[Old Dynaash] The Hound of Sintra

[Woe]

He'd not intended to be idle while those responsible for the attack on Egilrun had gone unpunished, as far as could be told. Few punishments were sufficient when it came to the crime committed.
Woe knew that Webspinners had been involved, and so sought out the traces of them, the last vestiges of their organizational base that he'd encountered. That was in a series of small caverns in Old Dynaash. Fleaface thought he had Woe at a disadvantage, being immune to his Ignorance domain, but he forgot that he wasn't the only one with operational knowledge of the other. Woe knew the dog-faced Fargis as well as anyone could. He doubted that Scalvoris' Albarecht had the resources to track an international villain, who transcended national borders and could slip through unnoticed, and unaccounted for.

So Woe pursued the hunch, and that was most of what it was, in Egilrun. There were smuggler's caches found scattered throughout the woods west of Egilrun. A perfect place to hide forces for an attack by land, while the Pirates encroached from the sea. Woe had long suspected that there were more than just pirates involved in the attacks. There were just too many unanswered questions for it to be so neatly tied to one crew, let alone one class of villain.

He knew the Webspinners were involved, as much as he could know anything. And now he was onwards, to the search for justice against a portion of those villainous scoundrels.

Soz flew over the familiar cavern where he'd found Lacrima. It was just one of many in the hills of Old Dynaash. In time, Woe would search more of them for signs of the Webspinner presence. Soz landed at a flat part of the hills, on the soft grass. It was presently dusk, and the dragonling was comfortably curling up to bask in the darkness for a moment as Woe climbed off of her riding gear.

His eyes searched the gloom effortlessly for signs of any sort of assage. He soon found something that stood out. Rather than the usual scattered and well hidden tracks that delineated the passage of Webspinner agents, Woe found more regimented movements. As if troops had passed through there, recently.

[Ulric]

18 Vhalar 723

"I'm not saying that we are lost, but we've seen that same rock five times now." Ulric groaned as he and Helena came to a stop a short distance ahead of where Woe was searching. Balon and Elia were off elsewhere and Ulric had volunteered to help Helena with a small investigation she was pursuing. Now they were in the midst of Old Dynaash and it seemed that they were walking in circles.

"It's not the same rock." Helena countered as her eyes searched their surroundings for any further clues that they might be able to find.

"It is, I carved the smile into it the last time we passed." Ulric said with a gesture towards a weakly drawn smiley face.

It was only cruel irony that drew Ulric into the web once again. Followers of the one who had resurrected and tried to kill him had been murdered and Helena was on the hunt to find out what had happened to them. Ulric had joined her out of morbid curiosity. Webspinners turning up dead? Well that checked off all his boxes as a former ghost who was marked by Sintra. It was either pure chance and good timing that set the duo in Woe's path, or it was some darker design being enacted on the two of them.

Ulric and Helena had only been in the Empire for a short time but they had, foolishly, gone in search of rumor and nels. They didn't need to but they had done so all the same, likely just to spend time together away from Balon. Old Dynaash was comprised mostly of horse and sheep farms because the rocky plains made it ill fit for agriculture but Ulric didn't connect those dots. "Do you want to stop and turn back then?" Helena asked as she shifted the weight of her bag on her shoulder.

"It's probably sa-." Ulric's reply was cut off the by the sound of beating wings in the sky. Helena quickly drew her bow and nocked an arrow while Ulric unsheathed his ghost metal blade and assumed a defensive stance. Their eyes searched the sky but neither of them had reacted fast enough to see the source of the sound. "We should go back before we run into bandits." He said as he slowly sheathed his sword.

"And before it gets too dark." Helena pointed out as she knelt down to examine the tracks they'd been trying to follow. If they were giving up, she was disappointed but there were worse things. It was then that duo saw Woe approaching. Helena was quick to draw back her bow and take aim but Ulric pushed her arrow down gently with his hand. He gestured a little bit behind Woe where Soz was basking in the coming darkness. Helena seemed to get the message. Don't start a fight but be ready to finish one.

