Dreadlords What Was Left Behind

[Accolon]

Threnody | Aecmald | Silver Crow

Accolon was now leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe, idly adjusting his gauntlets - polished black and richly embellished. They had either never seen an honest battle since being forged or were obsessively cared for. Then again, given their owner, both were likely true.​

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He waited until Mieri, Aelita, and Mas had passed them by before answering Threnody. "Why, she means you light up a room all on your own, Threnn," he said, with such deadpan ambivalence that an imperceptive mind might miss his sarcasm, "I think she fancies you."​

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Accolon coolly pulled himself up straight, his sense of security repaired now that the wind hadn't returned. So the party was to be split. Such fun. All for the best, of course: he didn't trust Maseno not to telekinetically crush everyone in a three mile radius on a bad sneeze.​

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He took the time to survey his little cohort. Threnn, Aecmald, and the manservant. There was no doubt in his mind that he would have to take charge here. Hardly the battalion of his dreams, but a true leader of men could make due under any circumstance.​

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The manservant took the time to equip everyone with lanterns. How thoughtful of him. Apparently he had a better grasp of Threnn’s capacity for illumination than Aelita.​

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“To the keep, if you were listening,” Accolon answered the manservant, “There is a thoroughfare cutting towards it that I noted on our arrival. Now, follow me.”​

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Accolon waited for them to form up - directing Silver Crow to bring up the rear - and then led them from the chapel, into the greatly darkened streets.​

 

[Mieri]

Mieri formed up alongside Maz and Aelita, shrugging her shoulders at the Luana's question. "Didn't like it, didn't seem natural."

She frowned, then added. "Wind isn't punchable."

It was a rather silly observation, but the way Mieri said it sounded rather sad. With good reason too. If wind wasn't punchable, then whatever had caused it to scream through likely wasn't punchable either. The young Initiate was getting a sickening feeling that she wouldn't get to do much punching this trip.

Walking quickly, the three initates moved back into the empty streets of the forgotten city.

They found the streets they walked like those they had seen before; barren and overgrown. Vines and trees sprouted from anywhere and everywhere, yet once more there were no animals. No birds singing, no squirrels collecting food for winter, not even insects buzzing in the air.

Vel Basten was eerily quiet. Painfully so.

Though it helped that Mieri filled the void.

"Mas, what do you think Houri will like as a souvenir?" Mieri asked, Aelita and Mas both knowing that the young pugilist had a habit of bringing souvenir's from her missions for students who hadn't been on them. "She just came back, and she used to be with us, but then she wasn't for a while, but now she is, so I think she needs something good to let her know she's still one of us."

Mieri, of course, had no idea why Houri had been gone for so long and hadn't had the chance to ask. Though she'd enjoyed their journey into the desert together.

 

[Maseno Luana]

A frown shifted across his face at Aelita's words, but quickly righted itself into a faint smile at Mieri's.

"It is not trackable either ... wind without weather," the young man remarked as they pressed on through the ruin, "does not bode well." He needn't tell either of them to be on their guard, but he felt it pertinent to speak on the potential unknown dangers. His gaze continued to keenly survey their surroundings as they moved deeper into the old complex, and where no sounds followed them ... neither did movement or presence.

The stillness and quiet of the area was also unnatural and he did not like it at all.

He wasn't even sure if he liked that Mieri was breaking the silence. It gave them away to anyone that might be hiding... but he couldn't help the sudden tug at his heartstrings at the mention of his sister and bringing her a souvenir. Mieri had a habit of speaking out of turn, rambling, and more or less being loud and obnoxious but Maseno had witnessed time and again that her words and outbursts more often than not came from a place of good intention. He'd not make an effort to dissuade her of such things.

"She appreciates history," he said quietly, "I am certain she would have been awed by this place. Perhaps a small relic of the city that represents what it once was..." his eyes landed upon something curious then in what appeared to be a small alcove courtyard, "I see something."

