RP:A Crown of Great and Terrible Price, Pt 2

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

East of the Causeway, Venturil

Eboric is seated on the ground near the causeway, for once seemingly entirely alone. His sword, Eidhurr, is bared and settled across his lap, and his arms rest with wrists on the weapon, so that the black bracers touch the matching sword. He seems to be lost in thought, staring off vacantly into the distance, where the moonlight illuminates the far-off barrows.

Tenebrae's footsteps made little sound as she stepped over the blasted earth, though the necromancer did not bother to hide her approach. "Eboric," she said, on reaching him, her gaze settling briefly on his sword. "That weapon had best not be your reply."

Eboric hears Tenebrae all the same, despite her unintentional stealth, and glances her way, a frown on his face. "This weapon will help me decide my reply," he says gruffly. He shoves himself to his feet, holding the sword relaxed at his side. "Why must it be Æthelric's blood, and not my own?"

Tenebrae frowned. Her darknesses, looming in the recesses where moonlight could not grasp the night with its jaundiced fingers, did not relax their stance at all. "Listen, bear-shirt," she snapped, her patience clearly at an end, "I am not so very far removed from my past as to disremember the love one may hold for a child.. It is no trivial thing I ask of you, but only a necessity, and one put in place by your own damned ancestors to ensure none but those with blood-right of passage may enter the portions of the barrows I need to access. Not without a tremendous amount of trouble.. and destruction to the remains within." Her upper lip curled, "You are behaving like a frightened wench, asking for my motive. Here it is again, plainly: I am not helping you. You have been granted the honour of helping me -- and whatever meat you take from that table will be your own affair. I ask only access to the barrows under geis." Her armour was bristling, just slightly, where the plates of it shingled over one another. The night was thick with shadows. Tenebrae was not without her own means of making a point.

Eboric 's scowl darkens at the necromancer's words, his grip tightening on Eidhur's hilt. "You must think quite highly of yourself, to speak so to me." He shakes his head, as if to remind himself that a fight here would gain him nothing. "I ask because, perhaps, I question your authority on the subject of my ancestors. I know more of them than anyone, even their more direct descendants." Alimer begins to stir within, fueling Eboric's ire. "I knew them before they split off to come here. I know many of the men that lie in those barrows. Do you know their names, necromancer? Do you remember Ine's words before he took half of my remaining people westward?" His voice, rising in volume as he continues, now echoes from those same barrows, liable to be heard by those in his camp.

Tenebrae rolled her eyes. "No. But I can -read- Eboric. And the runes quite plainly state: 'blood of the innocent'. Were it otherwise, do you think I'd for a moment subject myself to your bluster?" Her words were slivers of ice, expelled in sharp increments. "And it is with naught but respect for your dead that I am seeking the means to enter the damned place without reducing them to so much bone meal and dust. The Burrower will never release its grip on this land willingly, and if the answer to its control lies in that boneyard, I -will- find a way in. With," she added, her tone dropping in direct contrast to Eboric's own, ".. or without you."

Eboric snorts loudly at that, gesturing with the sword, though he likely has forgotten that it is still drawn. "Show me these runes. Ine was never much good at writing them. Perhaps you misread them. Besides, it couldn't hurt to simply try it with my blood, could it?"

Tenebrae 's features bore the kind of expression one wears when faced with abject lunk-headedness. "No, no mistake. And unless you have discovered some miraculous means of wiping yourself free of....." she blinked, ".... sin. Eboric...." her war-gauntlet snicked, releasing its horrendous blades. "Just how far are you willing to go.. how much will you sacrifice, to spare both this land and your son?"

Eboric gives the blades a glance so full of scorn that by rights they should wither away on the spot. "Do not be a fool, Tenebrae. Were you and I to fight, blade on blade, you would die, and neither one of us would get what we want. Even if you found someway to gain the upper hand, the result would be the same." He sighs, looking down to consider the sword in his hand. "Ine has shown no interest in speaking to me. Perhaps those runes keep him in as much as they keep you out. But I will not shed my son's blood without his mother's consent, and so until I speak with her on the matter, in private, you will gain nothing." Here, he looks to her weapons again. "No matter what you think to try."

