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== Light From Darkness ==
<i>In which the Fell is entered, an ancient artefact found, and a pre-post-mortem threat delivered...</i>

==== The 4th Day of Resplendent Wood, Realm Year 763 ====
A month after Cynis Asura's party at the Iceflower Palace and things are not going so well, overall. Cora'Esh' offer of quick cash for a run into Marama's Fell had seemed like a great idea to Saffron, and bringing Sian (for his spirit-handling ability) and Kerzoro (for sheer muscle, just in case) made things seem all the better. The sorceress supplied a map which had the location of some long-abandoned ruins within the shadowland marked on it.

But that was before the storm swept in, a storm which has covered the sky from East to West in black clouds and stalking lightning. Silver, normally on the airy side of happy, is currently cowering belowdecks, unwilling to come out to face the raging tempest. On the upside, the ruins are exactly where Cora'Esh' map said they were.

"Mela-be-damned weather," Saffron scowls, her hair whipping in the air like serpents. In frustration she turns her coat collar up, twisting her hair into a queue to be tucked beneath. "Blasphemy it may be, but if some petty weather ghost's responsible for this I'm going to holystone the deck with his ugly face."

Aia, having tagged along largely against Sian's wishes, looks around at the black sky, turning a full circle on deck. "All I can see is the storm."

Sian replies, "Logically, that's because all there is to see <i>is</i> storm."He leans on the rail, scowling out at the weather. Clad in a bulky black jacket, he looks rather imposing.

"On the upside, I hear it sometimes rains blood in places like these." Saffron scowls at the clouds. "At least that hasn't started yet." She keeps a hand on the tiller as the Osprey judders on a mound of gray-black ice.

Kerzoro is, of course, standing in the front of the ship, gazing off into the distance, arms crossed in front of his massive chest and sword on his back.

The clutch of ruins marked on the map looms suddenly out of the blackness, a massive series of lightning strokes impacting into the ruined stone tower and lighting everything up in sharp relief for a few seconds, before the blackness of the storm returns. Saffron drops anchor - in this case, a barnacle-covered, carved rock on a chain. It's heavy, but then she isn't dropping it and winching it in by hand. <i>Hooray for First Age conveniences.</i>

"I'm going belowdecks to talk to my first mate. We'll close in on foot." With that, her heavy bootheels thump on the well-cared for deck, and she descends into the belly of the yacht.

Silver remains curled up in the corner, still whimpering to herself. "Hey." Saffron crouches down beside Silver. "Can you take care of yourself?"

"It's all wrong," she whimpers, "A horizon storm. Not right."

"Well, we're going into the ruins now. If we never come back, the ship is yours." Saffron claps the scared girl on her shoulder. "Deed and documents are in the usual place."

Silver turns, "You don't understand. This storm is NOT RIGHT! There's no life to it, only hate and confusion."

"We're in a shadowland. These places are like -" she wrinkles her nose, groping for a polite simile - "a peeling scab on the face of Creation."

Silver rolls back over and returns to crying, curled up in the corner.

"Look, if we don't come back, take the <i>Osprey</i> once dawn is come, and head the fuck out of here, okay?"

"Mmhmm... OK."

Saffron thumps back abovedecks with a faintly sour expression on her face, like she bit into a spoiled plum or something.

Sian is armed and armored, looking at Saffron with something approaching concern. "Is everything alright?"

Kerzoro glances back towards Saffron as well. "Hmm?"

Another spectacular series of lightning strokes douses the immediate landscape, one striking ground not six feet away from <i>Osprey</i>. One bolt illuminates the distant and corpse-city of Sentinel, far away and filled with only the dead.

"Yeah. Just had a last message to pass on to her." She absently rolls the cuff of her left sleeve up, baring the huge fuckall shiny smashfist covering the knuckles of her left hand. "Let's go, huh. Stuff isn't gonna retrieve itself."