"Who goes there?" Ulric called out towards Woe, remaining unarmed as to avoid making it seem like a threat.

[Woe]

Soz’ eyes grew red at the sight of a sharp leveled in their direction. Woe could feel her angst and apprehension toward these two who happened to be snooping around Webspinner caves. Woe didn’t immediately infer that they themselves were Webspinners, however, something about the man called to a feeling deep inside. He looked into himself, and tried to feel if this was one of those marked by his mother.

When the reverberations on the web returned positive, Woe knew he was dealing with a Lethroda. But Woe knew better than most that the Webspinners were not the only ones who Sintra deigned to mark. He himself had never been a part of their cult.

So he might’ve been ill advised, but he was willing to give this man the benefit of the doubt. In fact, they might be able to help each other, if the rumors of dead webspinners had the least bit of credibility. It sounded like an inside job, with garrotes, and threads used to strangle them. Clean and torturous at the same time, professional. Sintra’s agents were capable of operating with such adroitness in assassination. That didn’t preclude the involvement of others, but then, this was why Woe wanted to investigate. He wanted to know what was going on with the Webspinners, and Fleaface in particular.

Soz Woe sent the message to his Dragonling, through their bond. Exhale shadow, and I’ll cover your path. The dragonling shortly after began breathing out a gout of shadow, which enveloped her form. Before she took flight, and as Ulric pointed out the dragonling to his markswoman companion, Woe used Shadow Illlusions to conceeal her presence, reflecting the rocks on which she was sitting. Then she breathed out another gout of shadow into the air, and flew off, invisible to those on the ground, and not heard either.

If I need you again, I’ll call. Woe sent to Soz, and then held up his hands to the two before him.

He didn’t answer their question, but posed one of his own, that he already knew very well the answer to. Raskalarn would never suffer a Lethroda in her ranks, would she? She would know they were there, the agent of her arch-enemy. But he asked it to test their honesty. “You are with the Imperial Legion? I saw bootprints, and wanted to find out who was skulking about these caverns.”

Woe looked to the side, taking his eyes off of the pair for just a moment, although his periphery still registered them just well enough.

He maintained his

awareness of the two, and listened in on any whispers passing between them. “These caverns have a bad reputation, spiders, shadows, and worse things are said to haunt them.”

“Why have you come here?”

[Ulric]

18 Vhalar 723

As quickly as the beast had appeared, it vanished again leaving only the rider to approach them. While Ulric wasn't able to keep track of the darkness-breathing thing, he was sure it had not abandoned the one who arrived on it. Vanishing was a neat a trick and one that Ulric felt an urge to practice but he couldn't leave Helena behind and he wasn't sure he could pull her into the Beneath with him if they needed to escape. Even if he could, how would he explain it all to her?

The newcomer was approaching slowly but hadn't answered Ulric's question which did little to help the uneasy atmosphere. Ulric's hand didn't return to his sword but that didn't mean he wasn't preparing for the worst. Helena, to her credit, didn't take aim at the newcomer again but she still had the arrow nocked. The stranger answered their question with his own and Ulric's jaw tensed slightly. So it was going to be that way then. It was only a few moments after hearing Woe's questions that Ulric realized he had his hands up and relaxed slightly.

Whispers before conversation

"Friendly?" Helena said in a lone voice as the stranger came closer.

"Not holding a weapon." Ulric whispered with a glance towards Helena's bow.

"Be honest, we don't know if he's with the Legion." She whispered back.

"He'd be holding a weapon."

"No." Ulric replied to the stranger. "We're part of a group passing through."

"We heard rumors about someone hurting people while we were stopped a short distance from here. I wanted to look into it." Helena added as she seemed to grow more comfortable. She gestured to Ulric, "He's came with me for protection."