"Fight?" Tenebrae’s tone was filled with obvious despair at ever getting a word of solid common sense out of the man. Then she followed his waspish gaze toward her gauntlet. "Oh. That. The new armour. A bit.. reflexive, as it were. Never mind it." Under her frown, the blades retracted below the black carapace covering the back of her hand. She heaved a long-suffering sigh and sat down on a rock, waving her now less aggressive-seeming appendage to another one closeby. "Sit the hell down, and for the love of Sven, put that bloody sword away. What I'm telling you here.." she didn't wait to see if he'd take that offer of grudging peace. "Is that we do not have to bleed your son at all. Not if I drink of your sin, enough that you satisfy the terms of the geis." She smiled, and it was sharp and filled not at all with joy. "Of course, there will be consequences. But those are remedied easily enough..." she gave him a sly sort of look, ".. and not un-enjoyably."

Eboric duly sheathes his sword, his now-free hand drifting up to tug at his beard. "Explain yourself," he says, obviously intrigued. "What are the consequences?"

Tenebrae canted her head up at the were-bear, since he hadn't taken that seat. "You'll be .. nicer. For a while. Free of sin, light of soul. If I wanted to, I could make you a mad saint..." she smiled at the prospect. "But it would suffice to simply remove the blackest of your smirches. And should you not wish such a .. happy state.. you only have to accumulate more sins to correct the balance. Any sin will do. Perhaps your lovely wife would help you there.. " she winked at him, her grin losing its awful chill. "A few murders, a lavish feast or two... you'd be right as rain in no time." Tene tried, really, tried, not to appear to be enjoying this as much as she was.

Eboric frowns, not fully believing the idea. "And what of Alimer? Will he remain?" He sounds rather worried, as if he would miss the vengeful soul within, should anything happen to him. "And will I lose any of my skill, my power?"

Tenebrae stared at him. "Who's Alimer? That thing rankling in you? I don't have to drink him, if I don't want to. And if it's a soul, probably best I do not.." she was thinking here of the debacle of Colton Black. "You will lose no strength. Only the motive to commit acts of darkness for a time. But, in all honesty, fur-face," the Necromancer was, however, deadly, serious, "Folks like you and I gravitate to sin like a thrown rock does the ground. If you inform your men, tell them to tempt you with rage, wine, greed.. tell your wife to seduce you with lust... it would be a matter of days before you thud back into your old ways. I have eaten sin since I was just a child, and as I am now.. well, my control is unerring. But tell me of this Alimer being. All factors must be carefully considered."

Eboric is silent for a long moment, thinking. "I met an irritating man once, in Frostmaw, who claimed to be an empath. He said that it is another soul, living within me. When I was searching for treasure in that frozen battlefield in Frostmaw, I unearthed a body. I don't remember much of it, but the next I knew I was wearing these bracers, and holding this sword, and I remembered. Not just my own memories, but those of Alimer as well. I suppose he was a great-uncle of mine, many generations ago. One of three brothers. Anyway, at times, or so others tell me, I am him, and not me. Other times, I am both. Usually, though, he is silent, as if he is not there at all."

Tenebrae 's turn to frown. "A soul.. as I suspected. My gift," her lips made a wry shape, "Or curse, as it were.. was meant to shrive the dead of sin, to set them free. It will be up to Alimer to make the decision as to whether he will go to the .. what do you call them? Summerlands? Whatever your people term it. Or stay anchored to your sweaty self. " The look she gave him then made clear which choice she'd personally prefer, if it was hers to make. "I cannot control that choice, and nor can you. So yes, there is risk. Perhaps as much as in doing nothing at all.." she shrugged. "Fate is a web with many fine strands. Here, you may pluck the string of your own choosing. Some might call that lucky."

Eboric nods his head. "Alimer had his chance to move from this world to the next, and I doubt he'll go anywhere so long as Frostmaw still stands, and the giants still exist. But as you said, he has his choice, and I have mine...and I choose to do it. How is it done?"

