Something Wicked This Way Passed

[Grimoire]

Closed to ThirdRider and TheAllieHunter

Cemeteries always tended to be dark places. Rows of marble headstones had a way of robbing even the brightest day of sunlight, or maybe it was the occasional fresh plot, still swollen with the fruits of its recent disturbance, that made midday feel like harrowing twilight. Of course, there always tended to be a chill to the breeze, too, though whether it was from nature itself or the nature of what lie underfoot was anyone's guess. Either way, people always had a tendency to avoid such places; only periods of grief and mourning ever drove them past the iron-barred gates, which were quite a customary feature.

Levitus certainly felt none of that as he passed under the metal archway declaring the graves within. It was curious, really, how burial grounds were always presented the same way. Althanas was the third planet he had lived on, Radasanth the third city he'd seen on it, and yet there were still the small rolling hills packed near to bursting with headstones and polished plot markers. The cobblestone pathways winding throughout them were clean and well maintained, a humble tribute to the departed they toured. Roses and other various flowers littered the area, tied in small bouquets with thin strips of ribbon or housed in small urns resting next to the appropriate headstone, and here and there a group of mourners stood, their faces creased and their cheeks stained. None of them noticed as Levitus passed, his short, fiery hair and dark-camouflaged attire given lower priority to the upturned dirt before them, but it wasn't a piece of clothing or an effort of stealth that kept him concealed; it was human nature. Of course, not all of the sobbing crowds were entirely human, but all living things had their similarities too, regardless of city, country, or even planet.

He ignored them as he passed, focusing only on the winding path before him. He was here, both on Althanas and in Radasanth, for a particular reason, and that reason was to learn-- of the world and its state, its people and its history. He had heard so many tales in his short twenty-seven years on the planet, and his gray-blue eyes positively shone with an understanding that belied their youthful frame, much as his tanned complexion did his hair color-- dark-skinned redheads were a rare commodity throughout all of Existence, it seemed. Sorting fact from fiction would take some time, and while it was always the most rewarding aspect of his journeys, he had only recently been able to go about it this time; societies, like everything else, always had their similarities, and young boys traveling alone were a red flag no matter the location. He was nearly twenty before his most recent foster parents let him leave Underwood.

The years between departing what semblance of a home he had and arriving in Radasanth weren't overly exciting, at least not by most standards. There was a brief time he remained in Underwood, and there was a greater time he spent exploring Corone. But no matter the area, his time was always spent in taverns, libraries, or in random locations that held answers to questions raised in either of the two. The latter could be considered exciting, he supposed, but they were simply a matter of course to him, things that needed to be done. Unfortunately, some of those excursions were without reward, and no amount of gossip gleaned from drunkards or information sifted from books could answer his questions. Althanas' history, it seemed, was poorly documented at points and wholly incongruous in others.

One point of specific interest to him was a time the Althanans had labeled “The Demon Wars”. It was an era of vile creatures rising from the Underdark and warring against those on the surface. As fantasy tales often went, the demons overran Radasanth-- then known as Teria-- and vast portions of the surface world. Of course, that was until a mythic hero appeared with his shining armor and plethora of traits that amalgamated and summarized the endangered cultures-- Levitus could have guessed that part without coming to Althanas personally; such stories always went that way. What really troubled him, however, were the demons themselves. While there were some theories on where they were banished to-- a region deeply rooted in Althanas' history through previous conflicts-- no one had the slightest guess as to their origins. One day, all was well and good, and the next, the skies went black under the beat of myriad wings and fanged creatures; the surface dwellers were beat, ravaged, and enslaved by a malignant force they never saw coming. That didn't sit well with him. There were always answers if one looked in the right places.

In his case, those places were usually either cemeteries or battlefields. While that may seem morbid to some, they weren't aware of Levitus' gift for sensing, seeing, and conversing with the departed-- more specifically, spirits of living or once living creatures. There were rules to it, of course, but they were complex and often flexible. Many a story could be wrought from spirits undergoing The Wandering, or “afterlife” as most seemed to call it. They were usually free with information too, should it offer them a chance at an earlier reincarnation. He could always hear them, like soft whispers uttered for his ears alone, tiny voices sounding from the trees, the grass, or even the air. It was an affinity innate to his people, the Galarin, and the driving force of their culture. After all, spirits were tied to The Balance-- the fulcrum of Existence-- in The Wandering just as much as they were in life, and that balance was the ultimate purpose for their being.

He had chosen Radasanth specifically for its ties to The Demon War. Somewhere in this nest of earthen tombs was a spirit that could solve his mystery. As he walked, half-length cape trailing in the wind, he had to ignore the majority of the deceased's pleas. Some seethed with hatred, and in such close proximity he could feel them overflowing with a vehement rage that had only fermented during their years spent out of the physical world; others simply pleaded for a listening ear. On any other day, he would've been happy to oblige, but this was hardly any other day. He had it on almost good authority-- a dusty tome in the Imperial Library-- that a demon general had been slain here. While that only furthered the cliche of the topic, there was some truth in spirits loitering near their last physical presence; especially negative ones, and he had never heard of any other type of demon. At least he wasn't wearing a droopy robe or carrying a jewel-encrusted staff-- the last planet he had explored used a variety of objects worked in the shape of a cross, as if that had any affect on... well, anything at all!

On he walked, the soft clacking of his boots on the pathway cutting an otherwise characteristic silence. Then he felt something, a subtle shift in his subconscious. It was more of a jolt than anything, or maybe a gentle prod by an unseen finger-- he had given up trying to describe spiritual presences to himself lifetimes ago, but he still couldn't keep from attempting spur-of-the-moment interpretations. It curled around him, beckoning him on. So he followed, each step taking him closer to the source. As much was evident by the way the force seemed to grow in strength-- a spirit's call was often a residual effect, and the source was its epicenter. It was always a fascinating feeling. A mysterious pull, a gentle caress, the hint of a trail and knowing there was a justifying end to it: that was always the way when dealing with spirits lost in The Wandering. What struck him most, however, was the lack of predictable emotions. Most lost spirits expressed either grief or hatred in their call, but this one... This one only seemed confused. No, it was utterly perplexed, yet he was sure it was the one he sought. It didn't have the malleable essence of mortality or the elusive nature of one who lived a life of fear-- in his experience, demons lived with everything but fear. There was just the confusion.