"Mmm." Sian takes a javelin in hand, and gestures with it. "Ladies first."

Saffron disembarks, her boots finding lousy purchase on the broken slippery ice-scree. She's glad of her coat, definitely. And the solidity of the breastplate laced in under it. 

The ruins themselves appear to be little more than a rocky area on an open plain, something that would be glanced at without too much curiosity by a passer-by - assuming there were any such in a shadowland like the Fell. Several tower bases, long since broken and shattered, jut out of the ground like jagged teeth.

Sian clips on a pair of iceskates and slides after her, seemingly unaffected by the weather. "Appealing place. Do we have a specific location, or is it simply taking what we can find?"

Kerzoro keeps a hand on the grip of his sword as he walks down. He may not find purchase on the ice, but he makes his own as his weight cracks the ice just enough. "Oh, yes, beautiful. I'll have to recomend it to my father."

The intermittent strokes of lightning ensure that vision never really gets a chance to adjust to the gloom, but they also illuminate the surrounds for the split second that the storm's fury is directed at the ground. A scribbled sketch on Cora'Esh' map with the note "temple" underneath it corresponds to one less-tumbledown building a short distance away.

Cora'Esh' instructions upon hiring were, once divested of her flowery speech, quite simple: Get into the temple, find the inner sanctum, retrieve a slightly-off-perfect hexagonal ceremonial shield made from jade and orichalcum.

"You know, this is kind of too quiet." Saffron's feet squeak on the ground as she treks towards the temple. 

Sian moves in easy arcs, the quiet hissing of his skates occasionally roughening as he hits rock. "Shadowlands always are. Don't let it get to you."

Saffron's booted feet crunch and squeak on the ice-covered ground. <i>Next time, get crampons to lace onto boots. </i> Saffron notes, "At least we won't have to deal with tourists in this vacation spot." <i>Not living ones, anyway... </i>

"Mhmm." Sian gazes evenly at the upcoming building.

Several more lightning strokes confirm the suspected temple as the one noted on the map, and then, finally, it begins to rain. Chill, heavy droplets of water begin falling from the sky, slowly at first, but soon in droves, rendering visibility even more problematic.

"Mrff." <i>It could be worse. It could be raining pus. Or blood.</i> Saffron doesn't mention it for fear of making it come true. "And of all things, it has to rain." At least her coat is of good waterproof oilskin, although trickles of it seeping in through seams at her shoulders inform her that it needs to be re-waxed.

"Bah, it'd just water. Let us go and fulfill this mission quickly, so that we may leave," Kerzoro blusters.

The doors of the temple show the unmistakable signs of a violent final opening. One of the ceremonial doors lies practically shattered in the vestibule, and of the other a portion still hangs on its hinges, a clean cut showing where a massive blade has sliced through the oak and brass construction.

"... That looks kinda like... " Saffron's voice trails off as she steps through the temple doorway.

Sian pokes it with a javelin carefully, then looks back at Kerzoro with a faint smile. "Sure this is your first time here?"

Kerzoro gives Sian a grin, but shakes his head.

The interior of the temple is largely open to the elements, and long years of abandonment show on the decay and dirt all about. Broken furniture abounds, as do fragments of metal and bones, all long since stripped of flesh (whether by animal or environment who can tell). The sanctum itself is relatively easy to find. At the end of a long corridor lined with looted shrines is another large door, this one still intact and solidly built. Black iron and stone feature heavily in its construction, and by the heavy cuts and marks on the solid granite, it is obvious that someone wanted to get in - just not badly enough.

Sian asks, "I don't suppose there was any other information on this place? For example, how to get in?"

Saffron looks up... at the rain pattering down onto her head from the shattered roof above. "I think I have an idea." <i>If they knew me better, they'd be getting worried now.</i>

"Oh?" Kerzoro queries

"Gimme a boost up. I'll see if the roof has fallen in over the sanctum, too."

