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Completed Chapter IV: Forgotten Sands

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"The 'sinless one' probably refers to the crime at hand only." deduced Meric. "The counterfeiter, you say? I don't know. He sounds guilty to me."


"They all sound bloody guilty!" protested Laurolf. "This is maddening..." The dwarf separated and went to inspect the exit gates on his own.
 


Dina Ailsa​




http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dina-ailsa.53054/http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dina-ailsa.53054/Lost Child of Asgard

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"What makes you think that, Vittorio?" Dina asked while rereading every poem, "When I really look at it, and I might be wrong here, all the poems seem to indicate that the third person was murdered or hurt somehow by the person now dead. There is one with which this is not the case. The blood mage. It looks to me like he sealed his own fate with no other lives involved." She stated her thoughts.
 

Vittorio Valtieri

The Gentleman Necromancer



​



The Necromancer shrugs.


"How many centuries old is this place? How alien the moral philosophies of its creators? You do, however, make an excellent if ominous point."


He shuffles over to the blood mage and peers at the body.


"Is there a penalty for failing the first attempt, I wonder?"
 
"We could just dump them all into their respective burial holes." said Meric. "We know which is which. But somehow that seems too easy not to invoke some sort of penalty."


Laurolf warily looks around at that point, as if something could suddenly come at them. But there is no apparent source of potential danger anywhere in sight. "Sealed his own fate...!" grunted the dwarf. "You don't know what you be sayin' lass. Blood Magic be illegal for a reason, ye know? He probably summoned a demon that caused more evil than all these other criminals combined."


Xenthriss chuckled at that, continuing his perusal of the chamber.


"Provided that these are even real people and their crimes real." argued Meric. "Valtieri, it is my opinion that this is all merely made up for the sake of the challenge. We shouldn't concern ourselves with whether or not the punishment was too harsh, but instead figure out who is innocent here. There's no reason that they are even connected to one another. The answer must lie in the epitaphs. That's all we have. There must be a subtle hint in one of them. Perhaps..." the elf crouched by the murderer's grave and studied it. "Perhaps we could use an elimination method; rule out those that are clearly guilty, so whoever is left must be innocent."


He started with the grave at hand, reading its epitaph: "With vicious wrath he struck at others, without remorse sapping their lives. He earned neither mercy nor pardon. - Well, the murderer sounds pretty guilty to me. I think it's safe to rule him out."
 

Vittorio Valtieri

The Gentleman Necromancer



​



"I must agree; not one seems innocent." Vittorio opines. "But the most guilty would seem to be the murderer, rapist, mutineer, and thief."


He leans against a wall, hands clasped over his staff, thinking.


"Anyone care to cut the bodies down?" He asks, aloud.
 
"You mean 'body'. I believe we only need to bury the innocent one, thus 'delivering him', as the specter said." remarks Meric. "Also... I would cross out the murderer, rapist, and blood mage. They sound definitely guilty. The ones I have my doubts of are the counterfeiter, thief and mutineer."


"I agree with the elf." said Feyn who hadn't been particularly talkative. "The blood mage definitely did it, but I'd cross out the mutineer as well."


Xenthriss shot them both with an undefined glance.


Laurolf finished his own inspection of the epitaphs and said: "If anyone is innocent here, it's either the thief or the mutineer."
 

Tharos Silverlane

The Sword of Ages

​



Tharos looked over them and then back into the graves. "I'd say the thief. It could have been a very simple incident and easy to blame someone of. Fake evidence against a thief is much easier to generate than that of a mutineer or any of the others from what I've seen."
 
"A valid point." says Meric, moving to stand by Silverlane. "I was just thinking the same... also, it can't be just a coincidence... look: the thief's is the only epitaph that doesn't actually state his guilt. All the others do, while he was just 'caught at last in dead of night'" the elf faithfully cited the verse. "Could have easily been just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, I agree with Silverlane. The thief must be the innocent one."


"Pretty obvious if you think of it that way." said Laurolf. "I be findin' myself in agreement as well."
 
"Perhaps he did, but that does not absolve him from guilt; however justified his actions might be." said Meric.


"Oh, to hell with it!" said the dwarf impatiently. "Let's just bury the thief and be done with it. Aye?"
 