As he neared his destination...

“WHAT HAPPENED TO IT?!” The voice was loud, or at least it was in his mind. Spirits couldn't communicate verbally, and neither did Galarins if given the choice. Conversations between the two were more mental than anything else.

“Happened to what?” Levitus asked, in his mind at least. The spirit paused for a second. Maybe it was shocked to have heard a reply; it had probably been ranting the same question for centuries, if not longer. Another second passed. This was the part where the bond occurred, a merging of their wills that adapted question-response to a near instantaneous function. Suddenly, he was looking at a twisted visage of a man. He had human eyes, but there was a long snout complete with fangs in place of a nose and two giant, skeletal wings at his back. Yes, in a remote section of the graveyard with no mourners to witness the conversation, only skeletal wings were acceptable.

Damn cliches..

“The tome! She used it to bring us, but she didn't keep her promise!”

And so, Levitus thought to himself, the adventuring hero learns the secret to saving humanity...

[ThirdRider]

"This is a very stupid idea."

The man with the forked tongue turned his head away from the window and looked over at his companion, his brow wrinkling in confusion. This was the most that his charge had said since they'd stepped into the carriage more than an hour before, and he'd begun to think that the younger man was either asleep or entranced. He'd just sat there, a pile of loose-fitting gray and blue clothing, his chin hanging down and his hood pulled up to block out the light. Licking his lips, the gray-faced guide spoke up.

"How do you mean? If you're worried about my contact being unreliable..." he started, but trailed off into silence uncertainly. The other man yawned and stretched out like a jungle cat in the cramped interior cabin, swiping back his hood and scratching at the roots of his short brown hair.

"No. Not that, exactly. I wouldn't have been referred to you, or you to him, if trust was any kind of an issue. What bothers me is the fact that we're going to meet this guy in a graveyard.

"Let me tell you something about graveyards, Mr. Finch," he said, his blue eyes bright; animated, "there are four kinds of people who go to them. The people who work there and the mourners are fine, because we've got places like that for a reason, and the last thing you want to fuckin' do is dig a hole for somebody you love then fill it in. So once you take them out of the picture, you're only left with two types of people who like to go to graveyards: your looters, and your sexual deviants."

Finch didn't know what to say to that, and so felt it best to say nothing at all, which apparently suited his companion just fine. The younger man lapsed back into silence and didn't open his mouth again until they had reached their destination. The towering black-on-black gates of the cemetery were thrown open to the public, and a long white road of cobblestones stretched off into the heavily-wooded boneyard. Dozens of smaller offshoots branched off of the path -- side-streets that led to rows of cheap wooden crosses; cul-de-sacs of half-sunken mausoleums crumbling from overgrowth. The brown-haired man took a few steps past the threshold and stopped, stone scraping loudly under his heavy black boots.

"There are devils in here, Mr. Finch," he said matter-of-factly, rubbing firmly at his left forearm. Although the long sleeves of his baggy blue-gray shirt covered it, the fork-tongued guide had seen his employer's tattoo on more than one occasion, and knew enough about its origins not to argue.

They kept going with Finch in the lead by a few paces. He was shorter than his employer by almost half a foot, and on the whole resembled a nervous snake. He wore a frayed outfit of brown and black that was too tight on an already skinny man; the slice at the front of his tongue only made the comparison more apt. Mr. Finch looked a little silly, and perhaps he knew it, but in truth there was very little about the gray-faced man that you could call silly at all. He was well-respected and known to be good with a short knife in a tight spot, and (this being the important part in his employer's eyes) he was both reliable and discreet.

"Necromancers," said the brown-haired man suddenly. Finch stopped and whipped around, his hands flying to the daggers hidden under his vest. The cemetery was utterly still, though, aside from birds and rabbits.

"Necromancers go to graveyards, too. For the corpses. Although they could be sexual deviants as well, and they almost certainly are looters."

"Yessir, Mr. Reeve. If you say so. Shall we go ahead?"

"Of course, Mr Finch."

Valor Reeve smiled at Finch's back, big and bold and bright in the shadows of the tree-crowded lane they had turned onto. 'Valor Reeve' wasn't any closer to his name than Martin Turnbolt, Tapis Munroe, Pollux Linefire, or any of the other names he'd picked up since pulling into harbor two weeks ago. Names have a power over you -- he knew that better than most, even before he'd been recruited into the Jormungandr program. Living as a spy; as a liar and sometimes as a killer had taught him how to move socially the way that a jaguar would in the jungle. No, he wouldn't even be thinking it while he was here, much less saying it; from now until his work was finished, the man inside was simply Wyrmwood.

That Mr. Finch thought he was introducing Valor to the contact -- one Levitus Starfire -- was a fiction that he was pleased to let continue. Technically it was true anyway: they'd never met, and it was entirely possible that Levitus knew next to nothing of the agent's coming. He'd been assured before insertion that a deal would be cut, and that the spiritualist would serve at least as his guide, if not his confidant. Even after two weeks in Radasanth he was almost as lost as the day he'd arrived; no access to computers or any swift means of communications had been more of a challenge than he'd anticipated. A local -- or, to hear it told, semi-local -- that had an actual stake in the project would be invaluable.

As far as Finch...well, he hadn't quite made up his mind about that just yet.

"We're close. That's him over there, by the grave." Finch had stopped at the end of the row of mossy obelisks and pointed toward a tall figure in the near distance. Valor couldn't make out much about him beyond that, but whatever he was doing, he was fully absorbed.