He moved quickly over toward a carved stone bench and a bundle beneath it to find a rucksack, "Someone was here." Inspecting the contents, he pulled out a notebook, quills, and some curious metal instruments whose purpose and use escaped his knowledge, "this must have belonged to one of the researchers. Perhaps we are going in the right direction after all."

 

[Aelita]

“Hmm,” hummed with a smile Aelita after she heard Maz and Mieri respond.

As they walked through the long-abandoned city, Aelita’s eyes looked around and scanned the environment. Aelita did not offer much beyond her usual smile after hearing Mieri’s idea to give Houri a souvenir.

Then, Aelita heard Maz call out that he saw something.

“A good gift for Houri?” Aelita asked at first as the group approached the backpack left behind.

Aelita looked at the metal instruments with an “Ooo,” before turning her attention to the notebook. She would take the notebook from Maz to read it, if he did not protest.

Flipping through the notebook, one of the last passages would reveal the following words:

I know by now the only chance another will read this is if you’ve come to this abominable place long after my death. Be you here out of curiosity, for riches, in search of me, or whatever, turn back now.​

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We were so wrong. Vel Basten lays abandoned for a reason. This is no place of honor. Nothing of value was buried here.​

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Something of a great evil was born in this place. If you remain, it’ll claim you as it did my own.​

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Your death will not be painless, nor quick. Death may even be a strong word.​

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Heed this warning.​

 

[Mieri]

"I don't think I can steal someone else' stuff as a gift, Aelita." Mieri commented as they came upon the small stone bench. Noting that the researchers things had clearly been left behind.

Whoever they belonged to had clearly stashed them beneath the bench, but why?

Stepping besides Aelita, she stood on her tip-toes to look over the blondes shoulder. Her lips pursing for a few moments as she read the same passage as her fellow Initiate. Her jaw tightening ever so slightly as she flowed through word after word.

"Uhh..." Mieri said quietly. "That's uhmm...probably not good."

Another gust of wind rushed over them, fluttering the papers of the journal.

Her head turned, slowly gazing around the huge square they found themselves in. A sense flowing over her as though they were being watched. Then, suddenly, she saw it, a brush of movement in one of the nearby buildings. "There."

Mieri called, suddenly more serious as she pointed towards one of the half fallen structures. "I saw someone move."

The building was massive, likely the former Governors manor, or some other nobles house.

 

[Amalric Urahil]

Blond brows arched above merry eyes, shimmering with an unabashed enthusiasm for life. Somehow, the spark of wonder had not been squeezed out of the youth, despite the Academy’s best efforts. They blamed it on his lowborn peasant blood. Resiliently thick headed.

“Hang on,” Threnn followed after Accolon, his chain rattling against his plate with every step - he had come expecting to fight a company of elves after all. The ground was covered with stone rubble, moss and lichen clinging to it as the forest sought to reclaim the land from the human interlopers.

But as they moved deeper into the fallen city, the stonework of towers and walls still reached up high into the air above the trees, like the fingers of a dead man who had once clawed toward life and light.

“You really think she fancies me?” Threnn remarked as he bobbed along behind Accolon, picking his way through the undergrowth and debris. “I mean, we all know I’m close to the bottom of the class.”

 

[Maseno Luana]

Aelita certainly made a show of reading journal aloud - Maseno responded in kind with a frown. The added theatrics of gestures and dramatic voice wasn't even necessary to spin the threat and warning of this place. He took up the rucksack and carefully replaced the items within it, thinking to keep it as evidence at least that they'd found something if nothing else turned up.

As he righted himself back to his feet, the wind blustered through and he thought he heard the sound of a voice upon it.

"Did either of you hear that?"

"I saw someone move."

He pivoted on his heel immediately in the direction she pointed, though he saw nothing, "Someone?" Maseno further glanced around to see if he could spy any others but whoever or whatever it was toying with their senses was elusive.

