As they spoke, their words whispered. In the hall of endless kingdoms lost and built upon, their stories coiled and curled from their lips almost with alien ferocity. Even Vivian, who spoke so little, found her words almost torn away from her the moment she started speaking. Through it all, Cassion did not move, only watched them speak. Tio was the first to spill the story and it was only then that Cassion cupped both hands, forming a dome over the stone table.
When Nauta, the last, had spoken, Cassion uncovered his hands to reveal four keys of different shapes laying out on the stone. The first, polished ivory bone inlaid with onyx. Its head was fashioned into a delicate human skull, jaws agape. The second was a beautiful key of embossed bronze, silver, and gold inlay. From its head rose two delicately shaped wings, spread wide in mid soar. The third was a simple thing, black iron, fashioned with rough hands over a hot anvil, crushed into its simple shape. The last, Nauta's, was a crooked thing that scarcely resembled a key at all. All stone and angles, it was a confused jumble of tangles and knots woven in rock, the teeth jutting almost gleefully from the end.
"You Have Chosen Your Keys," Cassion told them, shrugging his massive shoulders, "And By Your Keys, You Will Be Given Entrance Into Gilgarod." The doors behind him quivered at the name, the entirety of the room singing its uneven architecture, a million voices frozen in mortar all speaking at once. The sound died as swiftly as it came and Cassion lifted his hands out to present the doors. "You Are In Emea, Yes? This Is A Place Of Dreams. Gilgarod Is That Terrible Beauty Where The Dreams Of Kings And Conquerors Go To Join. Bow Thy Head In Respect, You Tread Upon The Bones Of Empires Long Dead And Empires Not Yet Risen. Here, In The Places Your Choices Have Led You, There Will Be What I Seek And An End To This Contest. As I Have Given You A Key, So You Will Return To Me With One In Repayment. My Key. The One I Seek."
Vivian reached out slowly and took her key, the beaten iron cold in her hand. She could feel in it a singular heartbeat, a thud-thud against her skin. The rest followed suite. Arlo noted that his key thrummed, as though the metal were humming a tune vibrating up and down its long, brilliant length. Tio's whispered to him, as though bony lips mouthed terrible secrets into the flesh of his palm. The mage nearly dropped it, feeling his necromancy spark lurch within him unexpectedly, hungrily, like a dog snapping at proffered scraps. Nauta's however, it told him nothing. Try as he might it was difficult to conventionally hold it in one hand. The strange twisting pattern of bends and turns that made up this terrible tangled sculpture defied rational explanation. So thin was the stone that it should have been fragile, but Nauta could feel its rigid edges and knew that it would not break nor bend to any force he could well muster. It defied him, it defied reality, and in some small way, it was as suited to his stubborn, misanthropic nature as any tool he'd ever held.
The doors, as one, opened.
Cassion stood from his seat and the torches flared up brightly in the cavernous room, still somehow unable to reach the full vaulting heights of the ceiling. "Ware Well, Mortals," He chuckled, "Dreams Have Never Had The Bite Of The Ones You Face Now. Gilgarod Has Devoured Countless Mortals Before And Will Swallow Uncounted More Before The World Is Dark And Dust, All Stories Ended." Arlo turned to him sharply, looking for a hint in the wild eyes of the god. This was and wasn't the same Cassion he had encountered those many trials before. There was something darker here, expectant. Perhaps this Cassion would have let the murderer escape...yes...yes perhaps he would have, if only to see what story it told.
It seemed to draw them in, these portals. Unbidden their desires rose up within them, surged. Every desire to conqueror, to control, to rule, to covet spoke in one voice through their minds and souls at once and then quieted, the thundercrack of Gilgarod, welcoming them.
"Fare Well, Champions," Cassion bid them, returning to his seat, "I Eagerly Await The Stories Grown From Your Ambition."
************************************************************
Tio's Key, The Sepulcher of the Sacrifice
The stones were cut in limestone. His door had opened to a stairway that led every downward. Each step he took seemed to him a hundred as the light of Cassion's chamber faded behind him in a matter of four steps down the winding staircase. Around him the cold chill of death seeped into his bones, aching beneath his skin and clawing at his mind. Sleep, the quiet passage seemed to say, sleep and be through with your journey, rest here forever. Within him, his necromantic spark burned, unusually active in this shadowy dreamscape.