Tharos Silverlane

The Sword of Ages

​



Tharos drew his blade from his back and put it the rope the corpse hung off of. He balanced it with his free arm as he cut the rope, letting it fall onto his shoulder. He backed up a step before turning with the body of the thief and looked for his grave before setting him dow on the ground. "Should we pull off the hood?"
 
"Why? I have a feeling nothing good could come out of that." Meric answered.


Laurolf nodded, tightening the grip on his axe. "Aye, let's just put him at rest and be out of here. This place makes me skin crawl, and not in the good way, hm!"
 

Tharos Silverlane

The Sword of Ages

​



"Very well." He sheathed his blade on his back and picked up the corpse and found his grave, kneeling down and letting him down into the ground gently. He rose. "Now what?"
 
It turned out that a proper burial was not required, for merely a few moments after Silverlane rested the thief's body onto the bottom of the grave, the exit gates slowly opened, thus allowing passage into the next chamber. As expected, there was but darkness beyond.


"Finally!" Laurolf exclaimed. "I don't fancy spendin' another moment in this gloomy place. Whatever is next has to be better than this."


Meric nods and signals everyone to follow his torchlight into the blackness.
 
One by one, the party members slip through the gates. There is a short tunnel to be taken, which twists to the right and left again, picking up its previous direction. When they are through, they find themselves in an unexpected environment.


First, they immediately realize they are in a large space - an underground cavern, the walls of which are only partially visible and only at some places. That includes the very high roof. Second, which is the sole reason why they are able to make out anything given the area span and darkness, the whole place is littered with light-emitting crystalline ore. Not every step of the day, but here and there, perhaps scattered every fifty feet or so on average - there are large, sharp crystals jutting out of the ground, the walls, and even the roof, glowing in a dark purple hue. They are almost like sword blades coming out of the surface, but thicker and in groups of several crystals together.


"What a peculiar place." says Meric. He signals the other torch bearers to spread out a bit in order to reveal more of the terrain, but the dark purple of the crystals seems to be enough to make out the picture of the surrounding area.


It is somewhat clear that the fellowship is on a large cliff, separated from another cliff with a gap of some sixty feet, give or take. There is an outline of the matching gate on the other side, lit by nearby crystals, but the distance of the gap is two times greater than what a professional athlete could hope to jump. Looking down from the edge of the precipice, the fall disappears in utter darkness. And finally, the angel's statue is in the middle of the fellowship's high ground. But there's just one problem.


It is cleaved in half. Diagonally, from the top left to bottom right. The legs and part of the torso are all that remains.


With a shrug, the dwarf is the first one to put it in words. "Hell."
 


Dina Ailsa​




http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dina-ailsa.53054/http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dina-ailsa.53054/Lost Child of Asgard

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"We won't get any help with this one I guess." Dina said looking at the angel's statue, what's left of it. The first thought that filled her mind is that she should try out and see if she would manage a bridge for them using her power. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, summoning plant life around her, calling for it with her mind. She imagined roots knitting together to form a bridge before them. I call upon you, Nature. Please lend me your aid in my time of need.
 

Vittorio Valtieri

The Gentleman Necromancer

​



Valtieri limps first to one of the crystal-clusters, letting the others look around. Not immediately relevant, but he makes a few short notes in a journal before stumping up to the edge of the cliff and looking down. Lastly, he examines the ruined statue, giving it a prod or two with his staff.


"Well," says he, "I have an inkling."


He walks carefully along the cliff, letting his staff hang just over the edge.
 
Meric studies the ruined statue alongside Valtieri. He runs his hand across what's left of the top and makes an observation: "A clean cut. This was done by no ordinary blade."


"I don't suppose this be part of the test, hm?" asked Laurolf, walking up closer to the statue as well.


"I don't think so. The condition of the statue... and these crystals... I don't know, but it feels out of place somehow."


Xenthriss groaned. The drakkar made his way slowly around the crystal clusters, pausing now and then, like some nightmarish creature skulking about. "Yesss... Something flows within these crystals." he kneels down and grasps one as if to tear it out, but instead only rests his hand on it. "Power... You paltry wizards can feel it, can't you?" He grins. Indeed, Henvei's expression showed that he can; he looked as if he suddenly discovered a disturbing fact.


Not exactly attuned to standard magic - necromancy falls under a different category than all the other kinds of magic - Valtieri couldn't feel it, but was about to receive insight from another source.