"Let's not be rude," he said, placing a friendly hand on Finch's shoulder. "Let the man finish what he's doing, then we'll say hello."

[Grimoire]

“You're speaking of her?” Levitus asked. Of course, he had no idea who he was referring to, but his tone implied nothing of the sort. Dealing with lost spirits was a delicate process, especially with those that were reluctant to truly enter The Wandering. This creature, this demon, still clung to its physical body, or at least the location of it. Likely it had no concept of time; when social interaction becomes an impossibility, so does counting the weeks or the months, let alone the years or centuries. That last thought sent a chill down his spine; it was no way to live, physically or spiritually. But he had a job to do, and this demon may have answers for him.

“Yes, Raycina,” came the reply. Oddly, the demon's voice wasn't dark like most of its kind. It was quiet in the way a convict was in that heartbeat between the door dropping and the noose tightening; no eulogy, not even an emotional response, just utterly subdued. Levitus felt a tiny surge of hope prickle his psyche, though it didn't take much of an effort to keep it from transmitting through the bond; he'd had thousands of years to practice his art, after all, and filtering his thoughts happened as much on instinct as wielding a sword did by rote. “Where is she? I've been waiting for...” The beast trailed off, and the tiny crease of its monstrous eyebrows and the furrow of its snout were enough to confirm Levitus' suspicions. “She should have come by now!”

This was dangerous ground. If Levitus left so much as a hint about the current year, the spirit could become unstable, which would have quite the negative effect on its reflection on this plane. He needed that reflection. “You didn't fulfill your end of the bargain,” he found himself saying. Again, he didn't really know what he was talking about, but the statement was subtle enough to keep the reflection from turning the graveyard into a fresh killing field-- instability for them in the Etherworld resulted in a none-too-pleasant explosion in the physical world more often than not-- or worse, disappearing. It played to the demon's earlier words of promises, besides.

“We did as we were asked! We conquered Teria, destroyed the Surface's armies... It was HER damned brother that ruined everything!” Hatred coated its last words finally, its voice ringing with a bit of its true nature. But what was it talking about? The stories all said that it was an elf, Radasanth, that turned back the evil legions. Unless...

Paranoia entered the bond then, a tiny inkling that set an itching between Levitus' shoulder blades. He turned, left hand reaching for his sword reflexively-- looters were far too common on his travels, considering where those travels usually took him. But the pair of men he saw standing on the hill's crest overlooking his little cove didn't have the look of grave-robbers about them. One was a pale-faced man-creature, and the other was a brown-haired man. Neither had the negative auras usually associated with ill intentions. Levitus' hand eased away from the hilt rising from his right hip, and he let the easing course through the bond to the frenzied spirit at the other end. He sent a message with it, a promise to solve the demon's dilemma-- and by extension his own. With that the spirit faded in an evanescent sway that was a little cliche in itself, not that the newcomers could have seen it; Levitus simply detested the idea of a spirit dallying before The Wandering, and there was truth, too, in ghosts remaining in the physical world because of unfinished business.

As the pair approached, he could better make out their appearances: the first a tall, humanoid figure with an apparently gray face and a split tongue, and the second an even taller young man with blue and gray clothing. He thought he recognized the first one, even if it was a faint familiarity.... Yes, he'd seen him in Underwood before, maybe a tavern frequent, not that that eased his mind any more. Levitus nodded at the two of them, a small inclination of his head that was neither short enough to be rude nor deep enough to be arrogant. Just because he wasn't fond of speaking to strangers-- or speaking at all, really-- didn't mean that he had to be rude.

[ThirdRider]

((Actions approved by Grimoire.))

"Looks like he's finished," remarked Finch, his muddy brown eyes locked on Levitus' ghoulish figure, "did you want to wait here, or come along with me?"

In truth, the agent wasn't sure what he wanted here. It had been his understanding that the spiritualist would have some knowledge of the situation -- of the arrangement -- but that didn't seem to be the case. A low, steady throb from the black brand on his forearm told him that there had been an awful something called up in the cemetery, but it was nothing like the feeling from one of his master's vassals. It was the old ghost of an old ghost; it didn't burn like wildfires across dry grasslands at night, or like the birth of a new star. Call it the memory of some spook, then, or the shade of a horror long entombed and forgotten.

"You go ahead," replied Valor, giving a short wave to the man by the grave, "I've got something to take care of. Make sure to talk me up, Mr. Finch."

"Ah...of course. I'll be right back, then."

The man with the forked tongue took off toward Starfire at an easy, leisurely pace, his hands kept as far from his weapons as they could be to show he meant no harm. He raised his voice in some hail that was lost on his employer; the younger man didn't much care what words the rake charmed Levitus with, so long as they worked. His concern was sealing the deal, which meant making contact somewhat...earlier than expected.

Pressing his bare palm firmly against the infernal tattoo, he muttered a string of words in a black, horrible language that caused several small wounds to open up inside his cheeks. His mouth wasn't designed to make those sounds, and despite the modifications that had been made to it, his body wasn't particularly built to handle them, either. No matter, though -- he had what he wanted; a tremor of energy washed through his arm to let him know he had the attention of something infinitely greater than himself.

"We are connected. What's the issue, agent?" The voice that wormed into his ear was like the skittering of rats inside a dry desert tomb.

"Has the offer been made to him yet?" Wyrmwood didn't use his mouth; neither did he use his mind. It was a voice that carried through the spirit, across the gulf of space and through the walls of whole realities.

"No, not yet. There has been a change in the plan. This ghost isn't one of ours, and is barely functional; not worth the effort to resurrect. Gone mad from years in the ground, no doubt."

"Understood. What now, then?"

"One devil ought to be just as good to him as any other...at least for what he wants. I doubt if he could spot the difference. Offer to help him forge a connection to me in exchange for his services. Once I've located a thin patch in the world closeby, I will contact you. Do you understand?"

