics."

The mage related to that. Even masters of ice craft had praised his skill, though he had yet to even finish half the lessons and practices in the Cryocodex. And walking with death? He needed only remember his own training with Mentor to shudder. He would have sworn he did die a couple times. Scratching his head in confusion, he then asked the crucial question, though with the elder's recent admission, he had doubts.

"Why does my craft exist? And its purpose?"

In response, the elder's eyes flashed once, and the mage was absent of a familiar weight, the Codex laying open in the Crowfather's hands, as the old one gazed at its contents. With a force of will, he pushed down his rising agitation, wondering if the trip had been for nothing. He simply watched the sage read the whole text, right to the end, and have the nerve to hang it at his own belt. With a cough, the old one pointed at the duo's feet.

"Eihwasu."

And a rune lit up, causing the platform to expand some dozens of meters in diameter, three stone thrones rising and knocking the two on their rears, while the crow settled into his own comfortably.

"I thank you in advance, for the knowledge shared. It is a currency not easily found nowdays."

And an amulet found itself on Focraig's belt, shaped like a crude lantern, glowing a faint icy blue. He winced as a sudden weight of whispers seeped into his thoughts, of terms and descriptions familiar. Verbatim from the Cryocodex itself if memory served. He gazed at it stoically, then back to the elder.

"Voidheart Amulet. An artifact imbued with the knowledge of past practitioners and masters. It will serve as an adequate exchange, I hope. Their memories and experiences will be your new mentor, and guide your arts to unimagined heights."

No. It wasn't. But he would take it. "Didn't answer my question though."

Clapping his hands in realization, the elder chuckled. "Yes, because I am unable. Divining the purpose of your craft. Its functions and abilities, these I can explain. But its conception? No. I am afraid it is a quest meant for you alone."

He guessed as much. One encounter wouldn't be enough for one mage to spill the whole thing. He still had more clues however, but that was back at the college. And there was still Nina, and her Mark. He could tell the Crowfather was reading his thoughts.

"Hrm... not as ignorant as I expected, ice mage. But it comes at a cost you will find painfully familiar with, or so I'm told."

The Laws, of course. And so he reclined in his chair, eyebrows scrunched in concentration. "Then perhaps you would heal her afflictions? As additional compensation for my Codex."

((Nina Sorry for the late reply! Work is murder!))
 
((ooc: sorry! Took a bit long again. And I apologize for my last posts being not very interactive, but the exposition took longer than I’d expected. That’s been done now.))

“Wait.” Nina raised her palm to the side, stopping Forcraig. Her glare pinned the ancient magician in place.

“I can pay for myself.” She said. She wondered if it mattered, when the Crowmaster picked at the shiniest things he wanted, like his namesake would. She lifted her legs over the armrest of her stone chair, and pushed herself to her feet. Her voice grew saccharine, as often when she was angry. She was very angry. “I’ll be right back. Someone,” she said, not looking at Kipling, “scattered my paintings all over the courtyard.”

“Sit down.” The Crowmaster’s voice thundered. Nina ignored him for two steps, before runes clung to her sleeves and, spinning, dragged her back to her seat as the Master of Crows twirled his fingers. “Those things don’t matter to me.”

“They matter to me.” She stated. Her drawings would be damaged if they got wet. She looked at his face and was hit by the absurdity of trying to negotiate with someone who had nearly killed her. Someone who’d lived through the Age of Wonders. She bent over, with her face against her knees, laughing, laughing hard enough to run out of breath. One arm wrapped around her ribs, while the other pointed, shaking, an index finger at the mage.

The elder mage had frozen. It was as if no one had laughed at him for centuries, and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the insanity.

“May I? It might keep her quiet.” Kipling, the undead pirate whispered to his superior. The Master of Crows dismissed him with a hand wave. Later, the undead would hand Nina’s sketchbook back to her. But for now…

“I don’t think he can cure it, Forcraig.” Nina maliciously snorted through the chuckles. “He can’t do it, so he tried to off me instead.”

