Cradle of the Filthy

The Mal'Talzin Order was a shadowy group that dealt in secrets and ancient magics. Few knew of its existence. Even fewer knew of its purpose. The first rule of the Order was this: do not speak of the Order, lest you lose your tongue.

There were several ways to be inducted into the Order, of which the Temple of Praxeum is the most common. The Temple was a school. For a small donation, students were be admitted into the school as acolytes, where they learned the lore and applications of simpler sorcery. The lucky ones would leave as apprentices to the full sorcerers and sorceresses of the Order, and from there work their way into the heart of the Order. Students who were less lucky were sometimes retained and employed by the Temple as caretakers and staff. The unluckiest ones... no one spoke of the unluckiest ones.

Many members of the Order sent their own children to the Temple. At times, the Order also sent out searchers for children with strong potential. The Order cared little for races, sex, or lineage. Even slaves were eligible, so long as they had potential.

---

The Temple of Praxeum itself was a small castle, built a long time ago when the Order had more acolytes than the measly handful it had now.

The castle’s east and west wings housed sleeping alcoves and dormitories. Its north tower hosted prayer rooms, offices, libraries *and study areas. Its small southern wing had the kitchens and the eating halls. The great Stone Hall sat in the center, connected to all four directions through a multitude of hallways, stairways, secret passages. There was one indoor garden between the Stone Hall and the Temple’s front entrance, a bigger outdoor garden-cum-greenhouse immediately next to the entrance, several fountains, a deep well, and two large courtyards.

The Temple’s grounds sat enclosed by a thick forest of trees, as far away from any beacons of civilization as its builders could manage while still within the borders of Raiaera. There was one thin path that led in or out of the forest, and rumours had it that those who chanced the forest often met interesting ends. There were workings and magic in the soil to dissuade the common man from finding their way in.

Excerpts from the Book of Three
On the Practices of the Mal'Talzin

---

Life as an acolyte at the Temple of Praxeum was a series of trials and tribulations, and if one were lucky, one left the Temple as an apprentice. The average acolyte spent two years at the Temple before they found a master. Arainthe Vardis was nearing the end of her second year, and she had yet to find a master to take her on. It was not for the lack of trying.

Old Man Taiu’s eyes were inches away from her hands, and she was sweating visibly. The day’s lesson was fire, and instructor Taiu was testing the acolyte class on the art of conjuring flames.

Come on. Her eyes were pinched shut in concentration, and her hands were cupped so tightly that she can feel her bones. An eternity later, a spark appeared, and bursted into a small flame. Its orange hue spread to color her cupped fingers, but no further.

“Mediocre,” the instructor allowed in his tweedy voice. “Next--”

Arianthe sighed in relief and let her concentration go. The flame fluttered out. She was not the slowest of the bunch, and that was not the worst criticism from Old Man Taiu for the group standing in the Praxeum’s learning halls today. Mediocre. Her back hunched invisibly beneath her black tunic.

The instructor had already moved onto his next target. “Very mediocre. Next--” And so it went down the line of twenty-something students.

The last acolyte in the line was Glorrad Hruine, a youth of good breeding and pedigree who entered the Temple a year ago. His flames appeared instantly and shot halfway up cavernous hall, burning as red as his red velvet shirt. When the fire died, the grey halls seemed a little greyer, a little colder. Arianthe made a face. She was definitely not envious of that bastard.

“Most excellent,” the old instructor said, his first words of praise of the day, and turned around to peer at the entire line of his students. “All of you are dismissed. We have an important visitor tomorrow, so I expect all of you to be on time for lessons. Don’t want a repeat of today, do you, Mister Darger?”

Someone at the other end of the line shook his head and muttered a no. Old Man Taiu nodded in satisfaction.

“Well then. Go away before I blast the lot of you out of here. Don’t tempt me.”

The Stone Hall of the Praxeum was reserved for practical lessons and evening meals. While a great lover of meals, Arainthe had little love for the hall itself. The cavernous chambers was too large for the class of acolytes, too drafty in the mornings, too cold in evenings, and worst of all, it only had one doorway.

Darger and his boys were waiting for her when she stepped stepped out of the hall. They arranged themselves slovenly around the doorway in a half-circle, all smug faces and gaudy clothes. She looked positively drab before them. They were the sons of the rich and powerful. Lazy donkey asses, the lot of them. She tried to walk past the group, but then Darger parked his pasty face right in front of hers. Arianthe debated if she could smash his shit-eating grin into the granite walls without retaliation. Probably not.

“Mediocre,” he drawled, imitating the intonation of Old Man Taius. The tightness of his blond ponytail made his expression look tight and stretched out. His ivory robes were as pale as the rest of him. “How’d that feel, peon? Not so proud any more, are ya?”

His cronies snickered. Her fists clenched involuntarily. She didn’t like reminders of mediocrity. She had worked hard to get to where she was, from a no-name talentless street rat to a half-decent sorcery student.

“And who’s the dead-last, bastard?” Her voice dripped acid. She knew he hated her scorn. “And who’s the idiot who got his fool ass burnt by the old man today, Mister Darger? Did he leave any holes in your pants, you spineless worm?”

Darger sputtered, and the laughter of his boys died.

