A Blood-soaked Legacy
X
Discovery
(Shard I)
(Shard I)
"I saw what she wanted me to see, Tyverus. I know the reason we were sent here." A smile formed on Isilda's blood-stained lips. Her eyes looked up at him, half-crazed and spotted with blood. Her cloak few behind her on a soft gust of wind, yet she remained still as she stood with the skull in her outstretched hands. "We have to protect her. Toulam was right to send us. I know it all, now."
Tyverus remained just a few steps away from the crest of the bridge, holding his orb of light above him. He reached out a hand to Isilda so that she might walk toward him. The crystal lights above had already lost all of their energy. He didn't want to step forward and tempt their hunger once again.
Isilda gave a nod and took a step toward the bridge. She continued to hold the skull in front of her and stare at Tyverus with wide and ensorcelled eyes. It was obvious from the details of her face that she had seen something far beyond the ken of mere mortals. The frozen blood that had run down her cheeks glittered in the dancing light of Tyverus energy.
Tyverus turned his eyes away from Isilda to gaze at the darkness beyond her. There was something not right with the forming shadows and how they dancing in the guttering light. The shadows seemed to deepen and flow after Isilda as if she were walking through murky water. He didn't quite know if it was his nerves along with the tricks of light, or if it was something more. Some instinctual sense pulled at his gut and made him wave his arm and reach forward one more step, ushering the oracle to him.
"You can tell me all about it once we get out of here. Whatever entity commands this strange place is awakening. We must leave, now." Tyverus lowered down to reach his hand even further. He pressed his right foot sideways against the rocks of the bridge to keep him from moving forward. He held the light in his hand above and behind him, not wanting to tempt the crystals above.
"You have no idea." Isilda continued to stare at him with maddened eyes. "She showed me everything. Who knew that the dead could hold such secrets." She took a few more steps and a strange grin spread across her face.
The darkness behind Isilda grew into a large black blotch that seemed to swallow all light. It was hard for Tyverus to first notice it, yet he could see strange icy tendrils of light flowing out of the darkness above Isilda. At first, it looked like icy fog gathering, but the forms were becoming more pronounced with every pounding heartbeat. The tendrils flowed from some height far above to just above and behind Isilda's head.
"Please hurry." Tyverus was growing impatient at Isilda's dazed state. His arms and legs were straining to keep him still yet every thought was to lunge forward and grab the young woman, toss her small form over his shoulder and bound back to where Bhergom stood. He had just witnessed the very walls close in on him, who knew what other strangeness this place held in store.
Isilda was just three steps from the edge of the bridge now and no more than two dozen feet from where Tyverus stood. Her slow and plodding pace would seem normal under more calm circumstances, but with adrenaline coursing through his veins, this pace infuriated Tyverus to no small degree. She continued to stare at him with that wide-eyed and grinning look. The same look Tyverus had seen from blood-maddened warriors milling about on the fields of battle with their limbs severed and their life spilling onto the hungry soil.
Tyverus saw it now, a form flowing from the vaunted darkness above. It seemed almost like an illusion or a mirage at first, but within a moment it coalesced into the form of a woman. A dead woman with dimensions and details that terrified Tyverus to his core, and also brought pain to his eyes. This woman was not remotely mortal — she was no longer human and no longer something that merely existed as base matter — she was something wholly other.
"Isilda!" The word fell limp out of Tyverus' throat.
The form pressed forward with what could be described in only the haziest and most conceptual way as an arm. Then other arm reached out of the darkness at a lower angle. The first seized upon Isilda's skull and long fingers seemed to burrow into the very flesh and bone. The second arm seemed to come in and contact Isilda in the back.
The young woman froze in mid-step, her eyes widened even further, this time no longer with the crazed look of the mad, but with mortal fear. Her mouth opened to give a gasp of pain, but blood began to bubble up from between her lips rather than air. The blood began as a frothy dribble but soon began to spray forth in gushes as a few gurgles of screams erupted forth from her.
"Isilda!" Tyverus prepared to lunge forward, heedless of his earlier cautions. His right hand, driven by years of ingrained muscle-memory, went straight to the hilt of his sword strapped to his side. He flicked the first few inches of his blade up with his thumb. He jumped over the crest of the bridge, landing a few yards forward and began to run.
