Crumbled towers loomed in the horizon as the sun began to sink beneath the Raiaeran horizon. A cloaked figure strove through the barren, plague stricken wastes alone. A quiet stream of hisses trailed behind him, as he labored each breath through a large metal mask strapped to his face. His eyes were obscured by tinted glass, his mouth covered in some strange filter. Every inch of skin and hair was hidden beneath black leather, or a tough vlince dyed to match. One his hands he wore iron gloves formed from segmented plates of metal held together by a leather mesh. His boots were a simple steel and leather mixture. Each step was laborious, each breath was shallow.
Vincent Cain was not having a pleasant trip.
To simply skirt the limits of the plague lands was already a torturously hard ordeal, but to traverse straight through its heart? That was suicide. The only thing keeping the scholar alive was the several pounds of protective gear, his unnatural predisposition to resisting death, and grit. Eluriand, the diseased heart of Raiaera, loomed in the distance. Beneath it ancient secrets lurked buried in massive catacombs, guarded by hordes of undead. Somewhere beneath this broken city, Vincent would search for answers.
His progress was slow, each step sinking into murky ground slightly. He would have to struggle for a moment to wrest his foot free to take another step, and repeat the process once more. Each a large slurp sounded out his foot was freed, and a squish would soon follow as it sank once more into the muck. He needed to race the sun, darkness would soon be upon him, and so would all manner of foul fiends. The derelict ruins of the city limits would offer some form of sanctuary, where he could possibly scavenge enough wood for a fire, or establish some form of camp.
An hour of tromping through sludge found Vincent standing right at the ruined western gates of the city as night truly fell upon the land. Ancient cobblestones seemed to stand some form of vanguard against the decay, offering a solid footing for the scholar as he scanned the wreckage before him. Several corpses wandered aimlessly along the promenade leading from the gate deeper into the city, but none seemed to have noticed the scholar yet. Either side of the road bore ornate buildings, in varying colors, all in different states of disrepair. The closest building to his left seemed to be a guardhouse of some sort, and most of the doors seemed to still be properly hanging on their hinges. Spurred on by hope of refuge, the scholar made his way to the nearest door as quietly as he could. Each step clanked slightly against the cobblestone. As he reached the dilapidated portal, he braced the handle with a gloved hand and dug his shoulder into the frame forcing it open.
Growling, the scholar scanned the building in the remaining light for any immediate threats. Satisfied for the moment, he crossed the boundary and pulled the door shut behind him, drowning any light left in an inky darkness. All was silent, save the slight hiss of his breath in and out of his mask. The scholar reached into thin air and snapped, a flash of teal sparks cascaded from his fingertips, illuminating the room for a moment. In his hand he know held a simple glass orb, drawn from seemingly nowhere.
“Illuminate.”
The command wheezed out of his mask, and the orb sputtered to life in response bathing the entire room in an eerie pale glow. Glancing around, the scholar spotted the ruins of several old pieces of furniture, and a fireplace. Noting nothing else of importance, he went about his work dragging the bits and pieces of whatever these guards had used to relax, into the fireplace. Then without ceremony, the scholar simply shot a jet of blue sparks from his hands and lit a rather large blaze.
It was going to be a long night, and he would have to resume in the morning…
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