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Post by Ernst Walcott on Feb 16, 2017 4:27:20 GMT
Towards the Archive Ernst was unaware of Harrier Wren and Taenor Stormwind, but he continued to trek into the building. His heavy, booted feet carried him down an empty corridor, even as the flutter of great wings somewhere outside reached his ears. "By the Nine where is this foul creature." He mutters to himself, using his pollaxe as a walking stick. Before long, however, he came across a man inscribing... something on a large pair of doors. And so it was that Ernst and Stormwind came to meet, with the massively armored warrior hefting a pollaxe as he thudded down the corridor, and the mage attempting to get into the room before the guards came. Or Ernst, in this case, who likely looked like some sort of elite guard.
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Post by Taenor Stormwind on Feb 17, 2017 18:43:42 GMT
Taenor was focused on his inscribing, carving runes directly into the wood and wrought iron of the door. As he finished each, it lit with an eldritch glow. As he finished on the last rune, creating a circular inscribed area in the center of the door, he stood and stepped back, raising his hands to push the door in. Then he saw the massive warrior walking down the hallway. He noted the encompassing armor, the poleax, and the easy way the figure moved. His eyebrow lifted, and he put the stylus back in a pocket, switching the staff from where it had rested on his shoulder into his hands. The runes on the staff glowed at his touch. "You're quite a bit...bigger...than the lads outside." He said, a note of curiosity in his voice. He wasn't sure if this was the man he'd seen before or some sort of elite guard. Either way he wasn't overly concerned, he'd come ready to combat humans, just not dragons. "If you're going to try to stop me from entering..." He began as alarm bells began to ring outside. "...you're going to be sorely sorry you came to work today." Taenor kicked sideways, and the doors opened without any magical alarms, explosions, or other forms of bad things happening. Ernst Walcott
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Post by Solaiel on Feb 18, 2017 4:04:40 GMT
Had it been one century or closer to two since he had seen the trinket he sought? Time seemed to fold in on itself within his perception. The dragon's dark motivations of revenge against the Empire, had melted away almost entirely as he drowned himself in the sinful luxuries of the elite nobility of the lesser races. A millennium had passed since the creation of his heart. It was the love struck gesture of a young dragon to his mate. A gift that bonded him to the one he loved. It was also a gift that had turned dark when she was killed. A mortal could use it to control him, but no one touched by darkness could touch it. It was a magical artifact, but the Empress of Vaundsberg could never discern what it did. It was safe enough here for a time, but Vaundsberg was falling. Now he knew it was here. Being so close he could feel the presence of his heart that had once been part of his own body. "It is a black jewel that consumes light. It will be mounted to a circlet of thorn adorned vines. It can take the shape needed by the holder. It could be a circlet, a ring, or even a bracelet. Those with darkness in their heart will not be able to touch it. Do not let the other fools take it first."The dragon looked to the direction of the estate in the distance. He could feel the rousing presence of the Empress coming from that direction. It boded well that the woman was not in the archives. She was quite powerful. The real question was whether or not he should go into the archives with Mirielle, or if he should circle the island and cause a distraction. Then again he was much easier to kill in his human form. "Mirielle of Ashdell! Do not wear the heart. It would corrupt you, and I would kill you for that. I will draw the enemy away."A stern look came down from the gargantuan beast before wings spread and lifted the dragon from the field. Soon he was speeding off toward the armory. A blast of dragon's fire lit up the night as a group of approaching guards were engulfed in the inferno. With luck this would empty the archives of many of the undead and men that guarded it. Mirielle Merlon
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 18, 2017 16:04:50 GMT
SolaielDespite the new distance between them, Mirielle flinched as the dragon's breath cast stark shadows and hot wind through the trees. Men were dying over there by the armory. Do this wrong, and that could easily be her. She tightened the straps that held her wrapped sketchbook in her belt, then made for the nearby archive building. It had several doors, and the one she chose had been forced open. Beyond lay a handful of motionless undead guards. She stepped over their inert forms carefully, then turned left at a four-way hall. An open door yielded a guard room of sorts, a silent and empty barracks meant for the storage of undead. As quietly as humanly possible, she moved into another randomly selected passage. She came across a large door; behind it, she heard voices and an unusual scraping sound. She hurried along, in search of anything that looked like a trophy room or the entrance to a vault.
