RP:A Crown of Great and Terrible Price, Pt 5

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Deep Below the Hazy Barrows, Venturil

Astride the Guardian's clot-eyed beast, Tenebrae dropped the reins to give her mount its head, guiding its path by her thoughts, by willing it onward and closer to the diadem on the bone plinth… But as they galloped toward it through the whorls and eddies of that eerie, scarlet fog it seemed they came no closer at all - the plinth was ever just as distant as it had been when first the Necromancer saw it.

Meanwhile, the Guardians flanked Eboric, two with spears, one with a great sword that did not gleam at all but was black with the blood of ages. Their dead mounts roared and reared up, mouths torn and flanks bloodied, as the three wheeled upon the were-bear as one.

Tenebrae saw none of it, but with her gaze fixed on the diadem went plummeting on through the mist, on and on… and still would gain no ground toward the death god’s relic at all.

Eboric thrusts out with the lance, striking one of the spearmen through the chest but, as he falls from his saddle, he tears the weapon from the warlord's hand and, as he spurs his horse forward with a muttered curse, the other spear strikes the white beast on the flank. But, where metal meets flesh, there is a shriek as of metal on metal, and the weapon glances off, deflected by the might of the runes, whose glow dims significantly thereafter. Eboric wheels around, drawing the axe from his belt with his free hand and slamming it into the chest of the swordsman even as he readies his swing. The arcane enchantment on the blade immediately begins to rust away the Guardian's armor, while the druidic magic sets to work rotting the flesh. Wrenching his weapon free, the Aethling spurs his hore onward again, meaning to draw the last Guardian further away from Tenebrae, but the ancient being thrusts out swiftly, the spear's head punching through the rings of Eboric's hauberk, drawing a spurt of blood from his shoulder.

"Come onnn.." Tenebrae urged through clenched, pointed teeth, spurring her own mount to greater speed. And it would seem to her as if this indeed gave the beast below her the ability to cross the apparently endless space between her and the diadem, for it seemed much closer now.. She could not know it, but as Eboric - an innocent, for all intents - dispatched each Guardian, so was removed the magics protecting the Eye, so the Necromancer plunged through that strange, foggy place believing it was her own will that drew her to its proximity. But not close enough... the final Guardian's blooding of the werebear drew from it a dry rumble that could have been a cry of victory, its spear poised for another strike. Were Eboric to fail, he would replace the fallen protectors and Tenebrae would be trapped on that eternal ride, forever striving her goal, never to attain it. All depended now on Eboric, on whose seaxe balanced the Fate of more than just himself and his necromantic companion in folly..

Eboric , transfixed by the spear, drops Ine's seaxe and grabs at the spear. Gritting his teeth, he leans into the weapon, sliding his hand along the length of it until he grasps the Guardian's wrist. With a grunt and a heave, he pulls the enemy from his horse, dragging him along the ground, his grip locked tight on the other's arm. As the swordsman finally succumbs to the magics of the blow to his chest, Eboric raises the axe that had dealt that death-blow and slams it downward, smashing it full into the face of his foe. He raises his blade, and strikes again, and again, denting and shattering the helmet and mangling what lies beneath, only stopping when a chance bounce of the lifeless body twistss it so that the axe severs the arm at the shoulder. Throwing the limp limb away, the warlord turns to follow Tenebrae, snapping off the haft of the spear, to avoid catching it on the rock walls as he gallops on.

