Curse

ninja_sloth · Jul 31, 2008, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Prelude

The damp, mossy ground is covered with a lattice of silver dew – it’s still early morning, and the meadow is mercifully shielded from the sun’s blinding rays by a thick crescent of sweet-smelling pine trees to the north-east. A man stands alone in one corner of this field, hunched over a shadowed heap, and he is grinning. This time it will work. He knows it. Dropping his weapon onto the scarlet-dashed pillow of grass by his side, he stands up straight and surveys his latest kill. Minutes pass, with no sound but the whistling of a light morning breeze. Twigs crack softly as something scuttles through the forest undergrowth to his right, then more silence. Once he seems satisfied, he raises his head to the heavens and begins to mutter.

Shadows lengthen and merge as the very air begins to glow an eerie purple, and vile, jagged symbols start to wriggle in and out of focus. They shimmer around the man’s head in the form of ancient runes, a medium for channelling his concentration on the escaping life-force in front of him. As his feet slowly rise from the damp ground, the invisible green energy drifting peacefully away from the dead body like campfire smoke swarms sharply into vision in his mind’s eye. It rises in the loose form of the body it has just left, before dissipating and fading into the cool damp air. Summoning his considerable energy, the necromancer calls out to the smoky apparition, and it responds immediately. Turning away from him, it squirms to escape his grasp, but rapidly sinks down to rest in a sad quivering puddle below his feet. This was a weak one. Excellent. The glowing runes flare brighter, twisting and swirling unnaturally around the man’s torso as he forces the green energy at his feet back towards the giant spider’s body. It makes contact in a few seconds, and the carcass glows a vivid jade as he re-unites it with it’s own tainted soul. Only an impossibly small nub of the green mist remains visible to him now, and slowly, he begins to drag and stretch it. Like an infinitely thin line of silk it swims towards the swarm of spluttering runes, twisting and looping as it begins to form the bond between man and insect that will allow the necromancer to command this undead thing.

So close now, the man squeezes his eyes shut and prepares for the final fusion as the invisible line of energy lightly brushes his midriff…
“For her…”
… and penetrates his skin.

I – Nowhere Left to Fall

He opened his eyes - and immediately regretted doing so. The table opposite lurched towards him, then swung away again in one continuous nauseating motion. It hurt. It always hurt. Given time the pain would diminish, but for now there would be no reprieve. There would be no salve, no water, no cool soothing hand of a monk to close the unnatural gashes in his left midriff, chest and shoulder. Taking a deep breath, something lodged at the back of his throat trembled, and he started to gag. Wiping the dark crimson crust away from his face, he started dry retching, unaware that there was nothing left to spill. Time passed, the heaves became coughs became pitiful sobs, and eventually… slowly… the darkness returned to take him again.

It always hurt. But that meant he was still alive. And if he was still alive, he could try again... couldn't he? Could he? Was he in over his head? As he regained consciousness, a pain at the back of his neck began throbbing sharply like a dagger twisting a notch, and the thought set him laughing, shuddering on the floor where he'd passed out the morning before last. He lay without sheets or furs, in the corner of the now-filthy, single-roomed abode he'd managed to ‘acquire’ on one of his earlier trips out to the area. A few seconds later the pain in his side joined in the shouting and, coughing up the last of the congealed blood lodged in his throat, he was still again. Listening to the muted sounds of the forest just outside his mould encrusted walls, he gradually gained the courage to re-open his eyes.

After a few failed attempts, the budding necromancer managed to drag his body up to a squatting position, and assessed the damage of his latest miserable attempt to summon the dead. Grenth, he really was in over his head, wasn't he? Maybe he should just lie down again, give up, and wait for the blessed darkness to take him one last time. There was no pain in the darkness. Let Grenth take him, what did he care? It wasn't as if he had anything to live for now, anyway. An outcast, shunned by his parents, and thrust harshly out of the gates of the academy, lest his - what was it again? "Inappropriate and potentially dangerous interests"? - somehow infect good Ascalonians. He’d always had a penchant for morbid thoughts, but this most recent experiment had taken too much out of him. Even in his current half-deluded state he knew that. Maybe he just wasn't ready; why else would the spell keep backfiring? …And yet he was so close!

He reached up to touch the ragged scar seared across the right side of his face, forehead and scalp. Damn those closed-minded fools! If only they had allowed him access to the restricted scriptures. The answer was in that damned library somewhere, he knew it! Summoning those hidden reserves of strength he had been forced to learn to rely on, he staggered to a standing position and screamed like a beast gone mad. Why did it have to be this damn hard? If only those idiots could see what he had seen, knew what he knew... he frowned suddenly at the thought of his sister – Grenth worked in mysterious ways, indeed. And right now, despite his current pitiful mode of existence, it appeared He wanted this obedient little servant to live a while longer yet.