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Post by Solaiel on Feb 22, 2017 5:03:25 GMT
A few extra guards had been destroyed in small ambush attacks. The dragon needed a much grander display though to make sure that soldiers didn't flood into the archives. Dawnbreaker surveyed the ground from high above. Even in darkness his eyes honed onto the figures below that moved like ants from his perspective. Before now there was merely a patrol or a lone sentry to dispatch. Now with alarm bells going off, there was a rush to mobilize a large response force to find the intruders. However, Uberghof Island only housed a few hundred soldiers vs the waves of thousands that were stationed within the capital city of Vaundsberg itself. A platoon of undead was a death sentence to a lone adventurer, but it was hardly a threat to the flying tank that had planted Mirielle into the archives. A captain of the guard was rousing soldiers and ordering them onto their mounts at the gates to the armory and barracks. Perhaps fifty of them were gathered together for orders. They'd fan out and patrol aggressively in force to find the origin of the distress. Well they would have if Dawnbreaker hadn't swooped down and strafed their line with dragons fire. No one had seen the dragon in the dark night's sky until the fire had lit up the whole front of the armory. Horse and man alike were engulfed in a hellish inferno that killed after inflicting several torturous moments. Some men on horse were able to get away in a panic by pure luck. A deep blood curdling laugh could be heard from the beast as he landed and spun his body to whip his tail around like a whip. The massive appendage collided into several horse and rider as spikes protruding from the side of the tail impaled many in instant kills. Then just like that the dragon had taken off again. The dark laughter still filled the night's sky though. Prince Ineirin (Close proximity)
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 23, 2017 2:05:43 GMT
Prince Ineirin SolaielThe dragon's laugh could have crumbled stone. A stray arrow from outside shattered a window. Mirielle bit back a shriek as hot smoke and broken glass gusted into the library annex. She'd thought to take refuge up here, in a room that might hold the dragon's goal. It certainly held enough treasures behind metal grids and stained glass: ornate books that turned her stomach, unusual jewelry, stone tablets. She knew what to do with stone tablets - and ancient evil books, for that matter. As she searched for Solaiel's bauble, she paused here and there to rip out an endpaper and use it to take a lead or charcoal rubbing. One of her belt pouches held a charcoal fixative of unusual strength. She tucked the copied pages away along with a few scrolls. As for the dragon's gem, however, no serious candidate presented itself. She listened at a door, then slipped out to head for another area.
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Post by Ernst Walcott on Feb 24, 2017 19:38:41 GMT
Looking down at Taenor Stormwind from behind his thick plate helmet, Ernst takes a few lengthy pause to stand there in silence, grip tight around the shaft of his pollaxe. "Never threaten, just act." He says bluntly, a pair of gas lanterns dangling from his waist to help provide light. With the door open, he unceremoniously shoves aside Taenor before yanking a torch from the wall. He's methodical, his large weapon clasped in one hand now as he moves along the rows, apparently now determined to find some book or another. He disappears into the archive's stacks, the heavy metal gait the only indication he was still moving around. Stormwind was apparently utterly gone from his mind.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 25, 2017 14:11:50 GMT
In a hastily emptied guardroom between two galleries, Mirielle stumbled upon the greatest treasure yet. Like the dragon's gem, it could adapt itself to the wearer's form and preferences. Also like the gem, the treasure's appearance belied its worth and significance. Made of sturdy canvas, with a broad diagonal leather strap, the backpack snugged over her from right shoulder to left hip once she'd adjusted the buckle. She unstrapped her wrapped notebook from her belt and placed it inside. Then, upon consideration, she padded barefoot on cold stone, back into the gallery she'd just left. Two of the thicker grimoires, almost folio-sized, fit handily in the pack's remaining space. She pulled a cunning drawstring, then dropped and buckled a flap, and that was that.
Mentally, she rehearsed a bit of what she would say if her father questioned her choice of, well, loot, undignified as the word and concept might be. Her father was a devoted archivist, and though neither of them was a true magician, the books would serve them well in understanding the threat posed by Vaundsburg and its eventual survivors. Besides, keeping such things out of other hands was all to the good.
Back through the guardroom, where she blessed the unknown name of some forgetful soldier, and then into the next gallery. This one was more trophy room than library, though she slotted a couple of thin and interesting books into the pack. Long years at school in Perona had given her something of an instinct for the quality of scholarly works and primary sources: the title, a skim of the first page, and a quick flip through could generally tell her what she was holding.