Ulric looked at Helena for a trill, completely losing sight of the stranger, but the markswoman never stopped watching him. Ulric took a breath and nodded his head in agreement. Helena wasn't lying but he wasn't sure how happy he was with letting a stranger know that they were alone. For all they knew, this could have been a bandit scouting for a larger group. Ulric was probably just being paranoid. Dying and coming back to life had a lot of side effects. Paranoia was far from the worst of them.

"What could be worse than spiders?" Ulric said under his breath when Woe warned them about the reputation of the caverns they were near now. He didn't intend to be heard but a small grin flashed over Helena's face and he worried he might have said it too loudly. With Helena having answered the part about why they'd come, Ulric tried to shift focus off of them and towards what had lured them to this spot. "We thought we found tracks earlier but we've been unable to follow them." He said. Technically, Helena had found the tracks. He just walked with her and carried what she told him to carry.

"If you don't mind me asking, you did say you followed bootprints to get to us- but why were you out here to find them? Are you with the Imperial Legion?" Helena chimed in, trying to get what information she could from Woe.

[Woe]

Woe heard the whispered exchange between Ulric and Helena was revealing, more revealing than Woe had expected. For several reasons. The female seemed the more cautious of the two, while Ulric made what struck Woe as an absurd declaration. Of course, it was a given that most legion soldiers would have a weapon, and usually it’d be visible.

But then, not every weapon was for ‘holding’. He’d expect a Lethroda to pick up on that nuance. Or perhaps he was fully aware, and was deceiving his companion for some other purpose. Such layered deceptions within deceptions weren’t unknown to those who bore Sintra’s mark. And Woe again gave him the benefit of the doubt, that he was indeed trying to deceive his companion. Even if it was to calm her down.

“Oh. Part of a group.” Woe repeated. He wasn’t sure if he should announce his name to this Lethroda. As the son of Sintra, and a renown individual in his own right, spreading his fame from Quacia, to Rharne, to Etzos, and most recently in Scalvoris, he was sure most would either scoff at the preposterous claim that he was the Woe, son of Sintra, or react in whichever way their prejudices slanted.

“I’ve heard troubling rumors on passing the border, into Old Dynaash.” Woe admitted. “That agents of Sintra were finding themselves short of breath, courtesy of a garrote.” Woe was a little more blunt about it than Ulric. “I’m here passing through myself, on the way to Yaralon.”

He frowned, as Ulric looked at his female companion. “His protection, or yours?” Woe asked. He felt the distinction was important, but it nevertheless amused him, enough that a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He shook his head. Ulric muttered his doubt that anything could be worse than spiders. Another strange claim coming from a Lethroda, that opened Woe more to the possibility that he might not be all he appeared, which was a small portrait at this point. All Woe really knew about this man was that he was Lethroda.

“I…” Woe was on the verge of offering his service in traversing the caverns to find who they were looking for, or following the tracks they’d spotted. But then the female interrupted.

Woe turned to her, who still had an arrow firmly tucked behind the string of her bow. “I’m not with the legion. Easy mistake to make, the black clothes gave me away?” Woe chuckled, “I’m afraid I share the Imperial Legion’s lack of fashion sense. But I’m not affiliated with them. I came from Scalvoris, on an important errand for a notable there.”

Woe struggled now with the urge to be honest about who he was, yet everything that was revealed at every pass of a moment screamed at him to be cautious, and reveal as little as possible. Perhaps it was having the son of Sintra and a Lethroda sharing the same space, as happened so rarely.

“I’m also tracking a known fugitive, known as Fargis Cutler, a.k.a. Fleaface. You haven’t seen a shaggy etzori peasant anywhere around here, have you?” Woe furrowed his brow, “He’s in league with certain dark Immortals that need not be named, and I almost suspected that he might be behind those killings to the settlements in the south.”

[Ulric]

18 Vhalar 723

Ulric couldn't have been entirely certain, but he had a strange feeling that Woe had heard the exchange between Helena and himself. Something about the way he spoke and moved. It was a feeling but unfounded and like the rest of those feelings, it was chalked up to paranoia. Ulric had yet to move his hand towards his swords but he was considering wrapping the grips with a set of tendrils incase he needed to draw and swing them quickly. He didn't do it... but he thought about it for a moment. The feeling of danger didn't sit well with one who did not want to go through Judgement a second time so soon.