"We must follow - it's the only lead we have," and with a glance back at the girls he quickly and carefully moved across the square to the building and an area of crumbling wall that had opened up from a window to step inside. It was quite dark within ... far darker than he felt it aught to be, and as he helped the girls inside after him he could have sworn-

"Wait-" Maz paused, brows raising in alert, "I hear footsteps."

 

[Aelita]

Aelita’s eyes snapped toward the direction Mieri pointed out.

“See what? Hear what?” Aelita questioned as her head bounced back and forth between Maz and Mieri.

A shiver took hold of Aelita for a moment before she began fallowing the carefully moving Maz.

“What’re talking about?” Aelita questioned both her comrades.

With the darkness growing stronger around them, Aelita recasted her mage light spell in an attempt to provide some light.

It would have been enough for Maz to see Aelita tilt her head at his last statement.

“I hear nothing?"

 

[Mieri]

Mieri let her breaths slow, her heart gently thundering in her chest as the three of them began to venture into the building. Her lips drew to a thin line, and as Aelita's light cast around the shadows of the ancient town hall her head slowly turned from left to right. She searched the hall around them for a moment, head remaining on a swivel as she sought for any sign of the missing researchers.

Suddenly, Maz claimed to hear footsteps echoing in the dark. Mieri froze almost immediately, and Aelita spoke.

The blonde called out in confusion, but Mieri waved at her with a hand.

She motioned to her two companions for silence, a moment that should have been marked down in the history books. Mieri Taras demanding that someone else be quiet was like an Elf demanding for the Virak's to leave Vel Anir.

After a few seconds, she quietly whispered. "I don't hear anything eith-"

Before she could finish speaking, a howling gust of wind suddenly burst through the hall. It tore over the three Initiates in an instant, waving through their hair and sweeping around their clothes. Within the howling wind a voice screamed, a thing of utter panic.

"GET OUT!"​

It screamed, though whether in warning or demand no one could have said.

 

[Accolon]

Threnody | Aecmald | Silver Crow

Accolon led them through the dead city, lantern first. It didn’t exactly cast a spectacular glow, but it allowed him to see the outlines of the crumbling buildings and kept him from stumbling into potholes. What a miserable dreg heap. A truly awful place to expire.​

​

He might have been nervous if he were unarmed and unaccompanied. Or, rather, if he was any person other than himself. The manservant and Aecmald were apparently kept mute by terror of this ruin, so Accolon contented himself to talk to Threnody as they wound their way to the keep.​

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“Have you read de Balè’s On Courtship?” Accolon asked, only to immediately interrupt Threnn, “Hmm, wait. What am I saying? Of course you haven’t.”​

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It was an invaluable work, but Accolon supposed you had to be in the right circles to have heard about it, much less read and make use of its wisdom. This lot was so far removed from the right circles they may as well have been in squares.​

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“Suffice to say it is because of your class rank that she fancies you,” he quickly summed up, “Don’t think on it further.”​

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They arrived at the keep. Or rather: they arrived at a portcullis and a sturdy wall that barred the way to the keep. They might have doubtless come across a breach in the wall if they followed it along far enough, but Accolon didn’t quite feel like doing that.​

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The portcullis was rusted and ill-maintained, with vines winding their way around it. Easy enough to blast away. Accolon was about to comment on this when a terrible gust of wind ripped through the street, chilling him to the bone and whipping his hair and cloak.​

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It carried on for an unbearable few seconds, then the street was quiet again. “What a nuisance,” Accolon said through grit teeth, perhaps helping to conceal the fact he had nearly been scared shitless, “Here, hold this.”​

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He thrust his lantern out to Threnody - who at this point he suspected was his only living companion.​

 

[Amalric Urahil]

“Oh, um, sure.”

Threnn grasped the handle of the lantern and held it high, squinting at the rusted portcullis.

The chill from the wind seeped into his bones. A coldness, sapping, and something beyond coldness.

He looked wide eyed at Accolon, wondering what exactly his sardonic friend planned to do.