“Oh wait,” she grinned and crossed her arms, “I forgot. You’re not a spineless worm. You’re balls-less ass, right?”

If glares could kill, Arainthe would be dead. Darger was furious. With a howl, he threw his fists at her, but she managed to duck and sidestep the first. The second was stopped by a hand that reached out from behind her.

“Get out,” came a voice. It was deep and cold and expanded to fill the hallways. She recognized the voice instantly. It was Glorrad Hruine with his pedigree and icy cold face.

Darger twitched. Araithe grinned. Nobody picked fights against Hruine because nobody won fights against Hruine. No one won fights against Hruine because Hruine never stepped away from a fight until he won. Darger pulled back unwillingly, and his cronies drew away with him. He nodded once at Hruine -- some sign of respect -- before glaring daggers at Arainthe.

“Ya’ll get yours. Watch ya back,” Darger muttered as he walked away.

Good riddance, Arianthe thought.

“Arry!”

The Temple wasn’t all bastards, and Arianthe didn’t hate everyone. She turned around with glee as Tessa Ree came bounding down the narrow hallway in her flour-splattered pink frock, hurling a full leg of lamb. Tessa Ree was a plumb and homely Temple cook with brown eyes and browner hair, and Arianthe loved the woman almost as much as she loved the woman’s meat pies. They had a most excellent transactional relationship.

“Tessa!” Arianthe cried, and jumped into the other woman’s single outstretched arm for a quick hug. Tessa smelled like the kitchens, fresh flour and coriander and raw lamb. “I engraved your incense and they’re in my room. I can bring them to you before tomorrow, but what do I get out of it?”

“A day early?” Tessa eyed Arainthe speculatively. Then she started walking again, lagging the leg of lamb along and beckoning the younger woman to follow. “You’re getting better, aren’t you?”

Arainthe puffed up a little and preened with pleasure. She did little pieces of magic for Tessa and the kitchen staff in exchange for coins, information, or small favors. Their transactions were always mutually profitable.

“All right.” A conspiratorial glint grew in Tessa’s eyes. “I’ll throw in an extra coin and a piece of news for you, love. Word from the staff is that Mistress Moore is coming tomorrow. Looking for an apprentice, apparently. Here’s your chance. Put on a good show for her.”

Moore? The girl’s brows furrowed as she followed the older woman through the pathways towards the kitchens. Moore. The name was familiar, like an old forgotten taste, flitting just out of reach in Arainthe’s mind. “You got more information than that?”

“She’s practical. Likes her apprentices practical.” Tessa shrugged and stopped. They were in front of the kitchens now. “She’s real high-up too. Supposedly all her apprentices turn out… powerful. You’re not going to get a better chance than this, Arry.”

Huh, Arainthe thought, as the older woman opened the large oaken doors in front of them with only one arm. That was true. She was not going to get a better chance to get herself apprenticed. It’s been two years since she entered the Temple, where only the basics were taught. You were supposed to get yourself apprenticed to get any further, to learn the real stuff. Masters and Mistresses of the craft visited the Temple for apprentices, and most of her cohort year had found masters within the past year. Those who did not get apprenticed within two years were typically regarded as wash-outs, and posted to odd jobs around the Temple.

Most of the acolytes here had some background in sorcery, whereas Arainthe had started out from the streets and knew nothing. Arainthe was the least and last of her group, and time was slowly slipping by.

“Alright. I’ll save you an extra piece of lamb if you get me my incense within the next hour.”

Mistress Moore sat at the head of the staff table during breakfast. She was a thin, dark human in her fifties, and Arianthe had never seen anyone else with hair that white or robes that thick. Arianthe spent part of breakfast staring thoughtfully at the Mistress’ spindly fingers.

“A quest,” Master Taius announced later in the classroom, his voice as creaky and his face as stern as ever. “You will go to the Tomb of the Alkar’chuhan. You will seek out the a diadem buried in the tomb, and one of you will succeed.”

The announcement sent a scattering of whispers through the class of acolytes. All twenty-something of them were seated in one of the teaching halls. The Mistress had observed the day’s lessons in silence. This lesson came at the very end.

The Tomb itself was an open secret in the Temple. Legends had it that Alkar’chuhan was one of the earlier Masters of the Temple, capable of raising spirits and controlling the dead, but his spelled creations overpowered him and ended his life. Necromancy was a much frowned upon art these days and few brought up Alkar’chuhan’s name. Even so, most acolytes knew that the earlier Masters of the Temple built tombs within the forest surrounding the Temple, and Alkar’chuhan was one of them.

Mistress Moore nodded from her stance on the dais beside Old Man Taius. Her arms were crossed and she wore a thin smile. With a languid wave of her hand, an pallid illusion of a silvery jewel-encrusted crown formed in front of the class. The blue gem in the center twinkled.

“The Zaharberritze Diadem. I will be waiting in your instructor’s quarters for the next three days. If one of you poor, miserable acolytes managed to bring me the Diadem, you will be richly rewarded.” The illusion dissipated.

Arainthe leaned back in her seat at the middle of the class. Neither the Mistress nor the old instructor mentioned anything about an apprenticeship.

“If you choose to undertake the task, do your best to survive.” Taius continued, clearly trying to avoid looking at the woman beside him. “I’d like to have a class left by the end of this farce.”