Sian steps back, making way for the pair.

Kerzoro nods, and moves towards Saffron to give her said boost, while she grabs the slippery roof and pulls herself up, crawling low over the worn, pitted stone...

The roof of the temple is in a shambles. Barely a third of the building retains anything resembling a roof, with gaping holes leading down into every room of the temple, apart from one section in a far corner, which seems to have maintained itself better than the rest. Fortunately that is nowhere near where the sanctum is.

Saffron inches along carefully, clinging to the still-intact parts of the roof as she goes. 

Sian looks around the main chamber in the meantime, occasionally overturning bits of wood and metal.

The sanctum is in a sorry state, although apparently unlooted. The large roofing stones, when they fell, shattered potentilly priceless works of the potter's art, and pieces of statuary lie broken and forgotten. At the far end of the sanctum is the shield Cora'Esh described, approximately five feet in length, and made from swirls of black and blue jade, together with pieces of orichalcum. The granite and iron doors are securely barred from the inside, four heavy pieces of metal that slide into loops on the inside keep it barred shut, apparently for eternity. Lying against the door, still dressed in ceremonial finery, is a long-dead priest, his flesh mummified.

Saffron drops lightly through the roof to land a little beyond the mummified priest, and then reaches for the bars in the great granite door. <i>Let the others in first.<i/> The bars slide easily into their seatings, the ancient builders having performed their craft well, and the door is unsealed for what is the probably the first time in centuries, if not longer.

Saffron pushes the double doors open, expecting it to be a hard task. <i>They haven't moved in - well, centuries, after all.</i> The doors don't make even the slightest movement. "Well, damn," Saffron ponders, "Don't tell me, they open the other way." After a moment, she realizes which direction the hinges go, and pulls instead. Also, she feels like an idiot.

The doors open inwards, eeriely silent on their stone hinges, rolling back into precisely carved niches and stopping with a barely audible thud. The doors to the sanctum are open.Saffron stands framed in the doorway and beckons silently to the other two before turning towards the shield...

Sian pauses in his inspection of a broken sword at the gesture, following after her obediently.

Kerzoro's eyebrows rise. "Not bad." He then steps in after her.

"This is it," Saffron murmurs, reaching out to stroke the surface of the shield with a fingertip. The ceremonial shield is, upon closer inspection, approximately 5' long and 3' wide. The blue and black jades that form the majority of the artefact are swirled together, giving every appearance of being one so precise is the craftsmanship. The sections of orichalcum that are attached to the front appear to be largely random in size, shape and position.

Sian whistles quietly. "Impressive."

Saffron reaches out with a careful hand and feels around its edges experimentally. "Impressive, yes. And about as heavy as an overfed bull yeddim."

"Bah! It's nothing," Kerzoro boasts

"Well, you lift it then, Mr. Macho Man." Saffron backs off lest he drop it on her.

Hold on a minute." Sian steps past Saffron and peers carefully between the shield and the wall, as well as at the shield itself. The shield, upon minute examination, reveals a number of otherwise hidden features. The sections of orichalcum that are, somehow attached to the jade body of the shield, are also capable of moving, sliding over the surface to attach and interlock with one another. Catching contours and carefully hidden lines in the golden, Anathematic metal, Sian discovers that the pieces, if moved correctly and slotted together will form the symbol of that banned deity, the Unconquered Sun.

Sian steps back. "It's safe. Just try not to touch the gold."

Kerzoro cracks his knucles as he steps forward, staring up a the shield. "Hmm! Well, I'll do my best."

<i>Heavy as an overfed bull yeddim... applies to more than just the shield,</i> Saffron thinks, glancing back at Kerzoro.

Kerzoro considers for a few moments, and then crouches, picking up a stone from all the rubble and clutching it... when he stands again, it appears to all the world that he has bulked up.

"Whoa." Saffron steps further back to give Kerzoro room to move. "The sooner we get this back to the Osprey, the sooner we can get out of here."