Just as soon as his feet hit the rock and his legs prepared to burst forward, he felt his body go limp. He felt the searing pain tear through his body once again, as the crystals above reached for his energy to fuel them. He could only muster enough strength to get to keep his knees on the ground, but otherwise, he was frozen with pain.
Before him, just out of reach, Isilda gave one more scream between the frothing gushes of blood coming out of her mouth. The sound of cracking followed by sounds like leather being torn apart came from her body. The alien hand grasping at her skull pulled upward with a sharp movement. The flesh of her neck tore away. Immediately after, another series of low and resounding cracks, like the striking of a smithy's hammer upon the forge.
Tyverus remained motionless. He couldn't turn off the energy he was supplying to the hungry artifacts above. He couldn't turn off the light in his left hand. Every muscle in his body thrummed with pain and the adrenaline of fear and rage was all that kept him looking forward.
With one last loud snap, the body of Isilda fell to the rock and frost-coated floor. Sprays of blood caught Tyverus in the face and across his front. The still-screaming, but breathless head of Isilda, with her spine, limply hanging, continued to stare at him in horror, pain, and longing.
Slowly, the crystal lights began to awaken now that they feasted upon Tyverus' energy. The silver-blue lights above began to slowly reveal the monster that stood behind Isilda's body. The dead woman stood almost two heads taller than the tallest man that Tyverus had ever seen. Her shoulders pressed forward as if she were some kind of feral beast. Even stooped, she was taller than Isilda had been.
The most striking features of the monster were her glowing ice-blue eyes and the blood-red hair that flowed from her skull. The face of the monster was barely recognizable as human. Almost translucent skin clung to a savage skull, which smiled at him with fangs that were barely recognizable as human teeth.
Her body was clothed in ancient tatters of fabric that didn't cover any of her form. The tatters seemed to blend in with the ephemeral tendrils of indigo energy that flowed around her. Her arms were bone-thin, yet revealed strange and inhuman power. Her hands were skeletal, with long fingers that seemed to end in long and savage claws.
Beneath her translucent skin, Tyverus could see black veins coursing with some kind of rotten ichor. Her skin and what bones could be seen beneath glowed and rippled with essential energies that pained the eyes. She didn't glow brightly, but there was something powerful in her form that made staring directly at her like staring at the brilliance of the twin suns in the sky above.
The woman's legs were thin and powerful, looking more like a beast's legs than humans. Her lifted ankles stretched into long and powerful feet of a predator. She looked like she might pounce forward at any moment. Her feet ended in blood-stained claws that seemed to float mere inches from the floor of the cavern. Some kind of dark energy kept her aloft and suffused her body with unholy power.
The monster lowered itself to Tyverus' height and met his gaze with her own. She gave a cruel smile at the emotion bubbling up out of him. The silver-cast human teeth in the front and the long fangs in the back glinted off of the growing crystal light above. The beast cocked her head to the side and then allowed her eyes to break from Tyverus' to look at the head she held still in one of her hands.
With the grace of a spider flexing its legs, the monster lifted all of her fingers up and let Isilda's lifeless head fall to the earth. She looked at the head impacting the ground and then up to Tyverus once more. Each movement was lightning fast, yet in the pain and rage that Tyverus held, it seemed to be a long and consuming dance. As soon as her eyes lit up, the shadows around the monster lifted her into the air and up into the pooling shadows that the crystal lights could not reach.
"Pitiful creatures." The monster spoke in the language that Tyverus knew, but the accent to it was alien and strange. For a moment, Tyverus was shocked, despite his pain, that the beast could actually speak. "You have become so weak in these ages. You soul-less little things can't even muster enough energy to..." There were sounds of claws and running across the roof above. "To turn on a simple light."
The crystals above soared to life now, with enough light to fill the entire chamber. Even with the pooled energy of the three earlier, the lights had never been this bright. Somehow this monster had reserves of energy inside of her to will them to life with a mere thought.
"Pests." The monster began to croon from the distorted shadows and crevices above. "You dare to walk into my resting place and steal from me." An inhuman laugh resounded throughout the immense chamber.
Tyverus could feel the drain on him stop. He was able to turn off the cantrip light in his hand and move once more. His body screamed at him, but he managed to pull his sword completely free from his scabbard and use it as a crutch to get back to his feet.