The class degenerated into chaos, and Arainthe thought she felt Darger’s eyes on her back.

She was hiding in a secret alcove with her ear was plastered against a wall. Tessa Ree stood a feet away to keep an eye out for any passerbys. Old man Taius’s office was on the other side of the wall, and there was a tiny spyhole that carried voices through into the alcove.

Tessa Ree traded Arianthe the information about this spying spot for a quiet piece of revenge against another staff a year ago.

“The diadem... don’t forget the… is down… the sanctum is up...”

Arianthe growled silently in frustration, not daring to make a sound as the spyhole worked both ways. The old instructor was speaking so softly that only piecemeal phrases could be heard.

She pried herself away from the wall and patted down the dust on her knees. Then she padded her way over to Tessa, who immediately swung an arm over Arianthe’s shoulder.

“ Anything useful?” Tessa asked, steering both of them through a low doorway and into the indoor gardens.

“Complete shit,” Arainthe muttered. Something in her stomach rolled and twisted with anger. The greeneries and thin trees in the garden did little to sooth her annoyance. “Senile old man.”

Old Man Taiu had steered Hruine into the office after that announcement, so of course Arainthe quietly followed behind. Part of her was curious about Hruine and another part of her hungered for more information about this quest. She ran into Tessa on the way and commandeered the other woman’s help.

Arainthe had planned on actually talking to Old Man Taius. That plan just went out the window. One thing from her eavesdropping was completely clear: the old instructor was quietly imparting additional information about this quest to Glorrad Hruine, and the audacity of that kind of favoritism -- not that the old man had ever hid it -- left a bitter taste in Arainthe’s mouth. She had worked hard to get to where she was, had clawed her way up within the past two years, whereas the privileged were handed more. Time was running out for her, whereas Hruine had only been an acolyte for a year and had at least another to go. The injustice of the situation more than upset her.

I’ll show him. Her fists clenched until it hurt.

Hruine left before dawn the next day.

Arianthe bribed the guards at the front entrance to inform her immediately when that rich bastard was spotted. She followed him out the Temple in a hooded brown cloak, and was careful to keep him within her sights.

The Temple sat enclosed by a thick ring of trees, and much of it was unknown and unexplored. There was a thin path that led through the forest to the rest of civilization. Hruine did not take that path. Instead, he curved through the forest, treading deeper where the foliage grew more twisted and gnarled with every step. Every few minutes, he checked something in his hands and marked a tree with a chalk. He was walking forward with purpose, and as they travelled, Arainthe was ever more confident that he knew exactly where he was going. The existence of the Temple of Alkar'chuhan was no secret, but its precise location was unknown to most. She had no idea what they were headed towards.

Arainthe followed at a distance. The foliage around her provided sufficient covers for her to remain unseen, and she took extra care to remain unheard. The acolytes of the Temple were mostly city-dwellers. Few knew how to track a trail in the forest, and fewer knew how to survive. Hruine's trail was clumsy and easily followable. It made a dark part of her gleeful.

As they ventured deeper into the woods, everything around them felt old and forgotten. The foliage was thick and leafy, and the trees were tall, gnarled, with giant trunks. The rocks were half-buried in crumbly, dried dirt. Little sunlight found its way through the coverings of the trees, and there were no new green growth. Vines and fern ran unchecked, finding homes everywhere. Shadows and darkness blanketed everything. The air itself grew sour and dank. Arianthe's breaths became shallower almost unconsciously, because her gut instinct was telling her that breathing too heavily would bring danger.

They walked for hours in silence, until Arainthe became hyper aware of the sounds around her from the lack of anything else to do. It was then that she realized something was wrong.

Footsteps. More than one pair, excluding her own.

---

One. Two. Three.

Her ears picked up the muted plods of those trying to stay quiet and failing.

Four. Five.

The footsteps were some distance off, and there was more than one. One person won't hit the ground with those frequencies. Whoever her followers were, they were either getting clumsier as the journey went on, or she was getting better at hearing them.

Peering back frequently generated no leads. Her shadowers -- or perhaps Hruine's shadowers -- were careful enough to stay out of sight. Arainth frowned beneath her hood. Friendly folks did not hide in the shadows and try to go unheard. Only those with ulterior motives did so, herself included.

Who would find her or Hruine interesting enough to shadow, and why? Someone interested in the Diadem? Or something else?

Up ahead, Hruine continued to make his marks on the trees, creating a easy trail to follow, and it seemed unlikely that he would stop now. Behind her were unknown individuals. The decision was made in a snap second. Without hesitation, Arainthe stepped to the side, snapped a twig to start her own trail, and began curving backwards. She was better in the wilderness than any of her fellow acolytes, and she had full confidence in her abilities to circle back and slip behind her shadowers. At the very least, she wanted to know who they were.

She slinked through the woods speedily, leaving a trail of small overturned rocks, unrooted ferns, and snapped branches, carefully keeping to the shadows as she moved.

It wasn’t long before she came upon the group. There were four of them moving together, all dressed in practical dark colours. All of them carried swords. Their faces were uncovered. She trailed them quietly while sticking to the trees to the side of them.