It felt strange to use his fist name, now that she knew he carried abilities that had seen another age. Abilities which hurt him. Hopefully not the same abilities which ended said age.

“I suggested jumping because it would have the same end result.” The elder stared. Nina got the feeling of someone who’d spent so much time alone with his mind that he’d forgotten other people didn’t share his ‘basic’ knowledge. She wondered if he was mad. “Less painful, even. The Mark is deadly, but the metal thread of the Clocktower is keeping it under control, and allowing it to heal. To remove the thread would be like ripping surgery stitches.” He pulled an invisible thread from the air, and Nina twitched. He looked at her, through her, and the traveler once more felt like glass. His voice was as warm as when he’d spoken of Forcraig’s Cryomancy. “It must’ve taken hours to weave it all through. Maybe even days. How much longer do you think it would take me to safely remove it?” Nina was too shocked by the findings to reply. Days…Her hands clenched on her knees. Did Gray do that, when she was unconscious after rescuing his life? The mage’s voice reached her as if through water. “Neither of you can afford to pay. And if you could, I wouldn’t do it. You’re working on a false premise.” Did Gray do that? His chest must’ve been a mass of bruises and some of his ribs potentially broken, after the hours she’d spent pressing breath into and out of his paralyzed body. One of the mage’s sentences stood out like a branding iron in her brain. “By what he did, the one Gray had given you the power to kill him and everything he stands for. He must’ve really trusted you.”

Tears slipped silently down her cheeks, just as easily as she’d laughed before. The mage continued, his voice fuzzy in her ears.

“I guess I could numb it, so that its connection with the Clocktower wouldn’t cause you distress. But due to the nature of the Clocktower, it is that connection which makes it flexible enough to exist in a human body. If it was just a piece of metal…” Nina was so lost in her thoughts that she twitched when he spoke again. “Jumping felt kinder than slow poisoning.”

“So you can’t do it.” Nina put it blankly.

The mage looked…saddened. As if he could see wonder that others did not. ‘Funny, asshole, that’s exactly how you treated my paintings,’ Nina thought.

“I’m not one to give precious information freely. I feel it devalues it. However…your ignorance hurts me, young traveler.” He said, quietly enough that Nina had to strain her hearing. “I will give you some of the information I have on the Clocktower, and that may help you break away from it, or not, as you desire.”

“All of it.” Nina said.

“The Cryocodex is valuable.” The mage’s eyes flickered with cold. “Valuable enough that I will refrain from giving matches to a child who’d set themselves aflame and then blame me for it.”

Nina kicked her heels against the stone chair. It’s not that they had much of a choice.

“Wait.” She said. Her voice shook. “Forcraig…I’m not a magician, so this knowledge might not be so vital to me. But you…you are.” She looked down at her boots. “I just thought…your magic doesn’t seem to make you happy. Maybe I misjudged. But…Are you really sure you wish to go on this quest? You might still be able to exchange the amulet, and if it means I don’t get my information, that’s fine too.”

“What do you know about runes?” The elder mage asked Nina, once the negotiations were settled.

“They…exist?” Nina stared blankly.

“I’ll take what I can.” The magician had a pained look on his face. As he spoke, he relaxed, clearly enjoying the subject. “The main thing to remember about runic magic and about its offshoot branches, such as Scripture Magic, is their complexity.” He raised an index finger. “The First Rule of Magic is its Danger – in laymen terms, its cost. Runes pay their cost mainly through complexity. It is like using a pulley system to get water from a well: less effort than dragging it and, if you’re careless about it, it pulls your brain out through your ears.”

Nina’s eyes half-shut, as she tried not to imagine it.

