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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 31, 2017 5:24:04 GMT
Taun-LokThis right here was the holy grail of translation. She had the rubbings of the tablets; now she had a direct translation of those same documents by a two-hundred-year-old expert. When coupled with his earlier instructions, the writings and images gave her a comprehensive reference for his tongue's grammar and vocabulary. She could spend years on just these few pages: other linguists, better ones, had done the same. She couldn't miss his solemn distress, though. That came through loud and clear, even if he didn't say a word. She'd grown accustomed to his body language and his moods, and he was most certainly on edge. If she had to guess why, it might be the discrepancies between what she'd told him and what the translation laid out. An entire caste of mages, seen as legitimate and unassociated with the dead invasion? His gods unveiled as ancestor spirits, which she'd pretty much thought they were anyway? Those two elements refused to line up, and those were only the obvious ones. The tone of the whole thing seemed strange, as if the culture had been different then. Oh, and his own predecessor staging a coup d'etat, changing official history and brainwashing the young. That had probably gotten to him as well. "If it helps," she said at last, bundling up the documents, "the prophecy about me proves that the gods' sense of time is provably skewed, and they speak in metaphor. Your people's doom might not be all that immediate -- or all that literal."
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 31, 2017 15:55:27 GMT
Taun-Lok looked at Mirielle for a moment when she spoke, his thousand yard stare replaced by one of relative disdain. His world could very well mean nothing, and his people could easily be living a lie. Only the Gods, or Ancestor Spirits, could tell for certain and they were fickle with riddles and metaphors that sometimes could not be interpreted at all. But one fact was certain, Hexuatl had foreseen her coming even before the first Priest-Kings, and thus her presence had been expected, but it was no longer divine if he chose to believe what the Mage had written on these tablets. Nor were the Gods divine if he believed this tablet. So much about the Gods creating everything and all existence had been written, and it was possible none of it was true. The Lizard warrior scratched a note onto the parchment he always carried, passing it to the princess. But it is coming. I've seen visions myself. Others have whispered about visions of a Second Cataclysm. And whatever power to stop that doom lies within this temple, deep in the earth.
The Mage mentioned a place of power beneath this temple where he stashed the ritual scrolls. You will need a copy of the one pertaining to the Fog for your quest, and perhaps my goal will become clearer to me in that place. The warrior looked at her, his eyes narrowing as he regarded her features. She had no great purpose anymore, no reason to be here for him or his people as he had believed. The only thing that protected her now was his word that he would see her to her home, and how much weight did the word of the child of a traitor hold? He could let his past define him, the past of his people whose legacy he held in his hands and wore on his body, he could let the portents of the future define him, or he could define himself, apart from history or prophecy. Was he willing to sacrifice the honor he had accumulated because his ancestor had deceived his people, or would he set about righting the wrongs of his ancestors? Taun-Lok pulled the two sunstones from his pouch and passed her one, about the size of a fist and glowing like a lit torch with golden sunlight cast in a small radius around them. Its touch was warm, but nothing special.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 31, 2017 19:56:08 GMT
She hadn't been afraid of him since the battle in the courtyard, but some primitive part of her was yelling now. She backed up a step and raised the sunstone, ostensibly to read the note more clearly. "Then let's find it," she said, keeping it brief lest she trespass that line between 'short enough to be spoken' and 'long enough that speaking it would be rude.' That hadn't been the easiest realization; frankly, she'd found it embarrassing. To put her unwitting, repeated faux pas into human terms, it might be as if she'd been yelling constantly.
Rationally, he was a monarch who'd given his word, and proven himself a friend. A moment's fear meant nothing. With an effort of will, she raised the sunstone again, turned her back, and proceeded deeper into the catacombs.
It didn't take long to find the sealed passage. A beveled plug of stone two paces wide had been set in the floor and sealed at the edges. 'The place of the Elders,' the record had said, or something like that. Abrasions and claw-scars marked the lip of the floor, marks of entrance and exit over the course of, possibly, decades. A handful of deeper, more regular notches marked the edge of the plug, presumably where Taun-Lok's ancient kindred had held the huge stone slab to lower it into place.
