< Corve Emerges | Ex Pulplogs | The Hall Of Interesting Things >
ST With their business in the East completed for the moment, the Circle makes their way to the closest town large enough to support air docks and bargains passage back to Luxury. Under another disguise, Corve slips past the Brumish inspectors without much trouble. Xar is a bit more difficult to get past them, but that problem is solved by having him carrying Myrrh directly from the ship to the hide out.
ST Without alerting the Brumish officials to the return of Corve or his cohorts, the Circle makes their way safely and secretly to their hidden lair in the jagged mountain crags of Luxury's edge.
ST One of their first priorities, at least for Xar and Myrrh, is the study of the small fragment of stone that Corve obtained in Great Forks. Using what resources are available to them, they are able to determine that what the merchant told Corve is true. This was a piece of a larger statue, probably of a great black serpent, which was used somehow to cause Abundance's magic to fail and the island to fall from the sky.
Myrrh "Maybe it's some sort of weapon? There was a large explosion before the island fell..."
Xar`Rex shakes his head, "I think maybe it controlled the weather, and disrupted the air beneath the island, and that is how it fell."
Myrrh "I don't know, the islands don't float because of air dynamics, they float because...well..I don't know but I think it was some sort of magic in the first age."
Carmine "Perhaps you'll be able to tell more when you look at the island itself?"
Xar`Rex "It was most certainly weatherworking" he insists. "The explosion was caused by lightning."
Myrrh "Maybe. We might be able to get it back in the air again eventualy..."
Myrrh "lightning doesn't cause explosions, only fires...
Xar`Rex "Depends on what it hits."
Corve sits in a corner, petting Jaks softly. The manse was equipped for Jaks to be able to live in it, and he had enough food there to last him months. It'd been a while since he'd been with his friend, and he's enjoying the time he can. Although it might be time to brush the saurian's teeth, 'cause damn.
Myrrh "Well that's true I suppose but I don't think this thing was put near a silo of firepowder..."
ST Despite all their theories and debates, the fact remains that the tiny fragment of black stone can't tell them enough to determine how it and, according to Corve, several other statues, brought the Island down
Corve "We should just go down to Abundance and see if we can gain any more information from there."
ST They don't even know enough to be sure the explosion on Abundance, witnessed only by a passing air-ship captain, was even related to the fall of the island. It could have been something else. There are occasionally natural disasters on the isles.
Xar`Rex "Good idea, Corve."
Carmine nods. Do something, yes.
Myrrh "Alright, we'll need to get the boat down where abundance fell...let's hope we aren't picked up by the imperial navy..."
Corve "Let's go then," he says, and stands up, petting Jaks again. "Sorry buddy, but for now you're going to have to stay here. Keep an eye out on the place, yeah?" He pets the saurian again and then walks to Carmine, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Getting there won't be an issue. Xar... do you have any way to disguise yourself?" That was their only problem, really. He's not sure on draconic policy when it came to
Corve * Dragon Kings, bu he doesn't think it'll be friendly.
Xar`Rex "I do not like prison. Why is every body always trying to put us in prison?" he complains
Xar`Rex "Um... I have a cloak. Or I could be a statue."
Corve "Because stupid, greedy, evil people rule the world, Xar, and we're not stupid, greedy, or evil, and thus they hate us."
Myrrh "And better safe than being impaled on a jade daiklaive."
Corve "Being a statue would help, but we'd still need a reason to be lugging you around."
Carmine "We ...um... bought it for his wife?" She gestures to Myrrh
Corve "... that would work if his wife was in the Blessed Isle, love, but she lives in Brume."
Xar`Rex "Do THEY know that?"
Xar`Rex "I Guess I could fit into a box." He says, but he does not look terribly happy with the idea.
Corve "Probably. Anyway, the wreckage of Abundance isn't in the Realm per se, is it?"
Myrrh "It's between the isle and the northern coast. Although we don't have great luck." He grins and thinks for a moment. "Well if we're going underwater guns might be useless. I'll have to think of something..."
Xar`Rex "Can you swim?"
