Topic: A Light in the Dark

Noira

Date: 2013-04-24 16:14 EST
Seven years ago...

The afternoon sun bathed Sibreth Orchard in a bright glow, from the white cherry blossoms to the farmhouse's clay rooftops and the field of wildflowers beyond. It was a beautiful sight for the few at the orchard lucky enough to be relaxing, good warm light to work by and good for the linens hanging in the yard; it was, however, much too bright to read by without some shade. A skinny young elfling ducked under the linens and marched through the tall grass away from the house with two books the breadth of her torso clutched tightly in her arms. She knew exactly where she was going: the gnarled old apple tree on the hill, the last fruitful plant from the old orchard.

She lowered her golden eyes from the tree's silhouette to watch her feet as she picked through the ruins of her grandfather's house: a stone foundation, a crumbling chimney, bits of clay debris. One larger piece was inscribed with markings, something from the cider urns instead of the shattered roof tiles that littered the ground. She scooped it up, turned it over in her fingers, then dropped it into the small atlas she carried, replacing her pointer finger as a bookmark.

It said "fifth bull season" but she didn't know what that meant; probably sixty years ago, but her father would be able to tell her once she found him. Her brain was still in another land, following the bloodline of the ancient Thrycene Empire that blazed a trail down the Red Coast, all the way across the Inner Sea from her home. She suspected the Thrycene dynasty would bleed itself dry, and the next chapter of Stravus' Account would prove her right; her little atlas was there for context.

She quickly crested the hill and found shelter under the branches of the old apple tree, slouching against the trunk, its twisted roots her armrests. There she resumed her history lesson, tracing the Emperors' campaigns on her map with a piece of charcoal while the author regaled her with stories of the family's arcane prowess.

" 'And the fires he felt from the torches of the thousands assembled before him as if they were in his heart; he had only to open his hand and a fireball erupted from the air, smiting the ambassador, leaving only ashes where a man had once stood...' Nice!"

Back across the field, through the third-story window of the farmhouse, two older elves watched. One had the younger girl's dark hair and golden eyes, the other her plentiful freckles — her father and then her uncle, from her mother's side. "Noira deserves a college. At least a court. Damn our wizards," her father sighed.

"She has the affinity even more than your father did," her uncle nodded. "Moons and stars..." He snorted. "You watch her eyes closely, the way she dips her fingers in a stream neither of us can see....she can feel power."

"But that won't be enough to buy her a chance to learn it. Leara and I have talked it over a thousand times if we've done it once. The Elders' colleges cost more in a year than this orchard makes in ten — guaranteeing the Mystic Guard a fresh crop of common-birth 'initiates' each year." The father grimaced at the thought and returned to their inventory of the attic, his brother-in-law following closely at his heels.

"There are other ways. Through — "

"Marriage?" He smiled. "Most of the Estland scholars never marry, and when they do it's higher than a Sibreth. Even the last mage in the governor's court married a knight's girl. If she could at least travel....but a merchant for a husband?" He frowned. "Trinkets from abroad and an empty home half the year....hardly the future a father wants for his little girl."

"Trelas." His brother-in-law caught his elbow before he could reach the stairs. "You aren't giving up, are you?"

"No....I'll keep sending my letters, and we'll keep saving our coins." Trelas shook his head helplessly, and cast a sad smile across the room at the open window. "But I'm afraid, if she wants a real chance at what she loves....Noira's on her own."

Noira

Date: 2013-04-24 22:21 EST
At sunset Noira's mother called her in for supper. This was how it usually happened in the warmer months: the young elf made a habit of finishing her chores first thing in the morning, early enough that most of the household was working outside while the day was still cool, letting her think in peace for a few hours while she looked after the house. The rest was usually done not long after lunch, and she slipped away from her family at the first opportunity.

Sometimes she would find one of the hired hands and listen to their stories if they'd been anywhere interesting, especially if they had a touch of the affinity like she did — any scrap of arcane knowledge, new or ancient, from folklore or legend, was eagerly consumed. But most of the time, like today, she ran off to bury her nose in one of the books her uncles brought from the city when they could.

Noira!

She was already shutting the book on the decline of the Thrycene emperors, but not because of dinner: it was too hard to read in the waning light. She traced the narrow dirt path her feet had made in the last several years, head dipped to watch her supple boots navigate dry rivulets where early spring storms had cut through the earth. Little clay shards lined the bottom of one miniature ravine, not unlike her newfound bookmark...