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 31, 2017 20:39:02 GMT
Taun-Lok followed Mirielle Merlon through the depths, his blue eyes staring into each recess and alcove, looking for some trace of ancient evil aura or some other sign that the Mage's tablets had been wrong or a lie, or something else. So far he found nothing. Only the subtle hint of fear and confusion caused by the pheromones the both of them were exuding. She feared him? Something about that thought bothered the Priest-King, that his compatriot who struggled to abide his customs even though he didn't mind the sound of her voice, and the only person he could trust right now feared him. A comforting clawed hand patted her shoulder as reassuringly as his body language could manage, though he didn't attempt a fang filled smile. Mirielle had stood by him, made sure the dwarves saw to his aid and helped guide him to this place just as he had protected her. " Sssafe." The slab buried in the depths of the Temple, and the darkness that surrounded the pair, as much as his glowing blue eyes wanted it to be sentient and evil, was mundane and burned away by the light of their sunstones. He slipped his claws into the seam of the beveled plug, throwing his weight into the side of the stone until it gave way a hair. Sucking in air, he pushed again and again, each time moving the stone plug just a little and straining against it, stopping to breath heavily until it was open just enough to allow Mirielle to slip through on her own if she sucked in her stomach and flattened herself against the wall. He peered through and grumbled to himself. The magic he saw at work, flowing out of the bodies was not dark or mysterious. It was very similar to the aura of the Gods, if on a lesser scale. Energy flowed out of the bodies in a thin trickle and into the ground and the roots of the trees. The fifteen bodies lay in a circle in the domed chamber, tree roots along the walls. They were wasted away now, just skeletons in tattered clothing. " Go." Taun-Lok made way for her to slip through. " Ssscrollsss. Dagger."
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 2, 2017 19:41:42 GMT
The weight of his clawed hand startled her, just for a moment, but she clamped down on that. And he tended to know her moods, which lined up with his words, or rather word. That didn't much appeal to her -- it was a bit too close to having her mind open. But regardless of how he could read her, he'd never used it against her, or for anything other than help. Somewhat reassured, as much a matter of choice as of instinct, she slipped through the gap in the stone and down into the chamber.
"Clearly similar to how your gods are displayed," she said. She set her notebook on a stone ornament for balance, raised her sunstone high, and took a very quick sketch. Then she began poking into the side chambers and so forth, and examining the hands of the dead to see what they held. In short order she'd procured both a scroll and an unusual knife.
The scroll in question had been made to last, to her extreme relief. It was inscribed on a thin sheet of metal, which hadn't oxidized and which unrolled readily. Gold, she realized, with its colour washed out by the sunstone. Its contents weren't long, perhaps the equivalent of a couple of pages or tablets; she took a charcoal rubbing, then another one in case of smudges. Like other rubbings and drawings, she dusted them with a fixing agent from a tiny, cunning bottle, lest the pages smear them. She spied a few familiar symbols, but her introduction to the language was still in its infancy.
The dagger, unlike a macuahuitl, was a single piece of pressure-flaked obsidian. The tiny part of her that knew magic virtually sang when she picked it up, though what power it had she couldn't say. She came and gave that to Taun-Lok.
"What is it?"