Corve "Hey, Judging Thunder works fine underwater. Remember the Behemoth?"
Myrrh "Don't need to."
Myrrh "Rivers taught me the Viridian Mantle of Underwater Journeys. I should be able to cover all three of you."
Xar`Rex nods
Xar`Rex "Let us get going, then."
Myrrh "It will let us travel through the water effortlessly. It will last until we walk upon land again."
Corve "Sounds handy. Let's get going, we're wasting time here."
ST It isnt difficult to make their way down from Brume to the surface of Creation. The Northern Threshold where the greatest destruction was caused by the tidal waves and flooding that resulted when Abundance fell into the Inner Sea. One of the smaller skyship ports in the Haslanti League was their destination.
ST From there it was possible to make their way to the coastline of the North, a rocky and barren place where there is nothing left from the floods. A year ago the coastline would have been much farther, but with the flooding, it was brought this much closer.
ST And so now the Circle has come to the place where they are as close to the fallen Abundance as they can get, without taking a boat further.
ST And all the docks and fishing villages that formerly occupied the coastline are gone.
ST They would have gone further, to one of the few remaining coastlines, but something drew them here. A willing man, agreeing to take them further in his boat, to Abundance. A Dragon-Blood, allied with the two that they had taken prisoner in the East, offered to summon them a boat and take them where they wished. Communicated with by a Hearthstone of Air, he'd been waiting for them.
Xar`Rex is wearing his customary heavy cloak, with his wings smashed down as tightly as possible to his back.
Myrrh is dressed normaly although he's brought quite a few deep sea supplies. After all, you can never be too careful in a sunken city there'll probably be ghosts!
Corve is dressed normally as well, save for a dark blue cloak.
Carmine is dressed now in her customary ribbons, her bracers and neck shining with the orichalcom wrapped there, shimmering sash around her waist.
Tide waits for the Circle, at the edge of the water. Like the other two Dragon-Blooded he was introduced as only a simple name, certainly not his own.
Tide "You're the Solars?"
Corve "Looks like it," he says.
Myrrh "No. We're the orihalcum sniffers for the Scarlet Dynasty." Grins at the DB and checks his things.
Xar`Rex looks mistrustfully at Tide, and remains silent.
Tide "Are you ready to be going, or would you prefer to wait?"
Myrrh looks at the others.
Xar`Rex Wait for what?"
Corve raises a brow.
Tide shrugs and waits for the Solars to decide.
Myrrh "Well let's just get going. The sooner we find out what happened the sooner we can get to work."
Corve "Sounds good."
Carmine nods, standing close to corve.
Tide gives a shallow nod and turns his back to the Solars, chanting softly in his rough baritone voice. Blue-black-green flows of Essence reach out from his arms and the water at his feet ripples, bubbles and slowly starts freezing into a small boat made of ice. He steps aboard and turns to wait for his passengers.
Corve steps on board, wondering if this thing is sturdy.
Myrrh studies the boat for a moment before stepping onboard. "Hm, what spell was that?"
Tide gives Corve a sneer at the shorter man's hesitance. The ice boat rocks a bit as Corve boards, but it doesn't creek or give any sign of instability. He looks at Myrrh. "That's a secret."
Carmine steps on after corve
Tide "You coming, Dragon-King?"
Xar`Rex eyes his companions once more, then follows them onto the boat.
Tide eyes the Dragon-King suspiciously and makes a gesture, taking the boat out from the coast and deeper into the waters.
Tide sits himself down quietly on the prow of the ice-boat and proceeds to ignore his passengers. Occasionally a seal or sea lion will emerge from the waters to see what is passing through their domain. Even more occasionally, the Dragon-Blood will lean over and peer at one for a few minutes before it disappears.
Corve sits down as well, trying to relax on the strange ice boat.
Xar`Rex sits dead center in the boat, so it doesn't rock. He doesn't like water much, and blue Dragons even less.
Carmine relaxes against Corve, lying out comfortably.