"Of course. How long do you expect that to take?"

"Not long at all," the dry voice replied in its sandstone rasp, "this place is porous; full of holes. Much could bleed through here."

"Yes. Good. Speak to you soon. Agent out."

The line snapped shut, and the heady rush of the demon's presence left his body. Across the way, he saw Finch start to lead Levitus back toward where he was standing. The fact that he was here now could become...problematic. Although Finch was certainly discreet, he wouldn't go so far as to call the gray-faced man loyal as far as the mission was concerned. The rake didn't know much of anything about...well, anything, to tell the truth, beyond the cock-and-bull curse story he'd been fed to explain the magic and the tattoo. Summoning an allied devil in front of him might raise some questions that the agent wasn't quite ready to answer at this stage in their relationship.

This was almost certainly going to be an issue.

"Mr. Finch, good to see you again," remarked the blue-eyed man, smiling broadly at the approaching pair, "and this would be your friend, the guide?"

[Grimoire]

(Easier to just say that all "bunnying" on our part has been approved by the other via AIM before we post)

“Ah, it's good to see you again,” the gray-faced man said as he approached, forked tongue flicking and adding an audible slur to his words. His smile was probably intended to be warm, but his lanky frame and tattered clothing made it seem more like a snake bearing its fangs. The split tongue didn't help. Levitus eyed him carefully, wary of his wiry arms that never strayed too far from his brown vest. There was probably a dagger or two in there. Where would he have met someone carrying concealed weapons? “It certainly has been some time. I'm afraid we didn't meet properly last time. Underwood, wasn't it?”

Underwood? Levitus thought for a moment. He had spent most of his “upbringing” there, sure, or at least he had spent the majority of this youth there; it was difficult to recall some things when there was a millennia to sift through. He remembered the skin-melting, bone-chilling feel of passing into the Etherworld countless times, the weight of a blade in his hands, on his hip, cutting into an enemy-- or worse, cutting into him; those were never fond memories, but they were vital nonetheless. With a recollection that spanned entire centuries, it was easy to overlook minor details, and a serpentine traveler in the dark corner of a tavern was certainly that. Still, there was that vague sense of familiarity about him. Maybe he was a regular in one of the taverns Levitus passed through.

“I'm Mr. Finch, and I've been hired by someone that would very much like to meet you.” Levitus' eyes flicked to the taller man standing atop the hill. His posture seemed impassive even over the distance and rows of headstones that separated them, but his gaze was anything but; brows slightly furrowed, eyes glazed with what Levitus could only assume to be concentration. There was something else, too, something about the way the man stared into the empty air without blinking, as if lost in thought. That, coupled with the sudden rush Levitus felt, like a doorway being opened in a dark hallway, was all the proof he needed. The man was talking with a spirit. He couldn't hear their conversation-- such was the nature of these things-- but he could feel the momentary lapse in reality that the ethereal used to reach the corporeal, that little stitch in the fabric that carried their thoughts from one plane to another. Usually, that tiny space was a conduit for residual pleas and garbled sentiments, but the thoughts echoed to the strange man were alarmingly... conscious, as if from a living, breathing entity. Spirits never felt so sentient.

Intrigued, Levitus mimicked his previous nod. The snake-man's smile deepened, a toothy grin that was more snarl than anything. Mr. Finch turned, and Levitus waited for a few calculated paces before following him up the hill. The man never seemed to break caution, however, keeping his hands near his vest as they crossed the assorted headstones and floral tributes. Yes, there was certainly a weapon in there, and the man's steady gait and upright posture said he knew how to use it. Of course, Levitus' hand never strayed far from his hip either, and he certainly had no trouble recalling exactly how long it took to draw his weapon or which angle would produce the most speed with the highest percent of lethality, though his wooden blade was fashioned more for rendering foes unconscious-- he much preferred that over killing, anyway.

The connection between the spirit and the other man vanished-- the door had been closed, and the hallway was dark once more. Again, it wasn't something he could really describe to himself, just something he felt. The brown-haired man smiled as the pair approached, a genuine contrast to that of his serpentine employee, and his blue eyes suddenly seemed alight with excitement. There wasn't a little curiosity mixed in there too. Levitus returned the man's gaze and accompanied it with another well-practiced nod. He had seen looks like that before in his various lives, and they were never things to be ignored. Maybe this would be considered one of his more “exciting” adventures... Of course, that probably meant that he would have to talk. Just the thought left a sour taste in his mouth.

[ThirdRider]

((Actions approved by Grimoire via AIM/PM.))


A Short While Later

"Speak, agent."

"We've got a deal. Provided that we can give him something substantial on the history of the demon invasion, he's willing to work for me as a guide."

"I thought he might. Men who court devils are hungry, digging through the garbage of the past just for scraps to feed themselves. Watch him root through graves looking for the bones of my brothers, hoping to hear their last whispers before they die forever. He's just a ghost; he's just a nothing. You're giving him the chance to touch something real. He'd follow you into hell for it."

The dry-bones voice was mixed with contempt and amusement at the same time, rattling through Wyrmwood's ear like a whirlwind down a box canyon.

"Alright. Good. So where are we going to do this?"

"There's a place not far from you -- underground. There's a hole in the world I could squeeze through if you were to widen it. I'll give you eyes to find the way."

"Understood. I'll reach you when we get there. Anything else I should know?"

Although it was impossible for him to see the creature, there was a distinct impression of the shrouded horror shrugging.

"Old magic gone to waste. Not dangerous. Maybe."

"Is it fallout?"

"No. Not that. You'll be fine."

"Mmm. Agent out."

The infernal connection broke and he was alone inside himself again, though traces of the wasteland devil's energy still hung on him like...static; like smoke from smouldering coals. Traces of strange colors that he had no names for swirled around the edges of his vision, and he could smell the way the light touched his bare skin. Bridging that gap -- walking through the darkness between worlds and touching on something so impossibly Other that it almost defied description -- was a life-changing experience. It was a tectonic shift of the soul.

