RP:Dismay

From HollowWiki

At The Dark Fortress


Leoxander arrived in that prairie, before the stone structure of the fortress, before any others would. While they followed, or tracked, or searched the rogue down, he'd made his presence known by firing a single arrow into the air, on fire, a distress beacon to the guild. Something was wrong. Two of them.. taken. He wasn't about do attempt to be a hero alone. Unfortunately, it seemed there were many volunteers that evening. His dog skidded to a stop, unwilling to approach that evil place. The gates to Eldritch were... open. Chaos was calling. Leo turned around to face the sound of approach, blocking the way in and facing them.

Blake looked at Eldritch. Andre looked at Eldritch.

Leoxander lead the way along the dark, stone hallway carefully, and steadily. By taking in subtle details overlooked by most, he knew his way back to the room full of fireplaces, and fur rugs, and that mysterious pool. The headquarters of Eldritch were a dark place, indeed, foul with bad magic, even the human thief could feel it. Picking along the walls like a shadow, he finally emerged cautiously into the great hall of the fortress, the goosebumps prickling inked skin having nothing to do with how cold that room was. It was a haunted atmosphere...

Schalk enters behind the rest, his axe and roundshield glimmering as he walks through the gate of the headquarters. His delay was caused by his fierce struggle with the straps of his vizard and helmet, that have now finally come loose and allow the elvergast to take the cumbersome armour off.

Andre enters the room, following Leoxander, and runs towards the spot of which Tenebrae was laid, " I put her here, and then she said she needed to go to the pool, and Imar carried her over there."

Eldritch is nought but a shadow; and the literal truth of this would never become apparent to any of the gathered, for even as their gaze might slide toward the darkened places where he moves, yet their notice would be repelled from his presence, as oil repels water. Sliding like a slice of night through the shaded spaces, he will remain silent, and hidden to all. And his virulent green gaze will watch and ... wait.

Blake followed quietly behind the all. His feels for this place wasn’t inhuman at all. He wonder why she had come here and better yet, why hadn’t she told him.

Leoxander called ahead to the hasty giant. "Oi! Stay where you are..!" He was growling impatiently through gritted teeth already, his eyes across the room on the water. "An' bloody stay away from that thing..." He'd been lucky to lose his luck, before. How ironic. Did Loki enjoy his mortal mischief so?

Andre said to Leoxander, "Don't worry, the thing has nothing to feed off of me. I don't desire anything."

Leoxander said to Andre, "So... Tell me, giant." He didn't know Andre's name, and he wasn't sure it mattered yet. It seemed his thought ran along with Blake's as he slowly approached the center of the room. "You an' the drow brought her here... why?"

Leoxander muttered under his mask. "Everyone desires something.." Leoxander looked at Blake.

Andre said to Leoxander, "That it not true, but she said she wanted to come home. She said something about a Lich, I had never heard of it."

Schalk looks at the giant and the rogue, now halfway the room, as he stands with the other person still at the end of the hall, where Leo had wanted them to stay. He remains standing stockstill, though a smile flashes across his face at the mention of Loki, the firegod and Trickster

Blake watched him careful, for someone who didn’t care much about anyone, he had a hell of a way of showing it. Blake smiled, but then there was something. He felt he was been watched from some were. The hair on neck had rising to a shocking alarm. Could the others feel it too? Such a dark place…odd that he liked the feeling.

Leoxander looked at the towering ceiling angrily. "This ain't her bloody home..!" Andre said to Leo, "Well, Imar tried to find out where she really lived, but she didn't say anything after he said about the clan HQ."

Leoxander flexed his hands, popping thick, scarred knuckles aggressively as he looked around, searching the shadowed walls almost frantically. Beneath shadow woven material, his jaw clenched in frustration, all the while the pool of water called silently to him, begging him to look for the Mistress of the Cabal. "Damn that lich... and damn Imar... what was he thinking?!"

Schalk remains standing stockstill, watching what goes on Why did you come here in the first place? he suddenly asks, as he walks forward, his eyes piercing the darkness, his senses as sharp as can be, thus finding his way

Blake ’s voice filled the room, “Who built this place?” Speak to no one in mind.

Leoxander was getting angry indeed. Enraged, though he smoldered silently. The fortress of cold stone had a strange effect on people. Leo remembered a phase of calm, his first time in that temple, until he'd touched the water. His heart was rapid, breathing heavy as though prepared to bolt off screaming. Against his will, he looked at the smooth surface of the water.