With this in mind, the eldest son of the dishonoured house of Von Wrax decided it was time enough to sort his latest wounds out, at the very least. Gathering up his small collection of belongings – all stuffed hodgepodge into a plain but functional leather backpack – he slipped his unhurt right wrist into the grim cesta by his side, and took up the cursed weapon he’d swiped from the still spasming claw of his victim-before-last (or ‘donor’, as he found it more comforting to look upon them as). With the red mist of hunger already making up for the muddy feeling in his legs, he staggered out into the night to find fresh streams of blood, and still them. Every night he was conscious he would do this, harvesting the locked energy that was released with the passing of any life-force from the mortal world to the plain beyond. The secret laws governing this energy he had learned to understand, at least. And with understanding came the potential to manipulate, to twist the energy into other forms, other states that could dull the pain slowing him. That could take life away and that could... if he could only complete the damn ritual... grant life back to the dead.

But the energy didn't like being touched. He could do it, but it took a lot of effort.... no, more than that. It felt like it was taking something else out of him as well, something quintessential to his very existence. His own personal supply of the life-force he was growing increasingly more proficient at stealing, perhaps? He shrugged off the notion. He didn't like it. Nor did he understand how his constant attempts to merge the energy of others with his own continued to fail…

ninja_sloth · Jul 31, 2008, 08:28 PM // 20:28

II – Deathly Swarm

It was a clear night; the great celestial patchwork of distant suns formed a thin veil of silver, draped over a backdrop dyed an endlessly deep black-blue. A solitary insect flittered serenely through the pale moonlight, the very antithesis of mortal restraint. It swept across a dirt track on the edge of the territory the humans currently called Surmia, through a silent copse and on into Ascalon. Unfettered, it rode the wind in great swooping arcs before it finally reached the Great Northern Wall. A magnificent achievement of man, this fortification was the only structure standing between the blood-lusting pyromaniacs of the far Northern wastelands and the human kingdom of Ascalon; mankind’s last hope for victory and salvation from the endless war.

Up on the battlements of the Wall, two guards are conversing about the thrice-damned bitter wind, and the obvious faults of their Captain’s priorities, given his recent re-distribution of night-time guard duties. Or rather, one of them is conversing – the other is squinting out into no-man’s land, and frowning.

“What in the name of Balthazar he actually expects us to do out here is beyond me,” complained the first, for the ninth time that hour. “I’ve been on night watch for three Grenth-damned nights in a row now. Count ‘em – three!” He shoved three grubby fingers under his companion’s nose, pressing his point.

“Yar, yar. Three days, gotcha.” The other man replied with a long-suffering resignation. He had become accustomed to the ramblings of his companion. Gods knew he had had to – they had an unerring tendency to get paired up for near every duty these days. Someone higher up had doubtless come to the conclusion that they had become friends over the past few months. Truth be told, he just happened to be the only one who could spend five minutes with the guy without going ape-shit and killing something.

“I mean, it’s not as though anyfin’ is gonna happen in the next twenny minutes, right?” He said, prodding his partner in the rib. “Right?!”

His wavering concentration finally shattered, the guard broke his gaze on the northern lands, and turned.
“What?”

“Am I right?” A few more prods took home his message. Again.

“Yar, sure. You’re right, Greyson,” he muttered. “Whatever you say.”

“Hey, Vin,” Greyson said, after a few seconds of rare, blessed silence. “Can ya hear sumf– “

A pause, followed by – dare he believe it – more silence? Had the great stupid oaf finally run his mouth dry? Oh, thank the Gods! Vin continued to peer out at the darkened Northlands for another minute before turning to his comrade. There was a strange humming noise coming from somewhere, and something had been bugging him at the back of his mind tonight. Nothing serious, just this… weird feeling. Too many hours looking out towards the Charr could drive any man nuts, he supposed.

“Hey Grey, is that you making tha…” Vin turned to his left, and frowned at the distinctly Greyson-devoid space. He looked around for a second… and then looked down.

“Oh, dear Gods!”

The body of his companion now lay on the floor of the battlement in a growing pool of his own blood, covered in thousands of miniscule gashes and squirming black dots from toe to head. Or at least, up to the bloody stump of quivering flesh protruding from the top of his breastplate. What little remained of his head was actually scattered over the distance of several feet, most of it mercifully hidden in the darkest of the night’s shadows.