"Not enough," his shadow whispered up to him, its edges shifting into the characteristic phantom of his own magic, "Not yet."
Its voice was icy, slow, as if waking from a long slumber and although it said so little, the words themselves were carved terror. He knew, without question, that his Spark had said the words and that realization shook him. For the first time he could feel the strange otherworldly intelligence burrowed so deeply into his being, coiled around his heart and fluttering with every breath he took. It was almost enough to arrest him from his surroundings, but as his foot scraped dust and dirt, he was drawn back to his circumstances. Around him towered monoliths of sculpted ivory and stone. Graves that stretched into the dark cavernous nothing above him side by side with the small, uneven cobble-teeth tombstones of a peasant's boneyard. Here he stood in a Necropolis, a city of death. Above him, pillars of graves lashed perilously together supported the groaning weight of Gilgarod atop it.
Here Tio stood in the foundations of every empire, every ambition that sought to rule, the bones and blood of those who fell in pursuit of that ideal. No utopia, no matter how idyllic, could long hide the dead crammed into the earth beneath its cornerstones. For a few moments, the breath thundered out of Tio to join with the breathless as the awe of this endless tomb washed over him. He could not begin to count the monuments, nor even begin to understand the myriads of languages scrawled across their glistening surfaces.
"Boy." A voice croaked to him, "Boy."
Tio turned to behold a skeleton, one of many half buried in the dirt and dust of this place. Its open jaws were still, its cavernous eyes empty. Time had bleached the bones discolored and not a scrap of flesh remained. "Yes boy, you see me." The grisly thing did not move to speak with him, the voice echoed out of the tired bones as though from somewhere far away. His Spark shook. This was not necromancy he knew. "You have your flesh, young man, and that sets you separate from the many here. I see you hold the Key of this place, I sensed it rattling in your palm. No...No, be not suspicious, necromancer, is this the first time bones have spoken to you? Haha, well, perhaps."
There was no signpost, no way to determine how to navigate the strange underworld set before him. Should he continue to wander, where would he end up? Would he find the stairs again? And what of the challenge, Cassion's Key? The one he had been given bit gently into his flesh, prompting him to look down at it. The small skull had closed its mouth gently over his own skin, its empty sockets a mystery. Gently, Tio pried it off.
"You seek the Key, do you not? You seek what the Road God seeks. Ah, but he will not come here, no, jealous of the mortal men and their mortal lives...this is no place for a god. Tell you what, boy, I will strike you a deal. Give to me that gift the Feather God granted you, rejuvenate my flesh, and I will lead you to your prize. A fair exchange, yes? I am a King, these ages past, and there is much knowledge and gifts I would give you, if you'll only grant me the ability to walk from this accursed place."
"Heed him not."
Tio looked down, surprised, to see another skull just inches from his feet, almost completely buried in the dirt. "Listen a moment, traveler, for I am but voice and bone now. Once there was a King, an august man of righteous ways and who saw to the heart of his people. His would be a kingdom that would stretch from age to age, built on understanding, compassion. But a drought drove his vassals to plotting and though he wisely predicted the rain would come, the most ambitious of them turned upon him and shed his blood for ancient power. For a small time he reigned, but he did not see the heart of his people and eventually they swallowed him. Heed not the feckless, the disloyal, the avaricious. Take me, young man, I will lead you away from this place. I ask only that you take my skull and bury it in sun-soaked lands, far from the darkness of this mausoleum. I cannot go to my people in such darkness."
"Lies and rot," the skeleton growled, "You listen to the old and forgotten. A king must never stand at the level of his subjects. To rule you must be more than they, devour their ambitions, live their triumphs. A powerful king protects from the example he sets for those beneath. A King must rule fairly, yes, but he must RULE, young man. Can you not agree with that? No Kingdom lasts that is not built upon sacrifice. Let this bloodless fool lead you astray and you'll never find what you seek. Favor me, boy, and I will tell you such things as you have never known."
"Wisdom offered by the desperate is poison to take."
"The boy quests for the Key."
"The boy does not know what he quests for."
