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[raging_monkey]

Oh dark ely where you been

[Serelir]

She is emerging! Just think what she'll be like in a few years (if she survives), under Caius' influence, too. 

[raging_monkey]

Lost in the winds sent all directions herself fracturing and bleeding into each other. Right

[Serelir]

No! She'll be wearing a fabulous black gown and commanding an army of horrors!

[raging_monkey]

Oh sexy lol

[Uccio]

Bones and tombs, I like it.

[Serelir]

Tarpeia Family Vault

Spoiler

In the silence following the thunderclap, Elowyn felt things moving around her. She quickly lit veilfire with shaking hands and shrieked as it revealed dozens of pairs of eyes staring at her from out of the gloom. She started backing away toward the stairs as corpses rose from their tombs and shambled toward her.

 

“Caradoc?” she called weakly.

 

“Get behind me! They’re slow – I’ll take care of them,” she heard him say from somewhere behind her.

 

“Uh, should I blast them with some fire?”

 

“Space is too small – you’ll fry us both.” She saw a flicker as he dashed in front of her and behind one of the corpses. Its head toppled to the ground with a smack. He’d sliced through its neck so fast that she didn’t even see his blade move. She came to her senses and cast a barrier over them both. The corpses were converging on Caradoc. His form blurred as he sliced a swathe through them. Elowyn ran over to Cloelia’s casket and made a quick search for the key – might as well get what she came for.

 

The key was suspended from a delicate chain around the body’s neck. Elowyn carefully unclasped it and started to pull it away when there came another booming clap of thunder. The vault shook, and dust rained down on her head. A strange light was coalescing on the other side of the chamber.

 

“Caradoc, we have to get out of here!” she yelled.

 

“Coming!” he shouted, fighting his way through writhing bodies.

 

In the midst of the light, a gigantic shadowy shape took form. “Revenant!” shouted Caradoc.

 

There came an eerie voice, “Who disturbs the slumber of the Tarpeia?”

 

Caradoc and Elowyn scrambled for the stairs, but a force took hold of them, pulling them back into the room. Elowyn slid along the stone floor, trying to grab something to hang onto. Caradoc drew a small knife from his boot and threw it at the revenant. It stuck right in the ghastly creature’s empty eye socket, but it simply reached up, plucked it out and tossed it aside.

 

“Maker’s pants!” cursed Caradoc just as the revenant blasted him with lightning from a massive sword. Elowyn channeled mana through her staff, healing Caradoc and renewing his barrier. The revenant turned its menacing, empty gaze toward her. She struck two corpses down with her staff. “Wait!” she called out, “We are here to help your family, not disturb them!”

 

“You came here to steal,” rumbled the revenant.

 

“No, let me explain! One of you is trapped between worlds, neither living nor dead! I needed Cloelia’s key to free her mother’s spirit!”

 

The revenant held up its bony hands, bringing the shuffling corpses to a stop. “I’m listening,” it said. Elowyn would have laughed about having a conversation with a revenant if her blood hadn’t been freezing in her veins.

 

“Cloelia’s spirit came to me and bade me free her mother, whose body withers without her spirit.” Elowyn held up the key. “I need this to open the trap. Please, I mean no insult to your kin. If I don’t hurry, Fabia will be joining her daughter here in this dark tomb.”

 

The revenant came drifting toward Elowyn. She swallowed and stood, trying not to shake. It loomed over her, giving off a chill aura that penetrated through her clothes and gripped her stomach with fear. Caradoc stood frozen, his mouth open, daggers ready.

 

The revenant laid both hands on her, cupping her face, and stared into her eyes, the quick and the dead, face to face. “Know this: return the key within the week, or I will raise this entire graveyard and hunt you down.”

 

“Yes, ser,” said Elowyn, her voice clear despite her trembling.

 

“Go then. Free her and return.”

 

Elowyn grabbed Caradoc’s hand and ran out of the vault into the thunderstorm.

[Serelir]

Tarpeia Residence

Spoiler

Despite Elowyn’s reassurances that opening the music box was unlikely to be dangerous, Caradoc insisted on accompanying her to the Tarpeia residence.

 

“You’re the only person I know who could talk their way out of a battle with a revenant,” Caradoc said drily.

 

“They’re the most intelligent of the Possessed. Well, except for Abominations, and only some of those are capable of reason,” she responded, not blinking an eye.