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Post by Taun-Lok on Feb 2, 2017 22:09:45 GMT
The stone remained stuck on a lip of the grooves that had formed over the hundreds of years the chamber had been sealed from the outside, or perhaps the lip had been by design to keep a single warrior from opening the long lost chamber of the Elders. Taun-Lok only needed to hold the stone from rolling back into its place, only a very slight gradient. It was easy enough for him to keep the stone from rolling, even Mirielle Merlon could probably have strained to keep it from rolling backwards. When Mirielle returned, she carried with her a golden scroll, intended to last the centuries of isolation, however Taun-Lok was still very careful with it as he let the plug roll back into its place once Mirielle was clear of the chamber. The scroll was written in smaller, older script than the tablets had been. Their words and symbols more akin to the difference between Old English and Modern English and would require significant effort to ensure a proper translation of their meanings, to ensure that nothing was lost or misrepresented when he gave her the final copy. In addition the scroll was not one ritual, but four rituals left by the Gods, or Ancestor Spirits as the mages called them. It very well could have been written by the Spirits, and thus held great significance for the people's heritage. Its existence, if he could convince the people the Gods had made use of it, could be the catalyst he needed to save his people. The fact that it was four rituals rather than one worried him, especially with her having copies of them. If they could be used against his city, if they left the city walls they could be dangerous with the Old Magic they detailed. The dagger was another matter. She would need it according to their very basic knowledge of the rituals she held. Merely a single piece of sharpened jet lacking any ornament or markings it appeared to be nothing special, but Jet was sometimes used in spiritual rituals. Some witch doctors who practiced older magics and voodoo insisted that Jet had soul and life force altering or gathering properties on a very minor scale. When enchanted, its natural properties could come out in odd and unprecedented ways, and from the look of it, the dagger was very magical. Taun-Lok turned his attention back towards the library itself, struggling to speak Mirielle's words. " Need, Key." A decipher key, something from the long catalog of information that was a key to the rituals. They were puzzles written in old language and it had taken the mages a while to figure it all out, the Princess would need their knowledge if she was to succeed.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 3, 2017 15:28:14 GMT
Taun-Lok Back to the tablets, and he said he needed a key. Mirielle braced her sunstone between jaw and collarbone, and flipped back through her sketchbook. All of Taun-Lok’s notes were in there, looseleaf parchment crammed between bound pages. She would need another sketchbook within a week at this rate. By then, though, ideally she’d have brought all this back to Ashdell, gone home to rest. That didn’t sit well, for two distinct reasons. For one, she found she didn’t much like the idea of leaving Taun-Lok’s company. Though monosyllabic at best, and occasionally frightening, they’d forged a kind of friendship that she’d never before had the chance to experience. And for another thing, Ashdell wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams with expert linguists and ritual workers. Perona, maybe. Elbion would be best -- a city focused on both scholarship and magic -- but Elbion was very far. Mystmarch, potentially Therien. No, not Therien: Father had always called Steward Harmon a fanatical tyrant, for all that his rule was peaceful. But those were thoughts for another time. Taun-Lok’s earlier comments and translations had implied that the ritual came with some explanatory material, a metaphorical key rather than a literal one. On the off chance that the key had been made to last like the ritual scroll itself, Mirielle began looking for other scrolls written on thin gold. It took a little digging through piles of disintegrated parchment, but after a good bit of searching she’d found three. Again, she took rubbings and fixed them, then brought the originals to Taun-Lok.
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Post by Taun-Lok on Feb 4, 2017 4:43:38 GMT
The warrior read through the original scroll once, twice, a third time while Mirielle Merlon busied herself with going through the library seeking the key, the document which the Mages might have left the context clues to deciphering the language on the scroll. Because of the way the words were written and the language that had been used the literal meaning of the current language and the intended meaning of the scroll could be wildly different, and when dealing with Old Magic a single misinterpretation could be disastrous. The Ritual that Mirielle was concerned with was the Divine Protection, which had manifested itself in a fog that would slowly deteriorate over years. It would last longer and be more potent based on the life span of the mages that cast it, the cumulative power of the mages. Even at its most powerful it wasn't impenetrable, but a deterrent. The fog did not stop everyone or everything, but it was damaging and disorienting especially to undead given its divine nature. Even then, not all undead would be broken or destroyed. A Vampire general might find his necromantic control over his army slipping and might lose whole companies of zombies and skeletons in traveling the mist, and might be weakened which would make invasions difficult, but it wouldn't stop a particularly potent enemy, much like the City of Gold's protection. The difference would be the life spans. Where as a human making it to eighty was relatively rare, a Crokodon making it to two hundred was commonplace, with some of Taun-Lok's race surviving for hundreds of years. It provided a stop-gap relative to generations and Taun-Lok's was almost up, nearing its last few years. When she returned to him, he read the three scrolls at a glance, pushing two off to the side for later, mentions of the other rituals that were less important to her. The third however was. " Good." He muttered, looking at the golden scroll intently. It had notes and things the mages had inferred over their long research which would allow Mirielle and Taun-Lok to quickly pick up where they left off. " Leave?" Taun-Lok's voice attempted to make it sound more like a suggestion, the large lizard warrior anxious to leave this place of deciet and deception that had started to bring his world crumbling down around him. The pair had much to discuss and decide between themselves. And the Priest-King needed to look towards his own people.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 4, 2017 4:55:50 GMT
Taun-LokUnexpected relief settled over her at the suggestion; she hadn't realized she'd grown that tense, that anxious to be gone. "We found what we're after? Perfect." Without delay, she gathered the dagger, sunstone, fixative bottle, and overstuffed sketchbook. She'd retained her belt and pouches after trashing her ruined clothes; the belt didn't go well with the red silk toga, but it was functional. The pouches fit everything but the sketchbook. She kept that in hand as she made her way back to the entrance. They'd been in here for a while, and a heavy overcast mist dulled the light to make the time of day or evening unrecognizable. She leaned against the stonework, breathed fresh air, and thought about rituals. "I think I need to rest a while longer," she said as Taun-Lok emerged. "Again, I mean. Sleep and think. If you're the king, you have plenty to do anyway."