Leoxander croaked a word of answer in his stare... "Chaos..."

Blake said, "Where is the lioness?"

Leoxander heard Blake's question... and it echoed on the walls of that tall, spacious room. He made no sound as he approached the water slowly, mismatched eyes lowered to the dark surface, barely reflecting the lightless structure of the ceiling above. He had his suspicions he'd find his answer beneath the surface.

Andre sits down in the middle of the room, and picks up a twig, and turns to Leoxander, " I remember what happened clearly now. I tried to make a substance, a basic curing syndrome, but she just wanted to go to the water.

Leoxander slowed when approaching the edge, barely daring to look too intently beyond midnight color. "...It healed me. Once."

Eldritch 's laughter is silent as his footfalls as he follows the men, a fleeting presence in the corner of their eyes, here and then gone; a looming presence camouflaged better in this doom-laden fortress than anywhere else. Shifting, never still, yet he is one with the natural darknesses of places where light does not fall. And those green eyes, too, watch the obsidian pool.

Andre said to Leoxander, "Don't go near there." Andre said to Leoxander, "It will draw you in."

Leoxander refused to take his eyes from the water, ready to move, still glaring violently at the glassy pool. "I don't suppose any of you have the ability to conjure fire..."

Andre said to Leoxander, "Give me a second, and I'll make one."

Andre slowly picks up the branch that he had left here from yesterday, and sticks the end inside the fire place. He lit it to crackle, and then carries the little flame over to Leoxander.

Schalk walks up to the pool, taking a place next to Leo Careful old chap he mumbles, adding his warning to those of the others, in the meantime rummaging in his pocket for a flint.

Leoxander stared hard toward the mirrored reflection of blackness, but the inside was so dark, he could not make out even the shallow bottom of the basin. His weaponless arm dropped into his pockets, searching for the gnomish firestarting devise. A mechanism of flint, gears and other... incomprehensible things. Unable to respond to Blake, or unwilling, he finally flicked his thumb to strike a spark, grating stone, an arrow wrapped in alcohol soaked cloth drawn from his quiver to be used as a makeshift torch. Just like the flare he'd fired into the air.

Leoxander was unable to help but catch his breath at what he saw when the branch and arrow combined illuminated the halls, and the surface of the water. His eyes paled and widened, and his posture tensed fearfully.

Leoxander dropped the arrow, right onto the edge of the pool where it bounced and rolled across the floor to burn for a little while, then smolder out. The light of Andre's branch kept the water visible, and Leo saw what they wouldn't. They might see desire, as he'd seen glimmers of golden coins, once, and his hand healed, stronger than before. Not this time. This time he closed his eyes tightly at once, blotting out the view of inky tendrils, floating amidst dark water. He turned his head as if suddenly stung, and in pain.

Blake looked at Tenebrae. Andre looked at Tenebrae. Schalk looked at Tenebrae.

Andre slightly taps on Leoxander’s shoulder, and then points at Tenebrae.

Schalk glances at Tenebrae's mysterious appearance and bows his head to her. As his blonde ringlets fall in front of his face for a second, his eyes are kept on the vampiress and his ears remain sharp, allowing the elvergast to still detect any movement as his grip on his axe's shaft loosens slightly, a gesture anyone who knows him recognizes as the last thing he does before he strikes fast.

Tenebrae's pale features might, were one to gaze upon that oily surface, be glimpsed, but as though a reflection from above. Nothing of her could be grasped, or viewed, it seemed, for more than a fleeting moment.

Andre licks his thumb, and forefinger, and puts out the fire on the branch. He sets it down by the pools side, and starts walking towards the door. He quickly turns around, and says to Leoxander, " My work here is finished, for now it is." He goes to leave, but before he can completely make out, he vanishes.

Andre vanished before your eyes, perhaps never to be seen again.

Leoxander kept his eyes squeezed shut for a moment, regaining his composure. Then, with an angry glare furrowing his brow, he looked back toward the ghostly image in the waters. Long moments of silence swept through the hall, and he was at a loss what to do. "...Nobody... reach into the water."

Leoxander felt darkness settle back down on the atmosphere of stone. He took a step back at that point, trying hard to show no emotion, but for some reason, the anger was tearing through, revealed clearly in his eyes. He looked around, registering the deep laugh he'd heard earlier.