Kerzoro takes a deep breath, and steps forward, gripping the edges of the huge shield... and then, with a barely suppressed groan, lifts the damned thing from the wall. There are, the other Dragon-bloods note, two sets of loops and a hand-hold attached to the back of the shield, which look for all the world as if they could be used to fit this shield for someone to wear to battle.

"And now I <i>really</i> hope I never meet an Anathema. Think how strong you'd have to be to wear this thing into a fight..." Sian breathes.

Kerzoro then sets the shield down on the floor and against the wall, letting out a deep breath. "... heavy. I can carry it though. Just let me get a better grip..." He ponders, "Eh, something this big... Warstrider?"

"Little small for that, I think... not that I've seen any warstriders, mind," Sian replies.

Kerzoro moves around the shield, and glances below it and to the straps, and gives a small nod. "... yeah. Anyway..." He proceeds to sling his arms around the straps, and... doing a wonderful imitation of a turtle, picks it up again with another groan.

Kerzoro staggers somewhat as he carries the excessively heavy item out of the temple's sanctum, flanked by Sian and Saffron. The path back out of the temple, although slow, is relatively simple, and once outside (in the still pouring rain and raging thunderstorm) the three feel something different in the air, some chill that wasn't there before.

Saffron stops, "Uhoh." 

Kerzoro groans,"... rrgh... well... this makes a nice umbrella..."

Sian carefully removes a javelin from the sling on his back. "Always pays to be careful."

There are signs of movement in the ruins, shapes in motion that weren't there before. Kerzoro groans again, "... Oh. Joy."

"Sundown," Saffron whispers, turning paler than she normally is.

Sian whispers, "Saffron," His voice even, "Getting panicked isn't going to help anything."

The shapes in the distance close in slowly, resolving into the gruesome figures of a pack of hungry ghosts, just drifting maliciously through the stone ruins at present, but it won't be long before one of the undead creatures catches a whiff of the scent of the living in their domain.

"I'm not getting panicked. I'm just wondering if my will's been clearly-written enough, and if that lawyer has overcharged me, and if I can come back and kill him if I die."

Kerzoro sighs. "Well, I don't suppose they'll let me carry this to the ship..." And, with that, he carefully lets the shield down... so that it lands with the straps up. It'd be a bitch to pick up otherwise.

The rain, present for so long it has faded from perception, stops suddenly and without warning, and the dry, dry earth of the Underworld soaks it up almost instantly, leaving the normally dusty ground only slightly damp and soft underfoot. The ghosts, the savage <i>po</i> souls of the dead, stop milling around and almost as one, turn to face the temple with the three Terrestrial Exalted stood before it.

"You think we can make a run for it?" Saffron asks, ready to fight.

Streaming forwards, the ghosts rush silently forwards, their deathwounds gruesomely visible on their rent corpuses and, at the last second, veer off to one side, heading down a long-empty boulevard and away.

Sian frowns. "Apparently, we don't need to."

"Huh."

"... curious."

In the distance, where the ghosts went, a gong sounds. Deep and throbbing, with a strong sense of calling about it, it rings again, the note rippling out across the ruins.

Kerzoro shivers, "... brr."

Sian notes, "Of course, now we have to worry about whatever it is that's making them leave..."

"You realize they're heading in the same general direction as the ship?" Saffron realises.

Another note resonates across the city, felt more than heard.

"... Let's hurry then," Kerzoro states.

"Agreed."

Kerzoro moves to pick up the kerhuge shield again. And then the three being walking as quickly as possible back towards the <i>Osprey</i>, a second stream of hungry ghosts rushes past the trio - completely ignoring them in their desire to get to whatever is calling out, their presence this close filling the air with a graveyard chill.

Sian barely resists a flinch. "I think I'd actually prefer them to attack. At least we'd know what's going on."