Darger’s blond hair was easily recognizable. He was leading the group, and it was obvious from the way he swaggered up front. The rest were Darger’s cronies, boys whose names Arainthe never bothered to learn. They stuck close to Hruine’s marked trail. From their whispered conversation, it sounded like they were getting more anxious.

“Where is she?” Darger scrowled. His eyes at times darted left and right, before always returning to the front.

The rest of his boys shrugged. One said: “Are we sure we’re following the right person? It’s just a hood. Anyone could be under it.”

Ah, Arainthe thought, sidestepping a gnarly root to avoid tripping, and then avoiding a patch of dried leafs. Her senses were heightened from a shot of fear and adrenaline, and while her targets were careful to stay soft, their words still carried to her.

Darger glared at the one who spoke. His expression was ugly and heated. “I bribed those guards. They saw her face. Shut up.”

It was stark clear who he was after. She had a bright red target painted on the hooded cloak. Also, she would have words with the guards when she got back.

There was a palpable chill growing at her back. Darger didn’t take well to being insulted, especially in front of an audience, and Arainthe knew this since the first day she met the boy. She also knew Darger was a spiteful little snake. She had seen it in the Temple, had seen the revenge he heaped on those whom he perceived had wronged him, and she had fended off his attacks herself. It rarely got physical, but he was the son of a noble and the coin was a powerful motivator. Bribery and squeezing his target dry of resources -- shutting down their access to the instructors, to the storehouse of daily ware, to the fucking kitchens -- were his preferred form of attack. His tactics rarely worked on her because she had friends at lower places, and it infuriated him.

So what was he after, here? What exactly was he planning?

Her targets stayed quiet, but from the tightness with which they gripped their swords, from the way Darger gripped something around his neck, and from the ugliness on Darger’s face, Arainthe could guess that their feud was about to get physical.

She breathed. Her foot slipped on a rock. Her arm crushed against a tree.

“Who’s there?” Darger and his crew reacted, their eyes shooting to her direction in a flash.

Shit. Arainthe cursed beneath her breath. In the next second, she was running, silence be damned. Their flurry of footsteps soon followed.

She was more at home in the wilderness than they were. She moved faster. She tracked better. She knew her directions. She dressed well for moving, and she had an adrenaline spike on her side. It wasn’t long before she lost both sight and sound of her followers. Later, logic would tell her that they wouldn’t dare follow too closely, because what if they lost sight of Hruine’s chalk trail? There was a very real possibility of getting lost in this forest.

Soon, she found her way back to the trail of overturned rocks and snapped branches. As she forged forward, Arainthe weighed her options. What should she do now? She was on Hruine’s trail, and Darger was on hers. Darger and his cronies weren’t the friendly sort. She hadn’t intended to be very friendly to Hruine either. Maybe it was time to make some friends.

Up ahead was the rotting carcass of a very dead deer, where vines had began to show through the carcass’s bones. It marked a turn in the trail, which led back towards Hruine’s chalk-marked trees. Arainthe shivered. At the very least, it would be nice to have one less enemy.

Arainthe was a practical sort. With her mind made up, action was the logical next step. She raced through the forest, streaking past Hruine’s chalk-marked trees. Once she had caught sight of her target -- his red tunic was awfully visible -- she slipped behind a tree, and began waving her way ahead of him.

Hruine was the only acolyte in this forest who made no effort to hide his own presence. He was very audible, and it was very foolish. Arainthe could track him by sound alone. Clearly, the boy had little clue on how to navigate the woods. That he made it this far without beasts or danger was a miracle, although Arainthe wondered if Taiu imparted more than just directions the day before. Probably. The thought left a sour feeling in her mind.

Her priorities, however, were straight. Darger was more dangerous than Hruine. While typically an aloft, icy bastard who bested her in every way within the Temple, Hruine was still a honorable sort. He had no friends, but he made no enemies. Mostly, he was just very good at practical magics. That would be useful to her now.

When she judged that she was sufficiently close to him, she dropped her hood and stopped trying to remain quiet. Instead, she blundered through the trees, signalling her arrival with all her might.

No one stayed so silent without an ulterior motive, after all.

Then, seemingly accidentally, she stumbled through a bush of ferns and dropped directly into his path.

---

His brows furrowed upon seeing her, and he took half a step back. Otherwise, he made no overt actions.

“Ah.” She smiled peevishly and picked herself up, patting twigs out of her hair. “I think I’m ah… a little lost.”

She looked like it, too. Stumbling clumsily through the woods for the past few minutes garnered her a few rips in her cloak and muddied her leggings. There were small twigs in her hair, and a thin scratch on her cheeks. She looked harmless, mostly, with that smile and sheepish demeanor, and just a tint of fear in her eyes. Hruine must have thought the same, because outside of watching her, he did nothing else.

“Are you… ah, also looking for the Temple?” she asked. He looked larger up close, and his hands were clenched tight around some sort of compass.

He nodded once, and eyed her suspiciously. Cautious.

“Follow the marks,” he said coldly, nodding towards his chalk marks. “Should bring you back.”

“I… I came across a few others at the back. They were carrying swords,” she said, pulling her arms close to herself. Half-truths worked better than whole lies. She was slowly reeling this fish in. “Doesn’t feel it’s safe to go back, even if I knew how.”

She saw his frown at the mention of others and swords. His eyes passed over her from head to toe searchingly. She flicked open her cloak to show that she carried no weapons. His stance relaxed slightly at that.