“The Clocktower is similar to this. Not that your predecessors were particularly voluble about it, but I suspect part of it is made of runes. You have to understand that this is all conjecture.” He gestured. His eyebrows gathered in concentration. “Bits of information I’ve put together over centuries. So, similar, I said, except for the way they dealt with complexity. You see…” He waved his hand. Some of the pebbles from the platform flew up, a runic circle set alight on their surface. “Back to the rune example. To achieve an effect one may build a runic circle, but a runic circle doesn’t simply encode the effect. It provides context: runes that strengthen those around them, runes that bind, runes that provide directionality.” Different parts of the circle lit up in turn. “Grammar, of sorts. That takes time and effort.”

“Now,” the mage punctuated his explanation, “what if you were to connect two runic circles?” The pebble circle rose even more, until they could easily see another, simpler circle on the underside. “To some extent you may be able to reuse the ‘context’, and afford to make the second circle simpler. The uses of that are niche, although I’ve heard some Dwarven cities use this trick for locking gates. However…what if you didn’t need a physical connection to make it work?” He looked at Nina, seemingly expecting an answer.

“You could make more…complex things?” Nina attempted.

The mage nodded.

“I suspect the Clocktower is like that.” He said. “Those of the Clocktower are not primarily magicians – they’re users of magic items, yes, and a precious few were magic item crafters of outstanding skill. By crafting an item linked to previous items, linked to the Clocktower, then they don’t need to reinvent the wheel every single time. And the complexity builds up.”

He shook his head.

“That doesn’t mean infinite power. The gears of the Clocktower still need to be fueled in some way, and that tends to be death, or pain.” He shrugged and said, simply: “Assassins.” Then:

“I can’t tell you everything. But I will tell you this. When Gray arrived here, he asked how he can destroy the Clocktower. I didn’t pay attention to him.” The mage seemed annoyed. “He was a child, younger than you are, and Masters of the Clocktower tend to be, excuse my phrasing, madder than a bag of cats.”

“He said that the Clocktower is breaking down. That the way each succeeding Master added to it, while making his work obscure enough that his apprentices didn’t murder them too soon, was making it increasingly difficult to maintain the gears. That things were getting deadly. That even with the most dangerous items scattered across the world, things were getting out of synch. That things happened as a result of this. Undeath. Drought. A hundred-year-old storm.” He shrugged, as if that meant little for him. Perhaps it did, for a being older than aeons.

He eyed Nina.

“You don’t look impressed.” He said.

“How am I supposed to know if you’re telling the truth or not? People who steal books can’t exactly be trusted, you know?” Nina shrugged, thoughtfully. “If it is…Thank you, I guess?”

The Master of Crows nodded in acknowledgement.

“If you wish, you may rest in the glasshouse before continuing your journey. Kipling will guide you there, or outside the gates, as you desire.”

@Focraig'Diin
 
"Might as well see what the old crow wants. You ask him what you seek in my stead, Nina. I'll have to make do with this little trinket."

He watched as the girl chose her path, handing her the sheets that lay across the area. Quick application of polarized Alteration allowed him to draw the papers to his waiting hands. With her occupied for the moment, his own thoughts wandered for a moment.

In all honesty, the ice mage preferred this to be over with quick. He came here in search of answers, but only received more questions. Of course, the secrets of Destruction were appreciated, but he had come for the secret behind his craft's conception, not its fundamentals. He had learned plenty enough by himself as it were, trial and error with breakthroughs in-between. But he recalled again the sheer age of his craft, and inwardly balked. The bloody Age of Wonders, and it was a craft dying out by then? He might as well be the last living practitioner of this magic in the current age. He could obly wonder how it was practiced back then, for the users to be dying out so long ago.

He digressed.

"You're not living up to your claims and legends, Crowfather. That much I can glean."

The feathery cloaked man snorted in amusement.

"Rare indeed, that my knowledge comes up short. I can provide and answer many things. All things in this world are indeed within my reach. But as you may have very well realized, your craft perhaps... carries... foreign, origins."

Now he was getting somewhere. "Elaborate."

