TombRaiderSB: Priya: Tomb RaiderThe Primal Pattern, Deirdre, Kieran and Fiona all vanish away from Priya's sight. When the teleport ends, she is standing near the top of a pyramid. And what a pyramid it is. Giant stone blocks make up the ziggurat like structure, stretching down below her to the forest floor. The forest is tropical and dense. From this point of view, at a height, the jungle seems to extend in three directions endlessly, and in the fourth direction, the direction of the low-hanging sun, it appears to abate. Perhaps a lake, or a coast lies in that direction. In the morning light, Priya can see she is next to what appears to be an air or light shaft, leading down into the depths of the structure. It is wide enough that if she were reckless enough, she probably could make her way down it, to whatever lies within. Otherwise, it looks like a good 130 feet or more down the step-blocks of the pyramid to reach its base Hmm. I look down inside, looking for a clear space on the floor. It is difficult to see down the shaft all the way to the bottom but Priya can see what looks like a small patch of floor.
outer garments, leaving myself with only the tiny, but more practical under clothes. A quick light-of-sight teleport will take me safely to the floor.. and from there, we shall see what unfolds on this little quest. "We are here" comes the voice of the Staff and the Spirit Guard, modulated together like two voices in a duet. "A transport to the end of the shaft would be possible. You should be aware, however, there are several quantum-esoteric fields, centered upon that room and the temple tomb complex in general. It may affect the results of our spellcasting." "How interesting." I stop what I am doing and take a more in depth scan of the area. I had hoped that this would be worthy of my intention, and suddenly we are off to a promising start. Indeed, as Ykanga and Varuna had intimated, the entire temple building interior, and a small amount outside of it as well (including where Priya is standing) is permeated by several arcane fields. What these fields DO varies. One of them is clearly a misdirection field, intended to make navigation within the structure difficult, including by arcane means. Several more are of no certain purpose. One further field, however, is clearly a detection field of some kind. Someone, or something, now knows Priya is here. When we have properly surveyed as much as we can see from where we are perched, I stick my head in the shaft.... sublte shifts in the texture of my skin allow me to cling instead of slide and I take time to do a detailed scan of everything we can see. Eventually the room must be entered, but tombs frequently have glyphs, murals and other writing to educate those who view them.. of course, that assumes that the people who built it intended someone else to see it. If this room is blank, there should be a more accessible room with proper adornment and likely false artifacts. The climb down, with the shifting allowing a controlled descent, shows to Priya that this passage, such as it is, clearly was meant for nothing more than light and air. There are no murals, paintings or adornments in this shaft at all, as Priya makes her way down it. The final proof of this is when Priya just about reaches the end of the shaft. The shaft ends in the ceiling of the room, the ceiling and its opening for the shaft a good twenty five or thirty feet above the floor. I look around the room for a door... and the sword I seek. It takes a great deal of neck craning to manage, but by doing so, Priya first sees the sword, gleaming and waiting for her. Exits from the room are a little more difficult to spot, given her position and the size of the room. The layout suggests an exit down in the lower half of the room, although the optics of hanging from the shaft makes it impractical to see down there without entering the room fully. There is a low, subsonic humming sound that Priya starts to pick up. Its not really that it is rising, but rather her attention to the details has started to tease it out on the edges of her (enhanced) hearing.