“Can I…” she wetted her lips. “Can I follow you for a bit? At the back. I won’t go into the Temple, promise.”

There was long stretch of silence before he finally nodded.

Journeying beside Hruine was very similar to journeying behind him. It speedy, efficient, and neither of them spoke. She saw him glancing at his compass and marking his trail. He made no effort to hide that. His compass was strange and glowed with an eerie blue light, and it didn’t look like it was always pointing north.

“What is it?” she asked eventually, curiosity getting the best of her.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled further ahead.

He didn’t trust her and watched her for treachery. That was obvious from the flicker of his eye, from his flinches when she made a noise, from the way he kept her at arm’s length. She absolutely planned on treachery, but not at this point of the journey. Not when he made such a convenient shield. Not when she could once again hear Darger and his cronies and their plodding footsteps.

The pace of the journey grew harder, and the glow of Hruine’s compass intensified. Before long, the compass flashed white twice, and the glow disappeared altogether.

At last, they were at their destination. The Tomb of Alkar'chuhan stood across a narrow river.

It was built like a tiered pyramid and at least half the size of the Temple. There were at least four floors protruding from the ground. The structure was built from hefty grey rocks, hewn smooth by age. Moss and ferns had sprouted between the bricks of stone, vines seemed to have burrowed through some bricks. Strangely enough, there was a waterfall running down one side of the pyramid into the river, and no visible entrances.

The entire area smelled of age and damp. The plants here were so deeply green that they seemed almost black.

“Stay here,” Hruine said curtly. Then he waded his way into the river, clothing and boots and all, and passed under the waterfall.

“Right,” Arainthe muttered. As if I’d listen.

Then she stripped off her cloak and outer tunics, rolled up her leggings, and took off her boots. Rolling everything into a bundle and clenching it tight to her chest, she made her own way across.

There was a different world at the other side of the waterfall. An aged, dank world that smelled like sharp pine and sweet rot. There were no green growth here, but there was a dust and a thick layer of ash on the ground. They stood in a large hall covered in shadows with giant statues lining the two sides, and there were crumbling doorways towards the back of the hall. The air felt wet and cold, and she could clearly see Hruine shiver. Serves him right. What sort of idiot went into the river with all their clothes still on?

He glared at her approach, and then snapped his fingers to start a fire. It glowed in the center of his palms. “I thought I told you to stay?”

She ignored him. Her inner shirt was wet, so she stripped it off, fully aware that he was watching. He turned away at the first peek of her stomach. The bundle against her chest, however, proved to be mostly dry. She shrugged into her outer tunic and boots. Then she pulled her wet hair into a tight bun, and tied it with a leather cord. Much better.

“Here,” she said, tossing him her cloak. “It’s dry.”

He caught it with his free hand, and stared at her.

“It’s dry and this place is cold,” she explained, peering at their surroundings. “You’re wearing velvet. They don’t dry well, or quickly. Even with a fire.”

What sort of idiot wore velvet in the wilderness anyways? She hadn’t realized it at first, but it was blatantly clear once she started walking with him. It was surprising how little he knew about surviving the world outside in general. He was better than her in every way at magics and sorcery, better than anyone else in the Temple, but it would be a wonder if he survived outside of Temple for very long.

He nodded eventually, and extinguished the fire in his hands. WIthout another word, he peeled off his wet things, and swung her cloak around him. She was not so polite about not looking, and stared at his muscled back in interest. He pulled up the hood too, and she thought she saw a hint of flush on his face.

Interesting.

“I’ll wait --” She had barely finished the sentence before the waterfall rippled again. Blond hair. It was followed by three additional ripples.

Her lips snapped shut. Hruine’s back was facing the waterfall and he was wearing her cloak. She was half hidden in the shadows and darkness of the hall. She saw Darger’s blue eyes glint in the dark, catching sight of her cloak. She his hands moved towards his sword. She saw water drip from his toothy grin. He looked like a drenched snake about to pounce.

She would have no better opportunity.

“Help me,” she whispered.

Without another word, she sprinted for doors at the back of the hall, even as she heard Darger roar and drew his blade, and the cacophony of his cronies footsteps.

She didn’t stick around to see what happened.

No one picked a fight with Hruine because no one won fights against Hruine. This was a fact. Hruine never walked away from a fight until it ended and he won. That was also a fact. There were four of them though. She grinned as she sprinted away. This meant that either Hruine would walk away weakened, or Darger and his cronies would walk away with numbers reduced. EIther outcome would be in her favor.

The thought of Darger and Hruine joining hands did cross her mind. Then she waved it away as unlikely. Hruine did not take well to being attacked from the back. She had seen similar situations back at the Temple, and not once had Hruine stopped to talk or listened to the other side.

Even so, she couldn’t count on herself being safe yet. In the best case scenario, she would find the Diadem before their fight ended, and slip away quietly. In the worst case scenario, she should prepare herself to face the victor of this battle.

Past the hall and through the door, there were two fleet of stairs, one leading up and the other down. The ones going up were in terrible shape, cracked missing entire stretches of steps. The ones going down were relatively whole. Arainthe went up.

She remembered the whispers eavesdropped from Old man Taius’ office yesterday. The sanctum is up.

