• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

< Researching the Demons | Red Ice Logs | Getting the Message >

It was admittedly a bit shocking even to Anstice, used to unusual things emerging from the dirt around First Age sites, when the translated message on the plaque of jade before him read "Anstice Cyzarine, if it is pleasing to you, meet with me in the Room of Questions. Go into the entrance you uncovered three days ago. Two lefts. A right. Three lefts, three rights. Fifth door on the right, five feet inside. I will wait two days after you read this."

• Anstice pauses to think about this, tracing a finger idly along the script. His clothing conceals just how tensed he is, ready to spring away at the slightest provocation.

The carvings have every appearance of being old beyond years...yet clearly, they were intended to be read at this very moment.

• Anstice would worry about this, but is Sidereal, and such matters of timing are to be expected. he carefully cleans the grime away and reads it once more before nodding, carefully mapping out the route. He'll wait until after a short nap, time to focus himself for the meeting before heading there.

The guards posted at the entrance to Crystal's Underways, all twenty men outweighing Anstice by at least 50 pounds of solid muscle and armored in the best the expedition could buy, look up from their fires as the slight Sidereal approaches. Their captain, a short and heavily scarred mercenary named Bract glowers up

Bract: "What ya think yer doin'?"

Anstice: "I have an appointment to make. I am trying not to be late."

Bract: " Appointment with yer ancestors? Ya ain't goin' down there, boy. What if somethat comes back up wearin' yer skin and strangles some of tha bosses? Who gets in trouble? Bract."

Anstice: "I see. I take it that your escort prices are somewhat steep?"

Some of the men around the fires chuckle as Bract grins. "Well, yah. I'll send..say, Ero with you. But he gets whatever ya find down there, and five silver dinar right 'bout now. Or yah can head back to yer bed."

• Anstice looks around. "I do see that while well armed and armored, your defenses are somewhat... shall we say pedestrian? Unless you're better at hiding magics than I think."

Bract: spits into the fire, one muddy brown eye glaring at you. "Aye. And yah be thinkin' you be better? We got us all the scrolls and prayer strips we be needin'."

Anstice: "I be thinking that I can prove it's me that walks back out of the hole without much effort at all, if that's the case."

• Bract snorts. "If you want to be dyin' tonight, that'll be yer business. Goawn down, if yah must. But if yah come back, we'll be cuttin holes in yah to be sure it's you."
• Anstice bows slightly. "Do try to keep them small. There's far prettier people with plans for this skin than you.” Anstice heads down into the hole and executes the mental map he has plotted out, hand on the wall. He only sparks his light when he is at the destination.
• Bract laughs and waves you on with his blade. "Yer death's on yer own head, hear me! Don't be hauntin' us for yer rottin in the dark!"
• Anstice does have a bright white light prepared, a basic chemical mix that burns without smoke in a globe. It is lit carefully, and he takes a deep breath before stepping the five steps.

After the turns described in the jade plaque, Anstice guesses that he's been walking in the Underways for a good three hours or more. Each turn is followed by endless straight walking, curves and twists of the tunnel appearing randomly as he moves forward. Sounds to the sides or behind almost resolve into dangerous beast-cries, but then his turn appears and saves him. Finally, as his torch lights, he stands in the Room of Questions. An empty room but for several crystal chairs that rise from the floor, grown from the stone upon which they sit. A skeleton is half-sunken into one of the chairs, the empty eyes staring at Anstice as he steps forward to face it squarely.

Anstice: "Pardon my qualms, but I do hope this is not going where I think it is going."

• Skeleton smiles at you, its mandibles moving upwards slightly. The crystal around it melts back, releasing the bones. Slowly, the mass of bones rises. Then, all in a clatter, each of the bones falls to the ground. In their place an aged man stands, smiling tightly at you. Built :along the lines of the guards above, he is broad and muscular, or may once have been. Age has bent his back slightly and his hair is white and patchy. A beard reaches to his trim stomach and his strong hands clutch a wobbling cane.
• Anstice bows, rather deeper than to the previous one to the mercenaries. "There are times I would rather be wrong. Nevertheless, my most humble greetings, sir..."

Envoy: "You are welcomed to the Room of Questions, Anstice Cyzarine. Has your research told you my name?"

Anstice: "I am afraid you have me at an advantage there. I cannot attach a name to your face."

Envoy: "I did not think you would be able to. I am called Envoy and I am here to ask your help on behalf of my masters."

Anstice: "I see. In what matters? This seems an elaborate preperation for a minor favor."

Envoy: "Oh, this is not minor at all. But I can not tell you much, for I myself know but little. My masters wish me simply to tell you to be warry of the demon-hordes that will come soon. When Luna is green with sickness and the Daughter wails :for her mother's love, then I will return to meet you again. You will find another plaque and it will tell you where I am."

Envoy: "Until then, my masters ask that you make a gesture of good faith and I will give you one in turn."

Anstice: "This gesture being?"

Envoy: "My gesture first, I think? If you go beyond this room, through the door behind me, and enter then 9th door on the left, you will find a hall. Take the first right, then the next three lefts. Right, then left. Then right once more. Finally, double back :for three turns. You will reach double doors that were not there before."

Envoy: "Within, you will find something of great value to you."

• Anstice nods. "I assume we shall meet again there? Or must I display unsightly worry and ask more questions here?"
• Envoy smiles tightly once more, shaking his head. "No, I will not see you again for some time. But I will tell you what my masters ask now, so you may give the guesture or not as you please. If you do not give it, I will not return."

Anstice: "That would be very well received."