Vin started to call for help, but no sound came. He couldn’t break his gaze on the brutally murdered corpse in front of him. He wasn’t given very much time to stare – a split second later the air around him was saturated with a horrid buzzing. The black dots that covered the dead body multiplied, and rose up to hover over the corpse in a black, squirming haze. The buzzing grew louder, and out from the gaping neck wound came more of the same black vermin. They crawled and buzzed and hissed, and rose in a fitful cloud of rage towards him.

This time Vin did yell, but it was strangled and muffled as the swarm of insects flew at him, forced their way down his throat, and turned his scream for help into a muffled, gargling death-wail. When later questioned, the other guards on duty will have heard no commotion in the night, nor will they have seen the shadowy black shape that silently scaled the Wall’s northern side, fell like a heavy mist over the turrets, and slinked away into the darkness towards Ascalon City.

III - Hope

Take the southern gate out of the bustling streets of Ascalon City, and one would find him or herself walking down an increasingly thinner riverside pathway illuminated in dappled shades of gold and green. There are no buildings or fortifications outside of the main city - not south of the Wall and the eternal war, at any rate. Here was a land of peace and beauty. Its beauty originates not from any grand statues or elaborate architecture, great archways or marble pavements. One will find no structures of fine craftsmanship out here in the rural tracts of Ascalon.

No, the beauty here is the kind radiating out from the very earth itself, the kind that is so often lost to the former, artificial beauty of man. What fine structures man creates in an unknowing mockery of nature is dwarfed by the true splendour found right here. The shady boughs of a willow, the rustlings of a mouse in the undergrowth, the soft breeze on one’s face as they stroll down towards the nearest rural settlement south of the Great Northern Wall.

Ashford. The people who live here are, like most Ascalonians, stalwart and serious, but fundamentally good. Their way of life is a simple one, farming and housekeeping being the primary professions. Occasional threats from marauding bands of Grawl are quickly eradicated by the imposing presence of the King’s Army’s patrols. There is no further need for law-enforcers; even this short a distance from the city, the people are small in number, local, and quiet. There are approximately ten buildings in this sleepy village, each seemingly more humble than the last.

Take the winding dusty road down towards the village centre, and one may expect to hear children playing in the nearby fields, and splashing down by the village pond to the south-west. Passing a harmless, large yellow bird whose height almost matches that of a man, one will reach in a short time a medium sized cottage on the westernmost outskirts of the village, with a large porch and golden thatched roof. If one were to move around the back of this home, and peer around the window cloths and houseplants of the small kitchen window, one would see a plain but attractive, tall, pale-skinned woman in her early twenties, with straight, deep red hair of shoulder height. She is drying the last of the clay pottery used for supper, and is about to walk upstairs. Her name is Sar, and her life is about to be turned upside-down.

A knocking at the door made her turn around suddenly.

“I’ll be right out!”, she called. Sar stopped for a second to check her appearance in the small circular wall mirror by the front door, then fumbled with the catch and pulled it half-open.

The man who stood on her front porch was taller than her, clad in drab brown leathers and a long, gray hooded cloak. This hung low, obscuring near all of his face in shadow. Thin wisps of black mist filtered from under the hood; they seemed to reach out to touch her before dissipating into the air. The only skin she could make out was that of an unhealthily pallid, stubbled chin. He didn’t say anything for several seconds, just stood there, wobbling slightly. His posture suggested a great weariness.

“Well?” Sar said. “Can I help you?”

As he continued to do nothing other than stand imposingly at her door, a familiar heat started to fall over the woman. With the onset of the adrenaline rush, she felt her senses narrow and focus, her breath quicken and her heart rate increase. None of this was made evident to the stranger; she stared at him and remained completely stationary. Sar’s right hand, however, started to slowly move from the inner side of the door frame, and reached towards the axe propped up in the umbrella stand in the hall. She wasn’t going to be taking any chances. This man literally reeked of death.

“Who are you?” Sar said, her eyes narrowed.

“You don’t recognise me, sister?”

ninja_sloth · Jul 31, 2008, 08:31 PM // 20:31

IV - Reunion

His words cut into her like heated steel. Sar’s eyes dropped to her feet. This man was in no way her brother; he whom she had finally resigned to death these past few months. Her brother was… had… been a good man, a loyal follower of Dwayna and novice scholar until his untimely demise. Not like this thing in front of her, oozing vile death and malcontent. After being last sighted heading north into the Blasted Lands shortly after his expulsion from the Academy, she had feared the worst. Her fear had been confirmed when he failed to return home for almost a full year. She had held on to hope for far longer than any of her friends believed reasonable. The same people who had comforted her had turned to accusing her of denial, yet still she had held to hope. At the time, she had read too deeply into stories from the north, and once even tried to gain permission to launch a search party herself. This had been hastily denied and, as time continued to move unhaltingly on, so too, eventually, had she.