Tenebrae coughed softly. "Easily enough. But perhaps we should expend no more air on words, Eboric, my time's as valuable as.. " she gazed at him. "It’s very valuable. I would waste no more of it. Shall we then, to the barrows?"

Eboric nods. Turning on his heel, he moves toward the barrows at a brisk pace, naturally assuming that Tenebrae will follow.

Hazy Barrows

Mists rise up, enshrouding most of the view beyond the immediate. Careful footfalls echo dully, the sounds caught within the dewy particles that hang thick throughout the air. Glancing down to steady feet, scores of small crypts are revealed in passing. All are unmarked, and unremarkable, except in their exquisite simplicity. Surprisingly enough, none have been touched. The mist hangs thick in all directions, though in straining, you believe you can see an opening to the west, as something dimly glitters from afar, and a few shrubs to the north, wretched and dying.

---

Tenebrae was already there when Eboric arrived at the barrow-mouth, seated on another rock and inspecting her fingernails with an air of profound boredom. Necromancer.. vampire.. Empusai besides.. she'd walked the shadow-paths and beaten him to their destination easily. "Took your time."

Eboric glances at her with withering look, before joining her at the entrance to the barrow, lined as it is by heavy stones. "So now what?"

Tenebrae stood, offering him a happy little expression designed purely to irk. "The runes.. see for yourself, Eboric. How they speak of innocence." She pointed at one of those stones, a boulder near the entrance to the barrow-mouth, perhaps a foot and a half high. "Stand behind the rock. Oh..." and she fished in the small pack she carried, drawing out a little red and white pill. This was tossed to the were-bear. "And chew on that." Be damned she was doing this, if he didn't eat a mint first.

Eboric inspects the runes intently, as if he could actually read more in them than the simple words they formed which, of course, he cannot. Nodding, he moves to where she indicated and, catching the pill, sniffs it suspiciously before popping it into his mouth. He chews methodically, like a man eating his last meal. "Is it painful," he asks, mildly curious.

Tenebrae stood, making her way to the stone. "What a wuss," she murmured, making a lithe ascent to the top of the rock, which brought her about level with Eboric's face. "Just... close your eyes, and think of Venturil." With that, she grasped a handful of beard - in case he changed his mind - and leaned in to plant a full kiss on the warrior's mouth. Just to be clear, this was no passionate gesture, and for only brief moment would Eboric know what it was like to kiss the Mistress of the Dark, for in blessed haste her inborn talent bloomed dark in her throat, and she drew the breath that would summon the sin from out Eboric's soul. For him, it would feel as if he were being torn apart - not painful, as such, but agonising in a sense beyond the mere complaints of nerve-endings. Thus, they were locked, and would be for a time, as the sineater drank his sins one by one, under the moon's accusing, yellow eye.

Eboric has no time to react, to push her away. His eyes glaze over as each event is pulled from where it is hidden in his memory, brought up and lived out again on its way to the sineater's maw. The most recent doings come first, life after life ending at the warlord's hands, some deserved, some not. Raids and battles from Rynvale to Frostmaw, each coming with its fair share of atrocities; burning bodies, shrieking women. Row after row of chained prisoners, sent to slave markets. As each sin bubbles its way out, the next becomes more painful for the werebear to remember, but all the while, Alimer snickers in a corner of Eboric's mind, untouched by the unnatural process.

Wrongness upon wrongness, crime after crime.. she saw it all and felt the terrible weight of every burden before it was drawn down inside her, to where her gift would receive it, transmuting each clod of sin into a more rarefied kind of darkness, which then simmered through her like heat in desert air. Hatred rose from Eboric like a red cloud, and in him lust bloomed purple, greed poured from his heart and Tenebrae swelled with the arrogance of of the were-bear's pride, and all the while she hung onto that beard like a lifeline, it being all that currently kept her from toppling off that rock.

~Drink him~ came a soft voice, hissing from somewhere at the back of Tenebrae’s head. ~Drink all of him~ and oh, it was such a vast temptation, to devour all this delicious, frightful darkness..