The great hooves of the Necromancer's unholy steed pounded, the woman atop it struggling to quell the insurgent spirit trapped within her, who was laughing maniacally at the irony of it all as the last of the Eye’s Guardians succumbed to Eboric's righteous might and Tenebrae plummeted through the last stretch of fog. Time dripped like slow treacle through the gaps of the vast magics binding this place, so that it may seem to both warrior and Empusai that each were moving in slow motion, the closer Tene got to her goal. As she neared the plinth, Tenebrae leaned over the shoulder of her monstrous mount, one hand twined in its black, tangled mane, barely holding on - her other arm stretched out, its hand clawing.. Behind her, she heard the slow, incessant thud of Eboric's approach, and as he shed his innocent blood along that blighted path, so it tore the last protection from the diadem and Tenebrae's fingers closed upon its golden round. Time righted itself, and she raised the crown high with a shriek of victory. The red fog collapsed, the bone plinth crumbled. The horse below her drew to a halt, turning to face its white counterpart. In Tenebrae's hand, the diadem bearing Vakmatharas' holy relic pulsed – and Eye opened, just the barest sliver of a crack. Abruptly, the pair were no longer in that magical space they'd travelled to, but in a wide cavern with a high, stone ceiling, littered with the moldering bones of horse and man, ruined armour... Tenebrae lowered the crown, turned the gem toward her gaze – and went stark, raving mad.

Eboric 's horse halts of its own accord, nearly throwing its rider, and the two stand, the mortal man staring, panting, at the relic in Tenebrae's hand, transfixed by the Eye.

Tenebrae did not place that crown upon her head, despite the howling and ranting of Baelthorn Killgaze, still trapped in the lower reaches of her mind. "Hush now," she whispered, and his phantasmal mouth grew over, leaving it a ghostly, lipless blank. "Be still," she told him, and the phantasmal Death Mage grew still as stone. The Necromancer turned her cold, mad gaze upon Eboric then, and her steed clopped toward the warrior at an easy walk. Eboric might note that her eyes - glazed with the insanity wrought by glimpsing the abyssal will and mind of a distant, uncaring god - were weeping tears of darkness. "I like your horse," she said, and Eboric's mount grew warm beneath him, shedding its ancient death as it might a coat of winter hair. Steam plumed from the white horse's nostrils and the Necromancer laid her free hand upon the neck of her own beast. "I like you, too." The fanged, horrendous creature snorted, trembled.. Tenebrae smiled, then, to Eboric and clutched the diadem to her chest. "I have seen what is to come, bearshirt, and what has passed. The flowers and the bees shall go to war, and kings will drown in all the honey." She nodded sagely, and slid off her steed. "We must walk. Or we'll bump our heads."

Eboric glances down at his now very much alive mount and, with a growing sense of foreboding, climbs from the saddle. "Flowers and bees?" He shakes his head, but begins to walk, the horse following behind of its own accord. "I fear I do not understand you." He keeps a careful watch on her as they walk, unsure of what effect the diadem might have.

The Eye had closed again, once more merely a red carbuncle set in a round of purest gold. Tene held it in her hand carelessly, as it is was merely a trinket won from a stall at a fair. She led her beast toward the tunnels leading upward, glancing aside to Eboric with a frown. "No flowers here, silly. Aranoch's hound.. the Burrower… ate them all." She paused a moment, and added, "No bees, either. But there are a few kings." She flapped the relic-bearing hand toward Ine's remains as they passed back through the rubble that been the Gate of the Damned. "Too many kings," she told the warrior, "Spoil the broth."

Eboric , though not a stupid man, still does not seem to understand her words, aside from the last. "That is true enough. There need be only one king, and I am destined to be that one."

Tenebrae raised her dark brows, pausing herself and her mount a moment to once more peer at the werebear, a horrible scrutiny that seemed to probe into the marrow of his soul. "I don't believe you are a seer, Eboric. You are a silly boy, waving a sword. At another silly..." she blinked. "...Eboric - there must not be war. The Burrower will feed upon the blood, lap it all up with its thousand awful tongues. But I shall make it behave. Then you can wave your sword all you like." The insane woman glanced down at the diadem, and sighed. "The past will come around again, biting its own tail. Perhaps it will choke."

Eboric shrugs his shoulders, silent for a long while. Finally, as the light of the moon appears at the end of the tunnel, he says, "I am no seer, that is true enough. But I have spoken to such creatures, and I know the right of my bloodline. I will be a king. And if that means war, then there must be war. It is not just for my sake, but for that of my people, and my son." As they break out into the open air once more, he takes a deep breath, glad to be quit of the musty barrow. "I must go, and see to my wound. I will find you again, however, and we will discuss my share of this venture." He mounts the horse then, and rides toward his encampment.