House of Sora: The Terranus Defection

[Abenaki]

AKA Bladestorm's Blademen (Lodge Bladestorm)

[[Solo : House of Sora Initiation Quest]]

There was something unfamiliar about the countryside this close to the Red Forest; a strange pall in the air that both unnerved and disquieted those who tread here. The locals here, few and far between, spoke in hushed whispers of both named and nameless terrors that stalked the crimson underbrush by day and haunted the tree lines by night. Even the air lent itself to the dread that seemed to linger on every breath...

Raiaera, Jada had decided several days ago, was a region he most definitely could have stood to avoid...

Fëanor Terranus, the eldest of the dozen or so elves that made up the Terranus party, stirred the embers of last night’s fire carefully, searching for the glowing orange pocket of live heat buried deep in the ash. A heavy morning dew that had settled in the night clumped the ash into clumps as the elf searched, reminding everyone who was awake of the damp, cool evening just behind them. It was a reminder Jada didn't need as he sat uncomfortably on the remains of a decaying log, hugging a light blanket around his shoulders as he gnawed hungrily at a piece of flatbread. While he was sitting there, watching the lump of ashes darkly, Fëanor finally managed to dig the stick he was using as a poker into the deep burning heart of the fire, kicking up a cloud of hot, dry ash.

"Moh'-dze!" Jada winced in annoyance as the cloud wafted across his face. Dropping the flatbread, the young warrior quickly began to brush the grey dust off his face, but doing so only smeared streaks across his face. Quickly he gave up, picked up his meal, and went back to eating to the sound of Fëanor's chuckles...

"I apologize." The old elf added sincerely in his thick Raiaeran accent once he had finished chuckling. Slowly he began to pile tinder into the glowing pit of embers, revitalizing the flames with gentle breaths. Moments passed in silence as Jada ate and Fëanor stoked the fire, the remaining elves either slumbering peacefully or attending to their morning chores.

Interesting people, these elves... Jada thought as he watched them. Appearance wise, the elves differed completely from everything the young warrior was accustomed to. Their hair was silky and golden, where his was dark and oily. The elves were pale; paler than any of even the lightest skinned Kokopelli. The elves also possessed fine, delicate features that gave them an almost feminine quality that was at odds with the rugged, earthy features of tribal males amongst Jada's native people. Yet, as different as the elves were in appearance, the young Kokopelli felt oddly at home with these strangers. For like the Kokopelli the elves shared an almost familial bond with nature, and all were expert woodsmen in their own right...

"How did you sleep?" Fëanor asked once the fire was burning heartily once more.

"Tanii" Jada muttered simply. So-so.

While he might not have understood the language, Jada's demeanor was clear enough to cause Fëanor to crack a knowing smile. "You won't be the only one who slept fitfully." The elder elf added with a shrug. "No one finds easy rest this close to the tainted forest. Not since Podë and the curse."

"Forget the curse." Tolian, Fëanor's younger brother, interjected, joining Jada on the log near the fire. The elf moved his hands closer to the flames and leaned over to give Jada a stern look in the eye. "Dangerous beasts roam those woods, and dangerous beasts are just the beginning." Tolian's face split with an ugly smirk. "They say there are plants in crimson underbrush that will steal the soul right out of your body!"

Jada regarded the elf skeptically; the dark smudges on his face shifting as he chewed his food. Fëanor was eyeing his brother as well, but his was more a look of exasperation that skepticism. "We aren't even going into the woods, Tolian." The elder brother chided. "Why you always feel the need to bring up such stories is beyond me..."

"It's because I do so enjoy the look on your face when I tell them." Tolian retorted. "You always have this gaze about you that would give the impression you don't believe in the horrors lurking beneath those trees."

"I believe alright." Fëanor replied. "I can sense the evil hanging over that place as well as any other, and well enough to know of its dangers. But plants sucking the souls out of people? Please." The last comment was tinged with the sort of 'I-am-older-so-I-am-right' kind of tone found only in sibling relationships. Tolian rolled his eyes and moved his hands even closer to the fire, glancing up in time to catch the pack Fëanor tossed at him. "If you're going to sit that close to the fire," the elder said huffily, "at least make yourself useful and start cooking breakfast for the rest."

[Abenaki]

The sun almost seemed to mock him as it broken over the horizon, flooding the terrace on the eastern facing wall of Starmare Manor with bright yellow light. In the pre-dawn gloom his black robes had been his greatest disguise, melding him into the shadows as though he belonged there. Now, with the waking sounds of nature and the glaring light of the sun flooding his senses, the man known better amongst certain circles as The Poisoner, could only sneer is disgust and retreat behind the heavy velvet curtains hanging just inside the terrace door.

'Someday, the sun will rise only when I command it.' Bane Gesse thought pleasantly to himself as he pulled the velvet curtains closed behind, leaving only a thin dagger of light to slice across the large guest quarters that were his accommodations here at the estate. All of the curtains in the room were drawn closed, leaving the stately chamber in a perpetual shadow. Thick crimson carpets covered all of the floors, heavy tapestries covered the wall, and heavy ancient furniture littered the room to give it the stuffed and oppressive atmosphere that Bane was accustomed to calling home. Striding across the room, his black robes flowing around him, Bane half contemplated rousing the half-undressed serf girl who had shared his bed last night, but opted instead to let her sleep. 'I'd rather not deal with anyone this early.' The necromancer decided firmly, continuing past the large four-post bed and slipping out into the stone hall...

Starmare Manor, the great house at the center of the Starmare Estate, was a magnificent example of what generations of money could build. Bane knew, for instance, that the Central Hall two stories beneath where he tread was once the original keep of what used to be a small military outpost on the outer fringes of the Red Forest. Not truly being of any real military value, the keep had slowly lost its outer wall while at the same time gaining a host of outer buildings. Starmare Estate in its original incarnation had been formed out of the keep and those buildings, and over several generations the Starmare and Terranus clans had only added and added to the whole estate after the initial and continued success of their joint horse trade. Had he been so inclined, Bane could have easily pointed out several varieties of marble and timber not native to Raiaera that had been imported during the Manor's extensive construction and remodeling, but while the history of the place held some interest to him, the necromancer was not here to admire the architecture and lament the now defunct horse trade.

Bane was here for another reason entirely...

[Abenaki]

The remaining Terranus elves awoke to the smell of freshly cooking cinnamon dough over the fire, the sticky blobs of pastry baking on a flat sheet of slate dug out of the earth and rinsed with water. A dozen elves plus Jada as the sole human present, as well as the only non-Terranus member of the party, shared the sticky morning treats over relaxed conversation and storytelling. As he had learned last night, each of the elves in the party were related to Fëanor by blood or by marriage; brothers, sons, nephews, and grandsons joined together into the family's elite fighting unit. Another interesting tidbit of information that he had gleaned from the previous night's conversations was that the Terranus clan of elves had been warriors as far back as anyone even dared to remember. Knowing that, and knowing what little he had been told via the House of Sora before setting out to join up the elves, Jada had pieced together the fact that the Terranus clan had been the muscle, and the Starmare family the brains, behind a successful horse trade operation that had since fallen apart.

"So what's your story?" Tolian asked Jada cordially as they ate. "You don't strike me as the mercenary type."

Jada licked off his lips several crumbs of sticky dough as he shrugged. His reasons for joining the House of Sora were far from original or noble. At the time that he had been pointed in the House's direction he had been stuck in a vicious cycle of testing himself in one-on-one battles with other warriors, and typically coming up wanting. The House offered him something of a deeper opportunity than that cycle could. "I like to travel." Was Jada's simply reply...

A couple of the elves cracked smiles, and a few chuckled, at the answer. Tolian laughed as well, but soon became more serious. "Seriously now," he asked, "why would the House bother sending one man to accompany us on our mission?"

"I can't speak for the House's motives." Jada answered. "I just do what I'm told with the information I'm given." His thick Algonquin accent clung to every word, and Jada almost subconsciously flashed a smile after realizing that he had made it through the entire reply without stuttering, pausing, or missing a word. It had only taken close to a year, but maybe he was beginning to get a hold of this new language after all. "To be honest, I don't even know what your mission is."

"Our mission is to take back the Starmare Estate." Fëanor interjected loudly. The tone in his voice was such that all other conversation around the campfire ceased, and all the younger Terranus brethren put their breakfasts down carefully. Jada stared at the elder blankly; unaware of something the others all seemed to be aware of. "The Starmare and Terranus families have a long history together." Fëanor began solemnly, sitting down opposite the fire from Jada. The other elves seemed to gather around closer, settling in for a story they had all probably heard a hundred times before.

"For generations as far back as memory allows, the Starmare and Terranus families worked together to breed and raise the greatest war horses ever to grace the plains of Althanas. The day to day operations were taken up by the early Starmare's, and the task of training the horses fell to the Terranus. Soon our horses walked the stables of kings and warlords, nobles and wealthy merchants. The success of our trade brought both clans great wealth, and brought our families closer together." Here there was a pause, and Jada glanced from elf to elf, noting the looks on their faces.