Saffron replies, "... I don't know which would be worse."

Kerzoro adds, "I agree. I like a good fight and all, but this is just creepy... let us hurry."

From one of the more intact towers, at the edge of the ruins and a bare hundred or so yards away from the <i>Osprey</i>, a baleful green light is visible, the sickly glow struggling to illuminate the rocks around, and it is towards this point that the ghosts rush in their hundreds. Once nearby, they apparently decide to circle around whatever is causing that light, forming a cordon almost a quarter-mile across. The closest edge of this barrier of hungry ghosts is approximately 70 feet from the Chosen, behind a low, generally intact wall of stone.

"I think they've cut us off," Saffron whispers. "What are... they attracted to?"

"... gggreat." A grumble from Kerzoro.

Sian narrows his eyes. "Great, yes."

A flare of light suddenly bursts out from the tower, a pillar of green luminescence shooting up into the storm-wracked sky, accompanied by a sound like a hundred gravestone breaking at once. The ghosts stop.

Saffron starts, making a quiet "Eek!" sound

Kerzoro winces.

A silence washes out, blanketing the sounds of the storm and even the sounds of breathing from the three Dragon-blooded sheltered behind the wall. Then, that silence is replaced by low chanting, at first from the location of the light, but then taken up by a hundred throusand dead voices - the hungry ghosts adding their dead throats.

<b>"We pledge our flesh, our bones, our souls."</b>

Saffron starts! "Silver - she's in the middle of that alone in the ship..." 

<b>"We pledge our lives, our deaths."</b>

Kerzoro breathes, "... dragons."

Over and over the chant rolls out from the centre of this strange, unearthly ritual.

"Right. Well, I've had enough of this." So saying, Sian vaults over the wall and marches purposefully towards the glow.

Saffron follows him closely behind, being unencumbered... glancing back at Kerzoro...

Kerzoro <i>blinks</i>, and then shrughs and follows after them. <i>They need -somebody- to protect them.</i>

Sian takes no notice of the other two, steeling his nerves as he approaches the circle of chanting dead.

The ghosts, still chanting their mantra, ignore the Exalted in their midst. The glow gets brighter as the three approach, until, at the tumbledown ruins of a building they stop within sight of the centre. Approximately 20 people, all dressed in white robes, stand around a green flame, chanting the same mantra, and with each repetition the fire seems to gain in brightness, gathering strength and power. Then, one of the robed figures holds up a hand and the chanting stops. Another person, this one unrobed, steps forwards and looks at the leader. "I pledge my flesh, my bones, my soul."

"Oi!" Sian waves his hands at the group from behind the wall of zombies.

Kerzoro just... blinks at Sian.

Glancing left and right, Saffron is obviously preparing to sprint back to her ship, her safe harbor and home, if anything goes awry... this might just be it.

The leader looks up at the sudden intrusion, an expression of shock on his face, to be quickly replaced with anger. "What blasphemy is this? Who dares to interrupt our most holy rites?"

"No blasphemy here. I was just wondering if we could have our ship back?" Sian points at the <i>Osprey</i>.

The leader of the ritual draws a long, wickedly curved knife which glows faintly in the rapidly dimming light at the centre of the circle. "Kill him!" he gestures at his followers, "No, bring him here. He shall pay dearly for his blasphemy."

Kerzoro looks at Sian, "You know, I seem to recall you being smarter than this."

"I don't think so." Saffron rolls the cuff of her coat far back, revealing the knuckle-plate of her smashfist. Those who can read Old Realm will notice the First Age glyphs for "LOSER" engraved upon it in mirror image...

The robed figures rush forwards, the green flame now forgotten as religious fervour fills their minds, knives pulled from their robes.

"Guess not..." The javelin is instantly in Sian's hand again, and just as quickly sailing towards the leader.

Kerzoro sighs, and lets the shield down once more. "If you get us killed, I'm kicking your ass."