He could feel/see the world curving toward a point in the near distance, as if the whole city -- the whole planet -- was a rubber sheet and this place was a lead weight. It depressed the flow of things around it, forcing a vortex; forcing a spiral path to somewhere...else. That would be the weak point his contact had mentioned: the hole in the bottom of the world that would let it poke its head through and whisper some poison into the ear of the spirit guide.

He turned his head to the side and looked over at Finch and Levitus, who had been trooping along in a heavy silence. The gray-faced man seemed more ill at ease than before, but only slightly: between the ghoul to his right and his 'cursed' employer, a survivor type like that might just be wondering if it was time to get going. Magic -- particularly the branches that concerned death -- had a certain...stigma that was hard to shake off. Whatever the rake might have heard or surmised, it wasn't bad enough to make him run...but it would be better to lose him before they reached the site and really got to work.

"I think that's good enough for today, Mr. Finch," said Valor at length, slapping lamely at his thighs, "you can head on home."

"Sir?"

"I'm sure I'll be fine, and I can find my own way back. Stay visible: I'll have more work for you in the next few days, if you're interested."

"I...yessir. Nothing else, then?"

"Nothing else. Goodbye."

Finch nodded to Wyrmwood and Starfire, then took off for the cemetery's entrance with only a slight hustle in his step. When the bald man had been out of sight for several minutes, the agent addressed his new guide.

"There's a place near here that we'll use to make the contact, down underground. I don't think it should be very dangerous, but don't be stupid about it. Magic will bite you if you let it. Once we get there, I'll set things up, and the two of you can figure out your own terms...so long as you don't forget what you promised me."

Motioning for the gaunt man to follow, he moved between the scattered headstones and down the winding white paths of the graveyard, following the curvature of reality as it drew him closer to the summoning site. After half an hour of walking he reached a place that felt right: a mid-sized stone mausoleum with a domed copper roof, gone green from time and corrosion. Outside it was unremarkable, but deep within there was the echoing heartbeat of other worlds.

"Here: we go down. Let me know if you need to rest first."

[Grimoire]

(Actions approved by ThirdRider)

Mr. Finch had a small haste in his step as he departed, the sort of controlled hustle associated with veteran strongarms. No, he was certainly no ordinary street tough, and even in parting he kept his hands close to the buttons of his vest. Levitus watched the man go with a touch of curiosity; he never did find out where he'd seen him before, not that it bothered him much anymore. He was far more interested blue-eyed man next to him. Valor Reeve, he called himself, though that was likely as real a name as “Mr. Finch”. Some people clung to anonymity almost as much as they did life itself, others even as a way of living. Whichever of those this “Valor” was, it would only pique Levitus' interest further.

"There's a place near here that we'll use to make the contact, down underground. I don't think it should be very dangerous, but don't be stupid about it. Magic will bite you if you let it. Once we get there, I'll set things up, and the two of you can figure out your own terms...so long as you don't forget what you promised me."

Magic: that had been a foreign word to Levitus once. His abilities were a matter of instinct, the result of nature and experience meeting on common ground, but everyone seemed to have their own word for it. “Magic” was the most common label bandied about throughout Existence. “Chi”, “chakra”, “ki”: they all meant the same thing, and Levitus had learned to translate them long ago. Yes, there could be repercussions to it, but Galarins learned to avoid those by the end of their first Cycle-- more often than not, that was the purpose of their first Cycle. Levitus was no exception, and judging by the steady upright posture of his companion, Valor wasn't either. Interesting, indeed.

Then there was the matter of Levitus' promise to him. It wasn't much of a promise, really, more of a mutual agreement. Valor was new to Radasanth, and he wanted to be shown the city. He wanted to see Althanas entirely at some point, though he kept his reasons to himself. Levitus was to be his guide. He neither made a secret of being new to the city himself, nor did he make any false hints of being an authority on Althanas as a whole, though he did leave the last bit in obscurity. But he did accept the proposition.

That's how he found himself following the man through the graveyard. It was a silent trek on both their parts. Valor seemed lost in thought, face blank save for a slight furrow of his brows, eyes narrowed and directed straight ahead. He almost seemed... detached as he walked, all but mindlessly navigating through the walkways and burial plots. Something was guiding him, and to make things more complicated, Levitus couldn't entirely sense it. There was an inkling of a foreign presence, a slight change that hung on the breeze, but there were no solid indications. Levitus wasn't sure if he liked that, but that was half the reason he agreed to go along with the man. The other half.... Well, he was on a quest for answers too; why not share it?

Valor stopped before a somewhat sizeable mausoleum. Its stone walls were aged and weathered, and its copper roof was dimmed between a mass of trees overhead robbing it of the sun's reflection. There was a distinctly antique feel to it even compared to its surroundings, but there was also something... more. Somewhere in that ancestral tomb, underground by Valor's estimation-- why break cliche now?-- there was a connection to another world. It didn't have the natural, radiating presence of something attached to the Etherworld, but it certainly didn't feel native to Althanas. It was almost like a hole, a puncture wound between two planes.

"Here: we go down. Let me know if you need to rest first."

Levitus shook his head, and Valor gave a quick nod before continuing on. They approached the double-door and gently shoved it open. There was a moment of resistance as stone and metal fought against years of dirt and dust, but it wasn't hard to gain entry. Naturally, it was dark inside, and it had the cold, stuffy feel of a place not often visited. Valor didn't pause for so much as a second to gaze at the coffin drawers lining the walls, bronzed nameplates covered with dust and stringent spiderwebs. A large statue in the center of the room depicted a robed figure in prayer. Valor ignored all of it, marching straight to the back of the tomb, and Levitus followed straight to the head of a staircase.