Envoy: "Then what you must do is this: when you uncover a secret that your mind tells you relates to this meeting and my warning, write it on a sheet of paper and drip three drops of your body's life onto it. Then destroy it in a fire or :consume it."

Anstice: "I see. Most vague, but I can handle that."

• Envoy smiles at you, a full smile that makes his wrinkled face almost handsome. "It was a pleasure speaking with you, Anstice Cyzarine. If you are without further questions, I shall depart."

Anstice: "This has sufficed. Goodbye, Envoy. Perhaps our next meeting will be less stark scenery."

The Envoy nods, bowing slightly. As he bows, the bones at his feet begin to, quite literally, pick themselves up. As they clamber up his legs and chest, they reassemble into the whole skeleton. As the Envoy settles his husky frame into the chair, he melts into it, leaving only the imprisoned skeleton behind For just a moment, the brilliant amethyst that capped the Envoy's cane glinted in the light of Anstice's anima, flaring brilliantly as it too dropped into dust and nothingness. Then, it was gone. But a strange light lingered in his vision and the dust left a strange taste in his mouth as Anstice stood there.

• Anstice hoods the globe carefully, cradling it in the folds of his jacket, and will set out along the next sequence of twists and turns. He puts the implications behind him for the moment, saving them for a time he can settle down, cross-reference, and is less likely to be distracted by devils of the dark trying to gnaw on his innards.

Though the noises of the dark's inhabitants draw far closer then they ever did as he came to the Room of Questions, Anstice never once catches sight of them. His turn arrives always before they do. As he finally doubles back and reaches the proper spot, he is indeed confronted with double doors he did not see last time he stood in this place. The doors are heavy, made of Black Jade and barred with White. A line of runes that roughly translate into variations on "Warning" and "Danger" and "Do Not Enter Under Pain of Curse" bar the way, written in Starmetal. High on the door is a name that Anstice recognizes, once he wore it himself. Salusha.

• Anstice winces slightly, but quickly settles into examining the doors further, rapidly moving into the familiar quick tests and checks to quell his rising doubt. If only he'd learned more about his previous self BEFORE he was confronted with ominous doors in the middle of blackness.

Despite the appearances, Anstice is fairly sure his former corpse does not lay behind these doors. Salusha lays elsewhere, that he is sure of, but this was some place of importance to her at one time. A study or a retreat, perhaps. The doors themselves yield nothing but faint glimmers of Essence long-ago spent. Examination of the wall opposite the doors shows how: faint human and beast outlines in black paint the wall in a grizzly mural. The Essence powering the defense seems to have fled years ago. Claw marks scar the door in several places, but no recent stains mark the wall and no bones litter the ground.

• Anstice ever so carefully opens the doors, directing the narrow band of light inwards, tensed for flight at any moment.

Something inside the room, Anstice's light illuminates only a single small space, glitters faintly and spits a few sparks…then dies. When the light falls upon it, Anstice sees a mechanical spider three times his height and width, smashed into fragments. Its eyes were the glimmer.

• Anstice waits, frozen, then finally relaxes. He moves a bit just to test his safety, then picks his way over to the smashed spider. VERY interesting.

Behind the spider is a honeycomb wall, full of scrolls and rolled up vellums, each locked behind a tiny adamant window. Not a single one is open, though whatever smashed the spider surely could have opened them...surely..

Anstice: One would think. Unless the spider was already smashed and transported here for study... or it was attempting to get into them and got caught... hrm.

• Anstice skips over the fascinating piece of work the spider represents and moves over to the wall of scrolls for now, randomly selecting a slot and attempting to open it.

A flash of orange light leaps into Anstice's arm as he touches the adamant. It courses through him, jittering across each muscle in his arm before dissipating. The sensation was disturbing, but as he moves the arm carefully and examines it closely, it seems to have left no harm at all. The small adamant door opens easily and the scroll within pops out of its own accord, waiting to be unfurled.

• Anstice brushes the hand off on his jacket, and ever so slowly takes the scroll. He prepares himself, unfurling it carefully and attempting to commit the text to memory, having had too many older texts fall apart in his hands.

As strong as it was the first day ink was touched to its surface, the map in Anstice's hands reads easily. Lines in fifty nine colors are drawn through a massive maze work that apparently, judging by the title at the top of the map, represent the Underways of Hollow. An extensive legend, inscribed on the back of the scroll, shows each path to have special conditions to be followed before it allows itself to be walked. The map goes off the page in several places, each one listed as a connection to another city's Underways.

• Anstice sits down on a braced leg of the spider, reading it and tracing the varying colors with a finger. Now this, this is nice. Definitely worth the almost dying. After some careful thought and losing himself in the map, he traces fingers along and attempt to open another one, just to make sure this wasn't a one time thing.

Once again orange lightning flares, but the scroll within emerges at a touch and unrolls easily. 15 lines into the scroll, tears streak Anstice's cheeks as the epic poem wrenches at his heart with its masterful words. The images within almost spring to life before him, so moving is the writing.

• Anstice is careful to hold the scroll away from him and place it back into the slot when he finishes, hopefully untearstained. Is there a line on the map that replicates the journey to get to this spot?

Anstice turns back, the power of the poem almost a physical weight in his belly, pulling him back toward it. He finds himself gripping the vellum to his chest as if it were his firstborn son. Such a thing as this...it can not stay here, in the dark, where no one can appreciate it. The map, being of the Hollow Underways, is no help at all here in Crystal.

< Researching the Demons | Red Ice Logs | Getting the Message >