No such instincts applied when she spotted the dragon's gem behind a steel grid and smoky glass. The only instinct that flared up was fear. Something about that bauble set her powerfully on edge. It took the form of a bracelet adorned by a black stone, well within the range of descriptions he'd offered. She'd learned a few basic cantrips from formal and informal tutors over the course of her education. One was a muttered invocation to identify the presence of magical wards or traps within a defined area. She moved around the display case, deploying the cantrip, and watched dust on the floor shiver into a jagged perimeter. Warded, then, and nastily so.
That somewhat reduced her options.
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Post by Prince Ineirin on Feb 25, 2017 22:59:06 GMT
Mirielle Merlon Solaiel ------------- The Gull knights stopped in surprise as a dragon swooped down upon their foes and set them alight. Fear knotted Ineirin's gut, but he held himself firm. He muttered a quiet prayer as the enemy forces fled on horseback or feet. Waves of heat rolled past the knights. Then it was over, except for the laughter of the dragon. That was a threat. But the guards? The ones in this vicinity were no longer a threat. They had all be destroyed. Ineirin lowered his sword for a moment and turned to assess the estate. With the soldiers eliminated, they could proceed to the other targets. "Fire the barracks!" He called out, and one of his guard members hurried to toss a torch into the building, aiming for the bed clothes. It caught and the flames began to spread. "We head for the estate," Ineirin said after a moment, "Eliminate the rest of the guards there and fire the house. Secure what needs to be done in the armory and archives." They nodded and turned to approach the massive home. The Sea-Blood tingled furiously now, a warning. He frowned, but kept going, clutching the hilt of his sword more tightly. There was chaos running around now. He had certainly never expected to run across a dragon, yet alone one that appeared to be on his side. He set the thought aside and pushed his way forward through the estate lawns. His armor rang as he jogged through the grounds, a counter-point to the fires and screams that echoed across the small island. The house grew larger now, movement in the windows as guards rushed to secure the entrance. "Through the door!" Ineirin yelled and ran forward, shield held aloft. The others ran aside, silent now. The door grew closer and then they burst through, ramming it with the combined weight of twelve armored men. Ineirin grunted as a spear scraped across his breastplate, but but he slammed the shield down on its haft, shattering the wood. A quick lunge with the sword caught the wielder in the throat and the guard toppled to the ground. It was close now, individuals striving against each other rather than a disciplined body of soldiers.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 26, 2017 3:39:10 GMT
Before sitting down to take stock of her options, Mirielle identified half a dozen potential hiding places should someone come in. She also locked the doors so she would have time to reach said hiding places. Then, and only then, did she sit down in a plush, gilt-armed chair with her pack on her lap, and think.
Nobody could ever have called Mirielle a magician. Formal tutors had given her the sort of respectable, surface-level introduction that your average noble youth might get. She'd picked up a trick or two, like the cantrip she'd just used to find and mark the ward's perimeter, or the memory-charms that helped her study. Or, admittedly, the flickers of really terrifying power that she'd glimpsed while traveling with Taun-Lok and meeting his gods. Since she had neither the means nor the will to sacrifice someone, advice from those gods wouldn't be forthcoming.
She had access to real magic, though, come to think of it. Not something she should mess with, not even something she really understood, but in the absence of other options...
Doing her best to calm her nerves, she unwrapped her bulging sketchbook and leafed through it until she found Taun-Lok's translation of the scrolls that held a certain ritual and its decryption key. Some of the ritual's ingredients simply didn't exist, so far as she was aware - the 'top of a cloud'? She'd procured the jet dagger that was necessary for the ritual; she pulled that from a belt pouch and unwrapped it, eyeing the black blade.
The ritual had originally cost the lives of a large number of experienced magicians, talented ritualists. They'd cast a protective and dispersive shell of mist over their city, and it had lasted for millennia. She didn't need that kind of scale or duration any more than she had a dozen suicidal wizards to power the thing. But if it functioned anything like the other magic she'd seen among Taun-Lok's people...
...well, she had one of their trademark ingredients in good supply, didn't she.
The ancient jet dagger was so sharp that she didn't feel it across the outside of her left forearm. With the first drip on her bare foot, the cut felt cold. She flared her nostrils and set about dripping blood around the display case, as close to the invisible ward as she dared. Each drop spattered the ring of dust that marked the ward's edge.