When Woe said he was passing through on his way to Yaralon Helena and Ulric exchanged a brief glance at each other. It might have been difficult to tell whether they were reacting to the forward information about Sintra's agents being killed or Woe's destination but it was the latter. They seemed to have similar travel plans. A small smirk crossed Helena's face when Woe asked if Ulric was there for her protection or his own and she bobbed her head to the side slightly.

"A little bit of both really." She decided. Her arms seemed less tense now but she still had the arrow nocked. All she would need to do was draw and she could aim when she did if she needed to. As soon as she seemed satisfied with Woe's answer to her questions, she slipped the arrow back into the quiver on her hip. She gestured towards Ulric, "He wears a lot of black too. I won't hold it against you." Helena said in some attempt to smooth out the tension without revealing how unfamiliar they were with their surroundings. Apart from the ghost metal vambraces and grieves, he was pretty much dressed entirely in black.

While Helena talked, Ulric watched Woe with suspicious eyes. He seemed familiar but Ulric couldn't quite place him. In the end, when Helena put away her arrow, Ulric took it as a hopeful sign that they wouldn't be fighting each other in the next few bits at least. He seemed to relax slightly and the thought of using spectral abilities to subdue the stranger faded almost entirely. While his hand did find its way to his sword, it rested harmlessly on the pommel- presenting an oddly more relaxed posture than moments before. The two listened as Woe explained that he was also hunting a fugitive who he thought might have been responsible for the murders in the south.

Helena's expression shifted to show her intrigue. Ulric's didn't. His face wasn't unmoving but he seemed more concerned with everything around them than the interaction itself. His eyes kept shifting to the sides to make sure nothing snuck up on him until-

"Unfortunately, he's the only shaggy etzori peasant I've seen around here so far." Helena said with a gesture towards Ulric who looked mildly offended by the statement.

"I wasn't a peasant." Ulric protested quietly to Helena who gave him an amused look. He never explained to anyone what he had done during his time in Etzos which left all of his stories with certain holes. Everyone in the band had their own theories. Helena's was that Ulric had been poor and had too much pride to admit it. No one thought 'complicated lethroda.' Ulric turned the focus back to Woe's hunt. "We couldn't follow the tracks we found but if you think your fugitive is somewhere in these hills-"

"We'd be happy to help look. We're already out here. Strength in numbers right?" Helena cut in with a glance between Ulric and Woe. She was sure Ulric was going to offer to help, but on the off chance he wasn't going to, she made sure she did.

[Woe]

It was the woman who said Ulric was etzori. That seemed rather… serendipitous, almost too much so. Woe was resolved then to accompany these two closely. If they were working with Fargis it might force Sintra’s cudgel to act. And if they weren’t, it would allow them a wider sweep over the area.

“Etzori?” Woe inquired, remembering the Rhakros war. “Veteran of the war?” There were other less flattering possibilities, but knowing how prickly some Etzori were about their honor, he didn’t air the possibility that this was a deserter or an ex-patriot who’d been away during the war with Lisirra.

“I was there for the war myself.” Woe said, “My name is Erebus. I fought to expose the laboratories of the Rhakri, the western theater, if I remember correctly.”

Woe considered the possibility of returning to those laboratories, though they lay dormant now and most likely desecrated by the Etzos soldiers as they salted the earth and left destruction in their departure.

Helena volunteered both of their company to Woe, although it seemed that Ulric was not entirely on board with that. “Strength in numbers supposing we’re all who we say we are, and not mischeif-makers of Sintra.” Woe shrugged, “In the other event, staying close by will discourage mischief by sheer proximity to ourselves, and keep us all honest to a point. Keep your enemies closer, and all.”

“We’re all hostage to our suspicions, it seems.”