Both skeleton and skull fell silent, allowing Tio some time to think. Clearly, he would not get far traveling on his own. The endless sea of tombs marched in every direction and he had no clear indication of his next steps forward.
"Young man," the skull sighed up at him, "You cannot continue on alone. Take one of us but do nor forsake us both. Others like you have come before and without a guide they become the bones they walk among. Hold fast your memories of breathing, of life, of sunlit places, of your own hot blood. Death swings sweetly, young man, but do not let it tempt you. There is much more for you yet to survive."
"Platitudes," The skeleton scoffed, "He seeks to win you with compassion. Ah, but we know differently, do we not? It is not compassion that draws a man to take the Spark, not compassion that drives the study of bones, the false life you grant them. You seek it too, do you not? Answers. Power. Dominion over those who would hold such things above you. Yes, I feel it too, I feel it coursing in my bones. Favor me, boy, and I shall lead you to the heart of this place, where your quarry slumbers.
Around him, the wind whispered, muttered, hissed. At the edges of his mind he could feel the sweet serenade of this place creeping in, like the slow chill of a Cylus night. This was a dangerous place, of that he could be certain. The living did not retain that life long in this Barrow of Ambition.
************************************************************
Arlo's Key, The Halls of Exult
It as not sorrow-sweet whispers that drew Arlo forward through his door. No, instead it was the distant swelling of music. Trumpets, tambourines, stringed delights of every culture and places farther still wept in open cacophony against each other. Each, separate, would have been a lovely song of triumph but in tandem they were confused conversations. The hall he walked through was wide as two full ships end to end, the ground carpeted in red velvet lush and springing with every step. Along the walls, arranged with precision, were intervals of portraits and tapestries depicting faces he had never seen. Some were mortal but most depicted faces of races almost too fantastical to describe. The only truth of them is that each was posed regally, dripping with jewels or other accompaniments of station. Flanked by kings and queens, Arlo drew ever closer to the revelry.
Before him, the hall opened to a bright courtyard, bricks gilded with gold and silver tiling on the roofs of the nearby homes. Contrary to the sound filling every corner, there were no musicians to be found. Instead, a row of identical metal statues lined the courtyard up to dais and a single throne. It was crafted of such strange unearthly splendor, warping with color and shape around the central point of the seat itself. Arlo had never seen anything quite like it, a breathing treasure that shook and beat with a life all of its own. The musical madness rose to a crescendo and then fell silent around him, expectant. With unexpected grace, the first of these metal statues stepped away from where it stood and approached the hall Arlo had arrived from. It was tall, humanoid with a wide onyx chest inset with dazzling rubies and sapphires. Its eyes were cut emeralds, each facet dazzling in its brilliance. It had no other features on its face save for the slight ridge along the center of its face, the sculpted suggestion of a nose.
Ten feet from the traveler, it stopped and knelt on one knee. Even then, it still towered over Arlo easily. In its faceted eyes, Arlo could see himself reflected back, but each facet reflected a different image. In one, Arlo stood bloody, scars running the length of his arms and across his face. His garments were strange to him, torn and ragged. He held a blade in one hand, curved, with a jagged edge and a white handle that shone like driven snow. Only one eye was open, the other marred shut, and it glared back at him with grim finality. Another his hair was longer, drawn back into a loose ponytail over his shoulders. He wore a robe, soft brown, dirtied with sand and mud. In one hand he gripped an old and gnarled staff, torn from some bygone tree and inset with a strange silver shard of metal that glistened and pulsed. Beside him was a young girl, perhaps no more than three arcs, curly hair that hung cascaded across fierce eyes. She held Arlo's other hand and grinned back at him. Another was an older man, face lined with the long arcs they carried and his hair cut short and mottled with grey. A stone circlet lay across his brow and a regal robe hung off his wiry shoulders. He did not smile back at Arlo, there was volumes of untold life between the two of them, secrets this other version of him could not bare to say. There were so many others, each facet held a version of him. Most were alive in various ages, each with a signature item of some strange origin. Some were fierce and frightening, others bright and smiling, few were grim and one his body lay splayed out on the gilded stone of the courtyard, his chest an open eye and his heart missing. Clutched in one hand was a key wrapped in loose thread, an old key of bronze.