So, no. This man in front of her man was no relative of hers. And yet he still had the audacity to stand there and claim ownership over the memories of her dead brother? No. Not while she still drew breath. Sar did not respond to his question for a long time, and when she did, her voice was low and her words well chosen.

“This is going to be your only warning,” she whispered. “Explain yourself, or get the hell off my property.” Sar wasn’t an individual predisposed to violence, but she started to feel the dense red clouds that signalled the onset of blood-rage settling in the forefront of her mind now. She never liked to hurt anybody excessively, but for this man she believed she could make an exception. The figure chose this moment to raise his arms, and Sar was quick to react. In less than a second the weapon was in her hand, the door was kicked back and she had grabbed the front of the stranger’s cloak. She started to push him backwards. The man bade her no attention, only continued to raise his arms to his face, and started to push back his hood. The thick gray cloth flopped over his head in a puff of escaping black mist, revealing a matt of scruffy crimson hair atop a pale, horrifically scarred, face. Slowly, Sar’s arms dropped to her sides, and a second later the weapon fell to the ground with a dull clunk. It couldn’t be! He… he was… dead…

“Kal?”, she whispered. “Kalorr, is that…?”

V – Back to the Beginning

“What in the name of Balthazar happened to you?!”, Sar asked, not for the first time.

The couple were sitting across from each other at the small circular table in the front room of Sar’s cosy little cottage. Kalorr had one foot up on the stool in front of him, and was currently scratching at one of his freshly applied bandages. After an emotional half hour, during which both siblings shed their fair share of tears, Sar had begun fussing over Kalorr’s many wounds and bruises, patching him up as best she could. Shortly after, the endless line of questioning had begun, not least of which was just how her brother had ended up in such a state, and where he had been the previous year. As far as the evil aura shrouding him was concerned, she made no comment. For now at least, sisterly concern and love had made her blind to all such things.

Kalorr sighed.

“I suppose I really have to tell you, huh?”, he said.

“Course you do”, Sar replied, leaning over the table and smiling slyly with her hands on her chin. “You know me, I’ll only keep on nagging ‘till you do!” She grinned at him, but her face dropped as soon as she saw his expression.

“Do you really need to know?”, he said, and the seriousness with which he spoke immediately sobered her.

“Yes.”

“Knowing will only bring you pain. No good will come of it.”

“Kalorr. I’m your sister. I always will be, no matter what. Tell me.”

Kalorr took a deep breath, and let it out.

“… Alright.”

Summon this place to your mind now, dear reader, for I would have you see this. I would have you see this very well. This is Ashford village at late dusk. The night air is chill and refreshing, freezing our lungs with every breath. All is silent but for the soft murmuring splashes of the waterfall behind the village, and the crickets. They are already chirping their mating calls from the dark places as the night starts to creep in towards the last smouldering stubs of lantern light. The shadows are growing long indeed in their combined effort to smother the world for the long night ahead. Yet what we are interested in is a small cottage on the outskirts of this sleepy village. A solitary beam of orange light is shining out from the kitchen window, harshly piercing the colourless grey faces that only this twilight period is seemingly capable of creating in every branch and leaf. Moving towards and then into this beam, we hear quiet voices, one deep and the other fair. And, when our eyes adjust to the light, we see an oil lamp, silently burning between two red-headed siblings. They are sitting opposite each other around a small oak table, one leaning forward with her head in her hands, the other slouched back lazily in his chair. These two are bound together by more than mere blood.

Now, under the clear, star-strewn canopy that has looked down upon this peaceful place for aeons, he begins to tell his tale. And as he begins to speak, his mind wanders back, and we are allowed to wander with him. The world becomes hazy as we sink into his mind‘s eye. We sink deeper still as the kitchen fades into obscurity. The cottage swirls into a foggy abyss, and as he starts to talk the village disappears and we are dragged back on the wings of his words to a place far from here, just under one year ago…