Eboric begins to react now, out of instinct alone. He pushes back, doing all that he can to fight this parasite that has latched onto him. Unwittingly, he backpedals, hands fumbling to pry the necromancer away from him. Help from the more prepared soul of Alimer, however, is not forthcoming; the long-dead king simply waits, seeing a chance to take complete control once the younger soul has been consumed.

Tenebrae wasn't letting go -that- easily. So there was a moment there, where she was swinging off Eboric by the beard while clinging to his neck with the opposite arm. As much as his instinct for self-preservation might fear her, the Necromancer was in complete control. And as the burden of his inner being was lightened, Alimer may just find cause to dismay - for what truly good man would ever allow such a foul old thing to wrest control of his spirit away? Tene at last dropped to her feet, leaving behind the sting of a missing bit of beard, seeing as she had quite a handful of hairs. Her gaze was blank, her pupils expanding to fill the green with black. Swaying a little, the Empusai was clearly somewhat drunk on it all. "Now," she breathed, and her breath smelled vaguely of peppermint. "That's what I call a sinner."

The Gate of the Innocent

Eboric stumbles back a few steps as the resisting force lets go. Recovering his balance, he scrubs at his mouth with the back of his hand. "That was...unpleasant," he manages to say at last. "And I do not think I would want to do it again." He shudders, then moves to the barrow's entrance once more. "Let us do what we came here to do."

Tenebrae eyed him narrowly, though whether out of chagrin for his plain distaste or concern as to his state wasn't clear. "Aye," she muttered, and trod carefully behind the warrior, the world a little spinny for the sudden bloat of her inner dark. "Ahead is a ring pass-not. I'm assuming it's only one of several. This one requires blood." She'd caught up to him, and peered again, trying to find his eyes, to see what sort of man lay behind them. Suddenly and dramatically, she laid the back of her hand across her brow, "Oh dear. I think.. I'm going to.. faint."

Eboric in truth, is wondering much the same thing about himself as Tenebrae is, and so he sets his mind to the task in front of him, and keeps all else back, as best he can. All that matters now is that he unravels Ine's wards, and learns the way to save Venturil. He draws Eidhur again, closing his left hand around the blade itself and squeezing, just enough so that the warm flow of blood begins to trickle down. "Do not faint," he says, looking down once more. "I do not know what to do here, and if what you said is true, we have only a brief window of time before this all becomes in vain." He holds out his hand, palm up to show the blood, black in the moonlight. "There is the blood. Are there words that must be said?"

Tenebrae wasn't really going to faint. What she'd been after was knowledge - had she pushed him too far? Had he rushed to aid her, she'd have known it was so, but that he didn't mock her was a very good sign that his burdens might be light enough… "No words. The geis here calls for blood." She pointed at a very ancient cave-painting, the outline of a hand made by its maker blowing chewed pigment over his splayed appendage. A few rustic runes were scratched into the stone beside it. "So here's your test, Eboric. Will you be good enough a man to open the way?" Damn, if that blood didn't smell good, though...

Eboric moves over to the painting and, dropping to one knee beside it, reaches out to press his bleeding hand against the outline on the stone, reviving the long-faded color of the orignal with the addition of his fresh blood.

Tenebrae was .. leaking. Shadows, bold and serpentine, curled from her lips. So much darkness - it was always a struggle to contain it, but when the sinner was a killer like Eboric... Shaking her head to clear her vision, she sent the blackness veiling her eyes peeling back to green and then stared at the wall. Nothing was happening. A little fist of horror socked her in the solar plexus - would she really have to kiss him all over again?

Eboric stares hard at the wall, willing it to move, to do something, but for a long while it remains the same. A small trickle of blood runs down from his splayed hand, moving slowly but surely. At long last, it reaches the runes and, when it oozes into the first angular character, a reddish-brown light springs forth from it, soon joined by the next, and the next, until the entire inscription glows faintly. Eboric pulls his hand back to reveal an aura emitting from the handprint as well, lasting only a moment before the wall itself seems to crumble inward silently, solid stone turning to gravel by the blood magic, leaving an opening into a pitch-black tunnel, the floor of which slopes downward at an alarming rate.