"Four generations ago," Fëanor continued, bringing the story more into the relative present, "the majority of the Starmare family was killed by a plague. As the Starmare family struggled to survive the majority of the horse operation fell to my family, and the business faltered. After the plague the family was decimated, until only the youngest Starmare, Bris, was left of his bloodline." There was an almost physical presence in the air as Fëanor paused again. The old elf's face darkened, and Jada could sense the anger roiling off every elf listening.

"Without his family to keep him in line, the spoiled child that had always been in Bris' heart got the better of him." Fëanor continued. "He developed a penchant for questionable women, ill company, and crooks in general. With generations of his family's money at his disposal, Bris slowly attracted a close inner circle of disreputable characters, and began to fancy himself as the head of some ridiculous syndicate. With all the criminals and whores hanging around the estate, the horse business began to suffer even more, until at last I was forced to try and rid myself of the problem."

Fëanor trailed off, his lower lip quivering in anger. No one spoke for several minutes until finally Tolian spoke up. "Bris accused Fëanor of trying to take his family's legacy from him. Kicked us out of the Manor. With an army of cutthroats at his back, there was nothing we could do."

“We must take back the Manor." Fëanor growled. "To restore the Starmare Estate to its former glory, in that family's honor, and we remove the scum that taken residence there..."

[Abenaki]

Amongst the usual crowd of unscrupulous and unsavory characters, Bane stood alone as a singular oddity. He was neither a thief nor a brigand, and neither was he a thug or a wanted man. His presence at Starmare Manor was a mystery to everyone but himself, and Bane never failed to draw stares from the lesser villains who had flocked to Bris Starmare's banner like flies to a corpse...

On this morning, like so many other mornings, the Central Hall was littered with the languid bodies of last night’s revelers. Women and men alike lounged on the floors and benches, nursing headaches induced by large volumes of the beers and wines stored deep below the manor in earthen cellars. Bane strode past, or over, them all as he made a steady beeline for the raised dais at the end of the hall. Upon that dais stood probably one of Starmare Manor's greatest treasures: The Grand One, a massive table crafted from a single and glorious piece of Rywan wood. Large enough to comfortably seat a dozen men per side, the entire table was covered in intricate carvings that represented a visual record of Starmare and Terranus history from the early days on their success. How much the table might weigh, and how much it was undoubtedly worth, were questions that always crossed the necromancer's mind whenever he approached it...

Bris Starmare, patriarch of the Starmare clan, and currently the last of his line, sat slumped over in the high-backed chair at the center of the Grand Table. A half-finished goblet of wine rested precariously on the arm of the chair, Bris' fingers still wrapped around the stem. Gathered around the young elf was his usual entourage of beautiful women, both human and elf, and a smattering of the more noteworthy lawbreakers that had gathered around the Starmare purse strings. Almost casually, Bane pulled up a chair opposite the elf and his companions. Pouring himself a goblet of wine from one of the numerous pitchers littering the table, the necromancer brought the rim of his cup to his nose and inhaled the bouquet appreciatively.

"Another lively party, Master Starmare?" Bane asked hauntingly. His voice could best be described as raspy; a side effect of dealing with several of the more unsavory energies involved in necromancy, and always seemed to hold a tinge of disdain.

"Bane." Bris replied groggily, rising to sit upright in his chair. The elf stretched, cracking his neck audibly, before gulping down the remainder of the wine in his goblet. "How is it that you always arrive so late to the festivities?"

"The drunken antics of crooks, whores, and spoiled nobles hold no interest for me, milord." Was Bane's caustic, condescending reply. The look on Bris' face relayed to the man that his dig had been completely lost on its target. Bris snorted, shifted in his chair, and poured himself another goblet of wine.

"So, what is it that I can do for you?" Bris asked, rubbing his head. "Since the company of my other guests obviously does not interest you, what reason do you have to be here?"

Bane Gesse cracked a seldom seen smile as he took a sip of his own wine. "It's quite simple, Master Starmare." The necromancer replied. "I need access to your dungeon..."

[Abenaki]

They departed an hour after breakfast, twelve Terranus elves and their one human companion setting off from a barren patch of countryside that was decidedly unremarkable from the surrounding area. Utilizing generations of woodland skill, the elves had taken down the camp in record time, scattering the fire and camouflaging the ashes into the soil to eliminate and traces that the camp had ever been there. From here the party would travel light, so the tents and cookware had been packaged and wrapped carefully in woodland netting and stashed safely away under a solitary tree. Carrying a day's rations each, weapons and light armor; the party adopted a quick pace early on, travelling East parallel to the Red Forest.

"How far is it to Starmare Estate?" Jada asked Tolian, who was just to his right. The elves travelled two columns wide, and six rows deep, with one out runner acting as a scout, and the young warrior had ended up paired with the younger Terranus brother for the first leg of the journey.

"Several hours, at least." Tolian almost seemed to shrug as he jogged along, his equipment flowing with his body as he moved. "It all depends on our pace."

Jada mulled over that statement carefully, adjusting the little equipment he carried to better distribute the weight. Keeping pace with the fleet, graceful elves around him was certainly going to prove a difficult task, and the last thing Jada wanted to do was slow the troupe down. "If we maintain our current pace?"

"Late afternoon, early evening." Tolian seemed to mull over the answer for several seconds, finally nodding as if agreeing with his own assessment.

"What happens then?" Was Jada's next question.

"You would have to ask Fëanor that one." Tolian replied. There was a hint of concern in his voice that was unnerving.

"You don't know the plan?" Jada probed deeper, quickly trying to settle the nervous little demons that were already beginning to twitter inside his gut.

Several minutes passed in silence, the Raiaeran terrain passing underfoot in relative obscurity. Off to their side the Red Forest watched them as they passed, the eerie pall that hung over the countryside this close to the haunted blood-colored trees clinging to them like a corporeal gaze. Already Jada was beginning to feel the weight of his pack more heavily as he ran, but he tried not to let his slowly flagging strength show to much this early into the trip. Finally, as though after carefully weighing his next words, Tolian spoke...

"I don't think Fëanor has even contemplated a plan yet." The younger Terranus brother said heavily. "My brother's sole concern is the Estate, but I don't think he has yet entertained the notion that we may have to fight for our lives to wrest it from the grasp of Bris' syndicate. In Fëanor's eyes the criminal element is weak in cowardly, and will flee in the face of a real threat. What my brother fails to realize, however, is that the criminal element is also capable of fighting to the bitter end when the sums of money Bris hold over their heads is concerned..."

[Abenaki]

The door to the dungeons below Starmare Manor was an iron-clad monstrosity wrought of ancient oak and barred with steel. Twin locks, each crafted from titanium, sat snugly in the eyebolts holding the portal firmly shut. The entirety of the door and its stone arch frame was covered in damp, spongy moss, and the stone stairwell reeked of mold and mildew. It was just the sort of environment that Bane Gesse was accustomed to calling home, and the dampness in the air seemed to invigorate the necromancer as it filled his lungs. Eagerly his long, pale fingers peeled away the moss from the locks; cleaning them just enough to get the keys so easily acquired from Bris into the mechanism and open them.

"If only he knew what lay beneath his own home." Bane said aloud to the darkness, tossing the locks carelessly to the floor behind him. The metal pings echoed up and down the narrow stairwell as the dark mage rolled the sleeves of his dark robes up to his elbows and wrapped his hands around the steel bars holding the iron-bound door in place. Earnestly he heaved and pulled on the cold metal, willing it to open. When the steel barring his access to the lowest levels of the Manor held fast, Bane propped one leg up on the side of the stone arch and added the full force of his leg to his efforts. Finger's straining to hold on, muscles long forgotten by years of disuse straining, Bane groaned and redoubled his efforts. Slowly but surely, groaning in protest, the bars started to give. 'Open damn you!' Bane screamed inside his head...

With a loud metallic clang the bars locking the door gave way all at once, swinging wildly open and sending Bane - still heaving mightily against them - flying back onto the staircase with a loud grunt. Taking a moment to catch his breath, the necromancer nursed his ribs gingerly where he had struck the stairs before rising to inspect his work. The steel bars stood open, leaving the door free to be opened. Another one of those seldom seen smiles crossed Bane's lips as he raised the latch and pushed.

Stuck.

'Dammit.' Decades of damp air had expanded the oak beams from which the door was made, sticking it firmly in its stone frame. 'If it's not one thing, it's another.' Bane thought irritably, his ire rising. In the darkness of the stairwell his black robes began to ripple around him as thought they possessed a life of their own. The moist air began to move around the dark mage like a cyclone as Bane gathered his energies. Raising his hand to the center of the door, the necromancer uttered the black words of his craft...

"Hel grind ver-dien moi!"

Bane's already pale and almost skeletal fingers paled considerably, until five points of alabaster pressed themselves against the wood. The dark energies of the Void filled the necromancer's being, and he channeled them into the object blocking his path with practiced skill. Rapidly the ancient oak began to rot and decompose beneath the necromancer's touch. In less than a minute the entire door dissolved into a pile of corrupted and rotted splinters. His anger satiated, Bane Gesse took a moment to himself to recollect his spent energies and to catch his breath. Dealing with the dark energies that were his craft was a trying ordeal, and few could appreciate the weeks of study and practice that went into even a simple spell such as that just performed.