The white crow cawed, flying off into the distance, and the elderly sage produced a sphere. A construction of black ice. Pitch black, like peering into a physical void. Focraig found it all too familiar - he had created it whilst practicing Lithomancy. But how would - ah, yes, the 'all things in his reach' claim proven here. At least this old bird had some tricks. This was already a poor enough trip as it was.

"During my fortunate encounter with that practitioner, he mentioned a state of mind that turns the ice blacker than night. The highest form of his craft, and enables the user to revoke and reject that is the World itself. That Ice burns just as well as Fire. This item he gave me is a hint towards that state. Perhaps your are aware?"

No. Bloody. Way.

"You... you speak of magics I have dreaded to master. The same craft that saved me, but took my saviour in return. Dry Ice."

The crow nodded. "Indeed, you have learned the art. Which includes you have also mastered the Sentience, and Kelvic Zero sub routines of Construction and Alteration, respectively."

Well, he was beginning to live up to part of his claims, thought the ice mage. His craft came in stages, with a tier of Mastery for each branch he practiced. Sentience for Construction, enabling his creations to possess self-awareness in whatever form they took. Kelvic Zero, for the ability to drag temperature down to the lowest possible point, rendering all atomic compositions in his reach brittle and equalized. And this old crow had gleaned all that from the one mage in that single encounter? Focraig guessed the knowledge was not all passed by word of mouth.

"Your affinity for Destruction is also apparent. Reaching the mastery of Arctic Shock will be an arm's reach away, if you are properly motivated."

And that was a subgoal set.

Back on topic.

"Any tips of how to remove the girl's... Mark, even with Dry Ice?"

He hoped Nina would be receptive. He wanted to help however he could, like it or not.

"That is for the girl to decide. The Clocktower's affairs are secretive, ice mage. Only with all three branches mastered will you have the necessary skill, talent, and strength to survive encounters with that reclusive branch."

The crowfather's gleaming eyes of viridescent glowed sharply. "Perhaps even overcome it, should you master your craft entirely. But are you willing to do so, ice mage? To so recklessly intrude on business not entirely your own?"

Focraig's response was a harsh bark of laughter, his ecliptic eyes of black sclera, irises and blue pupils gleaming back. Like a wraith of a cold void.

"If it's for a friend, all of Creation will freeze beneath me. She may not consider herself my friend, but she's someone I'd like to protect and socialize with all the same. So what say you?"
 
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Nina stared at her clenched hands. Where did everything fit together? An assassin whose life she’d saved, breaking herself in the process. An assassin who saved her life, binding her in the process to the same gears that he had sought to destroy. Memories of her life in the Clocktower interwove with the Crowmaster’s words, with the pulsing pain in her forearm. The room. The warmly-lit room that she woke up in, with thick quartz windows much unlike the black slabs of glass here, blankets soft enough to sink in, and strange furniture that seemed to grow out of the wall, without any legs or loose ends that, in retrospect, could be broken apart and used as weapons. The door of the luxurious cell, without any handle, but cracked open. The library upstairs, smelling of books. The table. The needle.

‘Put your hands on the table.’ Gray had said.

She remembered the blood that bloomed when the nail stabbed under the nail. Her crying. Begging.
The equal tone of his questioning, who sent her, why did she come here, her hyperventilating, the gentle reminders to keep her hands on the table. The needle digging ever deeper in the sensitive nail-bed.

She’d said so much. Too much. Personal things that she’d never thought she would share. She hated Gray. And she’d done it just because the man had asked her to sit at a table and calmly slid a needle under his own thumbnail.

The hold her memories had on her flickered, as reality presented her with tales of ancient magics as wild as dreams. It was too much, to cope with all these feelings and all this knowledge, while her heart was beating to break her chest after what’d just happened. Nina curled in her seat. When the black orb came into existence, it was as if her soul had flown away with the white raven. Nina stared, unable to take her eyes away. It was just a hint towards the real craft, the elder mage said, but then why did it feel as if she was looking at a wound in her own flesh? That orb felt like a burn on her brain. She pushed herself back, as if trying to dig a hole through the stone armchair with her shoulder-blades.