He kept his eyes trained on the limp body of Isilda in front of him. As he got to his feet, he shakily began to walk over to her. His legs felt like they were being torn apart from the inside by glass, but he forced himself forward until he got to the body of the Oracle.
As soon as he made it there, he dropped to his knees once more. He let his sword fall to the ground with the sound of metal on rock. With grasping and cloying hands, he reached out to seize upon Isilda's body. Her blood-matted hood covered most of the grotesque parts of her neck. He lifted her body up, like a parent might do with an infant and pressed his armored chest against her lifeless one.
He let the body fall from his grasp in front of him and with both hands reached to grab her head from the cold ground. He turned her head over and lifted her up. Her skull trailed behind like the body of a grisly snake. He looked down at her and began to wipe the blood from her face with his gloved hands. Her eyes were held open with a look of fear, and her jaw remained slack as if she were still screaming.
Memories of her welled up inside of him just as the tears that came to his eyes. He had only spent a few short months with her on this expedition, but it was enough that his heart had bonded to her. The time spent with her made this moment one of the most painful he had endured in his life.
He remembered the way she looked when he first met her back in Morrthault City. When the Paladarc of his regiment had mentioned the chance for him to go on an expedition with oracles, he had jumped at the chance. He fully expected them to be stuffy old scholars, but he was overjoyed to see her standing in the entrance chamber of his barracks.
The way the light from the doorway lit up her blonde hair made her seem bathed in a divine halo. When she turned towards him, he was awestruck by her eyes and the shape of her face. The minute she bid greetings to him, her voice seemed to resound like the bells of ancient temples. When he bid her greetings back, his voice got caught in his throat. He couldn't think straight, and she responded simply with a kind smile.
As their travels began, Tyverus had been unsure of showing his feelings toward her. The days and nights spent on the ship taking them to Oerstav Caelii had been incredibly long. Each day he wanted to let her know, but he always pulled back. As the days turned to weeks, he spent more time with her. He would make excuses to talk with her about lore and obscure bits of history just to be in her presence and hear her voice.
One of the best memories of that voyage was when he caught her one night on the deck of the ship staring off into the icy waters of the Heartsblood Sea. She stood with the light of Ishep reflecting off of the waters. He had inquired if she was alright and she had said she wanted him to stand with her.
Tyverus remained just a few steps away from the crest of the bridge, holding his orb of light above him. He reached out a hand to Isilda so that she might walk toward him. The crystal lights above had already lost all of their energy. He didn't want to step forward and tempt their hunger once again.
Isilda gave a nod and took a step toward the bridge. She continued to hold the skull in front of her and stare at Tyverus with wide and ensorcelled eyes. It was obvious from the details of her face that she had seen something far beyond the ken of mere mortals. The frozen blood that had run down her cheeks glittered in the dancing light of Tyverus energy.
Tyverus turned his eyes away from Isilda to gaze at the darkness beyond her. There was something not right with the forming shadows and how they dancing in the guttering light. The shadows seemed to deepen and flow after Isilda as if she were walking through murky water. He didn't quite know if it was his nerves along with the tricks of light, or if it was something more. Some instinctual sense pulled at his gut and made him wave his arm and reach forward one more step, ushering the oracle to him.
"You can tell me all about it once we get out of here. Whatever entity commands this strange place is awakening. We must leave, now." Tyverus lowered down to reach his hand even further. He pressed his right foot sideways against the rocks of the bridge to keep him from moving forward. He held the light in his hand above and behind him, not wanting to tempt the crystals above.
"You have no idea." Isilda continued to stare at him with maddened eyes. "She showed me everything. Who knew that the dead could hold such secrets." She took a few more steps and a strange grin spread across her face.
The darkness behind Isilda grew into a large black blotch that seemed to swallow all light. It was hard for Tyverus to first notice it, yet he could see strange icy tendrils of light flowing out of the darkness above Isilda. At first, it looked like icy fog gathering, but the forms were becoming more pronounced with every pounding heartbeat. The tendrils flowed from some height far above to just above and behind Isilda's head.