Welcome.
The voice echoed in his head, too loud to ignore. The golem's eyes flashed.
Welcome, to the Halls of Exult. Here we crown a King, to add their dreams of conquest, control, ambition, or benevolence to Gilgarod. You hold the Key of Exult and it names you the next to inherit this throne.
Arlo tried to speak, but found his mouth locked, his words tumbling aimlessly through his head.
You of many paths, your branching mortal, inheritor of a stolen world, you will lay your ambition bare before us and be rewarded with your treasury.
The golem stood, nodding its head down toward the ground in respect and stepping back toward its place.
You must tell us, traveler, what manner of King will you be? What is your story, your wisdom to offer to Gilgarod? Forever, some of you will remain here in this land of the conquered and the conqueror, for there are both within your veins and you have birthright to this claim. Come and tell us how you will treat the people, how you will triumph over your enemies, how you will be remembered. Defend your right to rule, Oh King, Defend it or give all of yourself to this place.
Arlo could feel the voice rising through him, shaking his very being.
Deny your birthright and be regarded as intruder. Do not flee your destiny. Rise to meet it, Oh King, Oh New Emporer. Rise, or become the stones on which others will rise above you.
************************************************************
Nauta's Key- PrisonKeep
Nauta, twisted Nauta, the Aukari approached his narrow opening with some suspicion. Unlike the others, his was almost a mistake, a flaw in the architecture. It was neither neat nor congruent, little more than an uneven gash sliced through the mismatched architecture. Its door did not open, the stone only slid away to reveal the gash, hiding within a narrow slot grooved into the stone. Scowling, the Aukari looked back at Cassion who returned his expression with a grin. In that smile, Nauta saw a truth and one that drew a shiver from the canny spy. It was a smile that seemed to challenge him, to dare and turn back now after the option had been extended and refused. The passage ahead was unknown, but with Cassion, Nauta was sure there would be little left of him to notice by the time the others got back.
As Tio vanished down the sweet-rot smelling staircase, Nauta resisted the urge to chuckle wryly. Well. If they came back at all.
He stepped quickly through the narrow slot, stepping sideways to avoid brushing his shoulders against the entrance and ducking his head almost immediately. The ceiling lowered considerably for a few feet before widening again, presenting maniacal hallways, staircases and passages in a boring madness through the stone. Try as he might, Nauta could find no rhyme or reason. Given the slant of many possible ways forward, it seemed probable that one might upend into the other, slicing right through a pre-existing passageway. No signs existed and the walls were smooth and wet, like the water-slick walls of a cave. Within him, his flame guttered and caught, flaring fiercely against the cold. A damp wind blew through here, strong and then retreating, strong and then retreating.
It was breathing.
The hallways were breathing.
No sooner did he realize this than the walls began to lose their smooth consistency. Bumps, shapes, contours rose from the unyielding stone like fingers pushing against a heavy drape. Faces formed in the stone, interlocked together, bound so close they made up the halls, the floor, the ceiling. Nauta leaped backward, digging his feet into the corners of the narrow halls to avoid smashing the faces beneath, gnashing wordlessly.
"Welcome to PrisonKeep, Nauta Geey,"
The Aukari whirled, hand to his weapon to see the stone-textured face of an old man leering at him from an upper corner. While the rest of the faces twisted and fought to speak, he seemed to easily. Something in his features was familiar to the former guard, but it eluded him. The texture and color of stone stole that recognition completely, leaving the old face a mystery. It smiled, and what Nauta had mistaken for malice was appraising, crafty.
"Kingdoms may be built on the backs of the dead, but they thrive only by the lives they bind to their towers." The old man nodded his head to the faces around him. "Spies, servants, soldiers, seneschals, the faceless and forgotten bound eternally to the Throne." Nauta edged a little closer to the old face, keeping a wary eye on both directions in the hallway. He wouldn't be caught unaware by another trap, certainly not this far in the game. He gripped his twisted key in one hand. What on earth could he even use it for?
"You know a thing or two of that life, Nauta, do you not?" The old face appraised him, "Perhaps a reminder would do."
"Delicious! Oh! A new seasoning? Ah...lights a fire in my belly. Reminds me of my master Oshir, did you know he always..."