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Post by Taun-Lok on Feb 4, 2017 5:46:09 GMT
The Lizard Warrior emerged from the Forbidden Temple to see the dim light just before dawn beginning to fall over the city. The dim light cast off by the glowing orb atop the giant central pyramid caused little rays to bounce off golden metal and the light to dance in the early hours of the day. " Yesss." He nodded with a smile, guiding her back towards his home where they had stayed the night or nights before. It was the home he had chosen when he rose to prominence, away from the busy parts of the city and the holy sites. His own little corner that was rarely visited by anyone unless they had been called for by the Priest-King. He scribbled Mirielle Merlon a note as they walked towards his little villa which really only consisted of a stone and thatch leanto and set of walls that separated the stream and grassy hill from the rest of the city. At least there she would be safe and guarded, have a place to retreat to when she needed to get away and be alone to process everything that was happening. That was why he preferred the little space as well. Yes I have things to tend to. I was told there were some who wished to speak to me about you, so I need to see to that sooner rather than later. There are some other matters to tend to.
You can stay at my home for as long as you like, and so long as you take one of my kin with you, you have free reign in the city except for two places. I would avoid the Forbidden Temple and the Golden Pyramid's peak for now.
When the army marches, I will take you home. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 4, 2017 13:48:02 GMT
"Understood," she said. With a charcoal-stick, she scribbled in a page of her notebook and passed it to him.
Thank you for all your help and hospitality. I'll probably stay here, work on the language, and rest. One good night's sleep isn't quite enough to revitalize me.
Where is the army marching? What would it take to draw your people out of their solitude? You hate undead - are you targeting one of the nearby kingdoms that rely on them? Kavelia, Vaundsburg? Or farther afield, to the Bund's presence in Silverclaw Valley? My father copied me on dispatches about several vampire groups and undead concentrations - would you like me to do up a map for you?
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Post by Taun-Lok on Feb 5, 2017 2:01:03 GMT
Taun-Lok read the message, smiling. She didn't have to accommodate his customs as much as she did. Speaking was easier for the humans that writing each sentence or question, and was normal for them. It was a fact he understood from his travels and experiences with them to the point where when outsiders spoke to him he took no offense, and yet she tried her best to appear respectful to his culture. It was kind of the foreign Princess. He scribbled another message on the back of the page she had handed to him. Central Ardell has several Undead there that need to be scouted and destroyed before they can unite and become a threat. Unfortunately, the army cannot march very far north due to our cold-blooded nature. Spring and summer are the only months we could operate any type of campaign, so timing would be very important. For now we will focus on the high concentration of massive independent undead kingdoms in the lake country. It is in our best interest however, to reinforce Ashdell as a northern bastion so that the undead there cannot march south unabated.
Any aid you can offer the People will be of great use to us and most welcome. Likewise, any aid I can offer you, you need only ask and I will do my best to provide.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 6, 2017 19:15:18 GMT
Taun-Lok"I wasn't the most rigorous cartography student," she said, arranging paper and drawing implements around the lean-to's entrance, "but while you're gone, I should be able to put something together." She pulled out the small sunstone he'd given her and wedged it into a gap in the lean-to's support beams. The stone cast warm, clear light over the paper once she moved to adjust the placement of her shadow. "Likewise, it's in Ashdell's best interests to see that the undead threat to the south is handled. That'll let us focus on the north and east threats: the Bund, the Deamhan Fhole, the new presence in Silverclaw Valley." Deftly, she began sketching a map of central Ardell. In short order, she was engrossed in getting it right. She made a note to herself, let she forget that she would have to examine the ritual's requirements later: the 'top of the clouds' and so forth. The ritual key might have more information once she really dug into Taun-Lok's translation of various tablets. For the moment, though, her focus rested entirely on the map: the Kavelias and Vaundsburgs of the area, and the threat of the dead.