Resuming her seat at an ornate table, she cleaned the dagger and rewrapped it. Then, with the ritual, its interpretation key, and Taun-Lok's pronunciation guide in front of her, she started growling in the saurian tongue.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Feb 27, 2017 0:16:33 GMT
Cold blood was Mirielle’s first indication that the ritual was working. Shivering, she eyed the circle of red drops in the dust, and scraped one with her toe: they’d all frozen. That didn’t line up with anything she’d seen in the ritual scrolls, so perhaps ‘working’ was too strong a word. Better to say that the ritual, which she’d bastardized, approximated, and drastically reduced in scale, was doing something. What that was, in a perfect world, didn’t actually matter. The plan required magic, plenty of it, of really any type that would press up against the ward and burn it out. As for what that would look like… She took a hasty step back as the display case rattled; its image fuzzed as if she was looking through smoke. The dust on the floor exploded outward in a hard burst of air. A nearby chair skidded across the stonework and clacked against a shelf. Her long hair and improvised dress fluttered in the breeze. If she hadn’t stepped back, she’d have been knocked down hard. A second burst followed, then a third, taking up a rhythm. By the ninth time the ward triggered, its power was noticeably less, and the glass had cracked. The seventeenth discharge was the last. Letting out a shaky breath, Mirielle bashed through the glass and pulled out the dragon’s gem. Recalling his warning and threat, Mirielle held it gingerly, with a half-crumpled sheet of parchment between her skin and the jewel. She wrapped it and bound it with a length of golden string pulled from a chair’s trim. And just like that, the errand was done. These passages remained empty: all the violence was outside, near the residence. She slunk out of the side door where she’d entered. Solaiel whirled overhead in the smoke and fire glowed through the trees. She held up the package with her bleeding arm, trusting the dragon’s eyes or instincts to identify her. And if he’d changed his mind and aimed to burn her, she could dart back through the door -- maybe.
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Post by Harrier Wren on Mar 1, 2017 2:51:24 GMT
A good deal of magic tainted the aether, both near and far. Harrier paused in a passageway and drew a long breath, murmuring the associated cantrip. She tasted something draconic on the wind, and the cheap malevolence of Vaundsburg practitioners, and a disciplined kind of sorcery that she'd learned to associate with the Runic Circle of Mystmarch. What was a Mystmarcher doing this far southeast?
But another scent stole her attention. Somewhere quite nearby, in a subtle and clumsy way, someone was using a kind of magic that she had never, ever encountered before.
She couldn't get any detail beyond that, but that was enough. Broadly speaking, there were five or six serious magical traditions in Ardell so far as she was aware. She'd come across all of them, and plenty of the less important kinds of magic too. To find a true anomaly...
Pausing in a guardroom, she poured water from a pitcher into a washbasin and muttered a cantrip. The entire rim clouded: too many nearby magical signatures to track any specific one. Her only real chance of encountering this unknown magic was to keep moving as quickly as possible through the archival galleries. She could admit to herself, however, that she might not find speed conducive to her original purpose.
Staff in hand, she opened the next door and proceeded into a library wing. Someone, it appeared, had been here not long ago. A display case stood shattered and empty; around it, she found remnants of a Vaundsburg ward and of the unusual sorcery. The case itself carried a scent of another strange magic. She glanced around: there were gaps in the shelves. With luck, though, Vaundsburg magic was as alien to the mysterious other as their magic was to mainstream practitioners. In short, maybe they'd had to guess at the important books.
Five minutes' search and many years in magical academia, and Harrier's backpack bulged with a respectable library of spiritualism and Vaundsburg necromancy. She'd encountered their undead at the battle of Lake Adler in Therien, and though she hadn't been at all impressed with the quality involved, Vaundsburg necromancers could certainly churn out minions in serious numbers. That took certain skills that she just plain didn't have. Yet.