'Soon' Bane thought darkly, his green eyes alive. Hiking up his robes the necromancer stepped over the pile of splinters and descended rapidly down the stairs into the dungeons below Starmare Manor...

[Abenaki]

"You can't be serious!" Tolian snorted. His anger was apparent in his voice, in his eyes, and in his movements; a bull snorting in frustration before the charge.

"I am very serious." Fëanor responded coolly, his tone even and level-headed.

"So you marched us all the way here to have us sit on our thumbs and wait?"

"I marched us out here to rid Starmare of the snakes that have taken up residence there!" Fëanor's voice rose slightly as he rose, standing tall to loom over his brother by inches as the two elves closed in on each other. Their voices and the heat of their ongoing argument was taking its toll on the whole of the Terranus party, with most of the elves clamoring in favor of Fëanor while the rest voiced their support for his brother. Standing alone from the fray, Jada watched the whole feud nervously, mostly because he was at the center of it. "Yet, while that might be our goal, I'll not send my family into the viper's nest unawares!"

"So you would send the boy in alone?" Tolian retorted incredulously. "He'll be slaughtered!"

"Perhaps you don't understand the concept of reconnaissance, brother." Fëanor continued to stare down his brother, laying into him with a stern tongue-lashing. "I'm not sending Jada in there to fight, anymore than I would send you in there to hand out sweets and entertain them with song. The boy goes in, verifies Bris' numbers, evaluates their armaments, and then comes back out."

"Really, dear brother? And how do you expect him to do that? Shall he waltz right in and request that Bris' army of miscreants line up nicely to be counted and inspected?" Tolian countered.

"You can be truly dense, do you know that Tolian?" Fëanor's shoulder slumped, his anger subsiding in the obvious face of misunderstanding. "Bris has turned Starmare Manor into a veritable boarding house for his quote, unquote syndicate. I don't foresee much difficulty in someone of Jada's appearance posing as a malcontent and being free to walk around the manor grounds and mingle with other malcontents." Fëanor turned to Jada with a slightly apologetic expression. "No offense."

Jada shrugged. "No-"

"So you send him because he's a human? Because he's a little scruffier around the edges that your elven kin?" Tolian interrupted. The longer this argument seemed to drag on, the more and more the other Terranus elves were drifting away from Tolian or the encounter all together. Fëanor's plan was beginning to come to light to the rest of the party, and while it was albeit very different from the night-attack, direct assault plan many of the elves had seemed to be expecting, it was certainly not a bad plan.

Fëanor sighed. "Perhaps, but who should I send if not Jada? Should I send you brother? Or perhaps my son? Perhaps one of our further relations? That would be a grand ruse, wouldn't it, sending a Terranus elf into the manor to spy on a Starmare. Bris could pick any one of us out of a crowd in an instant, and you can bet he's probably warned his captains to be wary of elves, fearing our retribution."

For the first time in several minutes Tolian didn't have a ready retort, and was left scowling at his older brother. It was apparent to Jada at least that the inner-machinations of Tolian's mind were beginning to work against him as the generally sound logic of his brother's plan sunk in. The look on the younger elf's face was one of embarrassed defeat, and suddenly the whole confrontation seemed silly.

"Fine," Tolian sighed, shoulders slumped, "Jada will go in alone, provided he's willing. He may not be family, but I won't send the boy in if he's not comfortable doing so."

Both brothers turned in unison toward Jada, their eyes questioning. The other elves sat around uninterested, having apparently decided to leave the planning and final decision making to the eldest two Terranus family members. The unexpected break from their travels had also seemed to evolve from an argument over Fëanor's plan of approach into something of a lunch break, judging from the number of elves fishing around in their small packs for food.

Jada took it all in carefully, shifting from foot to foot as he went over what he'd gleaned of the plan in his head. It was dangerous, to be sure, going into Starmare Manor alone. Were he to be found out, or were he to slip up unintentionally, death would almost certainly be his punishment. On the other hand, the information he stood to gather from such an incursion into the enemy camp would certainly prove invaluable in the small Terranus party's bid to reclaim the estate.

"How far is it to Starmare Manor?" He asked finally. His tone and inflexion of the response was such that it seemed less like a question and more like an answer in the positive to Fëanor and Tolian's silent question...

[Abenaki]

Several centuries ago an entrepreneurial young architect had deliberately designed the dungeon below Starmare Manor to be a confusing labyrinth of stone arches and short passageways. The prevailing theory of the day had been that a prisoner who could not recollect how to find the exit of his prison would be less inclined to try and escape. Unfortunately the theory had been thoroughly debunked by the prisoners, whose eagerness to escape was unquestionable, and who had turned the prison's design against itself.

It turns out that labyrinths had a nearly limitless number of places to hide from passing guards...

"Who would have thought?" Bane said irritably, to no one in particular. The necromancer's only companion, aside from the long decayed corpses still occupying several locked cells, was a small orb of light hovering obediently over his shoulder. Casting a pale white glow haphazardly into the gloom of the sublevel, the orb did little to help Bane see in the darkness, and more to remind the necromancer that even the simplest of spells required constant practice to get right.

"It's too bad the architect of this place is buried in Eluriand." Bane carried on as he rounded yet another dead-end corner. His pale hand came up to slap flatly against the damp stone to catch himself before walking straight into the barrier, and his eyes closed in frustration. "If I could, I would raise his corpse and smite him myself for devising this maze." Turning around to head back the way he came, Bane Gesse mentally added a short side trip to the Raiaeran capital onto his to-do list...

With no sunlight penetrating his stone surroundings, and with no other method of judging the time, Bane could only measure his time spent wandering the dungeon's corridors by the frustration growing in his gut. It could be anytime between mid-morning and early evening, for all he knew, but judging by his ire it was easy to decide that too much time had been wasted.

"Where do you think it is?" Bane asked his glowing orb casually, as if the little ball of light were an old friend. The light wavered slightly in response, shuddering to a halt in the air as the necromancer sat down heavily on an ancient wooden bench. The thick, rotted wood creaked in protest under his weight, his ass likely the first to grace the bench's surface in more than three hundred years.

Closing his eyes, his head tilting back against the wall behind him, Bane settled in to think...

Histories long forgotten came rushing up like a tide when summoned; information absorbed during months of laborious study in the libraries of Velicë Arta. It was the sort of information that was hard to come by, and that had taken a precise combination of time, resources, and luck to acquire...


The year is CWD 5002, and the forces of the Tel Aglarim have won the battle of Niadath. Enarlin is broken, the last of its magi are being hunted down as their schools burn. Most of the major power players of the Sixth School have already perished in the conflict while trying to protect their craft, but several minor bards remain. These bards, without the guidance of their superiors, are left to fend for themselves.

Knowing full well the fates that hang low over their heads, these bards decided first and foremost that the High Bard Council must not succeed in completely eradicating Enarlin from the world. Several artifacts of vital importance to their school are secreted away from the places of learning before the Tel Aglarim put them to the torch, and these relics are scattered to the four winds in the hopes that they may escape the cleansing fires. Which artifacts are taken, and which perish, is not cataloged by either the Enarlin or the Tel Aglarim, but it should be safe to assume that those artifacts saved are those most valuable to the school's fundamental principles...

-Excerpt from Elian's Histories, Vol XII
Regarding Coronari a Winyar Dacilea - War of the Six Schools


"Artifacts like the Black Harp..." Bane whispered almost reverently as he came out of his reverie. The almost picture-perfect images of the pages he had absorbed during his studies sank back into the depths of his mind as he rose up from the bench and rearranged his robes carefully. Years of careful studying, searching, and researching had led the necromancer to this point. His ultimate prize, one of the lost artifacts of the now dead school of Enarlin, was within his grasp. He could almost feel its magic calling to him like a voice on the air, and Bane knew in his heart as well as his mind that it was here...

'The world be damned if it's not here.' The necromancer thought darkly. Then, after a second’s pause he mused aloud, "Of course, the world will be damned if it is..."

[Abenaki]

Just breathe. Jada commanded himself mentally. His body was stiff, his steps mechanical and forced as he strode openly across the flat grassy clearing on the outskirts of the manor. His only cover was a maze of post-beam fencing that once kept prized horses from wandering to far from the stables, and as he approached the Manor the squirming in his gut became even more intense. Just breathe. His mind repeated, fighting the desperate urge to turn around and flee.

"You'll be fine." Fëanor's last words of encouragement before Jada had taken his leave of the Terranus party came floating back on the wind. "Just relax, be vulgar, and act dumb. You do that and you'll fit right in with the kind of scum Bris keeps on hand."

"Easy for you to say." Jada said out loud as he neared the first of the outer buildings. "You don't have to go in there."

Neither do you. The warrior thought suddenly. What harm is it to me if I were to turn around and walk away from all of this right now? Forget the Starmares, forget the Terranus, and forget the House. You could walk away from this mess right now, leave Raiaera, and you would be no better or no worse for wear. It would be like you never joined the House of Sora and agreed to this foolish initiation mission in the first place...