 

“I would have shrieked like a little girl if that thing had touched me,” exclaimed Caradoc.

“You would have shrieked like a grown man,” retorted Elowyn, narrowing her eyes. She’d still been a little girl when she’d learned to stop screaming.

 

“Nice place,” said Caradoc, observing the dilapidated state of the house. The servant let them in, and Caradoc distracted the servant while Elowyn went to the drawing room. “Here goes,” she thought, inserting the key and turning it. The tiny figures began to dance as the first notes played. Elowyn stepped through the Veil.

 

Cloelia was waiting for her. “This way!” she shouted, taking Elowyn’s hand and leading her out to the garden. A large gazebo stood at the center filled with dancing couples. “Be careful,” whispered Cloelia, “He’s in there, dancing with her.”

 

Elowyn knew the mage was dead, so there must be a demon impersonating him, called into being by his powerful magic and left here at this eternal garden party. Cloelia let go of her hand and hid. Elowyn made her way toward the dancers.

 

She could never forget his face: it had been burned into her memory throughout her ordeal inside the book. He was dancing with a beautiful woman wearing a golden dress. It could only be Fabia, doomed to dance here while her body withered and died. Elowyn could only imagine how he had gotten her into his clutches. Had she sought him out, hoping the pain of his ministrations would drown out the pain of her child’s death?

 

The demon’s eyes met Elowyn’s as he whirled Fabia around. He smiled an evil smile. As Elowyn drew closer, he pulled Fabia close to his body and ran his snaky tongue along her throat. The other party guests drew back, leaving the adversaries in the center, Fabia like a plaything between them.

 

“This is your last dance, demon,” said Elowyn.

 

“Perhaps I shall take a new partner when this one wears out,” taunted the demon. He ripped the gleaming satin of Fabia’s dress and sank his teeth into her breast. If Elowyn didn’t hurry, he would kill Fabia’s spirit before her body died. But Elowyn would have to be careful: she had to disable the demon without hurting Fabia.

 

She reached out her hands and shaped. Vines burst from the floor or the gazebo and twined around the demon’s body. “Ah,” he shivered as spikes grew out of the vines and pierced his flesh, “The pain is exquisite!” His claws lengthened, and he pressed them into Fabia’s body. Blood stained the golden fabric. He was going to kill her, and Elowyn would fail, and that meant the revenant would lay waste to Minrathous with an army of Undead. Elowyn gritted her teeth and cast. The vines burst into flame. She ran forward and grabbed Fabia, ripping her from the demon’s grasp. She cast a quick healing spell, and Fabia’s wounds began to close. But the demon wasn’t finished.

 

It shook off the ashes of the burning vines and came toward Elowyn wreathed in a halo of flame. She prepared to cast a cone of cold, but it sunk its burning claws through her shoulders and drew her into its fiery embrace. She screamed at the smell of her own flesh burning.

 

Suddenly, she was released, and the demon staggered back. It twisted around furiously, trying to reach something stuck in its back. Cloelia stood there, a smile of satisfaction on her face. “I stuck him with a cake server!” she chirped delightedly. The demon dissolved into a pile of ashes. Cloelia clapped her hands. “It was lemon cake!”

 

Elowyn hugged the girl, then ran over to Fabia, who was trying to stand up, shaking her head as if coming out of a daze.

 

“We need to get you back to your body,” Elowyn urged. She and Cloelia took Fabia’s hands and ran with her back inside the house and upstairs to the bedroom. Fabia gasped when she saw her body lying there, barely visible beneath the sheet, it had so wasted from starvation.

 

“How can I leave you, my darling?” Fabia said to Cloelia, tears pouring down her face.

 

“Mama, I need you to live so that someone remembers me. Every time you see my favorite flowers or play my music box, I will be with you. Please mama, live for me. Then, when you have lived a full life, you can come tell me about all the things you have seen, all the adventures you’ve had. Please do this for me.”

 

“Oh my child,” moaned Fabia, holding Cloelia tight. “You never had a chance to grow up, to love, to have children of your own. I missed you so much, I felt I couldn’t go on. But now that I know you are waiting for me, I will live for you. I will see you in the waves of the ocean and hear you in birdsong. Every time I eat lemon cake, I will remember your bravery. Then I will pass across the Veil, and the two of us will be together.”