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Post by Taun-Lok on Feb 9, 2017 22:12:37 GMT
Taun-Lok offered the princess his thanks before leaving her alone to rest and tend to her studies. He had duties to tend to that he had left undone for the better part of a year and a schism among his people between hard-line fanatics and more conservative warriors, with the minority being conservative by a wide margin. There seemed to be a correlation between the mindset and emotional state of the Ancients, the oldest handful of the Crokodon of a given race, and their Race. The largest specimens were introduced as Beastspawn, large and tough, sworn to the Hunter Goddess Jag-Gar. They were calm and moved slowly around the city, some standing still or lounging in guard positions much like their eldest member who stood at the gates. The Scarbloods with their rocky hides were militant, almost always seen wearing their stone slab armor and moving in groups, even around the market place they seemingly marched around in packs with eyes outward while some grabbed what the pack needed from the market stalls. It was the riverscales that seemed the most feral, the most fanatical. Whereas the rest of the Crokodon left human sacrifice solely for communing with the Gods, they seemed to want to offer up a sacrifice to the Gods whenever the felt like it without actually attempting to summon the ancient spirits. They were even seen arguing verbally with the skull-helmed Sunbloods when they were denied sacrifices. The Sunbloods seemed to have the most authority, guarding the sacrifices that were penned up in small numbers, the golden pyramid and the other sacred sites in the city. They were relatively kind and protective for their species and had an understanding and acceptance of outsiders and their customs rather than a mild disdain. A pair also remained close by the home Mirielle was staying at, far enough away for her to maintain her privacy, close enough to hear her and get to her on short notice. If she wandered throughout the city one of them would accompany her and carry anything she needed or wanted, as well as warn her if she was encroaching upon any form of sacrilege. Mirielle Merlon
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 10, 2017 19:36:02 GMT
Taun-LokIn the end, she remade the map twice before she was satisfied. To draw a map from memory was no small task. She'd done it as an exercise many times, but never of this specific region or with these specific lands in mind. Kavelia, Vaundsburg, and the other hazards stood out in her mind more as ideas than as concrete locations. As annotations, she included what little she knew of their size, wealth, and strength. That done, she went back through her sketchbook and used the bulk of her bottle of fixative on the charcoal sketches. She applied her lead-stick to some of the blurrier charcoal writing. Then came a much-needed nap. Then she went for a walk. A Sunblood in a skull helmet walked behind her as a guard, perhaps an aide. From time to time, she would move to stand on something, poke at something, and the Sunblood would hastily pass her a simple cease-and-desist note. She understood that the forbidding was for her safety. She still couldn't read saurian expressions or body language with much accuracy, but some of their hostility shone through. One of those notes kept her at arm's length of a prisoner pen. Random adult humans, a few elves, and a couple of dwarves clustered within a construct of wood and vines. The pen stood on a stone platform, worn down smooth by centuries of such fences and their contents. As she watched, a pair of Sunbloods entered the enclosure, clapped irons on an elf, and dragged her out. It took no imagination at all to speculate as to her fate. The easy thing to do would be to run from the stomach-churning guilt and helplessness. These were things she couldn't change and would rather not see. But she stood and stared at them, just watching. Some began to yell at her, plead to her, talk about their families. Some cursed her, some warned her. She looked to her own courage and found it insufficient to the task of liberating even a few of them, if that was possible. Maybe she could ask Taun-Lok if she could pick a couple to keep. For the moment, though, all she could do was stare. And draw. She drew the fence, the faces, the chains. She reached back into her memory and drew the sacrifices she'd seen, in as much anatomical detail as possible. Upon returning to Taun-Lok's house, she kept drawing.
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