She plucked it from her atlas and turned it over in her hand again, reading the inscription. She still didn't know exactly what it meant, but she felt its nature in her fingertips and the little hairs on the back of her neck: the lunar magic the older farmhands claimed her grandfather used on his prized cider. It wasn't obvious at first, but the strange tugging at the energy around her was the same she felt when she saw water at high tide, pulled taut by the moon.

Noira had an idea her affinity was stronger, or could be stronger, than most in her family. She'd heard her parents talk about it, too; they'd discussed her prospects, college or apprenticeships or even marriage, but in her head each prospect was a strange and meaningless dream with little context and little more than her imagination to paint the background. They'd discussed the Mystic Guard and the Imperial Legion too, which meant she could be a seeress or a battlemage! But war didn't capture her imagination, not for its own sake; then again, neither did the stars...

"I guess I'll take you out at night," she informed the shard, ducking her head to tuck the piece back into her atlas. She stepped over the foundation and snagged her trailing foot, landing heavily on a stretch of the old farmhouse she'd rarely seen before. Something shifted and she wobbled on her feet, but in her shock it didn't occur to her the ground was unstable until it was too late.

Earth and stone gave way beneath her, and with a shriek Noira slipped into the darkness.

Noira

Date: 2013-04-26 12:16 EST
Present day...

"Tavis! Gods curse him, why must he always do this?" Noira's voice was hushed but she caught echoes of her frustration bouncing back from the darkness in the ancient stone corridor, returning to the little pool of light created by her arcane lantern: a pulsing, glowing green orb hovered inside an iron cage clutched tightly in her left hand. Her right hand was still tracing the etchings on the small obelisk before her, and despite her worry she returned her gaze to the marker. Tavis always did this, after all.

"He's a Scout, and a bastard to boot." Grenwal stayed at the edge of her lantern's light, keeping an eye on the shadows the best that he could, but he did spare a smirk back at the armored scholar inspecting the ruins - armored just like him, in the unique brass-hued light steel of the Legion, though as their small unit's 'Shield' he wore twice the weight that the Scholar did. "You know how he is."

"Unfortunately I do, even worse than you," she sighed, and removed a sheaf of paper and charcoal from her bag to take a rubbing. "This is so strange..."

"We all make mistakes when you're young," Grenwal hissed a laugh at her. "It's been a year and change, stop beating yourself up."

"Not that," Noira answered, ducking another look at him to wrinkle her nose. He chuckled again. "No, I mean these ruins. Listen to this: 'Warlord Drau: Guardian of the Realm in Life and the Door in Death.' And the storm wards we keep finding on the floor, and how they've decayed already....I think the Mystics were right."

Grenwal frowned, not only at that but at the sound of footsteps. He'd begun loosening the tall shield strapped securely to his arm, but replaced it when he recognized the noise as Tavos'. Two years the three of them had been dungeon-delving together, more than enough time to recognize the cadence of the half-elf's steps. "The Mystics, right....Who are you, and what have you done with Noira?"

"A ha ha," she replied slowly and drily. "I'm serious. I know it's been nearly a century since anyone's found one, but I think there's a way to another plane here."

"You're right," Tavos said as he slunk back into the lantern's light, a wicked grin twisting his scarred face. "Hi again, gorgeous."

"Go **** yourself, Tavos," Noira sighed again; finished with the rubbing, she rolled up the sheaf of paper, bound it with a cord and replaced it in her bag.

" 'S what you've driven me to," Tavos shrugged helplessly. "No treasure left, so that'll well please the Captain. Someone's ransacked the place already, and it stinks to high heaven....but the stink's all coming off the tunnels in the tomb's west annex. Goblins, kobolds, trogs or trolls..." He shrugged again. "Something's made off with the loot and made a mess doing it, but the Legion will want to see what I found, and so will you, love."

"Well" What'd you find?" The plates in Noira's armor clanked and shifted as she stepped up to the Scout, peering up at him with an eager curiosity that her personal distaste for him couldn't quite smother.

"Runes, runes and more runes, floor to ceiling, big and small, and even my twisted little soul felt something hum in there. You'll make more sense of it....C'mon."