 

Whether little Cloelia was merely a spirit with her shape or the real thing, it didn’t matter. Holding Cloelia in her arms gave Fabia the courage to go on living. Fabia turned toward her body and stroked her forehead. Then she was gone, and Elowyn stepped back across the Veil. She lengthened the wick of the lamp and saw that color had come back into Fabia’s cheeks. She began to stir, and her eyes opened. Elowyn took her hand and squeezed it, and Fabia looked into her eyes and smiled.

[Uccio]

Such a bittersweet ending, but with a promise of seeing each other again.

[Serelir]

Two more spirits to go!

[Serelir]

The Cemetery

Spoiler

Elowyn returned alone to the cemetery. If anything were to go wrong, best to sacrifice only herself and not drag a friend into such a dangerous situation. The storm had cleared the air. Leaves danced in the clear sunlight. A parliament of rooks strutted around the graves, cackling and chuckling. Elowyn had left the Tarpeia vault unlocked, figuring any trespassers wouldn’t get past the thing that waited inside. She slipped through the door.

 

All was quiet. Colored light streamed through the stained glass window. It depicted the Tarpeia family arms. Elowyn imagined what Minrathous had been like during the Imperium’s days of glory, when the buildings stood straight and new, uncracked, when the families stood proud. Had the Magisters really reached the Golden City and started the Blights? Then she thought about how the new Imperium had crushed her ancestors and laid waste to their beautiful cities. How she longed to travel back in time and see her people before they had been brought so low.

 

She made her way down the stairs into the darkness. It wrapped around her like a cloak. She found some comfort in dark places. She had no fear of the Undead this time. She had accomplished her mission and wore the key on a chain around her neck. She stood by Cloelia’s tomb, remembering her beautiful face, her sweet, sad words to her mother. A tear ran down her cheek and dropped onto the stone. She felt a cold hand on her shoulder and shivered.

 

She turned around, looking into the hollow eyes of the revenant. Whose body did the demon inhabit? Did it contain any memories of its life, or was it an empty vessel? The demon touched her hair. It seemed so alive to her. She wondered about demons and spirits and whether that which animated living people was of the same essence as the beings in the Fade.

 

The revenant spoke, “Mage, you have kept your word. I sensed when the spirit of Fabia Tarpeia was freed. You have done a great service to our family, and you shall be rewarded.”

 

“I have the key here. I’ll return it to Cloelia’s tomb,” said Elowyn, reaching up to unclasp the chain.

 

The revenant grasped her arm, stopping her. He reached out and touched the key. Elowyn felt a sharp pain as the key burned her flesh.

 

“This is my gift to you: call me, and I shall come,” the revenant intoned. Then he disappeared. The chain fall to the floor. Elowyn felt the hollow of her throat, right where the revenant had laid a bony finger against the key. The flesh there was tender and burned.

 

“Thank you,” she whispered into the darkness.

[Uccio]

Oh, revenant guardian? That is some heavy hitter behind her!

[Serelir]

Kinda - I don't want to overuse him though. But it was too cool an idea to pass up! I've always had a thing for revenants.

[raging_monkey]

Oh a fellow mediump I love it I might have to make some changes so I don't look like a copy cat

[Serelir]

Nuu, she's not possessed! It's more like a rune, only burned into her skin. So she can't just go hang out with Mr. Tarpeia. He might get annoyed if she calls him too often.

 

I remembered that she also has a scar on her neck from that dead mage. Poor girl is all marked up! That one is higher up though, and I'm not sure if it's more than a reminder not to open strange books.

[raging_monkey]

Well scars add to to ones beautiful so there's that

[Uccio]

Magic does wonders though, in a house of wealth she can get rid of the markings. Caius could too, but he keeps his scars because they remind him of his past.

[Serelir]

Hey, that's Elowyn's pet revenant you're talking about!  She's taken a shine to him.

[raging_monkey]

Hehe

[Uccio]

Caius is her pet too, but she just doesn't know it.

[Serelir]

You know, the mental image that conjures up is NSFW!

[Uccio]

Haha! There is that fun little image flickering.

[raging_monkey]

I kinda wanna see it lol

[Serelir]

I wonder if he'd make a mark on her skin, too? 

[Uccio]

Probably just a love bite.