His mind wandered back to his calling, back to when he had just been…

… he has just been granted the honour of his first unaccompanied visit to the Nolani Academy Library, far superior to that of Ascalon City’s. He stands now before the gate, humbled by the ancient oak doors and defensive magic obelisks, first used in the latter stages of the Greater Guild Wars that so nearly tore this world apart. Shaking his head in wonder, he makes a motion to knock on the door, but it starts to open regardless. A second later he hears the great bell toll, signalling the latest exiting procession of warriors heading out to the Northern War. Scurrying to one side, he takes the time to watch the march, and wonders at how few there are nowadays – how the patriotism and nobility seemed to drain out of these men, the vibrant colour and glory of great pre-war Nolani reduced to a bleak, washed gray. The flags had become a mere formality, a non-functional item to be planted with respect upon the first encounter of Charr-murdered Ascalonians. The bell-ringing had become an executioner’s sentence. These men weren’t marching upon the enemy, they were walking to their deaths. Worse still, they knew it. Yet still they marched, and he knows that Ascalon will continue to churn out warriors until none remained. If the need called, her people would make a last stand on their very doorsteps with a furious devotion. Ascalon would not waver if it meant her certain doom – she did not know how to give up a fight; her greatest lasting strength, and most terrible weakness.

The last of the warriors paces through; a beautifully tanned, nervous-looking recruit slightly younger than himself, by the looks of things. She is clutching a tattered flag of her House to her breastplate as though it were the elixir of life itself, and has yet to see the full, glorious theatre of war played out in front of her. Our young student wishes her a quick and painless death as she disappears around the nearest hillock into a rising dust cloud – a safe return was beyond hope.

Passing under the great oak beams, the thudding sound of the young novice scholars’ boots echoes from all corners of the Great Hall, sending back multiple warped shadow-sounds that deliver a chill to his spine. Following the directions given to him by his mentor Mr. Ridrok, a strange ominous feeling creeps over him. A resident student, dressed in the traditional dusty red cloths of Nolani, passes him by in the next corridor, following his constantly changing gaze in confusion before making an impromptu turning behind a statue depicting Melandru. By the time Kalorr reaches the library, the sensation has grown to pure paranoia. He inexplicably does absolutely not want to be here, yet cannot pinpoint the feeling’s origin. Shaking it off as nervousness on behalf of excitement (despite knowing this not to be the truth), he spends some time wandering the aisles selecting the books recommended to him, and within the hour is entirely lost within the criss-crossing labyrinthine corridors housing the single greatest collection of knowledge in Tyria. Or at least, as far as Ascalonians would have him believe; Orr was reputed to be in possession of a library containing a greater wealth of historical information. Kalorr had made it one of his life aims to visit it someday.
L
ost to his thoughts, his ominous feeling ceases to bother him, slipping away just as rapidly as it began, that is until he turns another corner and comes to a sudden, juddering halt…

Facing him is one of the academy’s five statues depicting one of the Old Gods: Dwayna, Lyssa, Balthazar, Melandru… and Grenth. God of death and ice. Keeper of the dead. Grenth, the Grim. The sculptor had chosen to depict the Keeper of Souls as a cloak covered man, the cowl mercifully hiding the upper half of some thin, malicious beast’s face. Only the grinning, snarling snout can be seen clearly by the light of the torches illuminating the figure from above. Staring across at him from the dusty, seldom used side-chamber of the library, Kalorr realises he has wandered more than slightly away from the books and parchments of the novice’s section. This is the section of the library reserved for highly adept mages and mesmers; those sworn to the pursuit and representation of arcane knowledge far beyond that of most men.

Breaking his gaze on the face of death, Kalorr turned around in a panicked flurry of robe and parchment, and begins walking away. He takes one step, then two. A slower third, then a pause. The same feeling of ominousness has crept back over him again, and slowly, he becomes aware that someone or something is noting his movements from above. Dropping his books in frustration, he cranes his head up to the rafters, just in time to spot… absolutely nothing. Spinning around full circuit, he strains to catch the figure he knows to be hiding in his periphery vision. But there is no-one there. He is alone. He continues to stare upwards for a few moments before allowing himself to relax slightly.

He comes to his senses, and dismays to think of the disregard he has shown to the scriptures in his possession. Bending down, he spends a few minutes fussing over the dinted corners and creased papers before he is fully satisfied. It is whilst he is doing this that he hears an unnervingly shrill, drawn out whine from behind him, and is at once bombarded with the irrefutable knowledge that somebody is standing directly behind him. Tilting his head, he studies the shadow being cast across the stone floor by the figure for a second.

“So, finally decided to show yourself, huh?”, he mutters to himself before he stands up, smiles sheepishly and turns around. “Look, I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I was only…”

No! No, it wasn’t possible! There had been someone there a bare second ago. He knew there had been someone there! The smile crumbling from his face, he stares at the empty corridor stretching out in front of him, starting to breath heavily as his heart rate increases. Shooting glances everywhere, he starts to stumble backwards out of the side-chamber, his scriptures forgotten, his only thought to get away from whatever was going on in here.