Tavos slipped back into the shadows, and Noira started a full run to catch up when Grenwal caught her by the arm. "Easy, Scholar. Shield goes first. We're not alone here, remember? Let's go nice and slow, and with luck..." He grinned over her lantern, green light dancing across his wrinkled face. "We won't see blood today."

Noira

Date: 2013-04-26 12:41 EST
"Watch your step," Tavos growled as Noira entered the chamber and promptly stumbled over two steps before she could catch herself. Something clattered all the way down the stairs with quite an echo, knocked loose by her boots, and she raised her lantern and fed her energy into its light, illuminating rounded walls supported by black stone ribs, a complex sequence of runes starting at the dead center of the ceiling and ending around an unadorned stone circle in the center of the room.

"These are Atrean runes," Noira breathed, incredulous at her first real glimpse of the wonders of her ancestors' empire, before the humans came to her lands. "The Thrycene warlords must have found this cavern five centuries ago....They must've known what it was, too....It's the only reason they would've denied their dead a proper sky burial."

"These are bones," Grenwal observed when he finally caught them up again and reached the stairs. He didn't like the sight of this. "All picked clean and chewed up..." He slipped his mace from his belt, hefting it into a ready stance, glowering down the corridor behind them.

"Picked clean years ago," Tavos amended, "but not enough years for my liking, from the look of them."

"Do your thing, Noira, see if your magic works, then let's get the hell out of here."

"Right." Noira navigated the bone-strewn stairs carefully, one step at a time, and set her lantern down in the center of the room while her Scout and Shield kept a close watch - Tavos retreated back down the corridor to listen for movement. She had been in places like this too many times to feel nervous, especially with her comrades by her side. She slid a large tome out of her bag and got to work taking note of the runes and deciphering them, hurried but not frightened.

In spite of her rush it was more than an hour until she was done. "Grenwal! Hey," she hissed at him, and he turned back from the doorway to stare at her. "I know how to initiate the Door," she whispered excitedly; it was all she could do not to jump up and down, even in her armor.

He gave her a quick thumbs up. "We knew you could. Hurry!"

"Right," she repeated, and set the book down. She planted her booted feet on the edge of the stone circle and raised her eyes slowly to the ceiling, tracing the length of one of the black runic ribs. She'd felt that humming the moment she stepped into the room, and already it sensed her focus and began to amplify. She drew power from the air, not elemental but raw, a rather tricky task accomplished by ignoring the elements, the natural laws of her world, and focusing solely on what powered them.

She raised her gauntleted hands and the power began emanating from her, iridescent channels of it phasing into sight, dropping to the floor and creeping up the ribs. When they reached the top the runes began to glow, and suddenly she felt a rush, and heard somewhere in her mind the sound of a wave rolling in for a mighty crash. She tried to move, but something electric kept her feet rooted to the spot.

"Grenwal," she hissed a wide-eyed plea at him, a moment before the power reached her. She saw a blinding flash and felt that massive power strike her squarely in the chest, lifting her off of her feet.

"Noira!"

Noira

Date: 2013-04-26 13:37 EST
"Dad! Mom, Dad! Dad! Mom, Dad! Owww..." The elfling whimpered at the bolt of searing pain in her arm and stumbled back into the dirt and roots. She tried to look around in the darkness but saw nothing, could barely even see the rapidly dwindling daylight overhead through the tangled roots that covered the pit. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks; her heart raced and she could feel the blood pumping furiously beneath her skin. "Mom, Dad! Anyone! Please....oh gods, please, please..."

* * *

"Noira! Gods please let her wake up....Tavos!" Grenwal set her back down on the edge of the stone ring and sprinted past her lantern, a blurry and confusing shape in her swimming vision. It looked so much darker than she knew it was; she could make out shadows dancing on the walls, more than just her companions'. She heard snarls, and the sound of clashing steel...

* * *

It was even darker now; there in a hole in the ground she had no way of telling the time for sure, but she knew the last of the sun's rays were long gone. She roused herself back to her feet, lips trembling and a whimper escaping her at the pain in her arm, but there were no more tears left to cry. "Mom....Dad," she coughed hoarsely, and tried again. "Anyone. Anyone! Please!"

* * *

"On your feet, lass!" No sooner did Noira's vision return to her, and the sensation of bruises all over her body from when she landed, than Grenwal had her by the arm, tugging her upright. He couldn't take more than that moment to support her; he turned away and raised his shield, deflecting the bone axe of a troglodyte. "Tavos, come back to me! Tavos!"