Except it wouldn't be like that. Jada's heart interjected. Like the voices in his head he had come to name after different motivations, Jada's heart and his mind often disagreed with one another when it came down to important decisions. The mind was always calculating, weighing the odds and determining the risk/reward factor in every situation. Often at risk these days was Jada's own body and well-being, something the mind had a particular interest in keeping intact and healthy, and the rewards didn't always seem worth the trouble. The warrior's heart, on the other hand, had a particular interest in guiding Jada's actions based on how it would make the warrior feel. Fëanor and Tolian are counting on you to do this. You came here because the House told you to, but you didn't agree to do this because it would benefit the House. You agreed to do it because it would benefit your friends...

Jada was surprised at just how close to the Manor's support buildings he came before anyone even noticed his presence. From the way Fëanor had described the state of things, the warrior had expected armed guards to be patrolling every inch of the estate, waiting for the first signs of attack. Instead he was greeted by a half-hearted wave from a man sitting sullenly in the grass just outside the perimeter of the Manor's inner grounds.

"How do?" Was all the man said, not rising from his spot. He was a skinny man, skinnier than any man should be by Jada's reasoning, and had a long unkempt beard hanging down to his chest. Most notably, the man was unarmed, and didn't seem the least bit interested in stopping Jada.

"I'm well." Jada replied politely. The roiling turmoil in his guts subsided considerably as his nervous fears were somewhat diminished. "What are you doing?" He asked the man, stopping several yards away.

"Eh, just keeping the watch." Scraggly Beard replied in a friendly tone.

"All by yourself?"

"Sure." The man reached into the grass, and for a second Jada tensed, waiting. What the man picked up wasn't a weapon though, but an earthenware jug, which he put to his lips before taking a long swig of the contents. "Everyone else is passed out and dumb-drunk from Master Bris' party last night."

Jada soaked up every word the man said, storing away the information for later. "You weren't invited to the party?" He asked the man, prodding for more.

Scraggly Beard laughed, a cackling noise that rattled in the skeletal chest beneath his beard. "I'm a little too old for parties, young man." He chided playfully. "Maybe when I was in my prime I could keep up with those scoundrels, but not these days."

"So you just...keep watch?"

"Not many career opportunities for an old thief." Scraggly Beard shrugged, taking another pull off his jug. "Master Bris pays well enough. Some coin and drink to sit in his fields and keep an eye out. Pretty easy work though, seeing as you're the first new person I've seen 'round these parts in a week's time."

Jada looked around, trying to appear casual as checked to make sure no one was sneaking up on him. Scraggly Beard painted a very different picture of the situation at Starmare Manor than the image Jada had formed in his mind's eye. In his head Starmare Manor was a fortress of murderers and rapists armed to the teeth and thirsty for blood, headed by a paranoid and power-hungry young elven lord. Instead, Jada had stumbled across what was essentially a boarding house full of drunken revelers guarded by a lone, unarmed, old man...

"What's your name, traveler?" Scraggly Beard asked with a raised eyebrow, standing up slowly.

"Jada."

"Nice to meet you, Jada." Scraggly Beard said, stepping closer and reaching out his hand. "You can call me Popcorn, or Pop for short."

"Nice to meet you, Popcorn." Jada replied, taking the man's hand in greeting and shaking it firmly. The young warrior did his best not to smile in amusement at the man's odd name, but still cracked a slight smile. As he shook Popcorn's hand, Jada had an idea...

“Do you think you could show me around?”

[Abenaki]

After hours of frustrated searching in the dark halls of the dungeon, he found it; a small trapdoor cleverly disguised as a floor rug in one of the guard offices. A couple hundred years ago anyone in the office might have walked right over it and never known that it was there, but a couple of centuries of cool, damp atmosphere had taken its toll on both the rug and the wooden door beneath it.

Reaching down, Bane grabbed the outside edge of the half-disintegrated carpet covering and pulled up. A ripping noise filled the room as the material came off the wooden door, the glue that might have once held the rug firmly in place mostly gone with age. Like the door to the dungeon itself, the trapdoor was bloated and stuck from untold years in the damp. Bane inspected the door, weighing his options carefully even as the excitement inside him grew to giddy proportions...

'All those years of sifting information. All those years of following dead end leads and tall tales.' The usually non-existent smile was now plastered across the necromancer's face, his eyes alight with glee. 'It's my destiny.' He thought. 'Destiny had finally led me to this place...'

The smaller trapdoor suffered the same fate as the dungeon's portal, literally dissolving beneath the feverishly excited magi's necrotic touch. In seconds the door rotted into little pieces and collapsed down into the hole it covered, unleashing the most horrendous and overpowering stench any living soul could imagine. Clutching his long black sleeves over his burning nostrils, Bane reeled back in disgust, all at once petrified that he might have come this far only to be killed by some poisonous trap...

‘Fool!’ He thought, terrified. ‘Of course they would booby-trap the hiding place of something as powerful as the Harp!’

After a few moments of huddling miserably in the hall, trying not to retch into the fabric of his robe, Bane's fears of poison subsided. Other than the roiling in his gut, there seemed to be no symptoms: no delusions, no light-headedness, no sudden burning or freezing sensations, and no blood rushing from his ears and nose. There was nothing but the desperate urge to vomit and the awful stench wafting out of the black hole in the center of the office floor. Venturing to stand up, Bane stepped gingerly to the edge of the cavity and peered down, trying his best not to inhale through his nose.

'Feces...'

Eight to ten feet below him, accessible by a short ladder, was the sewage system of Starmare Manor. The realization made Bane's stomach turn, even as he stumbled to the closest wall and vomited violently in the corner. The reek of his own bile was a refreshing breath of clean air compared to the stink in the room, and he was glad for it, despite the acids burning his throat raw. For several moments the necromancer crouched wretchedly in the corner, heaving his breakfast onto the floor. Even when there was nothing left to come up he kept heaving. His whole body was shaking like a leaf, and his arms and legs felt weak. Here was a man who had devoted his life to studying and reanimating the deceased and decaying flesh of his peers, and not even that could have prepared him for the century’s worth of sewage amassed right below his feet.

It took several more minutes for Bane's stomach to settle, and for the necromancer to regain some measure of his composure. Reaching into one of the many hidden pockets in his robe, he pulled out several leaves of mint that were usually reserved for spell components. Pinching the fragrant leaves between his fingers, Bane shoved the greens as far into his nostrils as he could manage before standing up and slowly making his way back to the hole for a second time. With his urge to throw up thoroughly satiated, and with the mint overpowering his sense of smell, Bane managed to make a better second attempt at studying the hole than before, this time even managing to squat down near it and peer around.

Directly below the office there seemed to be a wide depository for the Manor's wastes, and there were several narrow tunnels that seemed to spider off from the main chamber. With no plans or maps to reference, the necromancer figured as best he could that both the office and the chamber below were somewhere directly beneath the main manor house, with chutes running up through the walls to the several latrines in the living quarters above the old keep.

'It would certainly be the safest place to hide something you don't want found.' Bane thought miserably. The very notion of climbing down the ladder and into the excrement below to continue his search made him want to vomit all over again, but there were few other options. He had scoured the entire dungeon, and this trapdoor into the sewers was the only way out other than the door he had come in by. 'Maybe I was wrong.' He thought hopefully. 'Maybe the Harp was never here. Maybe I overlooked something in my research...'

The doubts in his head were all fictitious though, meant only to give him some reason to not descend into the horror awaiting him. Yet, no matter how many times he tried to make up a reason not to, Bane found himself slowly stripping down to the common clothes he wore under his robe. There was a large portion of his life's work invested in this search, and there was no way he was going to allow a few centuries worth of elven feces dissuade him from seeing it through to the end.

'I have to be out of my own mind.' Bane thought as he lowered a leg into the hole and onto the first rung of the ladder. The knowledge of what he was about to do almost made him want to cry, but he bit his lower lip and mounted the ladder anyways. 'I swear, if that Harp isn't down here, I'm going to kill myself...' He decided, stepping down the ladder and into the pit below...

[Abenaki]

"And that over there is the serf quarters..." Popcorn rambled on waving his hand in the general direction of several small buildings. The 'serf quarters' were squat, long buildings that were very reminiscent of the longhouses the Kokopelli built in the winter time to protect themselves against the cold. Thinking of the longhouses suddenly made Jada very homesick, but he tried to put those thoughts aside and focus on the task at hand as he followed his new friend in and around the grounds of Starmare Manor.

Popcorn, for as old as he was, was full of energy and eager pointed out everything they came across on the grand tour. His mouth was constantly moving beneath his long, scraggly beard, but Jada was only half-paying attention most of the time. He wasn't really interested in how many horses that barn 'over there' could hold, or how many kegs of beer were in 'that' storehouse. He was most interested in the people they passed along the way...

For the most part, everyone they passed seemed to be human, like he and Popcorn. Despite being in the middle of Raiaera, the whole Manor seemed to be swamped with the ratty, tattooed, and unwashed variety of Jada's own race, and from the Terranus elves point of view, Jada could see why they had decided to abandon their posts here. That there were few enough elves around the Manor grounds was just one of the things the warrior made a mental note of as he followed Popcorn, the others being how many people they passed, how many were armed, and how many were drunk. That last one seemed to be an especially important statistic, right up there with how many were armed, since it appeared that about half of the Manor's current population was living in an extended state of inebriation.