The shape of this story was clear in Arainthe’s mind. Mistress Moore came looking for an apprentice, but did not announce it as such. Instead, there as an absurd quest to a little-known area in the forest surrounding the Temple. Old Main Taius then took Hruine aside and spoon-fed that rich bastard with information and a magic compass. Only one of them was ever meant to get through this game. The whole situation smelt like a set-up, a scripted game. She fully intended to destroy that script.

Going up meant hopping up a series of circular stairs that grew thinner and more fragile towards the top. There were four floors, and the fleet of stairs stopped at each one. It was unfortunate that her eavesdropped conversation did not yield more details. Arainthe gritted her teeth, and set about exploring each one.

Time slipped by as she carefully shifted her way through each floor. Blood pounded in her ears, blocking out sound. She heard the occasional roar or clang of sword against something else, which reassured her that the boys were still having fun. Soon, she was covered to the elbows with dust, dirt, ad grime, and her boots squelched with more than water.

She did not find the sanctum on the final floor. She found it on the third.

She would have almost missed it, if she hadn’t slipped and fell into it. There was a half-rotted wooden trap door in a small corner of a room, which opened to a musty tunnel. She fell into the trap door and decided to follow the tunnel, and it led to a sunlit chamber.

The chamber was the only spot with natural light that she had found in all her explorations. The walls were still built from rocks, and there were manuscripts engraved on them in a script she did not recognize. Four small statues of a hooded, masked man stood at the four corners, and all of them were carved from some black stone with red jeweled specks for eyes. A large, circular portion of the roof was made from glazed glass, which served to let light in, and also colored the chamber in a reddish, brownish hue. The glazed glass painted pictures of old mysticism, ancient gods and demons with teeth rearing and claws bloodied.

It was a beautifully well-preserved room.

There was a small raised pedestal in the center of the room, and atop it sat a small crown. The blue gem in the center of the diadem twinkled.

The roar in Arainthe’s ears came to a crushing halt. Ah, she thought in absolute silence. The Zaharberritze Diadem

For a moment, Arianthe could only stare at the Diadem. Then the world came roaring back, and she snapped out of her reverie. Victory was within her grasp, and it came more smoothly that she could have hoped.

Except it didn’t.

It didn’t, because her ears hadn’t heard the clang of blades and the roar of battle for quite some time, and Arainthe had not noticed. It didn’t, because Hruine had just stepped into the room with one bloody blade in his hands, and he was growling harshly. He was still wearing her cloak, though the cloak now spotted a large rip and was missing the hood.

“Get away,” he said, voice guttural and coarse. His eyes were hard, his gaze leveled at her neck.

“No,” she said, her right hand clenching to spark the power within herself, and her left reaching towards the Diadem.

She had barely taken a step when he roared, and the sound stopped her completely. She flung the power collecting in her right hand, but it dissipated into nothingness before reaching Hruine. Then, it was as though some external power was enforced upon her body, sealed all her limbs and senses, and she could not physically take another step. She dropped to her knees and stayed there. Her mind battered against the force to no avail. She could only watch, silent and unmoving, as he stepped past her, and picked up the prize. Without looking at it, he folded the diadem into a pouch on his belt.

The frustration and hate that swelled up inside her like a scorching fireball, and it was more intense than anything she had felt before. It found its way out her throat as a shrilled shriek, and that seemed to have partially broke the spell. She found her voice back.

“No,” she gasped, still fighting. “No, dammit.”

He glanced at her. “Weak,” he said. “You have no will.”

She hurled insults at his back in every language she could think of. When that failed to draw a reaction, she asked him: “How? How do you have so much power still?”

“I have will,” he said, carefully sweeping the rest of the chamber. “More than you. Enough to hold you in place.”

She spat on the ground. “You know what’s on the line. I know what’s on the line. I want this. You have time. I don’t.”

He found nothing else of interest and turned to leave. He paused at the tunnel’s doorway. “I don’t,” he whispered. “I don’t have time, and I want this more.”

Then he left.

The magic in the chamber disappeared as soon as Hruine left. More than just the force holding Arainthe in place, the magic preserving the chamber also dissipated. The world around her lost its light.

The script on the walls became illegible, and the light from the roof went away. Mossy growth appeared on the glazed glass, and the pedestal in the center of the room rumbled and cracked in two. Only the four statues in the corner of the room remained.

She picked herself up slowly and painfully, heavy with a sense of defeat. Victory was within her grasp, and then it slipped away. How many times have that occurred in her life? This was one of the worst and the hardest to swallow.

Arainthe wasn’t sure how she stumbled back through the tunnel, and into the room that held the trapdoor. She couldn’t remember how she made her way back to the rounded stairways, and began her track down.

Defeat was not a foreign sensation, and she had once known helplessness quite well. As a child with a single parent who grew up amongst the unsavory in the streets, she had tasted defeat in words and the physical. Then, when her mother passed away under strange circumstances while Arainthe was in her early teens, she had know helplessness intimately. She had her home and only family in one fell swoop, and had wandered lands with barely a penny to her name.

Helplessness and defeat? She knew it more intimately than any of her fellow fool acolytes in the Temple.