Yet Woe couldn’t dismiss that he knew this man to be a Lethroda, and one from Etzos, revealed him to have an indisputable connection either to the Webguard, or the Cauldron. Perhaps both. That alone made him a prime suspect for the deaths in the south.

“I’ll go ahead.” Woe said, as he passed by both of them, toward the caverns that dotted the hillside. He knew these caverns from past experience, having rescued Lacrima from one of them, where she was guarded by hordes of small spiders.

“All I need, is for you both to keep your eyes ahead and back, watching for movement, or webbing, anything to signal the passage of arachnids.” Woe searched the tracks and followed the trail left over toward the farther side of the hill.

Onto Woe’s shoulder, Egil fluttered down from on high, apparently flying in from elsewhere. He was in fact a spirit of shadow, and a gift of Audrae to the Warden, whose custodianship fell to Woe after he dispatched the crew of the Wicked Reaver with Faith’s help.

Egil himself was a source of suspicion for Woe, given his origins and known associations. But one thing Woe was sure of was Audrae and Sintra’s former rivalry. Surely Audrae’s servant wouldn’t aid Sintra. So Woe was relying on that gamble.

Plus it might help to have his ability, to see through illusions.

Woe stopped short over the tracks that appeared on the ground, and knelt down to get a better look, as it looked like some obfuscation had occurred there. In the dirt, he noticed something, and Egil piped up, “Salt! Salt! Good for Crackers! Woe!”

Hearing his own name betrayed by his diri companion, Woe shook his head. It wasn’t a total loss, as Woe could be Woah phonetically, just as easily. Or just something the Raven said. If they asked, he would assure them that was the case.

But for now, salt.

“Sir, do you see anything unusual about this salted pattern? It looks like a broken circle…” Woe looked around, trying to sense any ghosts, but coudln’t tell if there were any. It felt like one ought to be close, but there were just they three.

Very perplexing.

[Ulric]

18 Vhalar 723

When Woe mentioned the war, it would become very clear that Ulric was a veteran of the battles with Rhakros. A look of remembrance and horror seemed to overtake Ulric's expressions. He remembered Lisirra's domain. He remembered the terrors inside and what had happened to the immortal. He'd seen it. He should have bound the memories to hexcores and freed his mind of them but he didn't. Details came and went but the battle never left him. Regardless, it would also become clear that Ulric was being careful about what he let people know about him.

Helena on the other hand, "You were in a war?" She turned to look at Ulric. "You've never mentioned a war."

"It's not something I enjoy talking about." Ulric said to her, but he did ultimately give Woe a small nod to confirm the mortalborn's suspicions. Woe began his lie and Ulric, while not quite trusting the coincidence that another Etzori war veteran would be in the Empire, believed him. Woe had his mother's talent for deception and now both sides of the family had deceived the humble living dead man. It would have been good if Ulric were still dead, one had to wonder. Since if Ulric were still dead, and his death remnant lingered, he would have known Woe was lying. But he didn't so, "I fought through the southern harbor and Lisirra's domain."

Whether or not the man before him was a veteran mattered very little to Ulric. They were far from Etzos and farther from that war. Ulric had fought with the dead more than the living and there were few left. Erebus, as Woe will be referred to until such time that the truth comes out, claimed to have fought on the western front. Ulric fought on the southern front. It was his first encounter with ghost metal. He'd been bold and brash, but being dead had that effect on the warrior he'd been. Ulric didn't really know what had happened on the other fronts but he knew the western and the northern forces never joined the battle in Lisirra's domain. They saw the war but they did not see what... happened. Ulric blinked a few times, trying to get the memories out of his head so he could focus on the stranger.

In the time Ulric was reflecting, Helena returned the basic politeness of an introduction, "I'm Helena, this is Ulric."

Shortly later, Erebus countered what Helena said with a statement Ulric had to agree with. For all they knew the killer was among them. Ulric didn't even realize how much it might look like he was the killer. His connection to Sintra and his ability to make tendrils that could strangle looked bad on paper given how the dead were found. Regardless, Erebus took the lead and by extension the help that Helena had offered. She seemed happy about it but Ulric was still wary. What were so many Etzori doing in the Eternal Empire? Was this Sintra's work?