"HA! Paprika? I have tasted that like before, but never such as this. Say. Do you have more? I would be happy to tell you..."
"Gods! GODS THE PAIN! MY INSIDES ARE FIRE! Nauta...Nauta....NAUTA!"
Faces suddenly exploded into sound beneath and around him. The visages of servants he had plied with food, learned secrets of their masters, the men and women he had experimented with, addicted, discarded. Did he care for them? No...no of course not. Had they died? After the experiments he'd never checked, not THAT long after. The soldiers, his opponents he had poisoned bit by bit to get ahead. All of them snapped and wailed at him, bleeding from every surface and squirming as though trying to get to him.
Cold. Why was the air so cold?
"Jesnine lay a protection on thee and thy companions." This was a different voice. A booming voice that filled the air and rattled the halls. It was as though the walls were speaking. "But thou hath incurred her distaste, little cog, and her protection is lifted." Hands split from the stone and reached up to grab Nauta. With a flourish, he drew one of his blades and slashed them, separating a few at the wrist where thin, but mostly his blade shrieked across the stone. He rolled away, feeling gnashing mouths biting at his clothes, his flesh across the ground, snatching bits of his hair and tearing it free. Still the hands, so many, all belonging to faces he had betrayed, faces in service to the Aukari empire, Faldrun's empire. "Struggle, mortal," It sang to him, his feet slipping into the stone like soft mud, "It will avail thee not. Jesnine hath not protected thee, and Cassion hath given thee to me knowing this full well. It hath been ages since I tasted fresh flesh, and thy scheming will be sweet life to Gilgarod. Everlasting servant. Slave to thine own distrustful ambition. No king in thee, nay, no usurper nor grand villain. But a servant, flesh for my walls, blood for the Kingdom. Come. Thou art MINE."
Though he struggled, Nauta could not escape the hands that moved from every surface, the howling faces, those in his past he had destroyed bit by meticulous bit pulling him down into the floor. He could feel the stone slip through his veins, circle his fire and for a moment it almost seemed as though that would be stripped away as well. Almost...but.
"Cease your struggling, be still."
The old mans voice, floating back to him. "Patience, Nauta Geey, you have been devoured before and you may yet be again, swallowed by causes and the wishes of others but now? Now you will be still and compliant. Gilgarod hungers, yes, but it is impatient and it is mad. Be still and let its eyes pass from you."
Nauta ceased his movements, allowing himself to sink into that grey abyss, hanging there pressed against the slowly writing bodies of others. He could feel it in inside him, the murky stone, could feel something vital of him leeching out to the architecture around him. Lost, always lost. Just a meal for this beast of stone and mortal hands...no different than Faldrun's empire.
"Do you begin to understand this place, Geey? It is not an enemy of flesh and blood but concept. You live where ideas have substance and your damn persnickity nature lost your your protection. Had you been a mite more respectful, the Lady of Dreams would have left her protection on you, in no danger so long as you did not choose to interact...to join Gilgarod's 'tests'. Outmanuevered by yourself, how very like a novice chef, think only of the dish and not of the setting."
"Who...?" Nauta tried to mouth, but the stone was filling his jaws, filled his very being.
"Still so fresh. But then, your father would speak little of me. Know that I too share the name Geey, passed from my father and that I passed to my son, and he passed to you."
In the proud tradition of Nauta's past, little had ever been said of his grandfather. A member of the Occult and long gone, the most his father had ever spoken of the senior Aukari. Nauta had never met him.
"I am Aukari no longer," the voice almost sounded wistful, "I cast away that life when I chose my own path. Alas, my ambition led me here, to the graves of all those lost to their pride, who built toward something greater. Damn Gilgarod. Had I known I was feeding this place I..." The murk around him was disturbed, as if something large passed overhead. The voice grew quieter, whispering. "I am a shade of this place now, but I seek freedom. You, Nauta, you may grant me that freedom but only if you escape. Two choices lay before you. I could spirit you from here, use my power to open a way back. You would return empty, save what you walked in with, but I could return you whole. In return, you will do me a turn to free me from this incarceration...or," Here the voice paused, and Nauta could hear its sly intonation, "I could give you something of mine, a birthright your father was never enough to receive. I could grant you Sight, Nauta, a sight beyond your eyes, to see and hear the music of the universe. You might use that to find the heart of PrisonKeep, swear to me you will do as I say when you go there, and any treasure in that place can be yours. I cannot guarantee your safety, then, Nauta. But you are not the kind of craven who balks at danger, now are you...alchemist?"