"Hello." I address the sword directly, seeking it out on several levels of awareness and hoping it is as quest worthy as I wish it to be. "As I hang here, I assume you are no dumb thing oblivious to your isolation and the gathering dust... but I wonder if you sleep, perhaps displeased by the intrusion, or if you are awake and aware and chafe at your confinement as the events of the worlds weave and unravel without your involvement?" I keep an eye for aggressive magics, and gauge the drop to the ground.. more importantly considering what I must do to make it a comfortable landing. "I sleep no longer." comes the voice of the golden looking blade.. Masculine and experienced, like the voice of a warrior who has seen many battles, many years, and thus knows the value of when to rest, awaiting the next conflict. The blade visibly vibrates slightly with its emanating voice. "I hear you, sorceress, warren-wielder. I have been pent here for an age of the world, while the skies turn and armies and heroes march without even knowing my name." "Have you dared the fences that bar those who would wield me again?" comes the voice of the blade. "Do you seek to carve your name into myth with your fingers on my pommel?" Simple and practical techniques in landing seem to be all that Priya would need to make the jump down successfully. Its far, but not too far. Fortunately, the magics of this place have not turned malevolent. Not yet, anyway. I doubt there is any way to hide the satisfaction that I feel. The Pattern served me well. "The means of my arrival were daring, but I have risked nothing further. I needed first to make certain you were worthy of my efforts.. and the standard I set is high, for I do not intend to be your welder. Instead I seek you for a companion.. a soldier currently on another task. If you are as I expect, you will be happier with him than with me. Though I do not think he considers making legends if that is important to you." For now, I remain where I am, ensconced in the ventilation shaft. If I have to leave to go through the hoops set in place, it will be easier from here, than the floor. "I can sense, even from here, that you bear a pair of entwined artifacts from the old Age." the sword replies. "I thought perhaps you were a Mageblade, seeking a sword as compliment to your Staff and Spirit Trap." "If this Soldier would agree to wield me, and end the era of sleep and dust I have suffered, then I will gladly be transferred to his hand." the blade replies. "Does he, too, bear the Imprint of Order I see on you?" "He is unmarked by the Powers that sway this Age and limited in the allegiances he may choose only by his association with me." I find myself choosing my words carefully, and then chuckle for his earlier thought. "I could wield you, and may one day seek a blade for my own purposes, but not today." I look again at the door. "May I enter?" "You may, Sorceress, but know that the protections and wards here are not by my creation or design." The Blade responds. "They are set here to discourage or stop people like your Soldier from wielding me. I know not the full extent of their nature and power, save that they were set here as I was entombed here." "I believe they were designed to deliberately obscure their nature from me, as well as from others." the Blade adds. "Then we will learn by experience..." I spend a moment with Ykanga and Varuna. I do not mind engaging hostile magics, but I do not want to be snared in a trap. The two artifacts are confident they can hold at bay any outwardly hostile magics and are primed to repel them without overt orders. it's not precisely arrogance, but extreme confidence from the Staff and the Spirit Guard that they are prepared for any likely eventuality. When I feel we have sufficient contingencies in place, I leave Varuna in our nook to act as a final contingency, release my hold and drop as quietly as possible to the floor. The staff rests against the wall in the shaft as Priya, wielding only the spirit guard, drops to the floor of the chamber. It feels a little oppressive in here, although that appears to be psychological rather than anything esoteric or physically palpable. "The esoteric field has become further aware" Ykanga whispers mentally. "It does not yet appear to be taking any actions. These are not like the fields around Castle Amber. There is no intelligence or guiding genius to these." The sword remains in place, gleaming, and now, however, completely silent. Mmm.. both good, and bad. If there is no intelligence, there is nothing to reason with. I stand still, listening... feeling out the magics, tracing the lines of power, looking for how the wards are constructed. I am not in a rush and I am genuinely curious. One never knows, I may wish to reconstruct them in the future and reverse engineering them now would be much more useful than battling it out. There is an elegance to the design of the lines of the wards, a design that is baroque and yet every jot and title of the lines appears to have purpose. Figuring out that purpose is the problem. It all hangs together, and practicing these sorts of wards would be a useful exercise in the future. There appears to be an iterative construction to the wards, a basic ward which is augmented, and whose augmentations are equally augmented in turn. From a better vantage point, I also look over the room for any writing visible from here that was hidden before. A tomb. Inscription. The blade does not appear to have been buried with honors... the victors write history, and it does not seem as if the blade was ultimately on the winning side... and if he was, what is he that they dealt with him in this fashion? The plinth that makes up the base that the sword is resting on does have some sort of message on it, in ideogram style characters. that Priya doesn't recognize but certainly can memorize for later, if necessary. "So.. those who built this place, what did they call you?" I speak quietly, the tone still conversational, but respectful of the wards that might respond. There is no response from the sword, but Priya can feel it is attempting, and failing to respond. "He is being muffled" Ykanga comments. Priya can see it too, part of this nest of magic besides the functions she has already determined is designed to silence anyone from communicating with the blade while they stand in the wards. Given that the wards extend throughout the room, had Priya come in by any other way, she never would have had a chance to converse with the Orichalcum Blade.