Fëanor's elves will make short work of this lot. Jada thought confidently. There are more wine bottles than there are swords...

His new found confidence put pep in the warrior's step that hadn't been there before. For a while, with all of his preconceived notions based on Fëanor and Tolian's stories, Jada had begun to worry about the consequences of failure on this mission. The House of Sora, and organization he barely knew, and barely belonged too, was counting on him to establish good contacts with the Terranus elves, and to help them get the Starmare horse trade back up and running. The Terranus elves, whom he had grown closer to over their short journey, were counting on him to bring them back useful information they could use to storm the Manor. Most important, though, was the voice in the back of the warrior's head, reminding him that Raiaera was not the Citadel, and that failure out here had stiffer consequences than in that magical place...

"And that's pretty much it." Popcorn said finally, coming to a halt in front of the double doors that seemed to lead straight into the largest building on the grounds. It would seem prudent to assume that this was the famed Starmare Manor, and that inside Bris and his inner circle of cronies was waiting.

"Thank you very much." Jada said to the old man, giving him a friendly pat on the back. Popcorn flashed a smile and nodded appreciatively.

"Always glad to help." Popcorn replied. There was a moment’s pause, and then the old man stood up a bit straighter and put his shoulders back as if stretching. "Well," he said with a bit of a sigh, "I should probably head back to my post. You're welcome to go inside and see Master Bris if you'd like. I'm sure he ain't opposed to new blood joining his party."

Jada mulled over the idea of setting foot inside the Manor for a few seconds before replying. "Nda, I think I'll look around a bit more before introducing myself." He replied. It was a lie of course, with his having no intention of meeting with Bris before quickly taking his leave of this place. From what he had seen on his expertly guided tour around the Manor, Jada was confident that he could report back his companions without wasting much more time.

"Eh, suit yourself. You know where to find me."

With that Popcorn ambled off back towards the field where Jada had first approached the Manor, taking his earthenware jug of booze with him. Jada thought he could hear the man muttering to himself happily as he went, and could only shake his head.

I'll have to warn Fëanor that no harm should come to the old man standing watch. the warrior thought. He kept an eye on the funny old man until Popcorn disappeared around the corner of a far building, and then turned and made his way around the Manor house towards the opposite side of the estate. With Popcorn keeping watch, he would have to circle around the long way back to the Terranus camp to avoid suspicion. Take care. Jada silently wished as he took his leave of estate, circling north and then back east to work his way back to Fëanor and the others...

[Abenaki]

Slogging through excrement up to his knees was a sensation that constantly grinded on Bane's every nerve as he struggled desperately to press on. Already he had lost his boots to suction beneath the surface, and every muscle in his legs burned from the exertion it took to keep moving. It was a sensation similar to wading through a muddy bog, except that in the back of his head he was constantly being reminded that the mud squelching between his toes was actually someone's shit...

The cantrip light hovering over the necromancer's shoulder glowed dimly, illuminating the swampy brown mess below and the stone ceiling above. The walls were earthen, with a sporadic stone column here and there to support the weight of the building above. From the looks of his surrounding, Bane judged that the Manor must be sitting heavily atop the bedrock; otherwise the few stone pillars jutting up out of the stinky morass would have shattered long ago under the weight of the Manor. Reaching that conclusion, Bane almost wished the pillars would shatter, right now, and that the whole Manor would come crashing down atop his head. At least then he wouldn't have to think about his current predicament...

'Why couldn't the Harp be stashed in a cave somewhere?' The necromancer thought wishfully as he entered one of the narrow offshoots from the main chamber. He might have said it out loud were it not for the fear of getting waste matter in his mouth, so instead he kept his thoughts silent. 'Why not in the treasure trove of some dragon? I would fight a dragon, absolutely...'

And so he went on like that, constantly muttering to himself inside his head. It was a continuous narration on the pros and cons of hiding the Harp with a dragon vs. hiding it in a sewer. Dragons, as big and powerful as they could be, never seemed to be short on bright-eyed adventurers wandering into their lairs willing to do battle. Fire, claws, and magic were all very dangerous things, and yet not many people seemed to take issue with picking a fight with a monstrous reptile over some gold. In that sense, Bane supposed that hiding an object as valuable as a lost Enarlin relic in a sewer made sense. Because honestly, who would pick slogging through knee deep elf-crap over fighting a dragon?

As ridiculous and zany as his narration got, the constant babbling inside Bane's head was helping. It helped him keep his mind off the reality of what he was doing, much like the mint in his nose helped keep his mind off the smell. It couldn't be said that the necromancer wasn't a driven and resourceful individual, especially when he was so close to achieving his dream. Were it not for the sucking noise of his legs pulling through the muck, or his labored breathing rattling through chest, Bane could have sworn he'd hear the music of the Harp floating on the air...

Stone steps rose up out of the muck at the end of the narrow passage, and Bane climbed them hastily, heaving a great sigh of relief as his feet came clear of the gross morass and he could walk easily once more. He momentarily wished there was some form or running water down here by which he could wash the mess from his feet and from between his toes, but ambition quickly dismissed all thoughts other than his goal. He was close enough now that he could feel the magic in his veins humming along to some mystical tune, his body reinvigorated and refreshed by some unknown source. His feet seemed to literally skim the floor as he made his way around a corner and down a stone hall. Gone were the earthen walls, once more replaced by stone and mortar, and it was obvious that no one had tread in this place for eons. Dust and spider webs were all that stood in his way now, and after enduring a decade of waiting and a sewer of poo, they were nothing...

The hall opened up into a small, round chamber illuminated by a glowing orb in the center. Bookshelves and iron-bound chests lined the walls all the way around the circumference of the room, and each shelf was stacked with books and scrolls. It was obvious that the parchment hadn't fared well in the air down in this place, as most of the books were sagging in their bindings, and the scrolls were flat and wrinkled. The glow from the orb was neither bright nor dim, but kept everything in an even light. Almost without having to think about it, Bane Gesse dismissed his own light and strode slowly towards the orb in the center of the room.

'This is it.' He thought, suddenly afraid. Everything he had worked for, not as a necromancer, but as a mage, culminated in this moment. His life spent studying the inner workings of life and death had taken its first major detour in the libraries of the elven Capital, when a lowly human such as himself had deciphered the riddles in the histories that other could not. 'This is my destiny.' He thought, reverently reaching out to place his hands on the glowing ball in front of him. As soon as his palm touched the cool, glassy surface of the orb, all the light in the room immediately vanished, replaced by a low humming noise. Bane's fingertips lit up like ten blue flames in the darkness as the energy inside the orb shot through him like a conduit.

"It is my destiny!" Bane shouted into the darkness, as his fingers melted through the orb and opened his world to the secret treasure within...

[Abenaki]

Jada returned to Starmare Manor that same evening, under the cover of darkness and accompanied by a dozen armed escorts. In the dim light the elves resembled wraiths floating silently across the Raiaeran landscape. No one spoke a word, and every command was just a sharp gesture of the hand. Every weapon was fire-darkened to eliminate the tell tale glint of metal, and every buckle was padded with strips of cloth to silence the jingle of armor. Most wore studded-leather jerkins with dark caps, dark pants, and padded boots. At their belts hung a variety of weapons, but each elf currently held a bow lovingly in their hands, crow-fletched arrows already notched.

They ran free-form, each warrior choosing his own path over the small rises and dips in the terrain as they approached the oddly dark Manor ahead. Jada would have assumed that as night fell, more and more lights would have appeared on the horizon; dots of yellow light from the windows of illuminated chambers. Instead there were only a handful of illuminations, not the many that a fully populated estate should have had...

"They're all gathered in the main hall, likely." Tolian whispered over Jada's shoulder as they ran along. The elf's voice startled the warrior slightly, for so stealthy was the Terranus brother on his feet that Jada hadn't even realized he was there. "From what you gathered, Bris likes to celebrate his popularity, so we'll probably discover a hall of drunken idiots on our arrival."

"Makes sense." Jada whispered back. He didn't look back, fearing that he might trip over some unseen obstacle on the ground, but the short grunt he heard in response told the warrior that Tolian had heard him. If they are all in the hall, then there wouldn't really be a need to have the whole manor house lit up...

As they reached the first rows of fences along the outskirts of the estate, Fëanor's hand shot up into the air like a beacon, and all the elves slowed to a halt in unison. The way they all took note, even those farthest away, of each signal without missing a beat spoke to years of practiced efficiency, and Jada's confidence grew with each display of tactile precision. Coming up next to the eldest Terranus, Jada crouched down to peer through the beams of the fence as Fëanor scanned the nearby buildings.

"Your friend, he's nearby?" Fëanor whispered quietly.

"Over there." Jada pointed through the fence towards a black huddled mass sitting beneath the eaves of the closest stable. Popcorn it seemed was a man of habit, as he hadn't moved from the place where Jada had originally met him.

"Tolian!" Fëanor's whisper rose to almost a hiss, just loud enough to get his brothers attention. The younger brother glanced over quickly, checked his surroundings, and then carefully sidled over to where they crouched.

"What?"

"Go check on Jada's acquaintance." Fëanor pointed out the same black shape standing out against the side of the stable building that Jada had. "If he's asleep, or drunk, we'll just sneak by and not worry about him. If he's awake we'll have to send Jada in to get him to move."