Again, there wasn't a hint of pause before Valor descended, his face still that blank, guided mask, and there certainly wasn't but a single step between him and Levitus. The walls changed from stone to earth as they went lower, the stairwell darkening with each step away from the opened door above. At the foot of the stairs he could make out a small doorway, except there was no door, only an earthen arch that had half crumbled over time. So, this was only a half-finished project, an obviously abandoned one. Why didn't the workers finish? One question at a time, he told himself as they stepped through the opening. He couldn't see very far ahead, but the room seemed to open into a large cavern. At least, it seemed large considering only the ceiling was visible. Finally, Levitus had had enough of waiting:

“What do we need to do?” His voice was strong despite its seldom use; the words sounded quite natural, though they felt awkward leaving his tongue. At least it was a common language on most worlds. He detested using some of the more “exotic” ones.

[ThirdRider]

((Actions okayed by Grimoire. Next post to TAH.))

"Reality is unconventional here."

Wyrmwood walked through the arch without pause, his bright eyes fixed on some strange horizon that the spirit guide couldn't hope to see. The cave was lit from within; it was as if the very air bled a little bit of light over the space's strange contours. The walls of the place stretched and twisted in ways that rock should not, forming spirals and parabolas of slick stone that twisted off into the half-darkness of the cavern's roof, melding and entangling to birth newer patterns still. A narrow path wound down like a snake from the entryway to a dark, shallow lake; in the middle of the lake was a small island.

"Reality is unconventional here," repeated the demon, its voice seeming to reverberate out from every shadow and crack in the rock. He could feel it worming its fingers through the cracks in the world, straining to find one wide enough to slide through.

"There is no reason for this cave to exist. No tomb has a staircase that leads to a hole underground where you can push your hand through the skin of the world and pull something back from beyond. So you see that reality is unconventional here. The rules here are not the rules of the world above, because you are in between, in a dark place out of sight, crawling under the floorboards of the planet like cockroaches. Like mice."

He moved down the path slowly, the demon's presence like an electric rush in his body. His blood frothed and crackled with its energies as the wasteland horror drew closer, cascading through his veins and back into his heart, which hammered against his ribs like the thump of a heavy mortar. Water soaked up through his clothing past his waist as he waded out into the lake, easily outpacing the tentative spirit guide. He reached the island's edge and hauled himself out, then shuffled over to the center and squatted down on his haunches.

The dark brand on his arm burned fiercely, and his hand moved of its own accord, tracing curves and occult symbols into the brown sand in a rough circle around him. So close to the other land that his contact inhabited -- the strange, sunbaked Hell of his master -- the demon could stretch itself through the gap enough to at least do this; to help him begin an unfamiliar ritual to thin this place even further. After close to half an hour of drawing and shifting, he sat awkwardly in the middle of an intricate web of sigils and lines that dominated the dollop of land in the shallow pool's center.

"Get comfortable," he called out to Levitus, who had been waiting impatiently on the other shore, "I'll start in a minute, but this should take a while. I'd cover my ears, if I were you."

Turning his body away from the medium, he cleared his throat, tilted his head back, and began.

The words that came out of his mouth weren't ones that could be written, because they would blacken the paper and melt the eyes of whoever had tried to read them. They were not designed for a human's mouth to create, or a human's ears to hear, or to even exist in a healthy, vibrant world like Althanas. His body had been built -- or rebuilt, in point of fact -- to withstand the black verse, but the limiters that had been installed inside his body had made him weak -- so much weaker than he'd imagined possible.

His skin split open all along his arms, neck and chest as he rattled off line after line of the ritual, the words streaming through the ethereal web that bound him to the devil and directly into his mouth. His clothing quickly soaked through with blood from dozens of wounds, and a foul-smelling black fluid began to seep from his nose. His bladder let go; the air crackled and writhed with a frenzied intensity. He could see glimpses of mountains and endless salt flats; he could smell the desert that the demon called its home.

A pressure built up in his chest, threatening to break his ribs into a million pieces, and at last he sputtered to a stop, couging up a thin stream of black blood almost immediately. The space inside the cave churned and rippled still, but with much less fervor.

"Report," came the demon's voice, and by the way Levitus' head perked up, Wyrmwood knew he wasn't the only one who could hear it.

"My body isn't strong enough to complete the ritual this way," Valor wheezed, "it's going to kill me if I try. We need another solution."

"Mmm. Wait a moment, then," said the dry voice from the darkness, and the cavern fell silent. The agent stripped off his shirt as delicately as he could and set it to the side to dry while he looked at his wounds. They were bad, but not lethal -- he would heal given enough time, and the demon would be able to do something about them even more quickly, provided he could actually help it come through.

"You will have to complete the ritual using other methods. Certain materials can be substituted for your own energy. You widened the hole, but not enough; I will send someone to assist you in this. He will be able to tell you what you need.

"Prepare for his arrival."

[TheAilleHunter]

"Aodh."

The smell of incense permeated the air as Aodh awoke from his trance. He blinked rapidly, flashing his blue eyes at the outside world before shuttering them again. When he knew he could focus properly, the red-haired wayfarer opened his eyes wide and took stock of his surroundings. He was sitting cross-legged amidst a field of candles, their purple wax bleeding into the wooden slats of the floor. Dark red lines were painted along the ground, connecting at each candle and creating more than a few confusing intersections. Though Aodh favored himself as a sorcerer, the mystical rune's actual meaning was lost on him. His benefactor had assured him that it would serve as an activation point for a gateway that would allow him to breach the veil of the universe and cross over to other dimensions. The gravity of that journey was not lost on the young man, but he was more than willing to brave that front.

His vision slid to the walls, then the ceiling, of the otherwise bare room. More splashes of paint arced along every surface he beheld, leading him to believe that while he had meditated the entire room had been converted into a conduit for the sigil's activation. Try as he might he could not spot his newest ally, nor did he see any sign of his familiar. There was a part of his mind that clamored for attention and called attention to the matter in a system of panic. Fortunately a great deal of his mind was occupied by the fog of calm the incense and his repose had induced. Rather than becoming alarmed, the human merely closed his eyes again, and murmured softly to response to the voice that had called out to him earlier.