“Look, I d-don’t know what game you’re playing, b-but it’s not f-funny…”

Silence.

“I… who are you?”

Silence.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!”

Silence. He runs.

ninja_sloth · Jul 31, 2008, 08:34 PM // 20:34

VI – The Walk

He runs until his muscles hurt, and doesn’t stop until his face is flushed a hellish red and his lungs burn with every rasping breath he takes. He dashes around corners at random, jostling shelves and bringing papers and books alike down around him. Not once does he encounter anyone, but his mind is not on anything but running. At last, he stops, bending over and resting his sweaty fists on his knees, gasping heavily. Looking down at the stone cold floor, he notices something gripped tightly in his left hand. A piece of parchment, now crumpled up, blotched and torn in more than a few places. He unfolds it, wiping the moisture from his forehead as he contemplates the trouble he is going to get into for this. He was already knee-deep in pig shit, what was one more offence? Frowning, Kalorr starts to skim read. But the paper does not show any of the texts of a novice’s teachings. Instead, the ruined parchment is nearly empty, with but a few scant words written in long, spidery writing down the centre of the page. It says:

Darkness comes
Young child walks
Death for all
Whose faces show
Shadows fall
Damp earth below

Darkness comes
Young novice fails
Blood spilt
The sacrifice
Sand and silt
To pay the price

Darkness comes
Old hand rises
Vile strength
Kills come faster
Lord of Grenth
The minion master

Darkness comes
And He is always watching

As he reads the last line, Kalorr‘s back crawls. This wasn’t something he had picked up earlier. He supposed he may have grabbed it from one of the shelves in his panicked flight, but he doesn’t remember doing so. Furthermore, there was something about the writing that was eerily familiar, and not for the first time today he can’t say exactly why. Whatever the case, it’s just further proof that he needs to get out of here. Whatever is driving him to paranoia and insanity only appears to be within the walls of Nolani. Mayhap a new form of enemy mesmer spell, or something closer to home. Mists, he doesn’t even care anymore, he just wants out! Stuffing the parchment into his chest pocket, Kalorr looks around for the nearest way out, and starts. This isn’t any part of the Library he has been told of!

The walls are still stone and mortar, but there are no longer any torches lining the rafters and illuminating the shelves and stacks. Instead he finds himself to be in a cold, dank corridor of stone, with small amounts of moss interspersed between the uneven stone, of all things. Feeling himself grow edgy again, he starts back the way he has come, and in a few short minutes feels the mists of panic rise up to swamp him again. Is it just his imagination, or is it getting darker?

In fact, where is the light coming from? With no torches to create the flickering shadows dancing around and about the stones and dank plantae, what is? Kalorr doesn’t know; the very air seems to glow with it’s own ghostly presence. His heart starts hammering in his ribcage again. He tries to lick his lips, but his mouth is dry. For what seems like hours (and may well have been longer), he does nothing but stumble forwards down an increasingly darker corridor. He starts to cry. It is a long time before he realises that he cannot remember the last time he saw a turning, left or right. Looking over one shoulder, only a few feet of grey passageway can be distinguished before it is engulfed by the darkness. It seems to reach out towards him, striving to engulf him into it’s eternal gloom. Looking forward again, he now sees the corridor stretch on, apparently forever. He might as well be looking at a mirror reflected in a mirror. No features of distinction lines the stone walls, ceiling or floor. The passageway just stretches out into infinity.

Kalorr turns to look behind him again - darkness. Ahead again - infinity.

“What is going on here?”, he mutters to himself through a veil of tears. After a moment’s thought, he takes the first option. Turning around, he starts back the way he came, and doesn’t make two steps before he hears the same high pitched whine from before. Shooting a look behind him, Kalorr is not entirely relieved to find no-one there, just the same corridor as always, stretching out behind him to the limits of his vision. He continues on into the darkness, which before long seems to stretch out towards him, lengthening and merging the shadows, and pooling the dark areas together. The whining gets louder, but Kalorr struggles on regardless, crying freely. The shadows grow, the darkness deepens, and the whining gets ever stronger, until Kalorr feels his head is ready to explode. He staggers blindly on and on, holding his waving arms out in front of him the whole time.

An eternity later, he feels something different. Something to break the monotonous torture of the corridor. A cool moistness on his face, like fog or steam. It would be refreshing under different circumstances; right now it somehow feels akin to spiders’ webs being brushed across his skin. He claws at his face, wiping and flicking as if to swat it away, but there is nothing there but water. A few minutes later, he notices something else; the space in front of him is no longer completely dark. There is something else, some faint glow far ahead of him. At first he believes he is imagining it, but when it eventually grows stronger instead of fading, it becomes clear that this is no mere trick of the eye, but very real.