Dina was too focused channeling her own powers to even hear Xenthriss' words, but she also got the point through other means. Reaching out was hard. Very hard. It exerted much more effort than usually, but this time it wasn't just the distance or lack of focus. The girl could feel a barrier between her and elements of Nature, muffling the voices on the other side. Trying harder, she felt enveloped, as if the entire cavern was a prison not just holding her in, but her thoughts as well. She received scrambled feedback from those voices she heard before, recognizing only some words: singer, dark, strong, sing, cannot, please, dark - in that particular order. But she managed to maintain the connection, no matter how weak it was. Something was in the way.


Meanwhile, Meric was working on some less abstract ideas. "Forget the crystals. Just don't touch anything. It could be a trap." Lighting his way through the murky purple ambient, he walked onto the center part of the cliff where it was closest to the other side. "I think it's safe to assume that the original test involved getting to the other side." he concluded. "I can see the door from here, but... Let's hope the missing instructions weren't a critical factor." He smiled at the end of the joke, remaining true to his ability to stay positive despite anything.
 


Dina Ailsa​




http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dina-ailsa.53054/http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dina-ailsa.53054/Lost Child of Asgard

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"Something is getting in my way. There is something about this place that prevents me to reach strong enough. Magical barrier of some sort maybe." Dina thought out loud after deciding to break off the weak connection she had. She decided to examine the glowing crystal herself. Could they be rearranged and form their bridge?
 
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On approach to the nearest crystal cluster Dina has an accident - perhaps it was the lack of proper lighting, or some loose pebbles under her feet - either way, she loses her footing and falls. And on the way down she cuts her right inner forearm on the edge of a protruding crystal spike, which turned out to be sharper than it would first seem. But to make matters worse, the cut doesn't quite act like it's supposed to. Dina looks at it in shock; it's long and slightly twisted, reaching from the wrist almost all the way to the elbow. The blood that started flowing from the wound suggested more than a scratch, but it couldn't be very deep either because the bleeding stopped almost instantly. That's when she realized something was terribly wrong. The poor girl is too mesmerized staring at her arm to even notice others staring at her.


The entire line of the cut starts glowing a sharp dark purple color, and the initial pain quickly subsides. But she feels dizzy. If this were a normal wound, she'd eventually be dizzy from the blood loss, but this is too soon and she had hardly lost any blood at all. A weakness overcomes her and she nearly collapses on the side, but after a moment she feels her strength return with recoil, holding her up. As she kneels there, down on one knee with her injured arm resting on it, she feels a contact - even though she wasn't looking for one.


"The Singer has fallen. We cannot sense her." said a familiar voice.


"No, we can." said another. "She glows... Through the Taint, but she will sing again."


"Alas. She suffers! Will she fade?"


The second voice radiated positivity. "She is strong. She can hope to choose."


"What will she choose?"


Then the voices faded, the contact ended, and the first thing she noticed was Violet kneeling beside her, holding her by the shoulder. Her expression was that of genuine concern. "Dina? Are you with us?" she asked. Feyn was there too, as unexpected as that might have been. And Laurolf. And others, maybe.


When the girl's senses returned and she regained her composure, she was staring at her inner forearm and the wound. The line was still glowing dark purple, just like the crystals around, albeit now much weaker. She felt... empowered, somehow, but otherwise just like her normal self.
 

Tharos Silverlane

The Sword of Ages

​



The knight could also feel some kind of magical presence though he didn't display it. He made sure he had his things and stood by, his eyes scouring around to ensure the party's safety. One person at least had to be on constant watch, he felt.
 
As Dina relays her welfare to the source of the contact, she receives mixed responses. First, there are the familiar voices echoing with concern and warmth. "Singer. Though you still sing, your star fades; a shadow clouds your thoughts." they say. The scent of earth comes to mind. But then, the girl receives another kind of contact; darker, colder, edged with doubt. She feels it coming from everywhere around her, but at the same time from within her. She can feel eagerness, wanting, desire, but she hears no dark voices whispering.


Instead, she hears another familiar voice. It's Ghosty. "They would speak to you, but they cannot. You are not attuned to the Taint. Not yet." Her own private apparition stands next to her, as oblivious to the others as they are to him, with concern written across his face.
 
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