The mages talked. Many of their words were beyond her understanding and still, there was an unsettling undercurrent that she felt building between them. Perhaps it was just in her mind. Perhaps it was just because the Crowmaster had worn Gray’s face. Nevertheless, she could not shake off the feeling that although the things spoken by the knowledge mage were technically correct, they were not the meaningful truth.

The ice mage offered to help her, and his reaction somehow scared her as much as all else that day.

“It might be better if you don’t.” Nina said, more harshly than she’d meant.

Part of her held her breath, expecting to be encased in ice and scattered to the four winds. People could get strangely entitled about helping others. Mages weren’t any better.

One long breath later, Nina was still alive.

“There’s something that worries me. I don’t know if this is something that the Crowmaster is purposefully obscuring, because it would deprive him of information.” Nina spoke, shakily. Perhaps she was just stupid, ignorant. Perhaps it was one of those things that wasn’t spoken of in polite company. “Or perhaps it’s something so self-evident that none of you thought to mention it. But…The fact that the stages of mastery have names, that’s bad, isn’t it?” Nina turned to Forcraig. Her hands mimicked the familiar gestures by reflex. “With painting, you don’t really have that. You can be a good sketch artist, or you can be good with landscapes, you can go out and do your own thing, anything in-between. There are many ways to do things, and few of them are ‘wrong’.” The woman brought her fingers to her chin. “That most practitioners of your craft did things a certain way suggests that there are few ways to do things right, and many ways to kill yourself trying.”

Imperceptibly, she bowed her head.

“Magician Forcraig’Diin.” She said. “I am grateful for your offer to help. But I don’t want you to take additional risks for me. Following your craft is a decision you have to make for yourself.”

“Make allies, Cryomancer. Friends, if you insist.” The master of Crows smiled. His eyes did not. “That is my answer to your question. It is not what you asked, but it is life advice.” He laughed, probably at the hypocrisy of his statements, Nina thought. “Nobody can do everything. You shouldn’t forget.” The elder’s voice dropped a few notes. “There will be moments where the best of your craft will not be enough. Or when it might not be the best tool, just like trying to cut a river with a sword. More than anyone else, us mages can fall into the trap of seeing our branch of magic as a hammer and everything else as a nail. When that nail is a person…” The Master of Crows nodded towards Nina. “Things can get complicated.”

“Nevertheless…I wonder…” There was a spark in his eyes, as he looked at Nina. “Heir of the Clocktower, how many runes do you see?”

He flicked his wrist, and letters floated halfway between him and the girl. The top runes were large and blindingly bright, making Nina reflexively shield her eyes. As she looked down, the letters got smaller and fainter, painted in different colors that gave her different sensations – darkness, cold, cinnamon. Near the surface of the platform, runes got as small as her pinkie nails. She narrowed her eyes.
Inside the platform, continuing down, they were even smaller.

Nina didn’t answer. He hadn’t addressed her by a name she accepted, after all.

“I see.” The Crowmaster said. “Intriguing.” Just like he’d taken note of her sensitivity by the way she reacted to the orb, he didn’t need to hear her speak in order to read her reactions. He turned back to Forcraig. “While I can’t promise it would help your searches, I wonder what would happened if you combined both of you abilities. Her sense is somewhat unusual, and your frost has the potential to make it more accurate.” He looked thoughtful. “Long time ago, absolute cold was used to investigate the building blocks of matter. As you might know, but I doubt your friend does, at small enough scales even the toughest rock is humming, even a mirror-surfaced lake is in violent turmoil, even the stillest air is chaos. You can stop that, and that background noise…disappears.” The Crowmaster snapped his fingers. “Not that she is polished enough to reach that far…just yet. Not for a long time.” He exhaled, almost like a snort. “Either way. I’ve got a collection of useless magic items, if you wish to try out this hypothesis.”

Focraig'Diin
 
"I'll pass."