He didn't like it. He wanted to go back to the bard but Helena wouldn't have it and he wouldn't leave Helena with this Erebus. While Erebus took the lead, Helena pulled Ulric back to whisper to him. Neither knew that Erebus would still hear them.

"What's wrong?" Helena asked quietly.

"How would you feel if you knew you'd made all the wrong choices?" Ulric mumbled, "I don't like thinking about the war." Helena nodded softly and left the conversation at that. She wouldn't pry and she wouldn't tell the others. She would research it herself though. It was only a matter of time until she figured out what the southern theater's arm was comprised of and from there- well, a story for another trial.

There was a very brief moment after Erebus had told them what to look out for where Ulric considered linking the three of them with a web. Anything to grant some insight to the stranger before them. The thought came and went like a swift breeze. He would not use Sintra's power. He would not risk her coming after him.

The diri of shadows landed on Erebus's shoulder and spoke nonsense about salt and crackers before exclaiming whoa as if it were about to fall off Erebus's shoulder. Helena seemed a little more suspicious of the Diri's words but Ulric didn't notice. A few moments later Ulric saw what Erebus was talking about. There was a ring of salt on the ground. A broken ring. That wasn't good. He'd hated salt when he was one of the dead. Copper too. Bells were nice. They still were. Back to the point, he hated salt because of what it did and he recognized the possible significance of a broken circle.

"The unusual part is that it's broken. It's possible someone tried to contain a ghost here and it got out or they were trying to defend themselves from one and failed." Ulric reported.

"Or someone spilled salt." Helena said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"Without a host, any ghost leaving the Beneath would need an anchor somewhere nearby." Ulric added, ignoring Helena's joke "Assuming it's not anchored to the caverns themselves, I'll keep an eye out for possible objects." His hand subconsciously wrapped around the hilt of his iron sword on his right hip. It had been his anchor.

"Did you hunt ghosts too or something?" Helena asked.

"Or something." Ulric replied as he looked around. If there was a ghost nearby, it would come for them. Between his sword, medallion, and the pieces of armor, Ulric was wearing too much ghost metal not to attract the dead to him. He didn't warn the other two about it though. It didn't occur to him. He only thought about what he might have to do if a ghost came for them. It would be... unfortunate.

"So now we're looking for spiders, a killer, and ghosts." Helena said incredulously

"The ghost could be the killer if it's strong enough." Ulric pointed out. Helena gave him a look that told him he wasn't helping and he shrugged. "How likely is it that... Fleaface?" Ulric looked to Helena and she nodded. "How likely is it that Fleaface is working with ghosts?"

[Woe]

The war wasn’t something Woe imagined many Etzori would like to relive in memory. The idea of their comrades being turned into undead or ghosts in order to carry on the fight, simply because they lacked the manpower to overcome Lisirra and her forces, was not a pleasant prospect for most. While it’d succeeded, it did so at the expense of most of the fighting men in Etzos. Those left were hardened, grizzled but also scarred by their experience. Woe doubted that the city would ever recover, but that was a musing for another time.

“Rhakros wasn’t a pleasant posting for any of the people who were sent to retaliate against Lisirra’s plague.” Woe explained to Helena. “I doubt I would’ve escaped from the tunnels beneath if not for the talents of a certain mage.” Woe would leave his involvement at that, where he’d attempted to disrupt and investigate the underground laboratories of Rhakros.

“Hello.” Woe said to Helena and Ulric, as she took the opportunity to introduce themselves.

There was some murmurs from Helena and Ulric, something about making wrong choices. Woe was too preoccupied with investigating his surroundings to pull much meaning from what he said, but he presumed he was talking about his sudden appearance here. Ulric of course wouldn’t trust him, any more than Woe did him. Afterall, a marked of Sintra here of all places… It very much couldn’t be a coincidence. He did wonder how well beloved he was of his mother. If he was just beginning his journey into the arts of manipulation and clandestine warfare.