Schalk peers at the water, then turns to the rogue, who, even though not present in the first days of the Cabal as he was, knows much more about the goings on of the clan and about it's headquarters What curse is on the water? the elvergast softly inquires, the skills and knowledge his father once gave him surfacing again

Tenebrae's image would seem, if one stared too long, to shift in perspective: one moment a young girl in a nightdress, a soft smile adorning youthful features; the next, a cold-eyed and richly dressed woman, with the poise of one born to nobility. Soft sounds, to those with the ears to hear them, would sigh across those midnight waters like a dying breeze... And then she was gone.

Tenebrae vanished before your eyes, perhaps never to be seen again.

Leoxander shook his head, his voice low with a wary, distrusting glance toward Blake. "I don't know. It.. gives you what it wants... but then something backfires and ..." Not finishing the sentence, he returned his eyes to the elf. "It didn't swallow me up when I touched it before..."

Blake said, "What would happen if you touch it?"

Leoxander shook his head. "I wouldn't have expected something to jump out and grab you, but after hearing what the giant said... I wouldn't risk it." Nervously and still pacing irritably, he kept turning his eyes back to the pool. "...Who could help..? Imar! Where is that blue skinned son of a..." His guttural words were best left in a private, angry mutter.

Blake said, "Well, lets find out."

Leoxander said to Blake, "It's your funeral, buddy."

Schalk raises his left-eyebrow as Blake speaks those words, shaking his head at such halfwitted words.

Leoxander started to turn with Schalk's encouragements, before Blake's remark left his mouth. The rogue grit his teeth, darting off colored eyes toward the human assassin with a sudden stalk forward, closing the distance between them. "You got a bloody problem with me that I freckin' overlooked?!" The pirate's slang was a bit rough, but you get the idea. He attempted to clutch into the collar of the hardened leather jerkin on Blake's frame, jerking the man's face closer to better threaten him, if successful.

Blake said, "You lot need to lighten up. You need some humour in your life. At least lioness has some."

Leoxander took off hellfire-obsidian-cross bow. Blake simply laughed.

Blake said, "So, what’s the plan?"

Schalk grumbles for a moment as he looks around the room, before quoting the All-Wise Wise is not he, who is never silent, speaking but meaningless words. A sweet tongue that is never silent, sings it's own doom the elvergast turns away from the fight, reckoning Leoxander would be perfectly in his right to give the man a beating. Instead the elvergast looks at the water again

Leoxander roughly shoved the human back, since apparently he wasn't going to cooperate with a bit of aggressive deliberation. With a purposeful stride, he picked up his range weapon and headed for the dark hallway that -might- lead to an exit. Perhaps if he was lucky, tonight.

Eldritch 's smile, had any the ability to have seen it, was wide and thin, aquiline nose flaring nostrils in excitement. Tearing an avaricious gaze from the waters of the pool, he turns toward the men with a look of malevolent glee.

Blake said, "I think we are been watched."

Leoxander said to Blake, "Shut your trap.." The Captain paused at the entryway into the large hall, jerking a thumb toward the shadowy mouth of exit behind his shoulder with a glare turned back on the assassin. "And get the hell out of Eldritch's halls. Now."

Schalk looks blankly at the water, not showing his surprise at seeing a new face in it. For a few moments he looks at it, then softly strokes the brand on his leftarm and spits at the water. As his saliva flies towards the evil in the water, the elvergast walks away, heading after Leoxander

Schalk looks at the pirate, then glances at the water as he murmurs a prayer to Donar, the only one who ever really was able to control the Trickster. Let us go, he mumbles, still taking in what he has seen in the black pool

Blake stood, wide eyed and all. If this is what he was like after a bad joke he hated to see what he was when he was angry. “Lets get something straight Leo. If you still have idea that I came here cause of you forget. I’m here for one reason and that’s for Lioness care. I'm sorry for joke but this place is have a big affect on you mainly, so get your act together and control yourself.

Leoxander wasn't normally a bully, but by that point, he gripped the back of the armoring jerkin to shove Blake toward the maze, which led, eventually out. He'd hear a distasteful mutter of harsh vocals behind him while Leo followed along, and eventually guided the way to fresh air. "Really not needed."

Eldritch is the merest shadow of a reflection in a rippled pond... And the sudden gust of chill wind that blows across that opulent hall might carry the sound of a dead man's last chuckle.