He wasn't keen on testing out a hypothesis with someone completely new to the world of magic. Two ends of a spectrum as it were. He had been raised with his own magic, like it were a fifth limb, while she was a literal beginner, willing or no. He wouldn't risk an accident with this one if he pushed his craft too far. And absolute cold was not the answer he had been searching for. Not in the least. And what was this about a wrong approach to his craft? Mentor had said the cryocodex was passed down the generations, its contents entirely unedited save the one section he had yet to master, Dry Ice. The branch of Arctic Shock was simply neglected, an issue he would rectify in the months to come. Of course, this one book having withstood the test of time, all the way from the Age of Wonders, was frankly unreasonable, but he was sure if there had been copies, they would have contained the same explanations.

A fact the crowfather proved, as he recalled the girl's hypothesis.

"Not entirely correct, Nina. The majority of the deaths came from another source. They all have followed the same path as this ice mage, but to a height he has yet to attain. No, their demise came because of an abstract art. The same magic, but infinitely more complex."

He knew where this old coot was getting at. The same spell he had mentioned, disbelievingly, as he stared at the spherical void. His mentor had used it once, to save his life, burning away Time itself to revoke his own death. A fire that burned like ice, a white flame with an abyssal core. But this same magic spelt his mentor an untimely and sudden demise, as the Laws had been broken to ensure his resurrection. The same craft he had yet to master, and only use sparingly in case of emergencies. It was the same magic he had contemplated using on Nina, if only to ease her burden of carrying such a mark.

Then he flinched, a small book the size of his thumb dropping on his head and into an open palm. A book exactly like the manuscript in the crow's own hands.

"How - "

"A pocket edition of the original, which I now possess thanks to you. It contains all the contents of the original, and even a history of how your kind practiced the magic. I have yet to fully digest the information within, but I believe you may find more use of it than I ever will."

This was unexpected. "Whatever happened to having a price?"

A chuckle, and Focraig found the white crow perched on his own shoulder, cawing at the girl. The crow sage hung the codex at his own side, chains rattling and chiming as the manuscript was slung into the links. It was heavy as a chunk of iron ore, but a minor issue for the elder one. The bird flew up to roost on his head, over the hood, beak snapping in content.

Even Focraig's own composure cracked, as his expression turned into bewilderment at the change of events.

"As I have mentioned before, the Cryocodex is valuable, especially the original book itself. To compensate for such priceless knowledge is a task I find woefully inadequate. Instead, I shall assist you by giving you the two items, for within them holds the history of your craft. The conception behind your cryomancy is hinted at, from my own experience. Nothing concrete, but perhaps you will reach a proper conclusion."

He could bear with that. Now how to -

"Allow me."

He stared dumbly as the book was unfolded like a piece of paper, into a flat leatherbound the same size as the original, but lacking volume. Then the crow tapped the top of the cover - there was the weight, grunted Focraig, as he slung the book into his own belt.

He turned to Nina. "I don't know about you, but I believe my business to be finished here. And you Nina? Anything you'd like to get off your own chest with this old coot?"

Nina
 
“No. I don’t like him.” Nina uttered.

She was drained and, in the cracks of the clouds, the sky was blazing blue. With a faint rattle, the large stone-snake twirled around the platform and put his head near the girl. This close, she could almost hear the ticking of the clockwork that bound them. Its forked tongue went over the inside of her wrist, up her forearm, and it burned – whether with frost or warmth, she could no longer tell – leaving a white layer behind.

She pulled away. Frightened. Tense. With her heartbeat in her ears she brushed her other sleeve over the arm, and felt nothing. Nothing at all.

No pain. No discomfort, as her sleeve caught onto her old scars. There were no scars, beyond a few white lines. The white stone dust was easily brushed away, revealing smooth skin underneath.