Woe listened to Ulric’s astute assessment of the ghostly matters, and it stood to reason someone who’d lived through that period of Etzos’ history would know much about ghosts, from salt, copper, to bells and such. Woe noted the strange metal that covered Ulric’s armor. It wasn’t one he’d encountered personally, but it had a certain prismatic glow about it, which defied many of the metals he did know of. It could’ve been a minithelite alloy, or perhaps Ghost Metal. The latter was an intriguing possibility, but one that he knew less of consequently other than the fact that it affected ghosts in one way or another.

Ulric asked the likelihood of Fleaface working with ghosts. Woe shook his head, “I wouldn’t put it past him to try and coerce a ghost into submission, if he could. He’s strong willed, quite able to withstand any of the psychic assaults that ghosts are capable of. But he wouldn’t be foolhardy enough to try and enslave an entire group of them. Even a man of his willpower can be overcome by a host of phantoms.”

Woe shrugged, “It may be… He worked with Sintra… So perhaps it’s not the murderer’s he’s working with but… The ones murdered.” The idea of a killer creating a host of ghostly Sintra Followers seemed counterproductive if one was trying to eliminate the Webspinners in this corner of the world.

“Fleaface is no Lethroda, but he is a creature of Sintra, as much as any of her adored.” Woe warned. “He was brought into her fold when her son, Woe, betrayed her, and she sent him along to keep eyes on him, and eventually struck when he was most vulnerable.”

“I thought perhaps, at first, that he might be working to weed out disloyal webspinners. But now another possibility presents itself.” Woe paused, “That he’s building another army of ghostly spiders, to try and undermine Raskalarn.”

Woe found a opening in the ground, not far from the salt circle, and looked ahead through the darkness. There he saw passages through the walls of the cavern beyond the entrance. “Are you prepared for a bit of spelunking? I can show you the way, with a bit of shadow trickery.”

So saying, the dragon-touched illuminated the passages with false light, using the illusions in those dark passages to show Helena and Ulric their curvature. It was very dark otherwise. Woe could’ve easily showed them things that weren’t there, but that’d be counterproductive.

“I’ll go first if you want.” Woe said, and then dropped down into the ground.

[Ulric]

18 Vhalar 723

The more that time progressed, the more confident Ulric was becoming that he and Erebus did not trust each other. He was naturally suspicious but why was this dark figure suspicious of him? What did he know? Nothing. He couldn't have known any of it. Still... too many coincidences. Etzori. The war. Sintra. Ulric wanted to abandon this search and return to the safety of his companions with Helena. They didn't need to solve problems everywhere they went. He realized Helena was watching him and remembered why they were there. They didn't need to solve problems everywhere, but they did need to make nels to keep afloat. Ulric took a breath and focused on his surroundings in the present rather than his past.

Helena was far more comfortable than Ulric but that was nothing new. She listened to Erebus with genuine interest as he spoke about the war in Rhakros. "You've met a magic wielder before?" Helena, personally, had never happened across magic in her lifetime thus far. Ulric's abilities were not magic, nor were they easily classified as anything else, but she'd not seen them on display either. "Were they as..." She realized she couldn't think of a nice way to ask about what she was thinking and pivoted, "What talents did you mean?"

Ulric shook his head slightly at what Erebus and Helena were talking about but he knew that their new companion was right. Everyone had gone to war in retaliation against Lisirra except for Ulric. He saw a path to power. He saw a path to liberation from his anchors. He made a choice that let The Great Arachnid get her venom into him. He made a choice that many terrible people had made before. He went to war for power. He wasn't thinking about the mage conversation but he was listening to it. Magic always seemed dangerous to him. He would never risk his new life for a little power. Maybe that was paradoxical. He'd risked a lot for power before but now that he had everything he thought he had wanted... well... better not to think of how empty it felt.