"Please hurry." Tyverus was growing impatient at Isilda's dazed state. His arms and legs were straining to keep him still yet every thought was to lunge forward and grab the young woman, toss her small form over his shoulder and bound back to where Bhergom stood. He had just witnessed the very walls close in on him, who knew what other strangeness this place held in store.
Isilda was just three steps from the edge of the bridge now and no more than two dozen feet from where Tyverus stood. Her slow and plodding pace would seem normal under more calm circumstances, but with adrenaline coursing through his veins, this pace infuriated Tyverus to no small degree. She continued to stare at him with that wide-eyed and grinning look. The same look Tyverus had seen from blood-maddened warriors milling about on the fields of battle with their limbs severed and their life spilling onto the hungry soil.
Tyverus saw it now, a form flowing from the vaunted darkness above. It seemed almost like an illusion or a mirage at first, but within a moment it coalesced into the form of a woman. A dead woman with dimensions and details that terrified Tyverus to his core, and also brought pain to his eyes. This woman was not remotely mortal — she was no longer human and no longer something that merely existed as base matter — she was something wholly other.
"Isilda!" The word fell limp out of Tyverus' throat.
The form pressed forward with what could be described in only the haziest and most conceptual way as an arm. Then other arm reached out of the darkness at a lower angle. The first seized upon Isilda's skull and long fingers seemed to burrow into the very flesh and bone. The second arm seemed to come in and contact Isilda in the back.
The young woman froze in mid-step, her eyes widened even further, this time no longer with the crazed look of the mad, but with mortal fear. Her mouth opened to give a gasp of pain, but blood began to bubble up from between her lips rather than air. The blood began as a frothy dribble but soon began to spray forth in gushes as a few gurgles of screams erupted forth from her.
"Isilda!" Tyverus prepared to lunge forward, heedless of his earlier cautions. His right hand, driven by years of ingrained muscle-memory, went straight to the hilt of his sword strapped to his side. He flicked the first few inches of his blade up with his thumb. He jumped over the crest of the bridge, landing a few yards forward and began to run.
Just as soon as his feet hit the rock and his legs prepared to burst forward, he felt his body go limp. He felt the searing pain tear through his body once again, as the crystals above reached for his energy to fuel them. He could only muster enough strength to get to keep his knees on the ground, but otherwise, he was frozen with pain.
Before him, just out of reach, Isilda gave one more scream between the frothing gushes of blood coming out of her mouth. The sound of cracking followed by sounds like leather being torn apart came from her body. The alien hand grasping at her skull pulled upward with a sharp movement. The flesh of her neck tore away. Immediately after, another series of low and resounding cracks, like the striking of a smithy's hammer upon the forge.
Tyverus remained motionless. He couldn't turn off the energy he was supplying to the hungry artifacts above. He couldn't turn off the light in his left hand. Every muscle in his body thrummed with pain and the adrenaline of fear and rage was all that kept him looking forward.
With one last loud snap, the body of Isilda fell to the rock and frost-coated floor. Sprays of blood caught Tyverus in the face and across his front. The still-screaming, but breathless head of Isilda, with her spine, limply hanging, continued to stare at him in horror, pain, and longing.
Slowly, the crystal lights began to awaken now that they feasted upon Tyverus' energy. The silver-blue lights above began to slowly reveal the monster that stood behind Isilda's body. The dead woman stood almost two heads taller than the tallest man that Tyverus had ever seen. Her shoulders pressed forward as if she were some kind of feral beast. Even stooped, she was taller than Isilda had been.
The most striking features of the monster were her glowing ice-blue eyes and the blood-red hair that flowed from her skull. The face of the monster was barely recognizable as human. Almost translucent skin clung to a savage skull, which smiled at him with fangs that were barely recognizable as human teeth.
Her body was clothed in ancient tatters of fabric that didn't cover any of her form. The tatters seemed to blend in with the ephemeral tendrils of indigo energy that flowed around her. Her arms were bone-thin, yet revealed strange and inhuman power. Her hands were skeletal, with long fingers that seemed to end in long and savage claws.
Beneath her translucent skin, Tyverus could see black veins coursing with some kind of rotten ichor. Her skin and what bones could be seen beneath glowed and rippled with essential energies that pained the eyes. She didn't glow brightly, but there was something powerful in her form that made staring directly at her like staring at the brilliance of the twin suns in the sky above.