"Why don't I just go?" Jada asked quietly.

"It will be easier to just leave your friend be if he's already asleep." Fëanor explained carefully. "I don't need to worry about Tolian waking him as he approaches."

Jada shrugged, accepting the older elf's judgment without questioning it further. While their methods weren't always those that he himself would have chosen, the Terranus elves had demonstrated enough reliability thus far that it was easier just not to push the issue. As he kept quiet, Tolian slipped through the beams of the fence like a ghost, zigzagging silently across the field towards the stable. Several times along the way they could see the elf's shadowy figure pause long enough to observe his surroundings before moving on. These pauses rarely lasted longer than a few seconds, so when Tolian paused just several feet from Popcorn's shadow for several minutes, it was alarmingly obvious that something was amiss...

"What's he doing?" Jada whispered, leaning closer to Fëanor so as to keep his voice quieter than normal. All of a sudden there was a tension on the air that hadn't been there before; a strange pall that made everyone uncomfortable. Every eye was trained on Tolian's figure in the grass several dozen meters away.

"I don't know." Fëanor replied slowly, concerned. "He's just sitting there, watching."

"Is he injured or something?" Jada pressed. According to the elves, their nighttime vision was vastly superior to that of a human, so the warrior was interested in knowing what Fëanor could see that he could not.

"No, he's just watching. Your friend looks like he's asleep, but I can't make him out very clearly..."

Tolian crept forward several feet, and there was a collective expectant inhalation from the entire group watching him. Again a pause, but this time the figure that seemed to belong to Popcorn started to rise slowly, like he was aware something was watching him. Then, in an instant, Tolian moved, and the sound of an arrow striking a fleshly target whipped across the silent field.

"No!" Jada almost yelped as Popcorn's figure collapsed onto the ground. Tolian rose to stand over the lump before firing two more arrows, point-blank, into the form. By now the entire party was rushing forward to aid their friend, except for Jada, who was rushing forward angrily.

Before they reached him, Tolian raised his hands in Jada's direction knowingly. "I certainly hope this isn't your friend." The elf called out as softly as he could while still being heard.

On the ground at Tolian's feet lay the corpse of an old man with one arrow in his throat and two in his chest. Thick, coagulated blood stained the scraggly beard and the man's shirt. That's Popcorn. Jada thought angrily. But what in the name of the Spirit happened to him?

"Sweet mercy!" One of the elves exclaimed, pointing. "Look at his eyes!"

Popcorn's eyes were the color of blood, with no other color and no pupil. The man's skin was pulled back taunt over the bone, like his body had been drying in the sun for days, and his hair was stiff and brittle like straw. Something in the last few hours had warped the friendly old man Jada had met early this same day into some grotesque corpse.

"He looks like he's been dead for days..." Jada muttered. "But I saw him just a few hours ago..."

"I noticed something was off when I got close to him." Tolian said to Fëanor in particular as he reached down to pull his arrow out of Popcorn's throat. "He wasn't moving at all, and there was no sound of breathing, but I could feel him watching me. And when I saw those eyes open at last, that's when I knew."

"Undead." Fëanor shook his head in disbelief, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. "Somehow I doubt Jada would have missed something as obvious as that when he was here earlier."

"Well then what the hell happened here?" One of the elves in the back asked urgently.

"Who knows?" Tolian shrugged, yanking an arrow free of the corpse's chest. "But I get the feeling we're going to find out."

[Abenaki]

There was only one word to describe the power Bane Gesse felt flowing through his body whenever he held the Black Harp in his arms, and that word was Awesome. The sensation of it was softer than the touch of any woman, more satisfying than the richest meal, and more intoxicating than the strongest drink. It was a sensation that gave the necromancer the sense that as long as the Black Harp was tucked safely in the crook of his arm, there was no feat beyond his abilities...

A small army of silent watchers eyed their master warily from across the room, their faces devoid of emotion. Bris Starmare was amongst the crowd, the young elven lord kneeling obediently on the floor along the far wall with the rest of his mindless rabble. He had fallen just as easy as the others when Bane had burst into the Great Hall to test his newfound power...

'So easy.' Bane thought gleefully, lounging comfortably in Bris' chair up on the dais. 'It was so easy to corrupt them all and bend them to my will.'

With the Harp acting as a potent focus for his already adept craft, the necromancer had stalked up and down the halls of Starmare Manor happily dispatching and turning anyone unfortunate to cross his path. Thieves, murders, nobles, and serfs alike fell before him like a wave of humanity, only to arise improved and perfected in death. 'And they are just the start.' Bane thought, arrogantly. 'With my prize in hand I'll raise a host the likes of which hasn't been seen since the time of Xem'zûnd..."

The necromancer laughed; a jagged, hoarse noise that split the silence in the Great Hall. It was a sound that went unheard for years at a time, and was renowned for its ability to aggravate even the nerves of the undead. It was a sound that only escaped Bane's lips in times of great triumph...

And yet...

With all his plans of grandeur and conquest, there was one thought that had nestled itself into the back of the mage's mind and stuck there, irritating him to no end. It was the knowledge that no matter how powerful he might be at this precise moment, the power that remained unavailable to him was astronomical by comparison. The Black Harp was an instrument of Enarlin, perhaps one of the most wondrous relics of that school still to exist, and yet he could not play it. Bane knew that the greatest potential of his prize lay in the strings, but he also knew that only a master Enarlin bard would even dare to strum those silvery chords. Were he, with his current abilities, to even attempt a tune would mean his undoing, and likely the undoing of everything around him as well...

"My first stop will be Istien University." The necromancer decided out loud, his army of undead followers turning towards his voice as he spoke. "There I will find the knowledge I require to unlock the greatest power all the world has ever known!"

[Abenaki]

With the image of Popcorn's corrupted body still lingering in their minds, the Terranus party proceeded at a much slower pace than they might have otherwise. The quiet confidence that had been almost omnipresent coming into the outskirts of the manor grounds was now permeated by a certain degree of apprehension, and it made them all especially wary. A dozen pairs of eyes scanned the dark outlines of every building and every fence as they slowly approached the main house, and a dozen arrows strained their bowstrings expectantly.

"Keep close to me." Fëanor whispered to Jada as they crept around the corner of the serf's quarters and into the small square in front of the manor. Thirty paces from where they stood, across the flagstones, were the large double doors that Jada had stood before just hours ago, a still living Popcorn by his side. It seemed so nightmarish to imagine what could have caused such a profound change in this place, and the worried squirming in the warrior's gut was making a profound return.

His knuckles white with the strain of his grip on each weapon, Jada followed the elf as he hugged the wall of the building around the outside of the square. Behind him came several others, while the rest of the party entered the square from the opposite side of the serf's quarters and approached the doors from the other side. Single file they made their way to the door, Fëanor on one side of the entrance, Tolian on the other. Both brothers eased into the overhanging arch over the door, and took hold of the large iron rings on the double doors.

"Ready?" Tolian whispered.

"As I'll ever be." Fëanor replied dryly. The elf's grip tightened and both brothers pulled back. Their strong shoulder bulged with effort, and the twin manor doors swung slowly open, the old hinges squealing in protest. In the silence of the night, that squealing was like a dread beacon streaking out across the manor grounds to alert anyone, and anything, to their presence.

"Moh'dze" Jada muttered to himself. He'd found himself cursing more and more often since leaving home, probably because he had more and more to curse about.

For a second nothing happened, and then nothing happened some more. The night was again silent and still but for the careful shifting of the elves as they trained their bows on the darkness around the square. From inside the manor came a soft orange glow of fires illuminating the inner hall, and more silence. The tension in the air was almost palpable, and uneasiness rapidly set in...

"It's very rude not to knock."

Complete and total surprise registered itself across every face in the Terranus party as a black robed figure materialized out of the night air to stand amongst them. Where not a second before there had been nothing, a man now stood, his black hood pulled low over his face.

"Who are you?" Fëanor snapped, the first to overcome his surprise long enough to respond. The black robed stranger smiled coyly, the pearly white crescent of his teeth the only thing visible under the shadow of his hood.

"I'm not going to waste your time with my name." The robed man replied casually. There was a hint of glee in his voice that put Jada off, frightening him. "You'll be dead before you can use it."

"Kill the cocky bastard!" Tolian snapped before his brother could respond. A dozen bows came up; a dozen black arrowheads trained on the robed stranger standing in their midst. Jada noticed almost instantly that the quarter-moon smile was still plastered all over the man's face, but before he could say anything a dozen twangs hummed through the air as a dozen deadly points let fly. Every arrow was perfectly aimed, but each and every one whipped through the robed man as if he were made of fog, with several arrows finding new targets in their Terranus peers on opposite sides of the archway.

The screams of confused, wounded Terranus elves ripped through the night air as the entire party dissolved in chaos. The black robed stranger was gone, vanished into thin air almost as quickly as he had appeared. Fëanor and Tolian both dashed for their injured family members who kneeled or lay bleeding on the ground. A couple had their kin's own shafts buried in their thighs, one had it in the belly, and one other lay motionless with a black-feathered arrow protruding from his eye. From his position on the right side of the doorway, Jada watched the whole scene as if witnessing a bad dream. What is going on here? the warrior wondered, his mind scrambling. First Popcorn, and now this?