Nina looked at the snake, making contact with one of its large eyes (which was dirty white stone and yet, at a deeper level, was also the color of honey) and wrapped her arms around his head. The eye was almost hypnotic. The ticking of the invisible clock which connected them was almost a melody, as if two gears had clenched together. In that large eye, she saw a world beyond her understanding. Yet she felt understood.

Something broke under her hand.

Startled, Nina pulled back. In her palm, there was a large, translucent white scale. It had stood out from the other scales, like a boil, or a remnant of the old skin.

“Chalk.” She said. It crackled under her fingernail.

“I’d keep that if I were you.” The Crowmaster said. Nina didn’t want to acknowledge his existence, but the scale murmured with magic.

Kipling bowed, as Nina reluctantly let go of the snake.

“You offered your paintings as a trade. May I partake?” The skeleton asked. The travelling painter just glared at the undead abomination who’d thrown spells at her and now wanted to negotiate. Yet, what Kipling said next left her utterly defenseless. “I liked the one with the blue waves.”

“Making your own deals, Kipling?” With a faint curl of his lips, the Crowmaster watched.

“Yes, Sir.”

“I don’t even know what you would do with this…folk art.” The elder mage snapped his fingers, soundlessly. “You spend most of your time sleeping. And paintings tend to wear off in a decade, two.”

“Indeed, Sir.” The skeleton with the green gem of a heart nodded, before turning to peruse the sketchbook that Nina held out for him. “Very nice.”

She chatted of the places where she’d painted those landscapes, and as a few minutes passed in the sounds of rustling paper, even the sky seemed brighter. He settled on images of waves crashing against a rocky shore, a lighthouse, a library with books huddling on shelves all the way to the ceiling and spiraling staircases. His bony hands gently held onto the paintings. In exchange, the undead opened his palm to reveal a small case the size of a snuff box. It was metallic and intricately carved, apart from the glass top. There was no obvious way to open it. Inside, it held something that looked like ink. When the box was tilted, ever so slightly, it rippled like dust. Yet it was finer than the finest dust one would see in nature.

“Do you know what this is?” Kipling asked.

“It looks like something that I’ve seen before.” Nina bit her lip. “Liquid Dust?”

If that was so, it was a more than generous gift. Once that was settled, the girl would let Focraig know that she was ready. Petting the snake once more, she took a pained look at the precipice under their feet.

“Well it’s going to take some effort getting back down.”

((ooc: That was a nice adventure! Thank you. I’m happy to stop here or continue, as you wish.))

Focraig'Diin
 
"Then our business is finished. You shall be sent to differing areas via a portal stone of my own design."

The crowfather snapped his fingers, and Kipling's heartstone glowed until the light enveloped the duo. In a flash that lit the skies a haunting emerald, the mage and the girl were gone. The skeleton collapsed in a pile of lifeless bones, its purpose fulfilled.

"You may be at ease, Shadow." The green eyes turned to a space only he could yet see, beneath the very weaves of reality. "The Maraji yet endures."

From the air itself, space rippled and bent. One black foot slammed down onto the rock platform, sending cracks across the stone like a spiderweb. The entity which came forth was more specter than man, but all the same, it was a being not even the crowfather himself would dare antagonize. In a clothing and fashion almost alien in this era, one glowing left hole stared into the sage's own.

"He has begun."

Not a question, but a statement. In a dark, bass tone, with undercurrents of an eldritch growl.

"It is as you have told. He carried the original manuscript, which I now give to you. But was the creation of the Necolumerce's twin necessary for his advancement?"

Taking the thick tome, which dissolved into mist at his hands, the shadowy entity cocked his head sideways.

"The Rith Aeonics were built by mortal men to pave a path of their own. To establish their own Laws and Truths. A craft foreign to these shores. He will need the guidance, to incarnate the Voidheart."

Sighing in resignation, the elder bowed in admission. "As you say, Shadowalker. Pray he matures quickly, to face the coming evil."

"Peace, Crowfather. It is the Ebonscale that will be tempered this time.."

((Thank you Nina, for participating! Cheers to your stay here!))