-->

Saturday 2 June 2018

Episode I - V Skulls of the Fallen (Shard I)



A Blood-soaked Legacy


V
Skulls of the Fallen
(Shard I)


It only took a few moments for Isilda to get her feet under her once more. Tyverus had attempted to help her to her feet, but she waved him away. She understood that how badly she now felt, having endured what she had previously, he must be suffering far worse. She felt like something had tried to peel away her body from her soul.

"Any ideas on what in Gehemol that was?" Tyverus' voice was a little shaky as he pushed his blood-matted hair away from his eyes. "Perhaps Bhergom might know, given how arrogant he's been lately." He turned his head to glare at the old oracle who had to push against a nearby rock to get to his feet.

Bhergom remained silent except for an extenuated groan. He avoided eye contact from Tyverus as well as Isilda. His confidence was shaken and he knew the two younger members of the party had seen his cowardice on full display.

"That was entirely beyond what I've experienced before." Isilda's voice cracked in her throat. "I can barely see with all this blood in my face. Are you faring any better, Tyverus." Isilda groped in front of her until she grabbed the young knight by his scabbard and then lifted her hands to his arm.

"Yes, I suppose I'm used to blood and gore in my eyes." Tyverus leaned forward to try and see beneath Isilda's matted bangs. "Also, I have far shorter hair. My skein is empty, though." He patted his belt feeling a light water-skin against his armored thigh. "There is water below, I'll quickly fetch some for the lot of us. Do you have your footing?"

"Yes, I can manage." Isilda gave a sheepish grin and let go of Tyverus' arm. She leaned forward, making out hazy shapes of the ground before her and walked away. She did her best to avoid Bhergom as she moved as the thought of being near him after seeing his actions was too much for her.

She held one hand out in front of her as she walked forward in a half-crouch. Her free hand wiped away the coagulating blood on her forehead and around her eyes. The first stings were beginning to fade away, but the clumps of blood around her eyes made it hard to focus. She soon realized that the blood in her hair wasn't going away without some water.

A few yards ahead sat a small boulder that she could sit on as she regained her strength, and in front of that was a rectangular altar of some kind. She reached the boulder within a few footsteps and she lifted herself onto the flattest surface she could. The prickles in her arms were still going strong and the muscles in her body were still screaming from their earlier strain.

"If it was a trap, it wouldn't do to have all of us stuck in it." Bhergom didn't even bother to apologize for his behavior. "It was a dangerous gamble." The old oracle continued his lumbering walk towards where Isilda sat. She lifted herself on her hands to turn away from him. "It was something I had to think about. I had to weight the consequences."

Isilda sighed and allowed her shoulders to slump, but otherwise remained quiet. She slowly turned her head away with each step Bhergom took towards her. If the old man wanted her forgiveness, which she knew he did, she was going to make him work for it.

"What would you have me say?" Bhergom reached the stone altar and groaned as he pressed his backside against the edge for support. He lifted a hand toward Isilda in supplication.

"I would expect an apology." Isilda cut in harshly. She turned her head to look at her teacher but had to turn her head at an angle. A large clump of drying blood covered his face in her sight. She tried to pick it away. "Well, for starters, at least."

"I'm sorry." Bhergom's hand was still held forward in supplication. Isilda couldn't see his face beneath the blood and her matted hair so it was hard to know if he meant it or not. "You are my student and it is part of my duty to watch out for your well-being."

Isilda gave a cruel laugh and shook her head. She managed to free a large clump from her left eye. She began to bunch up the robes of her hood around her chin to wipe at her cheeks.

"I seek forgiveness." Bhergom pulled his hand back to steady himself on the altar. "I'll do better with the rest of this expedition." The old oracle leaned back against the cool stone and stretched while looking up at the glowing silver-blue crystals above. "I don't know what it is about this place. I don't feel like my usual self. I'd say there is a presence here, but I can't feel anything."

"Perhaps the source is whatever tried to rip our energies from our bodies." Isilda took the bait at talking about another subject. She wanted to put the past behind them and keep focused on why the four party-members were here. "Tyverus and I were conversing about that particular thing while you were fighting with Vhoggli."

"What exactly would that be?" Bhergom tugged on his sleeves to pull a small bit of blood from his forehead. He had obviously fared far better than Isilda and Tyverus. "The source of our strange behaviors, the source of our energies being ripped away, or the source of this strange fog over my abilities."

"Our abilities, Bhergom." Despite Isilda's compromised sight, she could still see the old oracle be taken aback by her using his given name, it must have hurt his ego not to be given the respect he thought he deserved. "I know the crystals above are responsible for the pull of our energy. Perhaps they are an ancient artifact that is attuned to pull far greater reserves of energy than we currently have within us." She began to probe at the side of her right eye. "I don't believe the crystals would affect our behavior or cloud our abilities of Haeth."