Regardless of Helena and Erebus talking, they trio's search progressed. Ulric noticed that Erebus was looking a little closely at his armor. He didn't think much of it because he had his lie prepared for that. It was 'a gift from the war to strengthen the ghosts he fought with'. He wasn't sure if the metal still served any purpose for him but he kept it. He invited ghosts to challenge him. He'd meet them and dominate them on their own plane.

As Erebus answered his question about Fleaface and the dead, Ulric's eyebrows seemed to furrow slightly. His expression twisted and he looked around for anything else that might have explained what he was thinking. He knew ghosts better than any of them. He was, to the date, the only one he knew that had ever spent long enough in death to return with power now. Power was one thing, but the time was everything. He had the burden of memory again- something ghosts did not have. They unraveled because their purpose and obsession slowly consumed them. His obsession had consumed him and it was why he had to breathe above water again. Once again, Helena seemed to notice Ulric was losing himself in his thoughts. She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. The simple act was enough to pull him back into the group.

"If Fleaface was able to communicate with the ghosts, we should be able to as well, right?" Helena was ever the optimist in the dark. She gave Ulric and his strained mind the moment to breathe that he needed and he finally offered his own thoughts.

"I've never found ghosts to be reasonable- even the ones who hold onto themselves can only maintain relationships for so long." Those words hurt as they came out of his mouth. He remembered Arthur. His friend. The only one left from his first life except the murderer. The idea that a ghost might have found an ally in Fleaface made Ulric... angry. It wasn't fair. What was fair though? He'd sacrificed a child to Sintra so he could live again. The world wasn't made for happy endings.

Erebus mentioned Sintra and it completely slipped past Ulric's notice- prompting no reaction from him. Helena on the other hand seemed to grow a little concerned at everything coming together around them. Erebus told them a little of Fleaface's history- contextualizing how he was a product of Sintra and telling them the story of Sintra's mortalborn son betraying her. A small grin crossed Ulric's face at that thought but faded quickly. He didn't betray Sintra. He obeyed until she did what she'd promised. He was confused when he stole the book. He was only fighting to survive when they expelled her. Whatever she felt, he couldn't consider his actions an intentional betrayal. Whatever this Woe had done must have been different.

However there was something about the way that Erebus told his story which didn't add up. The only reason Ulric realized it was because he often made the same mistake when speaking about his own past. How did Ulric know about ghosts? He'd been one. How did Erebus know that Sintra's mortalborn son Woe had been struck at his weakest moment?... What was it that the spirit had said as soon as it landed? Ulric's eyes narrowed slightly but he said nothing. Suspicion based on such little evidence meant nothing. He was paranoid. He had always been paranoid since resurrection. Erebus had no reason to lie about who he was. Ulric was the only one with a reason to be a liar among them.

"No." Ulric said firmly when Erebus suggested an army of ghost webspinners. It was slipping now. "Sintra rewarded her loyal dead with resurrection during the war. I-" He paused, "Souls fall beyond her domains."

"How do you know that?" Helena asked, boldly and without whispering.

"I saw it happen." Ulric said, his voice heavy with shame. "Ghosts were useful in Rhakros because of their powers. When Etzos turned on her, the dead were not on her side. Only one Immortal can manipulate souls perfectly- and it isn't Sintra... or at least it wasn't." Even his new body was not the perfect recreation of his old body that he had been promised for his sacrifice. Ulric shook his head, trying to move forward. He didn't know anything about Raskalarn except the things he had heard and that inspired false confidence, "An army of the dead is no more a threat to the Empire than an army of the living. Not unless there is something new in the Beneath."

Shortly after, Woe discovered the passage leading onward and illuminated it with some strange magic. Ulric didn't try to classify it past that because what was the point? Helena seemed content to move onward but there was a little edge in her movements now. She eased up a little when Erebus offered to go first and nodded her head quickly.

"I would be very happy if you went first." Helena said a little nervously. She'd never gone spelunking before.