[Abenaki]

"Fools." Bane smile smugly as he opened his eyes, his corporeal body still seated comfortable in its chair atop the dais. The screams of wounded elves filtered into the end of the Great Hall from the passageway outside, adding a morbid atmosphere to the hall. The necromancer admired the cries of pain carefully, listening to them as a music aficionado would admire a symphony.

The appearance of the strange band of elves didn't seem to weight very heavily on the new lord of Starmare Manor as he rose from his seat and strode confidently around the massive Rywan table. Stepping down off the dais, he made his way towards the kneeling undead lining the far wall. The blank stares of his servants followed him steadily as he approached. Hugging the Black Harp a bit closer to his chest, Bane stopped before his host and scanned over them. 'Let's see how my creations fare against a few elves.' The necromancer thought confidently.

"Go!" Bane shouted, pointing a bony white finger towards the door. "Show me what you can do!"

It took several seconds for the first of the zombies to shudder to life, slowly rising to its feet. Others followed in getting up off the floor and staggering towards the door. Soon enough a short column of undead was forcing its way through the small door at the end of the hall, pushing out into the hall and towards the front of the Manor.

"I think perhaps I need refine my army." Bane mused as he watched several undead try to push through the door at once. Once learned, the ability to raise the dead became almost routinely mundane to any serious necromancer. The problem with that core ability, however, was that the resulting creatures were notoriously simple-minded. 'Perhaps now, with the Black Harp to augment my powers, I can work on creating a smarter breed of undead.'

[Abenaki]

Fëanor was crying, kneeling next to the body of his fallen kin. Tolian was frothing at the mouth, screaming in a violent rage. Other Terranus elves were scrambling to aid their injured fellows, their voices broken as they tried to reassure the injured, each wondering in the back of their minds if it was their arrow in their brother, cousin, or father. And as a backdrop to it all was the shuffling and moaning of the encroaching undead...

Run! Jada's mind was screaming for his feet to move, but they were planted firmly in fear. His white-knuckled grip was so tight around the shafts of his weapons that his fingers were going numb. The undead were something entirely unfamiliar to him, and the sight of those shambling corpses moving steadily down the corridor towards him made Jada's blood run cold. I shouldn't be here. He was thinking. I should never have come here!

An arrow went whizzing over Jada's shoulder, burying itself to the fletching in the first zombie's neck. Thick, brackish blood gurgled and oozed from the wound, splashing down over the corpse's chest and adding a whole new dimension to Jada's revulsion. The first arrow was quickly followed by a second, and then a third as a few of the Terranus elves not involved with helping their peers collected themselves enough to mount a defense of the manor archway.

"Out of the way!" Someone shouted, the voice jolting Jada into action. Ducking to avoid the friendly-fire, he scrambled safely to one side of the passageway just inside the double doors. Crouching down to one knee he watched in abject terror the approaching tide of undead, a growing throng of arrows buried in the front line. One after another the arrows came streaking through the doorway, knocking their targets to a halt with their in-flight momentum. That was all they seemed to do, however, as the undead shuddered back into motion almost as quickly as they were stopped, pressing forward with a resolve only the undead could possibly possess.

"Swords!" Tolian screamed from outside, the hail of arrows ceasing as the undead kept advancing. Several lay motionless on the passageway floor, slowing the clumsy progress of the others, but there were still at least fifty or so to contend with.

Fifty against less than ten. Jada's sense of self-preservation considered those to be truly terrible odds, but the warrior's heart and body willed him to stand his ground. Adrenaline was pumping through him in waves, his muscles tightening like a coiling spring. Tolian and a handful of elves came hurtling through the doorway, swords and axes raised, and Jada leapt to action right behind them.

"Awasos!" Was his war-cry, the strength of the bear rushing through his extremities as the shaman-word unleashed the power within him. They must have made an impressive sight, the half-dozen of them thundering down the hall with weapons drawn, but the undead were immune to the fear that might give other opponents pause. The two sides clashed heavily a dozen paces inside the doorway, and Jada leapt on the nearest foe like a wild animal on its prey.

Shlunk! went his shortsword as Jada's first strike cleaved into a shoulder in a downward strike. Putrid flesh and bone broke and ripped beneath the powerful blow, the blade sticking in the ribs just above the heart. The face staring back at him was blank as blood oozed from the wound, and the painless expression was an unnerving one. Up came the tomahawk, its virgin blade powered by magically enhanced arms barely parting head from shoulders, and the impassive face disappeared onto the floor. That's one! Jada thought exultantly, his fear momentarily usurped by the endorphin rush of victory.

The next couple moments were fast and fierce, and yet they seemed to stretch on forever and a day. One after another the undead fell before Jada's blows, his being just several amongst the salvo the Terranus elves were adding to the fray. Hacked limbs and fallen bodies littered the floor and still more came, and no matter how quickly Jada and the elves seemed to take them down, the advantage still went to the undead. Taking another wild swing at the latest deadpan foe to step in front of him, Jada suddenly slipped on a floor rapidly drenched with blood.

"Damn!" The warrior grunted as his legs went out from under him and he crashed elbow first onto the stone floor. Pain shot up and down his arm like a lightning strike, the swordsword coming loose from his grasp as his finger suddenly refused to work. Jada's sole concern at that moment was to scramble back and recollect himself, but the floor was so slippery with gore that he couldn't get enough traction to push himself away.

"Stay there!" Tolian shouted, stepping over Jada to shield him from the oncoming foe. The elf was covered head to toe in blood and ribbons of flesh, and a few of the buckles on his armor had come undone. Powered by the elf's hand, a well-used falchion whipped around in vicious diagonal strikes, dismembering and dispatching anything that stepped in range of the blade. The other elves were similarly engaged, but the strain of the fight was beginning to show in their flagging blows. Finally managing to scramble back and to his feet, Jada surveyed the scene ahead of him and found something to take comfort in.

"Come on!" He shouted to the elves. "We’re winning!" Behind the current crowd, two to three lines deep of flailing corpses, there was nothing but passageway. The disparity in numbers was rapidly evening as the skilled, ferocious elves put to rest the mindless, shambling dead.

The last zombie fell into a half-dozen chunks as several weapons all fell upon its flesh in a single salvo. The hall was littered with the bodies of the dead, their limbs and torsos piled into horrendous totems. Two more Terranus dead lay amongst them, their eyes still open and staring. Those that remained, including Jada, were spattered and soaked in gore, the cooled lifeblood of the zombie mingling with the warmer lifeblood that spilled from open wounds. Jada's stomach roiled and he felt as though he might be sick right then and there, but there were other matters to attend to before he could allow himself to fall sick into a dark corner somewhere.

"Let's find that black-robed bastard." Tolian uttered the command angrily, the image of kin firing arrows into kin likely still playing over and over in the younger Terranus brother's mind. Fëanor was strangely absent, as were a few of the other elves, leaving Jada, Tolian, and three others to carry on the fight.

"What about your brother?" Jada asked.

"He'll either catch up or he won't" Tolian snorted, ripping off his skullcap and shaking his long blonde hair out like a dog coming out of water. Beneath his mane of hair, Tolian's eyes were like glowing fire pokers in the dimly lit hall. "Now let's go."

[Abenaki]

"Impressive." Bane muttered to himself as the blood-drenched elves came storming into the far end of the Great Hall, their weapons at the ready. While he hadn't expected as many, if any, of the elves to have made it past his vanguard, the appearance of the small contingent in his Hall didn't cause the necromancer much alarm. 'Quality over quantity' he mentally noted...

"There are no more zombies to protect you now!" One of the elves spat. Like the others he was covered in the tell-tale signs of battle, but he had lost his cap, letting his long, blonde locks hang free in front of his face. The voice was that of the elf who had given the command to fire outside the manor doors. "It's time for you to die!"

"Please." Bane responded dryly, dismissing the livid elf with a wave of his hand. "I am not intimidated by the idle threats of those stupid enough to kill their own comrades." That the goad struck a nerve was blatantly obvious in the elf commander's reaction, as the warrior let loose a blood-curdling scream and charged the dais recklessly. "Fool." Bane commented under his breath. "Your emotions rule you."

Stretching out his arm, Bane aimed two fingers into the chest of the charging elf and channeled his augmented power down the limb and into the palm of his hand. The elf was closer now, just a handful of paces away, and his burning gaze locked on to the necromancer's own. 'Die.' was Bane's only thought, a poisonous green bolt of energy flashing through the air. The elf's studded-leather might have fared decently against a conventional bolt from a crossbow, but the paranormal projectile tore through armor and flesh as though it were made of paper, leaving a gaping, burning hole in its victim's chest. Surprisingly enough, the charging elf did not immediately collapse, but instead took four more paces, each slower than the last before finally collapsing to his knees. 'Quality over quantity' the necromancer mused again, grudgingly impressed. 'That one would have been worthy of lichhood.' Black smoke still wafting from the hole in his torso, the elf pitched forward, face first onto the floor, his sword just a few arm lengths from where Bane stood admiring the corpse.