************************************************************
Vivian's Key, ForgeHeart
A fitful glow drew Vivian forward through her door. The simple key in her hand thrummed, warm to the touch, and flared brightly like heated metal as she stepped out of Cassion's hall and beyond. Above her, gleaming blades lay poised on arms of crafted steel, quivering in anticipation. Loaded crossbows, set at deadly angles twitched and turned as she moved past them. Each step of this place was trapped with pristine steel, weapons large enough to be wielded by giants and an armory of others. Vivian faltered, momentarily, looking down at the hungry flare of her key. Somehow, she understood that it was not just the key that kept them at bay. There was a warmth around her that insulated her from the danger. Indeed. Yes, and the key was drawing them to her. Without whatever protection was neatly drawn around her, would there be much of her left at all?
Distantly, the forge sang, a rhythmic melody of metal against metal, smashing the impurities away and leaving naught but peerless glimmer behind. Cassion's torches still lit the entrance of her door, but it seemed so much farther away than she had walked into this place. Steeling herself, she gripped the warm metal and continued onward. The epithet above the door remained emblazoned in her thoughts, the memories they stirred already settling again as she approached the flame.
Around her, the chamber was circular, a massive dome rising above her head. The walls were bound with iron and steel, immense girders shaped into the arms of beasts and titans, holding the walls steady. Across the brickwork gleamed an arsenal she had never seen the likes of before. From wall to wall, ceiling to floor, weapons of all sizes and shapes were bolted, hung, or buried into the rough stone. Here, then, was a glittering trove of military wealth, a nearly endless army would never go for want of supplies here. The shadows of mighty war weapons, immense machines of wood and metal crouching above her, cruel and methodical in construction. She recognized some, but others seemed more like sculptures or creatures of gleam and dazzle, sharp-edged and hungry. The room was lit wildly, the central forge a star of inferno and activity. Sparks burned and sizzled in the air, showers of brilliance raining across the hall and hissing past her face. The Forge Master was hard at work, it seemed, surrounded by each master crafted child, cast in meticulous design and deadly intent.
As Vivian adjusted to take in more of the room, her eyes fell upon the Forge master and her heart thundered. The towering giant was twice as tall as some of mansions and estates she had seen in Rynmere. At first she had taken him for another of those strange war machines, still and waiting, but then it shifted. Clad in burnished green-black armor, its helm was filled with shadow and furious points of white-flame light. From its armored carapace, hundred of multi-jointed metal arms protruded at random intervals, each hard at work forging on the great fire. The anvil was immense, a crystalline thing of clear facets and neatly chiseled design. Someone, perhaps this being, had lovingly beaten it to shape over what must have nearly been centuries. Patiently, the creature stood before its masterpiece and allowed its many-many arms to flail away in the flames shaping and twisting the items within. Drawn by its strange physiology, she almost missed what is was forging. Although finished blades, shields, and other weapons were being cooled from the anvil and placed in a barrel for later inspection, it was not metal that the blacksmith was dipping into the flames.
Vivian felt the bile rise at the back of her throat as she watched six arms dig into a pile of human bones, tearing free jawbones, femurs, and whole skulls before shoving them into the fire. The flames hissed and popped along the bone but as the hammer smashed into them, instead of shattering they bent and twisted as metal might, each ring of the hammer more and more like gasps, groans, and sighs. In her hand, the key hummed, growled, suddenly and the forging stopped.
Silence was alien here, devouring the echoes of metal and motion. Fortunately, that irregularity lasted only a moment, unfortunately it was broken by a metallic screech as the being turned its head nearly all the way around on its shoulders to regard Vivian.
The monster loomed above her and when it spoke, its voice rolled through every inch of the cavernous place, deep and grinding like stones bouncing down a hill.