Tide The ocean, unlike the land, seems virtually unaffected by the world-altering events of the last year. The Circle would have no idea that a formerly flying island lays somewhere under them if not for Tide's occasional grunts as he peers down into the water or over at a seal or sea lion. It is hours before Tide acknowledges his passengers.
Tide "We're over Abundance now."
Corve wraps his arm around Carmine and comfortably plays with her hair as they travel. When Tide announces their 'arrival,' however, he sits up, looking at Myrrh and Xar.
Myrrh "Alright, how wil you know when we're ready to go back?"
Corve is guessing the Dragon-Blooded will be waiting for them...
Tide "I'll know."
Myrrh "Alright then." Shrugs and stands. "Alright, everyone gather around. Now you might feel a slight slimy sensation..."
Xar`Rex braces himself
Corve raises a brow at Tide, and then a bit higher at Myrrh. "Slimey?" he says, wrapping his arm around Carmine and watching his friend.
Carmine stands too, tieing the ribbons dangling from her wrists around her arms in crisscrossed red.
Myrrh is surrounded by a glowing golden aura that can be seen from far away, essence crackles around his hands as he makes odd gestures. After a moment he releases the spell and seaweed suddenly wraps around his body like a suit of armor, seconds later everyone else is slowly encased as well. "Right! The Seaweed should let us breath and move freely."
Xar`Rex wriggles a bit as the seaweed grows around him. He wonders if it will taste good.
Myrrh "It should also give us a bit more protection as well. Just in case there are any ghosts around.":
Tide watches the Solars and the Dragon-King, waiting for them to leave.
Corve pokes at the seaweed on his body and then looks at his friends. "Eh, it works." Then he dives, without further ado, into the waters of the North.
Myrrh jumps into the water after Corve.
Xar`Rex sniffs, removes his cloak, and dives in after his friends.
Carmine frowns down at the seaweed covering her body, squirming at the sensation which reminds her of the pod, and then she executes a smooth dive over the side, swimming down to find Corve.
Tide watches the Exalted and their pet lizard swim away into the deep. Then he calmly gestures and starts himself back towards shore, tapping a nearby Sea Lion on the forehead with a hand before moving away.
ST The Circle is warmed somewhat by the seaweed, enough that the icy water won't hurt them, but still even Xar feels the effects of the cold water, making his reptilian body slow and sluggish. The humans aren't much better for their hot blood, shivering violently as they swim downwards towards the ruin of Abundance.
ST Ahead, something looms up towards them from the dark waters. Something massive, larger then Xar by at least twofold. The massive thing floats towards them.
Carmine wraps herself further in protective essence, letting that warm her more.
Corve unholsters Judging Thunder as they swim. He should have it ready even if this thing isn't dangerous. One hand on his gun and the other catching Carmine's, he tries to discern what the shadow thing is.
Xar`Rex stares at the massive thing, hoping it's something he can fight... his blood is so cold down here, he needs something to get it moving again
Myrrh peers at the giant thing ahead of them, unsure if it's not some lake leviathan or other strange monster of the north.
ST The massive shape moves closer and becomes clear. A...yeddim! Its mouth open in a silent roar, the Yeddim floats towards them, its eyes gone, flesh bloated with water, its hair packed with blood and ice.
Xar`Rex blinks several times... a.. zombie yeddim?
Yeddim is clearly dead, long dead. Not undead or ghostly, just a corpse. Somehow freed from something holding it below and allowed to float upwards.
Xar`Rex pokes at it with a claw, disappointed.
Yeddim floats away slightly as Xar pokes it.
Corve swims under it, shaking his head softly. It probably finally got free from some part of Abundance that had it pinned.
ST On the trip down, the Circle encounters a few more corpses. Mostly animals, but they find three humans floating and even a dragon-king, one of the wing-limbed pterok from the North, probably come to Abundance to do trade. From the wounds, it looks to have been trapped in rubble, smashed.
Xar`Rex pauses to say a prayer over the Pterok
ST Underwater scavengers attack the corpses even before the Circle finds them. Sometimes larger creatures, vast fleshy things that reach out with masses of tentacles to grab hold of the corpses and pull them to bits before feeding them into sharp-toothed maws hidden under layers of fat.
