RP:Brief Respite and the Second Glyph
Background
This rp is part 5 of the arc: Old Haunts and New
In The Secret Room of a Long-Dead King
Valentin, having had too much of his mystical reserves and blood drawn from him by the activation of his experimental flesh sigils, succumbs to unconsciousness, the scarred runes on his arms seeping black vitae for half a minute before the flow ceases.
Jolie noticed the butcher’s lapse into oblivion more by the sudden lack of radiating heat from his direction than anything else – she’d been so absorbed in her own terrors that the flare of warmth in this dank place had all but gone unnoticed, and now she peered at Valentin through tear-rubied eyes. “Scleratus…?” Her gaze grew more concerned as she turned it to Eboric.
Eboric rises from the floor, his limbs admirably steady, although he gasps for air with slow, ragged breaths. He turns to face the new threat, sure that this time, it will be his death...but when he turns, the figure is gone, leaving the barbarian wondering if, perhaps, he as gone insane as well. He looks back to Jolie, his face a grim mask.
Jolie still held the pole-axe, though she’d dropped both keys in her maddened panic. She felt the loss of them keenly – perhaps to an odd degree, but this wasn’t something she’d think about right now. Throwing the weapon down, the necromancer seemed to lose concern for Valentin somewhat as she rose to her feet, and would check the butcher only briefly for injury before her gaze was flitting, as if it were batwinged, across the darkened space for sign of the ‘treasures’. The demon-headed key was spotted first and she made a swoop for it, folding it in her palm with a sigh of relief.
From the chest of horrors came a faint rattling, a muffled and by now familiar hooting.
Jolie said to Eboric, "Oh.. quickly now.. would you sit on that chest over there, please? I have no desire for that lid to flip open again."
Eboric nods, speeding over as swiftly as his legs can move, collapsing onto the chest. He is heavy, and his armor makes him all the more so. "What happened," he asks, his voice subdued, quiet. "What was that thing? Where did it go? And...what...did you see something else there, just now?"
Jolie was busy stalking about the place, scanning the floor for the mate to the key she held. “We were tested. And I… suppose we might have passed,” she said. It was pretty much a puzzle to her, too, but being more familiar with magic and corrupt wiles both than the warrior, had put at least part of the equation together. Still shuddering a little at thought of the illusory swarm, she brushed imaginary ‘crawlies’ from her legs and continued: “I think that was some sort of guardian. If you meant the armoured spook. As for what’s in the trunk,” Jolie turned aside from her hunt to offer Eboric and his ‘seat’ a glance, “Advanced phobomancy. Fear magic. Had not Valentin fallen onto that lid…” another shudder wracked her, as she imagined them all going mad and killing each other, and those gravewyrms going on and on, forever…
Beneath Eboric came another muffled hoot, and a grimy-fingered hand groped out of the chest's lid to feel along the warrior's thigh.
Eboric nods again and, as the hand grasps at him reacts violently, slamming his seaxe down in hopes of severing it, then lifts himself up a bit to drop back onto the old iron with force, meaning to warp the lid so that it will stay closed. Regardless as to the success of this, he stretches out to haul Valentin in, lifting the butcher up to rest on the chest, weighing it down while leaving himself free to move about. "Damn magic," he swears, adding a few more choice words in there for good measure. "Never did anyone any good." Subsiding, he looks back at Jolie. "Now what?"
Jolie jumped at sound of the crashing seaxe, whirling about to fasten a wide-eyed stare upon Eboric. “Oh.. gods. Must you?” Her hand had fluttered over her heart and was now pressed there, the demonic-headed key held between fingers and thumb. She watched him drag Valentin over the chest’s lid, and frowned to see another dirty limb poking out of it – and out of Valentin’s back, too, grimy fingers wiggling. “And what now…” the necromancer looked toward those iron bars that had cut off their avenue to escape, then to the space between the key-hooks where the General had revealed the carven mark, similar to the one they’d crashed through earlier. “… we wait for the butcher to wake. Then we find out what’s behind door number two, I suppose.”
Eboric frowns down at Valentin. "And what about the chest? How will we keep it closed? I do not want that magic loosed again." His voice, though calm, betrays the slightest hint of cracks as he says that last bit.
Jolie bit her lip and shrugged. The warrior’s bashing had left no discernible mark upon it. “It was probably closed for centuries before we triggered it. We have the keys now, and it has nothing to guard…” she remembered the other chest, then. “We also have rather a large stash of gold,” Jolie said lightly, hoping that might prevent Eboric from sulking too much.
Another hand appeared through Valentin’s back, and the top of a scruffy, matted head. Blackteeth appeared to be quite distressed, either about being in that horror-filled chest or being halfway stuck in Valentin. Perhaps a bit of both.
Eboric nods, trying to shake the feeling that the magic had left on him, the feeling which is now making him almost hear things that can't possibly be real. "We do have the gold," he allows with a small smile. "But we also have those keys, and there must be something even better where they lead. Something that's better split two ways than three," he says, with another glance at Valentin.