"Hail, Warrick," It greeted, "Here is ForgeHeart. You have come with Iron key to my domain, one you know well." The rest of its body shrieked as its turned, the rust on its segments suggesting the blacksmith had not moved for quite some time. Still, it did so without any real difficulty, the brilliant points of light serving as its eyes like spotlights down upon her. There was no way to read its expression, only feel the voice as it vibrated her bones.
"Have you craftsman? Have you artists? Here Gilgarod forges ambition into tools. Unworthy aspirations are purified here, stripped of their impurities and given to the strong and driven to wield. Each of my tools were made for kings and queens, leaders, the excceptional mortals who dared to think themselves something more than their fellow." It laughed, echoing booms that mostly crashed within the armor it wore and hurt Vivian to hear it. "I am the ForgeMaster. I have always been. You come to me now, seeking something for the wayfarer god. Ah, the traveler god. Would that he come here again that I might forge his bones into something magnificent."
Wisely, Vivian chose not to comment.
"Your precious protection will not hold against my flames," The ForgeMaster promised, "But I will give you one opportunity to impress me." Lifting one of its many hands, an arm that was similar in size and shape to her own, it dropped a forge hammer at her feet. "Craft for me your worth, Vivian Warwick. Lay your words and blood upon the forge and make for me a beauty I would hang among my collection. Do this, and you shall earn my respect. Fail this task, and I will reforge your ambition in my flames." It left no room for argument, an immense alien of steel and flame building weapons for no one for all eternity. It would almost be tragic if it was not so well suited for the task. "A hint." It said suddenly, "A hint young Lady, if you permit it. All you forge must have a story. Give to the anvil what you would offer no other and see how it will sing for you, see what it shall shape with your guidance."
Turning again, the many hands once more went to work on the Great Forge. Somehow, although the sparks at this range easily crawled along its armor and even flared in Vivian's face, dragging themselves along her clothes, they would not catch alight. Whatever protection had been afforded her, remained, enough to insulate her from the flames upon approach. Above her, the ForgeMaster kept one burning eye upon her as she began her work, appraising, curious, even perhaps excited.
Higher the fire roared, fed by the bones, shaping the weapons...and around her, it was not Vivian reflected in the polished metal, but the faces of those long lost, forged anew into a weapon for another.
Vivian suppressed revulsion.
It would not be her.
| ! | Message from: Plague |
Hey all. Sorry for the delay here. Some issues with joblessness and sickness kept me at bay. I'll try not to let that wait lag on again.
So, some explanation.
You are all in Gilgarod now, a place in Deep Emea where the dreams of conquerors, kings, and those who might serve them go to gather. This is a strange realm and all your choices have weight. Some of you have been given open ended choices while others have been given very straight forward choices. Know that turning around and leaving is an option in your next post ONLY. If you choose to go farther, you will find that the way back is no longer completely assured. I'm not much a fan of continuity errors or time warps and don't know if you've continued writing with your characters after this supposed event. If so, hopefully you haven't used anything from this thread and I'll figure a reason to align our timelines appropriately. Following are a simplification of your choices. You can, of course, surprise me and choose neither, utilizing anything you have on you. I will adapt to whatever you throw at me. If you have any questions about how something would react if you did a certain thing, please PM me and I'll answer promptly.
Know that if it is a "What would happen if I used my magic item to do x, that I will only answer when you have decided on that course of action.
I answer as a way of letting you have more autonomy with your next post if you want to know some results and write them rather than let me do it.
I prefer a more open storytelling methodology anyways.
Tio: You have two possible guides. Your necromancy will not work on these bones.
Arlo: Yours is the MOST open ended. Describe how you would rule to sit on that throne and receive your reward when you take your rightful place.
Nauta: Pretty straight forward for you. Go onward and risk it all, or go back with a special prize and a new quest.
Vivian: The test is on. Forge me an answer I might find surprising. Dig deep. The ForgeLord is not forgiving. Assume any shape you choose will be forged perfectly, but the item must have a story 'forged' into it. You must explain its meaning, its function, and its artistry. This is every bit a creative writing exercise as well as a visualization. I look forward to what you will give me.
Given how long it took me to do this, I will write a post this weekend if I have all answers, but you will not be due to give me one till the end of NEXT week. (Don't worry, I will amend time discrepancies) |