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Post by Solaiel on Mar 3, 2017 4:48:44 GMT
As Mirielle approached the dragon gem, it suddenly began to pulse at her presence. The pulses were slow, but rhythmic. It almost seemed like a heart beat except that it was one slower than that of the average human heart. Each pulse emitted the faintest red light. The pulses got brighter after the display case was broken and she held the gem carefully within crumpled parchment. She'd even start to hear that rhythmic thud in her ears now as the artifact was very close to her body. ____ Moments after she exited the side door, the dragon came down and landed with a certain grace unthinkable in such a heavy creature. Now the princess once again found herself being looked down upon by the almost glowing green eyes of the draconic creature. This was only for a moment though and the dragon suddenly disappeared into a large puff of black mist. The hazy smoke like mist swirled and condensed down toward the ground until a mere man stood before her. The man appeared only in his early 20's. He was clad in a black silk coat that interestingly was bloodied on his left shoulder where he had been wounded while in dragon form. "I feel my heart in your possession," spoke the man in a normal voice. She would not have to listen to the deep bass filled tone of his true form for the moment. Solaiel reached his hand out toward her before pausing and drawing it back hesitantly. He could feel the pulses coming from her. Pulses that matched his heart beat for beat. She had the gem and it reacted to her. It reacted weakly, but it reacted none the less. "Hold it for now. I can not touch it, and I will have you hide it for me once more. Speak now Mirielle of Ashdell. You have held to the agreement. What wish have you for Dawnbreaker?" Mirielle Merlon
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Mar 3, 2017 18:44:26 GMT
Solaiel The gem's light pulsed through gaps in the bound parchment package. A duller glow made it through the parchment itself, beating in time to the blood-rush pulse that she felt as much as heard. Clearly, the thing she carried was much more than she'd understood it to be. Her first instinct was to drop it, throw it away, but though she couldn't draw a direct, reliable line of cause and effect between that act and a concrete threat, she had no doubt that to discard the artifact was to sign her own death warrant. She pushed that matter aside, as well as the question of where to hide the gem -- and the dizzying fear that came with the accidental thought of using it as leverage. No, right now the only thing she could afford to ponder was what to ask. The most sensible answer would be to request that he take her home to Ashdell -- her and the bulging sketchbook that held her kingdom's potential salvation. The undead powers to the north, east, and south posed an existential threat to Ashdell. In a painfully literal sense, she'd sacrificed a great deal to obtain that sketchbook's contents. Not only did she see the practicality of getting a ride home above the deadly unrest in Therien, she wanted to go home, desperately. But another possibility came to mind, one that crowded out the obvious answer and took her breath away with its audacity. Her odds of getting home were unknown, but she had certain resources and options at her disposal. She could bear the weight of a long trek if necessary. With or without Solaiel, returning to Ashdell was the next move. Admittedly, a ride with him would be much faster than the alternative, but so far as she was aware, Ashdell had yet to come under even indirect attack. She'd gotten fairly recent word on that from the Dwarves en route to Taun-Lok's city. Ashdell had explored several avenues to guard its borders against the undead. From her father's letters, she knew he'd consulted master enchanters and sent an expedition to the Precursor ruin of Voek Kai. Her sketchbook held a third potential layer of protection. Why not explore a fourth? "Ashdell is in danger," she said. "It's why I came to Vaundsburg in the first place. All around my homeland, there are vampire rulers of one kind or another, with undead armies at their disposal. We've worked on defenses, we've explored options, but vampires are insidious and undead tend to multiply. Our defenses could fail." She let out a slow breath and stood a little taller. "I'd ask for the means to call you, in case your heart becomes endangered in its hiding place, or in case I need to ask you to destroy a vampiric invasion before it can overrun my kingdom."
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Post by Ernst Walcott on Mar 3, 2017 21:27:19 GMT
There was, perhaps, one outcome to be expected from a knight armed with fire. It didn't come immediately, even as Harrier Wren came inside, skulking about for whatever it was she was looking for. Really, Ernst wasn't looking for anything, if he were honest with himself. Or rather, he wasn't looking for a book. What he was looking for, however, was a reason - any reason - to put this archive to the torch. He wasn't here to burn for burning's sake, and if the place had been nothing but history texts he'd have left it alone. But his eyes found a treatise on the raising of skeletons from mass graves, and he scowled beneath his helmet. Pulling the book out, he jammed a gauntlet to the back of the shelf and then turned, and, using his outstretched arm, he knocked an entire row of books to the floor before kicking them back into a pile. Shattering the gas lantern atop them, they began to slowly catch fire. With the torch in his other hand, he held it to the opposite shelf, waiting until they caught alight too before moving to the next pair of shelves along the way. Once they were suitably aflame, a rough shoulder sent them tumbling into the next one in line, turning this wing of the archive into dominoes - soon to be flaming ones, actually. No doubt Taenor Stormwind would hear it, same with Harrier. But the fire was catching easily, with all this fuel, and before long the treasure trove of forbidden knowledge would be kindling.
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