"Perhaps Vhoggli is up to something." Bhergom scratched loudly at the stubble on his face. "I never trusted that little runt. Who knows what evil things he picked up from Toulam's old books."

"Vhoggli is an asset to us. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him." Isilda gave a cough and let her head droop for a moment. She didn't need to see to know that Bhergom had rolled his eyes at her statement.

"Then, perhaps it's the boy. Maybe he knows far more arts than simple light tricks. He might be a saboteur from Morrthault City. You know how those members of the Order of Lanterns hate our order." Bhergom lifted himself to his feet once more and cracked his neck to the side. "I doubt very much that the legends of the Mad Oracle are true. Perhaps it is he who would pretend to be her."

"You're stretching believability." Isilda raised her right arm on her knee and let her head drop to her upturned wrist. "How do we know you aren't a saboteur, hmm? A cowardly one at that."

"Well, speak a demon's name and he will appear." Bhergom openly ignored Isilda's last statement and took two steps forward.

"Vhoggli?" Isilda lifted herself from the boulder and turned towards where her teacher was facing.

"No, not that rapscallion. The other one." Bhergom grumbled and walked away from the altar and back towards the bridge.

"It's ice water, but it will get that blood out of your eyes and hair." Tyverus gave a chuckle as he approached. Isilda took a few steps forward, almost stumbling over a crack in the floor. He caught her with his hand and helped steady her. "The stream runs right under the bridge. Northward it goes on for some time, well into a dark area. Southward it seems to break off into two sources."

Tyverus lifted his water-skin and began lightly pouring the chilled water on Isilda's face. She lifted her hands to keep some of it under her chin and rub away the remaining bits of blood from her eyes with her wet fingers. The water had a sharp cold to it but was soothing against her skin.

"You've got a nasty clump in your eyelash." Tyverus lifted his free hand to lightly pull some dried blood from her eye. Isilda looked up at him and pursed her lips at being groomed by someone else. "Sorry, it just looked pretty big."

"Thank you." Isilda went back to splashing and rubbing away the blood. "I think I can handle my face, just fine." She began to comb the blood out of the fine strands of her blonde hair.

"From what I can see, you've almost got all of it." Tyverus gave another chuckle and continued to pour the last bits of the water. "Good thing, too. I know you're going to want to see what's behind you when you're done."

"What's that?" Isilda continued to greedily splash the water on her face while rubbing the last bits from her forehead.

"Was Vhoggli down there near the water?" Bhergom interrupted the two and began to walk back towards Isilda from the bridge. He had his arms folded behind him and his face was in a scowl.

"No, Master." Tyverus turned away for a moment to answer Bhergom and then went back to dripping the last bits of water on Isilda's head. "I lost track of him when you did. I didn't see him down near the water, or any wet tracks on any of the shores I could see."

Bhergom gave a grumble and began to walk past the young knight and the young Oracle. He stopped for a moment to look down the incline that Tyverus had climbed a few moments before. He looked back skeptically at Tyverus and then wandered off.

"What's his problem?" Tyverus turned his eyes back to Isilda who was wiping the blood-stained ice-water from her face with her sleeve. The water-skin was empty and he idly tied it back onto his belt.

"He's trying to cover for his own cowardice with strictness. He won't get the thought out of his mind that Vhoggli has betrayed us somehow." Isilda finished patting her face with the sleeve of her robes. All down her front was wet blood stains. "Now what is it you wanted me to see?" Isilda winked some leftover moisture out of her eyes and looked up to Tyverus while smiling.

"It's a little hard to miss." Tyverus smiled and pushed by her. He walked forward and held his arms wide at his sides. "If you three came here to find artifacts, I think you just hit the mother-load."

"What?" Isilda turned on her heels to look back at Tyverus. She could see him with his back towards her, still with his arms held wide. She pushed beside him to see what was in front of him. She blinked the last bits of blood from her eyes.

Before them was an immense wall that trailed from the edge of perception on one end to the other. Where Isilda had earlier been sitting was a set of small boulders around a stone altar in an alcove of the wall. Along the wall were innumerable indents about a yard in height and the same in width. In each of these smaller alcoves sat a skull. Flowing from the left to the right seemed to be the passage of time, as the leftmost alcoves held nothing but dust or bone fragments, while the rightmost seemed to have more intact skulls inside.

"What in Tolesh's Light..." Isilda let her voice trail off as she took a few steps toward the wall. "There are thousands of them."


Please donate a portion of your essential energies to sustain this fiction.
The ritual involved only takes a moment over at Top Web Fiction and does not require any sign-in or log-in.
These energies are wiped away every week, so sustained energies on this ritual would be most appreciated.
Thank you for your sacrifices to allow us to take over your worl-... Erm, to keep this story going.


No comments:

Post a Comment