Then she found the Order of Mal’Talzin and the Temple of Praxeum, and a hint of a strange connection between them and her mother. It took every she had to force her way in back then. She was deemed talentless and had to trick her way into the Temple. Since then, with her continued survival no longer a question mark, she threw herself into the craft of sorcery, delving deeper with every breath that she drew. This was something that she could do, could be good at and control. With this, she could have a real future, and possibly a chance to investigate the past. She lacked will? Don’t tell her she lacked will.

And yet, everything was slowly slipping away from her grasp.

She growled once in frustration, and her foot stepped heavier than it should. The stair beneath her feet trembled, and the sound reverberated around her. Something above her cracked. Then something below her cracked. The next thing Arainthe, knew, she was falling.

Her body twisted involuntarily in mid-air and her arms snapped up to guard her face. The debris that came crashing down with her struck her bared arms and back of her neck and drew blood.

The sensation of falling gripped her heart. Wind struck at her ears. The whip-lash of fear that gripped Arainthe was startlingly strong, grasping her like some giant claw squeezing tight around her throat, her limbs, her chest. She couldn't breath and had to claw for every gasp of air. The fear sharpened that veil of dark thoughts thad settled around Arainthe. All that flashed through her mind were anger anger anger fear.

What did dying feel like?

Arainthe didn't want to know.

She knew the feelings of absolute defeat and helplessness and even hopeless. She knew what it felt like to almost-have and then lose. She knew every shade of anger and frustration in between. She did not want to know how death felt.

Death was staring at her in the eye. She was struggling to live, damn it. She barely had a past, and she wanted to have a future.

Her teeth gritted, and she pushed away the crystalized dark feelings that were filling her mind. Hruine said she lacked will, didn't he? Instead, she drew her hands together, cusped them together, and willed to all the gods that she knew, pouring all her desire to live into her will. Power blasted out of her cupped hands, and she flung her arms downwards. The power materialized as a force that pushed her back from the ground, and it broke the velocity of her fall.

Then, with a dull thud, she landed on her back.

Her back exploded in pain. Beside her, debris landed, and some of it struck her face and throat. Everything hurt. She croaked.

What did dying feel like?

I don't know.

But the will to live felt like unpleasantness and pain. Arainthe laughed in hysterical euphoria.

How many times had she almost-lost, and then found herself back up on top?

She pushed herself off the ground gingerly and messaged her throat. Her hands hurt. Her arms hurt. Her shoulder blades hurt. She stumbled her way out of the stairway. Every movement was pain, but Arainthe was glad for it. This meant that she was still alive. And if she was alive, then the game wasn’t over.

She was breathing, unlike the rest of the poor sods who had collapsed in the entrance hall of the Tomb. Huh. She knew something looked different about his hallway.

They were the most vivid things in this hall. Nothing else were as red, or as wet as they were. She would recognize that head of blonde hair anywhere, even if the head attached had its eyes closed and were slashed with blade-wounds at several places. The body’s neck was roughly sliced, and it was the body closest to her.

Three more laid in various poses around the hall. None of them were neat. They looked like they were mauled by some large animal. Vicious. Disgusting.

She almost puked at the sight. Instead, she leaned against a wall, and heaved deep breathes. The logical part of her, though, expected nothing less. What else was she expecting when she left them with Hruine? Hruine had no ropes, no tools to subdue. His opponents were armed, and there were more of them. Hruine was vicious in fights, even back at the Temple, except an instructor always stopped the fights before it got too far. There were rules around these things in the middle of civilization.

They’re not in the Temple now, and Old Man Taius had cautioned them about staying alive.

Arainthe breathed sharply.

The chill of fear that shot up her spine stilled her and silenced her pain. She understood something then, and the situation took on a new kind of gravitas. While she had the will to live, Hruine had the will to kill. She wasn’t sure if she could have done the same.

The fact that he only subdued her in the sanctum chamber was a strange mercy on his part.

Which meant that if she wanted to turn the situation around, if she wanted to get anywhere, she had to be more ruthless.

Oh.

She searched the corpses before leaving, and found an interesting vial of powdery substance. It was on a chain around Darger’s neck, and the vial was completely unmarked. She sprinkled some of the content on a small colony of ants near the Tomb entrance and studied the effects with interest. There was little doubt that Darger had intended to use the vial on her.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel as terrible about leaving their corpses out in the open.

There was also a small blowdart hanging off Darger’s belt. Arainthe took that too. Then she peeled off her boots, made her way out of the waterfall and across the river, and back to dry land.

Overhead, the day had began to fade. The shadows of the forest was growing darker, and soon there would be no light to follow a trail.

There were little doubt that Hruine would be following his own chalk marks back. Arainthe, too, was sure that she could move faster, run quicker, and track his progress at the same time. She just had to be a little faster, a little earlier. He did better than her in the art of sorcery and magecraft, but she had the upper hand out here.

She just had to grit her teeth and do it.

She took off at a dash, darting through the trees, tracking Hruine’s chalk marks and shoe prints and the damage a man would do to the wilderness if he lumbered through it without care. She sprinted, pushing her legs to the limits.

I have no will? Her teeth bared. I’ll show you.

The Mistress had said that she waiting, and the task wasn’t over until someone actually brought the diadem to her. Which meant everything was still fair game until then.