ST It takes hours, but eventually they can see Abundance under them. The island looks mostly intact, as far as they can see. A few bits of its outer edges have broken away, but the central mass of the island remains whole, sunken onto the bottom of the ocean.
ST From his vantage point, hundreds of feet above the sunken island, Corve can pick out enough landmarks to locate the city of Electrum. Or what's left of it. Not much.
Xar`Rex looks over the fallen island, to see if anything of interest is still left standing.
ST He can see a few shattered monuments, broken towers. But Electrum was famous for having a mountain next to it, a mountain that had been cut in half during a battle in the First Age. And with that landmark, Corve is sure that he's found the city.
Corve waves to the rest of his party to get their attention, and then to Myrrh, pointing down at Electrum and then swimming towards it, his now water-agile body slipping through the dark waters smoothly.
Myrrh follows Corve towards the giant watery tomb of a city.
Carmine swims down after corve.
Xar`Rex follows them down, trying out his wings in the water, mimicing some of the flippers and fins he's seen
ST With Corve's guidance they make it down to the ruined, sunken city. Shattered buildings, smashed homes, corpses pinned under rubble or floating in the streets. Ghosts peer out at the Circle from windows that..aren't there. Second stories that don't exist anymore have people looking out of their broken windows. People with blue, frozen, waterlogged flesh, sunken eyes.
ST Dead people.
ST It shouldn't be a surprise, tens of thousands died when Abundance fell. Certainly a Shadowland would form. Especially here in the capital city, where the most people lived. And died. Horribly, within moments of eachother.
ST And so the Circle is now swimming through the sunken shadowland, watched by the ghosts that once lived here.
Corve gulps a little, shocked by the picture before his eyes. It does something to see thousands of his fellow Brumians dead. It fills his heart with more rage and hatred than he thought possible... and with an even greater determination to destroy the Cult.
Ghost Man walks toward the Circle, striding across corpses, his ghostly legs moving right through them. He stops, standing in front of the Solars and the Dragon-King. "Why are you here?"
Xar`Rex speaks a constant murmur of prayer for the dead as they go past, honoring them and their sacrifice, wishing them the Light of the Sun's guidance to the next world
Ghost Man is a man of average height, heavily built in middle age. In his youth he was probably athletic and muscular, but his frame is softened by fat and his belly pushes at his shirt. Dressed as he is, the man was probably one of the Plutarchs of Abundance before it fell and he died. He wears furs of ermine and mink, dyed the vibrant lilac purple that was Abundance's color. And gold. Lots of that.
Corve hovers in the water, stopping to face the ghost that speaks to him, his eyes saddened by the entire affair. He holsters his weapon and bites his lip, and then gives the proper reverence one does to Plutarchs. "My name is Corve- I'm an Assessor from Luxury. My friends and I are trying to determine the instances of Abundance's fall, so we can avenge you and your fellows. A great injustice was committed, a crime of
Corve * indescribable proportions. We aim to at least bring as much retribution to the perpetrators as possible."
Xar`Rex "We come to find out why you are here."
Corve speaks in Brumish, of course.
Ghost Man frowns at Corve and Xar and their companions. "I don't understand you." Most people, of course, do not understand Brumish. Guildsmen can mangle along in it, sometimes and the very scholarly or historically minded sometimes learn it. But no one uses it for conversation and a minor Plutarch like this probably never even bothered.
Ghost Man is speaking Skytongue, a far more common language.
Xar`Rex is not speaking Brumish anyway. Is speaking.. something else.
Corve frowns. And tries the same line, this time in Low Realm.
Ghost Man nods. "Ah. Well, Assessor, you're a bit late to help us."
Corve nods slowly. "Yes, and I regret that much more than you know. But whatever I can do, I will do it, to at least avenge you. But for that, we may need your help."
Ghost Man "What do you want, then?" The plutarch seems willing to help. "I will require payment, of course." Well. Help for a price.