"Tavos!" Noira saw him a moment too late, whirling away from one beast he'd just cut down with his blades, only to stumble with a spear point blossoming out of his chest, the shaft of a spear buried in his back. Power coursed through her fingertips, gathering into a mass of flame that roared over his shoulder into the spear-wielder's face. More of the creatures scurried around him as his limp body fell, dragging him back into the darkness, but with fury driving her every step she stalked after them, unleashing another pair of blasts from her hands, setting more troglodytes aflame and sending them shrieking out of the chamber.

"Noira! Noira, get back here!"

"They can't have him, Grenwal! He's ours," she cried desperately back at him.

"He's gone, Noira!"

* * *

"No....not like this, no..." The girl bit back her own cries as she struggled to climb the walls of the pit with one hand as she'd already tried countless times. Grasping fingers found the mass of roots over her head, but slick with mud they slipped free, dropping her back into the earth, and she sheltered herself with her arm as more of it tumbled onto her head...

* * *

"You've got to go through." Grenwal looked at Noira and the blue pillar of light flickering in the center of the room. The troglodytes still blocked the doorway, regrouping for another attack, and this time they brought reinforcements: more than they could survive.

"The portal's weak, Grenwal," Noira protested. "There's barely enough energy for one, and I read the runes. It's a one-way door. You go," she decided, turning her blood-spattered face back to the troglodytes, trying to find some last trace of energy in her exhausted bones for another fireball. "I can reignite it when you're gone....follow you through..."

Grenwal shook his head and shoved his shield away from his limp and bloodied arm, and hefted his mace with the other. "It won't work. You're too tired."

"Gods damn you, Grenwal." She turned her fiery gaze on him. "It's the only way to save you!"

"You're right. And I'm sorry, Noira. But this is the only way to save you."

She didn't even have a chance to begin her question. The mountain of a man rushed her, catching her in the middle with the handle of his mace, and she tumbled backwards into the ring.

* * *

Light...?

Moonlight. It began to spill into the pit through the mass of roots after shaking so much of their dirt loose. The girl lifted her head again and tried to feel it on her skin, but moonlight was as cold as it ever was. But she did feel something: the shard at her feet began to glow, exposed to the old lunar magic that had brewed cider inside the urn it once belonged to generations ago.

Her fingers felt slowed against some unseen current as she reached out into the air, the magic between the moon and the runes. It was all around her, she realized, arcane forces breathing through the earth beyond mortal sight, turning their world...

She grabbed a hold of it, and fed it. She imagined it brighter, bright enough to banish every last shadow in this miserable pit, bright enough to see again, bright enough to feel safe within.

"Noira!" Footsteps thudded across the ground, scattered broken pottery across the ruined farmhouse as they approached. "Oh gods - Noira!" She saw the roots shake and move.

Then blinding light, brighter than anything she'd ever seen before, spilled into the pit...

* * *

"Ow..." Noira grasped her arm after she landed on a hard stone floor - not broken this time, but it ached. Her whole body ached, and still tingled with energy from that strange light she'd passed through...

"Grenwal!" It was dark, but her hands could feel she was in a different place now: a natural cave, roots and dirt and loose stones, and no sign of the ruins she had been in. She searched for a stone ring where she'd landed, runic ribs along the earthen walls behind her, any sign of a way back to her comrades...

Nothing. She was alone in the dark, and the gods only knew how far from her Legion; Tavos was dead; so was Grenwal. "Oh....oh gods..." She sank back to her knees, shivering from head to toe as her fingers dug into the dirt. She could feel the hot tears on her face, and willed them to stop. "Gods damn you, Grenwal!" she screamed, her cry echoing through the cave and out into the night sky.

There was a little light she could make out, as she stood in the back of the cave, steadying her panic and grief with deep, heaving breaths. It was faint and pale and cold, only moonlight....but it was enough. Wherever she was, there was power here too, and she had a little, just enough left, for a little more light. She focused her mind past the bloody and confused face of Tavos in his death throes, past Grenwal as he charged her, thinking only of the light. Before her eyes it began to grow, a glowing silver thread stretching from the back of the cave towards the sky outside.

She took three shaky steps and then broke into a run, over roots and stones, grasping at the earth to propel herself up and out. Whatever plane she had come to, wherever she was...

She'd find her way out of the dark.