"And very dangerous", the voice at the back of his mind adds.

While he staggers on towards the glowing yellow haze breaking up the darkness in front of him, the whining pitch that has been raping his ears grows ever louder and ever more abusive, but somehow he knows that the only way out of this torture is ahead, that there is no turning back. So he staggers on, and in time the corridor does indeed end.

“That sounds horrifying”, Sar said.

Kalorr made no reply, only looked down and drained the rest of the coffee Sar had made him.

There was an awkward silence between the two before Sar spoke.

“I'm sorry. It's just..."

"What?"

Sar paused. "There’s definitely something bad happening. Or about to happen”, she said. “Oh, I don‘t know, I‘ve just been feeling on edge of late. It’s not just the rumours about those damn Charr being south of the wall, either. There’s been some other bizarre reports coming in. Only the other day a bunch of guards were killed on the Wall. Some pretty gross stuff going on. Hearing all this from you now is just…”

She shivered.

“That’s just it, though”, Kalorr replied. “Now that I’m here I can help with things, help get things sorted out. If only I were allowed back into the academy.”

“If only I could get into the restricted scripture rooms“, he deliberately didn’t add.

“What? You didn’t know?” Sar said. “Adelburn is calling any and all potential heroes to join the Academy. We’re running awfully low on troops these days, you know.”

Kalorr was stunned. If what he was hearing was true, then he needn’t have… those guards… “I knew I shouldn’t have told you all this. It’s not your problem”, Kalorr began, but stopped when his sister started shaking her head.

“No. No, I asked you to, and I still want to know. I’m sorry, go on.”

ninja_sloth · Jul 31, 2008, 08:37 PM // 20:37

VII - Temptation

He steps out of the passageway and finds himself in a small, round chamber of stone, with five half-pillars jutting out from the walls, forming semi-circular shelves above head height. On each of these rests a black chalice of jet, each sporting a spluttering pale blue flame that rises and falls, yielding to some unknown force. Certainly there was no drafts of air in the room, the humid air hanging like some stagnant cloud around him, radiating an undeniable feeling of claustrophobia.

In front of him, in the very centre of the room, is a stone pedestal. Vapour is drifting in lazy breaths from the base, circulating outwards to cover the rest of the room. Looking down to his feet, Kalorr realises he can only see to his ankles. The rest is engulfed by the wet mist. But this does not hold his attention for long, because resting on the pedestal is the source of the glow he has been seeking. And somehow, Kalorr knows, the answer to everything. The only exit from… wherever in the underworld he is. And he is instinctively drawn towards it.

It is a huge, thick book of sturdy parchment, bound by thick leather straps that also cover the front and back covers, which are made of some dark, unknown wood. Thick iron plating covers each of the corners, and it is these that are glowing a ghostly yellow. As he walks towards the pedestal, the constant whining in his head rapidly grows beyond bearing, and he falls to his knees, clutching at his ears. As he falls, one hand comes into contact with the rough stone surface of the pedestal, and the whine suddenly ends. As his hand slips off, it starts again with shocking abruptness. Screaming, he claws out for the stone again, this time keeping his palm pressed firmly to the damp, stone cold texture.

A few minutes pass, Kalorr doing nothing but kneeling and breathing. Then, he gets to his feet, making sure to keep his hands pressed on the pedestal at all times. He looks at the book in front of him, and studies the strange markings adorning it’s face. There is a lattice of lines, intertwining each other in dizzying complexity to form a picture of a skull, with great gaping eyes. Where the lower jaw should be there is instead a lolling tongue, split twice at the end to form a three-pronged rope of threads, slipping away from the edge of the cover towards the spine. Peering around the side, he sees the lines converge and twist around each other to form bold letters. Together they read:

~THE BOOK OF THE DEAD~

Kalorr shudders. This isn’t the arcane knowledge he has been taught of, this is something entirely different. Something powerful, dangerous and dark. And primal, almost akin to the raw magic’s of the Gods. He is fairly certain that this is not reading for a novice scholar’s eyes, but cannot deny the urge he has to touch the cover, open the book, and find out what secrets lurk within. He reaches out a hand and brushes the leather surface with his fingers. It’s icy cold, and damp with condensation. Hesitantly, he lifts the front cover, and finds it to be as heavy as it looks. Keeping his right hand to the pedestal, he turns the first page, and begins to read the words written therein. The writing is the same as that on the parchment in his chest pocket, though he will not realise this till later. The words are blacker than black, and seem to suck him in.