Jolie’s lips tightened firmly, and she drew a long breath through her nose before replying in a very dry tone, “You’re stuck in a barrow, filled with dark and possibly fatal magics, surrounded by legions of the restless dead. Do you –really- want to cut down on the number of necromancers accompanying you?” She snorted, and continued on her hunt for the boar-headed key.
Meanwhile, Blackteeth had managed to pull itself halfway out of Valentin, ghostly hands planted to the butcher’s back to aid the spook’s struggle. White eyes were fixed upon the necromancer, as if pleading for a little help.
Eboric begins to search as well, wondering if perhaps he had kicked it away in his battle with the magic, a battle which he is becoming increasingly more sure that he won. "He doesn't seem like he can do much to help us anymore," he says, callously. "I think he's about spent."
Jolie looked more than a little concerned that Eboric had joined the hunt for the key, and gave a satisfied ‘Ah!” as she found it, tucking both away into a pocket of her garb. As the two keys jangled together, she felt an uncommon surge of strength ripple through her, a wave not unlike undistilled arrogance, which caused her to straighten her spine, fold her arms and stare at Eboric. “If you’d risk halving your chances at survival, by all means, crash through that wall, soldier.” In truth, she wanted to see if anything fatal would happen, and best it didn’t happen to one of her own.
Eboric turns to regard her with a withering stare. "No," he says, shortly. "I know what you have there, what got this mess started. They are obviously keys, so try them, first. And if your friend is so vital to this hunt, if it can even be called a hunt any longer, then wake him up! Normally, I'd throw a bucket of water on him, but I am without one. I do have a full bladder, though," he adds, contemplatively.
Jolie, perhaps, would have considered the werebear’s words wise, not half a minute ago. But now, they brought her brows to a frown. “Try them on what?” she said, icily. “They’re too large for these chests. And what sort of idiot would hide a thing of great worth in a place this easily accessed?” Her entire being seemed to grown frigid, and her steps were decisive as she stalked toward the wall where the keys had hung, her palm smacking down on the glyph etched there. “It’s all a test. One we –could- fail merely by sitting here on our sorry rumps instead of moving on. Look…” she peeled her hand off the mark, “…we passed this part of it, and were rewarded. You’re not…” she cast him a sly glance, “… afraid, are you?”
Eboric gestures angrily. "Try them on the door that..." He trails off, frowning, obviously unsure as to how the General had come and gone. "There's no keyhole there," he asks, confused. At her last words, however, he bridles. "I fear nothing," he growls. "Not even death. But neither am I stupid. If there is a trap there, and I break through, I will die, and you and your friend will have the treasure."
Jolie spoke very slowly, as one does to somebody with less than a full quota of normal intelligence, “Listen, muscles. If whatever.. whoever.. hid this treasure wanted us dead, we’d have died long before now. If you’re frightened, bluster away. But there’s no way out of here past that mark and what lies beyond it and I have no wish to spend my last moments locked in a barrow with… you. Your best bet at getting to spend any of that…” she flipped her hand toward the chest Valentin was not draped on, the one the camp-follower had said contained only gold and gems, “…is to do what I ask. Now. Right now.”
The troglodytic phantom was capering about the butcher, pushing ectoplasmic fingers into places that would’ve earned it a sound thrashing were the Scleratus awake.
Eboric lets loose a string of curses that fade into a growl, feral and full of anger. Offering Jolie a look that sums up that feeling, Eboric charges suddenly, putting all his speed and strength into the run, launching himself bodily at the wall, shoulder thrust out to take the impact. If the first attempt does not work, he is fully prepared to do it again, and again, with the desperation only a man trapped in a small room with a nagging woman can summon.
While Eboric beat himself upon the wall, Jolie made a final check of Valentin, who seemed hale enough – for a dead person – and summoned Blackteeth to her side. The little spook loped up, its knuckles hanging low, gazing up at her with its ghastly white eyes. “Can you go through there, and tell us if there’s trouble,” she asked quietly, fully aware that Eboric may at any moment make the question a moot point. The ghost shook its head, baring its ebon grimace, and commenced groping at the pocket which contained the two keys. The items were still giving off a tangible pulse of some energy or other, one that filled Jolie with a chill sort of courage, and she put her hand over them protectively. “Leave those alone,” she hissed. Then there was an almighty –Crash!- as the wall finally gave in to Eboric’s strength and smashed inwards, revealing yet another tunnel.
Eboric goes inward along with the remains of the wall, twisting himself mid-air to avoid falling on his own weapons. He springs back to his feet as quickly as possible, nearly clipping his head on the low ceiling. Turning back to Jolie, he grins, pleased with himself. "Well, then. Let us go on?" He turns and starts edging forward, casting his gaze this way and that, warily.