"I am ready."

The voice came again, rippling across space and time.

"So you are. As I'm sure you've guessed, your familiar and I have already crossed over to the limbo in between worlds." There was a pause in the steady rumble of the creature's voice. It could only be the Great Beast himself. When Aodh had first met the towering blue behemoth, it had insisted on giving him a title rather than a name. The strange symbols painted into its skin and the horns that curled up from its head certainly lent it a more monstrous appearance, so Aodh granted it the courtesy of acceptance. Despite his brief moment of reflection, the pause in the Beast's speech had not yet ended, but the wait was not much longer. "There have been some complications. It will be difficult for just you to get over. This will be...uncomfortable."

Aodh was given no chance to protest the circumstances even if he wanted to as the room blazed with a light that was not produced by simple candle flames. The mark of passage that he sat upon erupted with magical energy, rending the fabric of reality as he knew it. A kaleidoscope of colors, speckled with pinpricks of white that Aodh mistook for stars, flooded the young man's vision. His muscular body instinctively curled in on itself as he cried out from the shock of the transition. There was a roaring in his ears and he felt as if his body was moving in a direction at an amazing speed, guided by an unseen hand that only seemed vaguely familiar. The mage's senses tried desperately to grasp on to something more concrete, but it was in vain as the sensations of an entire multiverse bombarded the human's mind. Any awareness he had of his own physical form became indistinct, and he felt as though he were naked and alone in a place whose size he could not comprehend.

Across the expanse of distance that separated the two worlds, in the dark cave that two men stood in, the air shivered as though it was a pool of water. The rift that had been opened was at last going to admit a visitor entrance, though it was with no real grace that it vomited up a rather bedraggled looking Scotsman in an explosion of color and sound. Aodh crashed into the ground as unceremoniously as he could, gasping for breath and awash in sweat. His hands touched almost frantically to various parts of his body, verifying that he still wore his green tunic and that his brown breeches were in fact still on. As quickly as he could, his booted feet found purchase on the cave's stone floor, and he forced himself up.

"Hello."

Then he threw up.

[Grimoire]

(Okay, so I've been on hiatus while returning from my deployment and taking some much needed time off. I initially strayed away from this site once I realized ThirdRider and TheAllieHunter were gone, but now that I'm back I've had this thread reinstated. However, since they are gone, I'll be finishing this solo and will be controlling both of their characters to do so. This has been approved via AIM, if that's still relevant in this situation.)



Levitus stared on in a state all too near disbelief. His mouth was trapped somewhere between awe and intrigue, and his eyes widened every so slightly; a small reaction, to be sure, but it was as much as an open-mouthed gape in any other man. He shifted his gaze frequently between the fiery-haired newcomer and the conduit that once claimed to be Valor. Well, the body was still Valor's; nothing had changed about his tall, rough-around-the-edges figure, but his voice.... It was thick where once it was thinned and to the point, deep where once it was somewhere between raucous and severe. Indeed, reality was unconventional here, wherever “here” was.

He only just noticed that the newcomer had regathered himself, arranging his rather long hair just so and adjusting a brass belt buckle so that it rested evenly over brown trousers. He had an impressive build and sun-darkened skin. Levitus focused for a moment, projected his spirit outward at the man's-- another invisible process carried out more by rote than by action-- and was pleasantly surprised when the foreign entity resonated a response. The man could utilize the Etherworld... If not for his height, or lack thereof, Levitus might almost have confused him for a Galarin. Almost.

The man took a step forward, and in the chamber's eerie half light Levitus caught sight of a splatter of bile on his green tunic. None of them seemed to care, particularly not Valor, who was still sat cross-legged on the small island in the middle of the black waters, eyes aflame with a dark glow that wasn't entirely of this world. Levitus watched as the newcomer entered the water, soaked first to his waist and then to his shoulders as he waded their unknown depths. Strangely, Levitus had a sense that both of them knew exactly what lurked in those depths; none of this seemed new to them. As the stranger hauled himself ashore on the small island, Levitus felt an invisible tug at the edges of his psyche, a mental invitation of sorts to communicate.

“My name is Aodh,” he heard yet didn't hear. It was more of a feeling, a sense that was planted in his mind and took root faster than any thought could have hoped. Such was the way of spiritual communication, and spiritual communication just happened to be the way of Galarins. “Forgive my rather... unconventional entrance.”

Levitus hesitated a few moments before responding, gauging the spiritual entity's hostility. It wasn't that he feared an ambush, but one could never be too careful when dragged into cemetery depths-- indeed, into another dimension entirely-- especially with experiences like Levitus. People that visited cemeteries late at night, much less those with such knowledge of the occult as these two, were seldom peaceful at heart. Luckily, these two seemed genuine, and... Was that spiritual communication resonating in Valor?! As unlikely as it was, Levitus certainly felt the indescribable presence in the man that spelled Etherworld, though he was barren of such affinities only minutes before.. This was getting more interesting by the heartbeat, and the complexity was fast becoming intoxicating. There was only one thing to do. Clearing his mind, he projected a response:

“I'm Levitus. So, what does this entail?”

Aodh conceded a slight smirk, as did Valor, though his seemed much more devilish, his lips preternaturally split at the corners and twisted to impossible angles. It was Aodh that replied:

“You'll have to join us, for starters.”

[Grimoire]

The response wasn't entirely unexpected. Most matters of the occult, particularly matters of great strength, often required a joint effort, and for some reason no one had ever been able to explain, three was a magic and mystical number to those of the Ether. The spirits responded better to a trio than to any single or paired request. No matter the planet, there always seemed to be a plethora of dusty tomes and ancient scripts that referred to such a number as a “circle”, but Levitus subscribed to such nomenclatures as fast as he did catching swords with his torso. Besides, those tomes were based almost universally based on myth, and myths had at best a tenuous relationship with truth. But a tenuous relationship was better than a nonexistent one, so he humored the man.