He doesn’t reach the second paragraph before he starts to feel dizzy. The words transfix him to the page, and he finds himself unable to look away. He knows with every ounce of his being that he must continue to read, but it becomes more difficult with every passing word. They grow bigger in his mind, and seem to swell towards him from the very page. They expand in his consciousness until nothing but a sliver of bright white light remains, lurking in his peripheral vision, then that too is gone. He is plunged headfirst into the darkness, and his mind is numb. There is no fear, no paranoia associated with this darkness, nothing. No emotion of any kind. He is an empty shell, at one with the blank abyss. There is nothing but emptiness. A disembodied consciousness swimming through an endless black sea of nothingness… until then the whine slowly winds up again.

“I have a question,” Sar said. “Though I’m almost afraid to ask it.”

“Alright.”

“What was in the book?” Sar looked down at her hands, folded on top of each other on top of the table. In her current pose, she looked almost ashamed. “I… I don’t want to know exactly what was in it, just… was it as dangerous as you thought? Has reading it put you in any danger?”

Kalorr frowned. Now that he thought about it, he realised he didn’t actually remember any of the text that he had read, nor the subject matter conveyed therein. He only knew that he had continued to read impulsively for a long, long time. Perhaps for days. There had been voices, though. That much he recalled. The endless screams and wails coming from every corner of his head and heart, a hundred thousand crying voices of the dead. Tortured fragments of those souls left behind. All that was left from… from something. He thought deeply, but could recall no more. His memories of the time he had spent reading the book had been wiped clean.

“No. Nothing dangerous.”

But no… that wasn’t true, was it? The knowledge was there. It was all right there, lying in some dusty room in his mind. The door had been shut, but not by him. And it was locked, at least for now. The information was there, lurking in his head, and waiting…

“Nothing dangerous at all, just some incomprehensible stuff about the Mists. Y’know, the usual prophecy-type stuff”, he lied.

Waiting for what? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

VIII - Fate

The noise is softer now, almost akin to a lullaby, and Kalorr feels himself falling, falling… falling through the darkness into oblivion - before it stops. In the deep cavern of his mind, Kalorr opens his eyes. What he sees cannot be truly described, because it transcends that which can be used to describe. It is as though the entire Universe has suddenly been broken down into it’s smallest possible components, and every one of these has been made comprehensible all at once. As though he is outside of time itself, looking into and through existence, and everything is connected to everything else. He sees the doors of Ascalon City’s Academy and the playroom of the house he was raised in. He sees children laughing and hiding amongst plants with leaves far larger than any he had ever seen. He sees blood and death, great beasts standing over the dry husks of bodies as the sky rains fire. He sees himself, standing stiffly upright in a room of stone with his right hand on a pedestal, staring blankly ahead with empty eyes. A student making an impromptu turning behind a statue, a woman cleaning her kitchen, a dog running across a dirt track, a streak of red, a huge mountain of fire, a blade of grass… an entire Universe of ripped up images slipping over and under and through each other in a sprawling vortex of time and space.

And then he sees her. A pale redhead wearing the armour of a gladiator, running through a bleak gray landscape with a look of sheer panic and desperation on her face, whilst at precisely the same moment sitting in a chair, in an abode he doesn’t recognise. She’s madly swinging a bloodstained axe in giant, clumsy arcs, and is calmly sharpening the very same axe with a flat stone. She looks over her shoulder, and a second later whatever it is she’s running from catches up to her. Reaching to one side, she picks up a small bottle of oil from the table next to her, and begins to clean her weapon methodically. A giant leg of flame, a piercing scream, a thud, then nought but silence and dusty ground. His younger sister, both leaning over an oak table and lying face down in a barren wasteland, a deep crimson circle slowly seeping out from under her.

Two sets of opposing imageries fighting against each other amongst the swirling eddies of time. Two futures, two possibilities, neither defined yet both an absolute. Two destinies, each of them insisting that they are the Truth, the One, the Fact-Of-The-Matter. Neither accepting the other’s existence. Trying to focus on both of them is akin to seeing one’s reflection in a glass window whilst looking at something on the other side. Both exist, but not together. Clarity of the first blurs the second, and neither can hold the concentration for long before the other forces itself into view. She lives and dies at the same time, as part of a single reality viewed from different angles. Both of these/this single event now form the core of the vortex in his mind, spinning in a tornado of uncertainty and absolution around two figures; himself, and an undefined individual shrouded by a vile green fog.