She should have realized this earlier. That would have spared her this trip. It could have spared her a lot more, too.

She found him eventually. He had wrapped her cloak around him tightly. The night was coming, and the forest was getting colder. He was moving more slowly than she would have expected too, and there was a slight limp on his left leg.

Good, she thought, and flashed to the side. Now, all she had to do was to circumvent him, and get back sooner.

Sometimes the star aligns, and sometimes luck was on her side.

She had pushed her body to its extremity, but she had made it back to the Temple before he did. The guards opened the front doors for and she clambered in, and she glared at them. Strangely enough, they shrunk back.

Her hair was bedraggled even in a bun, and her tunic and leggings were ripped, stained with mud and other things, plastered to her body with sweat. The grin on her face was almost unhinged. Arainthe looked utterly unpresentable, and that was exactly how she dragged herself through the Temple, past various staff and fellow acolytes, and collapsed outside of Old Man Taius' office without ceremony.

And then she waited for the evening and him to come.

"Arry?"

Tessa Ree, her consciousness registered, but Arainthe paid the voice no mind. Her dress and behaviour had drawn her a small crowd, and Arainthe was content to ignore it all. Instead, all she could focus on was the burn of her straining muscles, the heaviness of her breath, the cool wood of the door at her back, and lack of him in front of her.

The crowd wasn't relevant. Nothing else was relevant except for what happened next. Her focus was razor sharp. Her fingers fidgeted with the small vial of powder and the blow dart, and then she grinned

The crowd did not draw away when Hruine appeared. Instead, it ebbed and flowed into a thin ring that half-circled the pair of them.

First, there was a moment of awkward silence. "Move," Hruine said.

"No," Arainthe returned. Then she blew a dart into his arm.

There was a odd sort of humor to be found in the situation. While their audience watched in baited breath, Arainthe almost felt like laughing. Hruine slapped the arm where the dart had hit with an expression of confusion. He had probably never been blow-darted before. She hadn’t blow-darted anyone before him, either.

The dart was dipped in the vial of powder, and it only took seconds for the effects of the power to kick in.

And then she pitched the entire vial at him, watched as he flinched tried to pull his arm up to avoid it, only to break the vial and cough into the powder.

Well, the bottle was quite fragile.

Shillian poison. Made from a common plant that grew in the south of Raiaera. In small quantities, it was an anesthesia. In its powdered, concentrated form, it was a numbing agent. In large quantities… well, in large quantities, they called it the living death. It caused complete paralysis and decay of bodily functions until antidotes could be was administered. The worst part was that its victim retained complete awareness during the entire stage of paralysis.

And it didn’t take long to work.

She laughed as his muscles suddenly contorted, and his coughing turned into a rasp. His eyes were watery at the sides and blinking too rapidly to be comfortable. His arm twitched upwards, before dropping down. Then he was on his knee in front of her, and she did laugh.

His will might be made of steel, but his wiles certainly weren’t. She fought dirty, when she fought at all. Nobody said this was a game of sorcery and magecraft. Her enemies planned making her one of the living dead. The man in front of her slaughtered her enemies viciously. And now, it was her turn, and what she chose contained a certain degree of madness.

“You lack wiles,” she brought her face close and chirped at him, in a mirror of his quote to her in that sanctum. His eyes followed her, and the anger coming from him was palpable. Then, viciously, she pulled the pouch off his belt, and used his shoulders as a crutch to stand, ignoring the vehement protests of her own body. She didn't lack will. She didn't lack wiles either, and this time that gave her the upper hand. "I win."

The door behind her opened of its own accord, and she heard a slow series of claps. Then a cold, frigid voice spoke with a hint of pleasure.

“Well done.”

Most of the crowd had strange expressions on their faces.

---

The fall out of her actions were not extreme as she had expected, or perhaps they were just as extreme as she had predicted. Things turned out pretty well -- from her perspective.

She earned her apprenticeship in the face of futile protests from Old Man Taius. It was offered behind closed doors, with just her, the Mistress, and the old instructor. The old man tried to argue that Arainthe didn’t quite abide by the spirit of the rules outlined for this game, until the Mistress shut him down with and glare and a point skirting around the fact that neither did he.

Plus, it seemed like her new teacher appreciated underhanded viciousness and the sheer gutsiness of poisoning a fellow student in front of an instructor’s doorsteps.

She wouldn’t find out what happened to Hruine until later, but she knew that he was alive. Old Man Taius wouldn’t allow his favorite student to die on his own doorsteps. The disappearance and likely demise of Darger and his three friends were laid at her feet, to which she said nothing. She earned something strange reputation, and her fellow acolytes began giving her a large berth.

The Diadem was added to her new Mistress’s collection. Arainthe would later learn that Zaharberritze meant restoration, and it had powers beyond her comprehension, but that was another tribulation for another day.

How many times had Arainthe almost lost and then ended up on top?

Too many to count.

Name of Thread: Cradle of the Filthy
Judgement Type: Workshop

Rewards:

Rogue receives:
4598 EXP
627 GP

Rewards inclusive of Althanas Day 3x.
Workshop Submission - cost 2 AP.

“The rogue has suffered much. He needs someone to remind him of why he once believed in a good path...”
― Elizabeth Carlton, The Royal Rogue

All rewards have been added.