The woman's legs were thin and powerful, looking more like a beast's legs than humans. Her lifted ankles stretched into long and powerful feet of a predator. She looked like she might pounce forward at any moment. Her feet ended in blood-stained claws that seemed to float mere inches from the floor of the cavern. Some kind of dark energy kept her aloft and suffused her body with unholy power.
The monster lowered itself to Tyverus' height and met his gaze with her own. She gave a cruel smile at the emotion bubbling up out of him. The silver-cast human teeth in the front and the long fangs in the back glinted off of the growing crystal light above. The beast cocked her head to the side and then allowed her eyes to break from Tyverus' to look at the head she held still in one of her hands.
With the grace of a spider flexing its legs, the monster lifted all of her fingers up and let Isilda's lifeless head fall to the earth. She looked at the head impacting the ground and then up to Tyverus once more. Each movement was lightning fast, yet in the pain and rage that Tyverus held, it seemed to be a long and consuming dance. As soon as her eyes lit up, the shadows around the monster lifted her into the air and up into the pooling shadows that the crystal lights could not reach.
"Pitiful creatures." The monster spoke in the language that Tyverus knew, but the accent to it was alien and strange. For a moment, Tyverus was shocked, despite his pain, that the beast could actually speak. "You have become so weak in these ages. You soul-less little things can't even muster enough energy to..." There were sounds of claws and running across the roof above. "To turn on a simple light."
The crystals above soared to life now, with enough light to fill the entire chamber. Even with the pooled energy of the three earlier, the lights had never been this bright. Somehow this monster had reserves of energy inside of her to will them to life with a mere thought.
"Pests." The monster began to croon from the distorted shadows and crevices above. "You dare to walk into my resting place and steal from me." An inhuman laugh resounded throughout the immense chamber.
Tyverus could feel the drain on him stop. He was able to turn off the cantrip light in his hand and move once more. His body screamed at him, but he managed to pull his sword completely free from his scabbard and use it as a crutch to get back to his feet.
He kept his eyes trained on the limp body of Isilda in front of him. As he got to his feet, he shakily began to walk over to her. His legs felt like they were being torn apart from the inside by glass, but he forced himself forward until he got to the body of the Oracle.
As soon as he made it there, he dropped to his knees once more. He let his sword fall to the ground with the sound of metal on rock. With grasping and cloying hands, he reached out to seize upon Isilda's body. Her blood-matted hood covered most of the grotesque parts of her neck. He lifted her body up, like a parent might do with an infant and pressed his armored chest against her lifeless one.
He let the body fall from his grasp in front of him and with both hands reached to grab her head from the cold ground. He turned her head over and lifted her up. Her skull trailed behind like the body of a grisly snake. He looked down at her and began to wipe the blood from her face with his gloved hands. Her eyes were held open with a look of fear, and her jaw remained slack as if she were still screaming.
Memories of her welled up inside of him just as the tears that came to his eyes. He had only spent a few short months with her on this expedition, but it was enough that his heart had bonded to her. The time spent with her made this moment one of the most painful he had endured in his life.
He remembered the way she looked when he first met her back in Morrthault City. When the Paladarc of his regiment had mentioned the chance for him to go on an expedition with oracles, he had jumped at the chance. He fully expected them to be stuffy old scholars, but he was overjoyed to see her standing in the entrance chamber of his barracks.
The way the light from the doorway lit up her blonde hair made her seem bathed in a divine halo. When she turned towards him, he was awestruck by her eyes and the shape of her face. The minute she bid greetings to him, her voice seemed to resound like the bells of ancient temples. When he bid her greetings back, his voice got caught in his throat. He couldn't think straight, and she responded simply with a kind smile.
As their travels began, Tyverus had been unsure of showing his feelings toward her. The days and nights spent on the ship taking them to Oerstav Caelii had been incredibly long. Each day he wanted to let her know, but he always pulled back. As the days turned to weeks, he spent more time with her. He would make excuses to talk with her about lore and obscure bits of history just to be in her presence and hear her voice.
One of the best memories of that voyage was when he caught her one night on the deck of the ship staring off into the icy waters of the Heartsblood Sea. She stood with the light of Ishep reflecting off of the waters. He had inquired if she was alright and she had said she wanted him to stand with her.
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