"WAAAG!" the battle-screams of the remaining elves filled the Great Hall with a thunderous din as they all charged the dais at once. Like their commander, these warriors were reckless with abandon, their emotions overcoming their obvious years of skillful training. Past the rows of tables and benches where Bris' army of criminals and whores had wined and dined they charged, their weapons forward and hungry for living flesh. Rather than worry about dispatching them one at a time, Bane sifted through his catalogue of spells for one especially potent against elves. There was a particular hex of the soul-drain variety that worked wonders on the unusually unique composition of the elven spirit.

As the elves reached the dais, coming within range of the spell, Bane unleashed a black shockwave of energy that tore across the floor like a tidal wave, engulfing the charging attackers. A smug smile crept across the necromancer's lips as three of the attackers stumbled and fell like lifeless dolls to the floor, their souls literally torn free from their flesh. Then, almost immediately, the smile dissolved into a look of abject terror as the fourth attacker came hurtling on...

'I've made a terrible mistake.' Was all Bane Gesse could think, watching as if in a dream the tomahawk blade as it swung through the air...

[Abenaki]

The image of Tolian's gruesome death was emblazoned before his vision as Jada found himself thundering forward with the few Terranus elves still in the fight. Caution and strategy were thrown wildly into the wind as a flood of emotions paired with the ebbing-adrenaline in his veins. Were it not for the spiritual strength sustaining his every muscle and the pain in his heart, the warrior's exhausted body might have given out entirely before ever reaching the dais. Instead, he and the three others mounted the single step up onto the dais recklessly, their sole collective focus being the destruction of this black robed stranger who had turned a simple mission into a living nightmare.

A cold wave rushed over the warrior as he charged across the dais, his gaze locked solely on the black robe standing in front of a massive table. He has nowhere to run. Jada thought unreservedly. He has no place to flee. The black wave of energy emanating from the sorcerer was invisible to the human warrior, and it caused little more than a chilling of the skin raised goose-bumps all over his body. Had Jada looked back, he might have noticed the now lifeless bodies of his elven colleagues pitching face first onto the floor.

The tomahawk came around in a wild arc, Jada's eyes meeting for a brief instant the terrified eyes staring back at him from beneath the man's hood. The tomahawk head stuck something hard in the man's arm, and then the whole world went black...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where am I? Jada wondered, strangely calm. For as far as the eye could see in any direction there was nothing. It was impossible to describe how dark it was around him, and intensely silent. The warrior looked in the direction he imagined to be down, but there was nothing there. His chest, his arms, his legs; everything was gone. What happened.

"No!" The cry echoed through the darkness like a roll of thunder on a moonless night, reverberating around the emptiness and filling it with something other than Jada's own thoughts. The voice was strangely familiar, but there was a panicked quality to it that hadn't been there before.

"Hello?" Jada called back. The sensation of moving his mouth to speak was entirely absent, as though he had thought the words rather than spoken them aloud. It was an unsettling feeling at best. Am I dead? He thought almost casually. Here in the emptiness of space he was finding it difficult to really worry about anything. Here it seemed almost as if the whole world was inconsequential.

"No! the voice called out again, this time closer than before. Jada got the sense that whoever was calling out was moving towards him rapidly. Much more rapidly than should have been possible. Then it occurred to him that he might be moving as well, but the sensation was so subtle that he couldn't really tell...

All of a sudden the black empty world around him began to rumble and shake, and the sensation of moving became the sensation of hurtling towards the center of the universe at a speed that was inconceivable. Where Jada's body should have been felt like it was being crushed under some monumental weight as he blazed forward through the darkness like a shooting star. Dimly, and growing brighter by the second, was another bright light in the emptiness. Closer and closer the two of them came, until Jada realized with some measure of surprise that the other light was the black robed man from Starmare Manor, hurtling towards him as ludicrous speed. That was all Jada had time to realize, however, before the two of them collided in the center of the nothingness and exploded into a world of light...

[Abenaki]

He awoke in the middle of a shattered hall, the remnants of a great rywan table littering the ground around him. Strangely, without knowing why, he knew that the table used to be an immensely beautiful work of art detailing the history of this place he was in. Sitting up, he checked himself over carefully. His arms and chest were well muscled and well toned, with barely a ripple of fat beneath the smooth, richly tanned skin.

What happened to me?
What happened to me?

Pain shot through his head, and his hands came up to clutch his temples as two voices spoke in unison within his thoughts. The duality was almost unbearable...

Who are you?
Who are you?

The two voices asked each other simultaneously, sending another traumatizing wave of pain bouncing around inside his head. It was a frightening sensation to hear two voices echoing each other, and somehow believing each of the two to be your voice.

My name is Jada.
My name is Bane Gesse.

The two voices differed with each other, and the pain growing inside his head spread to the rest of his body. It was completely and utterly insufferable, and it felt like his skull was going to explode and cave in on itself at the same time. Every cell in his body was disagreeing with each other and trying to escape. The only way he could describe it was to say that it felt as thought half of his body was trying to tear itself away from the other half.

That's not possible!
That's not possible!

The two voices chimed in unison. His body was hot like a raging fever had taken hold of him, and the two voices were slowly growing less and less distinct, melding into a singular tone and inflection.

You are not Bane Gesse!
You are not Jada!

The voices were screaming now, fear and loathing tainting their voices as they slowly coalesced into one. Yet, as they fused, both voices seemed to begin differing wildly. His body convulsed and seizured on the floor on the hall, the sensation of tearing himself in half slowly subsididng as the voices bonded.

I've become a monster... One voice whispered.
I've become a God... Whispered the other in time.

The voices seemed to be dawning on some climactic understanding which in of itself was lost on him as the seizures slowly receeded and the fever cooled. The pain in his head eased into a dull throb as the voices quieted for good and his mind found its own voice.

"Who am I?" He whispered to the stones around him. His own voice was vaguely familiar, and yet at the same time unknown...


OOC Spoils:
Upon destroying the Black Harp, both Jada and Bane have been collapsed together into a single entity by the power unleashed from the broken relic. The new individual created by their melding retains certain traits of each, but is unique as well. So, without further ado:

Skills Acquired:
Cantrips: A novice array of spells that are little more than parlor tricks and sleight of hand, used mainly to practice the most basic of magic talents. Spells such as creating a small orb of light, making small [[coin sized or smaller]] objects vanish into thin air, and unlocking the simplest of locks are considered cantrips.

Necrotic Touch: This ability allows Jada/Bane to channel the forces of the Void into a concentrated area and accelerate the decompostion rate of organic materials. As of this level Jada/Bane can accelerate the decomposition rate of any real life organic wood or cloth to a point where it will be rendered useless or decomposed in a time span of a couple minutes [[1 post]]. This ability currently has no affect on metals, non-RL woods or cloth, or items protected by magical enhancements of any kind.

[[NOTE: Both of these skills/spells are intended to count towards Jada's lvl 2 character update, not as skills/spells in addition to those of the lvl 2 update. They are also, of course, subject to RoG moderator approval.]]

Items:
Black Robe: The tattered remains of Bane Gesse's black robe. A stitched together composition of velvet and dyed linens, the robe offers virtually no protection in the way of armor, but does have many useful pockets sown into the interior.

Rywan Blanks: Several 2-to-3 foot lengths of Rywan wood salvaged from the remains of the Great Table.

Starmare Manor: With the undead and the necromancer Bane removed from the picture, the remaining Terranus elves should be able to take back the Manor for the purpose of revitalizing the horse trade, and making good on their deal with the House of Sora. [[Powergroup Spoil]].

[Karuka]

This took a lot longer than I thought it would, and for that I apologize, but here it is! There's not too much detail, so if you want clarifications, shoot me a PM and I'll try to get back to you.

Continuity: I have a decent idea of the whys of both Jada and Bane for being where they were, and a very good idea of why exactly this conflict is occurring. Good job.

8

Pacing: The story seemed to flow well right up until the end, but the very end, which, while making sense, seemed a bit rushed as opposed to the carefully built up beginning.

7

Setting: This was a little sparse, but only a little. Overall, I had a very good idea of how the world around the story was, but I do wish there'd been a little more interaction.

7

Persona: I like how you used Jada's AmerIndian heritage to make contrasts between himself and the Elves, and I liked the interaction among the various Elves.

7

Action: A little slow at the beginning, and a little fast at the end, but okay otherwise.

8

Dialogue: Dialogue was in character, but there weren't any shining moments.

6

Mechanics: A few typos, some missed punctuation, a misused word here and there, but nothing too bad.

7

Technique: I liked how you used the back and forth perspective, and noticed a little parallelism and a few similes and a couple of metaphors, but it wasn't so swamped in bits of technique that it got cloying.

8.5

Clarity: It was really clear, actually. There were a few tangents that didn't exactly go, but on the whole, good job here.

8.5

Wild Card: I really liked this quest, and look forward to seeing more of your stuff.

8

Total: 75!! Congratulations!

Spoils

Abenaki receives 2,220 EXP and 6 Rywan planks, which he may sell at the Bazaar.
He also receives his other spoils, subject to RoG approval, and the PG spoil, also subject to RoG approval.

Congratulations!

EXP Added!