The water was cold, yet his body heat seemed to rise higher the further he waded. It was like being caressed by a frozen palm while its fiery fingers plunged beneath the surface. There was also a certain longing that lurked in its depths. It only grew as he drew nearer the tiny island where Aodh and Valor and whoever or whatever was occupying his body waited. A subtle voice it was, like a distant siren's song beckoning him closer, ensnaring his heartstrings and pulling toward center stage. Then it multiplied, taking on a multitude of tones that contributed to the greater whole, a thousand different voices all singing the same hymn, each one almost unnoticeably different from the last. By the time he reached land again they had become so strong that he almost thought they were in the cavern with them. Then again, maybe they were.

He felt them as he pulled himself up, myriad eyes attached to those voices, and all of them were watching the three men. They seemed to take a particular interest in Levitus, and he almost thought they found delight in his approaching Aodh and Valor, particularly the latter. Their presence radiated a certain warmth, enveloping him from head to toe as he reached the outermost of Valor's arcane symbols. He took care to step around the yellow-green markings glowing softly in the mysteriously illuminated cavern.

Aodh took a seat across from and to the side of Valor and gestured to a similar spot his other side. Levitus went there and knelt, folding his legs under him as the others had done, and as he sat the unexplained warmth rose sharply. The spirits were excited now, genuinely hopeful, and their voices began to reflect it.

“Valor's body can't sustain the Beast alone, so I'll become a second medium,” Aodh said. There was a matter-of-fact way to how he spoke, like a well rehearsed instruction. The ground they sat on was smooth, he noticed, as if the dirt had been rubbed away by frequent use. Obviously, this ritual wasn't a new one, or even unfamiliar.

“So what do I do?” Levitus asked in his voice that wasn't.

“Find the Beast,” Aodh replied, and not for the first time he showed the hint of a smirk. This time, however, Valor didn't mirror it. He had fallen silent, his eyes rolled back in his skull and his brows pinched in concentration. For a moment it even seemed as if the jagged tears at the corners of his mouth were reaching just a little higher than before. No, they were. Suddenly, Levitus felt time press on him for the first time in millennnia, and the room's warmth seemed to come more from amusement than excitement. It was almost a foreign feeling, the voices slightly sadistic.

With a shared glance at Valor and a nod to Aodh, they began.

[Grimoire]

Starting the ritual-- and it was indeed a ritual-- was easy enough. First, they crossed their legs in their seated positions, the three of them forming a rudimentary triangle with Valor at the uppermost point. The ground grew warm around them, and before long they were all sitting atop runes glowing the same preternatural green as that emitting from Valor's eyes. Only, Levitus couldn't recall either of his strange companions drawing them. Distantly he was aware of his hackles rising, and nearer he felt a strong shiver working down his spine. That hadn't happened in centuries.

He felt Aodh open himself to the Etherworld, so he did the same, opening his mind in that familiar way that wasn't entirely unlike surrendering to the forces of nature, to the forces of Existence itself. But what waited for him wasn't familiar at all. Normally, he was greeted by a wayward spirit that almost always welcomed “conversation” with comforting alacrity-- The Wandering was a lonely, isolated time-- but what he found now was something... different, something tempting the borders between stagnant and malicious. The spirits circled him like dozens of dancing flames, sinuous and fickle. They seemed to watch the trio with starved, prying eyes, and the capacity of their hunger tested that of the cavern, pushing so hard against its rocky borders that it seemed a miracle they didn't crumble and crush their occupants. The Galarin wasn't entirely sure that wasn't what they wanted.

Suppressing another shiver, Levitus looked first to Valor and then to Aodh. The former had yet to move, though there were thin trails of blood running from his nose to match those which ran from his ears. The latter, however, had extended an arm and produced a knife that dragged deeply across his outstretched palm. The flesh opened with the ease of long accustomed scar tissue, yielding thicker trails of blood that fell to the soft loam below but refused to soak in. Instead, they glided across the ground toward Valor, who now sat in a small pool of his own life fluid.

“I will keep him alive,” Aodh announced in reference to Valor. For all the layers of skin he had torn, the man hadn't even winced. He really could have been a Galarin if not for his height. “Once it begins,” he continued, his voice bearing all the weight of an ominous foreshadow, “you won't have much time for your part.”

“What, exactly, is my part?” Levitus questioned. He was fairly certain he knew the answer already, if not much more than Aodh's previous instruction, but he liked absolutes.

“Talk to the Beast,” Aodh replied with another amused grin.

Then the tiny rivers of Aodh's blood reached the pool of Valor's, and everything happened at once. The blood ceased to flow from their wounds, but that which had already spilled coagulated in an instant, forming sickly yellow discharges that soaked into the ground almost as fast as they appeared. The temperature rose to almost unbearable levels, and Levitus felt the spirits quiver in elation. They they, like the blood, started to vanish, as if soaking into the walls one by one, though their fashion was closer to that of a crowd dispersing, and quickly as if in fright. What were spirits afraid of in the Etherworld?

It only took a moment for Levitus to find out.

An unseen force entered the cavern, though from where was impossible to discern. It simply appeared, smothering the cavern like an invisible, suffocating blanket. Levitus could barely draw breath, and there was a strange certainty that the few he could were simply being allowed. The entity had the presence, or lack thereof, of a spirit, but it radiated a darker countenance than even the previous crowd; while their borders ran somewhere between stagnant and malicious, this one's only ventured between wicked and cruel. And its strength...

Only then did he notice Aodh. His eyes were alive with the same fire that engulfed Valor's. Both of them were on their feet now, and both of them had their churning eyes fixed squarely on Levitus.