Corve "The rest of Brume is still in horrible danger, Plutarch. The Black Viper Cult- the ones responsible for this tragedy- are extorting us with threats of bringing down yet another island. My friends and I need any information we can glean about how they did it the first time- and perhaps see if we can acquire any clues as to the Cult's modus operandi itself."
Ghost Man "I have no idea what you're talking about. The island simply fell. We were going about our lives, I myself was negotiating for a good price on some Bright Morning, then...well, I suppose I died."
Corve nods slowly. "Have you explored the ruins at all since then?"
Xar`Rex tilts his massive head to one side. How can they believe it fell for no reason?
Ghost Man "Explore? We live here."
Xar`Rex "Have you seen anything different, that was not here before you died?"
Corve "Plutarch... have you not tried to determine -why- the island fell? It has floated, with its sisters, for eons. Its fall was orchestrated by powerful magics, it did not 'just fall.'"
Ghost Man "It happened. What does it matter why?"
Carmine just shakes her head.
Xar`Rex "Can we look around here?"
Corve "Becuase there are hundreds of thousands of people that might suffer the same fate... we can stop this."
Ghost Man "You can look around all you want. I don't know what you expect to find."
Myrrh "Statues. Have you seen any serpent statues?"
Ghost Man "No, I can't say I have."
Xar`Rex "We will look, then, Thank you."
Xar`Rex heads off, tired of talking.
Corve swims past the Plutarch with a bare nod, remembering what he disliked most about Brumians in general: their constant unwillingness to attribute to solidarity.
Carmine swims on past too, quite tired of the fool.
Myrrh swims after the others with one sidelong look at the dead ruler.
ST Getting directions isn't hard, with a few promises of memorandum and praise, the Circle finds its way to a cemetary. The mausoleum they first come upon looks likely enough to Corve to have an entrance to the underground crypts that, as far as he knows, extend vastly underground, ranging from cemetary to cemetary and under much of the city as well.
Corve swims through the entrance, sharpening his gaze and making way as he searches for any clues that might be down here.
ST Unlike the formerly living parts of the city, there is little enough damage to the cemetery.
ST Corve enters the mausoleum after having Xar shatter its sealed door enough that he can pass. Once inside he finds nothing but a few long-dead bodies and jars of ash sealed with wax and paint.
Corve looks for an entrance to the underground crypts.
ST The entrance to the underground crypts isn't hard to find, most mausoleums have one hidden somewhere. This mausoleum hides the entrance under a false coffin in the center of the building, a vast black monolith of stone supposedly containing a corpse. This one, of course, is just a rock over a passage into the underground passages.
Corve pushes the coffin aside, trying to make enough space for everyone to get through.
ST Once the coffin is out of the way, the passage is easy enough to get inside.
Corve slips through, motioning for the others follow.
Carmine swims after corve with a few powerful kicks of her legs
Xar`Rex swims through, looking for something interesting
Myrrh swims slowly after the others, looking for anything out of place in an ancient tomb...
Corve starts to pick at details as he swims, attempting to find any clues that might lead them to something about the Cult or the statues used to bring the island down. This could take days.
ST There's nothing instantly interesting in these passages. The only thing they can see at the moment is a stone doorway in a small stone room that they've entered.
Corve heads for the doorway, and tries to open it.
ST The door stands untouched by Corve's attempts to open it.
Corve "Xar, help me out."
Xar`Rex digs his claws into the door, and rips it open!
ST Xar manages to pull the door open. Behind it is a wall of glistening, shining water. And beyond that, air.
Xar`Rex gestures genteel-ly for Corve to go through
Corve smiles and tips his imaginary hat, chuckling as he swims through.
Myrrh waits to see what happens to Corve.
Xar`Rex follows shortly after him
ST As Corve steps through he finds himself falling a short distance to the dry stone floor. The air in here is foul, stale, but breathable.
Carmine is rather more careful as she makes the transition.
Corve lands and gets up, dusting himself off. "Watch that first step, you guys," he says and walks a bit aways so they can follow.
Myrrh steps down onto the wet ground and walks out onto relatively dry ground.
Xar`Rex flips his wings out and turns the fall into a mini glide, landing neatly on the ground
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