To deal with the wards, it would appear as if the entire net must be dealt with in one effort... and it will take time to arrange that. The room is full of that strange picture alphabet, the room a treasure trove of knowledge that Priya does not yet know the key to. There are a few ordinary bas-reliefs as well, of wars, victories, conquests and other consequential events that Priya has no referents for. A few of the pictures do seem to have a leader, not always the same one, carrying the Orichalcum Blade. "He said that his name was The Voice against the Wyld, or Vox for short"." Varuna says. "Priya, I am noticing a spike in the wards activity. I believe they are trying to..." The communication to Varuna ceases as well. Vexing, but not surprising. I set aside other ideas and concentrate on the wards. Time to take them down, or at least create a hole big enough to leave through. Concentration on the wards shows that Varuna was correct. The wards have risen abruptly in strength and seem to revolve around retarding or reducing sorcery in the immediate area. This makes Priya's senses somewhat retarded, but she is a good enough sorceress that she can see the wards at work. Priya also has the sense, intuitively, that her nascent Pattern Imprint may be of some use in resisting any outward effects, although of course she has no one to precisely teach her how to do this. "The wards would have to be powerful enough to shatter the very stones of this temple in order to stifle me." Ykanga says, proudly. I chuckle, stroking the stones strung round my throat. "I very much doubt we are what they were planning for." "Let us see what this does..." I put my attention on the Imprint, walking the lines slowly to draw up the power, keeping an eye on the wards. It would be interesting to weave the spiral of the Pattern through the threads of the ward... perhaps one twist of the sigil would be enough to sever them? Priya does not have the advantage of family history and experience, to tell her how and why a Pattern Imprint works. She certainly does not have two grandmothers, skilled in such things, to guide her, or even to watch her. Priya must work on her own to deduce even the most basic principles of the Pattern Imprint. As it turns out, though, having a strong arcane education, and recent experience in attuning to a new sorcerous ability, a Warren, is good practice for Priya in trying to summon the Pattern. After a couple of minutes of trying, Priya realizes that the Pattern is strongly aligned with the visual. Seeing things, seeing how things *should* be, are a heart of how the Pattern works. In trying to use it inside of herself, then, Priya deduces that visualization of the Pattern itself is key. Thus, visualization of the Pattern does start to draw up its power, within Priya, She gets a sense of order to this process,as if it is good and right and proper that she fill herself with this power in this way. It makes order out of chaos, and hierarchy out of formlessness. The sorcerous wards and powers in this room definitely sense, and react, and do not like the Pattern Imprint being summoned within Priya. Hatred and antipathy, harsh emotions, and a readiness to act pulse around Priya from the wards, as a guard in Moire's palace might react to the presence of a drawn weapon. To these sorcerous wards, the Pattern seems to be a very real threat. The process is academic, a patient study in how this power wishes to be handled and I do prefer things to be orderly, so it is comfortable to have an organized Power. That the wards should react so strongly is interesting. I push against the wards, not attempting to sever them, for I would still like to exam them a moment more, but to see if I can create a bubble within which they have no influence. There is a push and pull that soon develops between Priya's concentration on the nascent Pattern Imprint, and the wards that surround her. The powers clearly are trying to affect Priya, to harm her, to be blunt, but the imprint is keeping her alive and unaffected and unmolested. Priya can make that bubble, and maintain it for the moment, but the larger the bubble she makes, the less able she will be able to maintain it without severe concentration (and, perforce, immobility). On the other hand, it occurs to Priya that too small of a bubble might invite a retribution on the area around her in order to stop her freedom of action. And in what is not a coincidence, Priya feels the ground shake beneath her feet, just outside of the range of her bubble. "We should hurry" comes the voice of the Spirit Guard "The temple may be pulled down around us" "As close to shattering the stones as we want them to get." I take one more sweeping look around the room as I approach the sword, committing as much as possible to our collective memory. "You will be wielded by another, but you will vow to work within the morals of our collective, yes?" The sands are running through the glass and I feel the seconds pounding at my temples. I turn, stepping to ready myself for the race to escape this tomb. I reach, one hand hovering over the hilt, but I would have some agreement from him before I take him. If he cannot agree, and quickly, it may be safest in the long run to leave him to his fate and find another. "Your terms are acceptable and will be honored.". The message from Vox, the Voice Against the Wyld, the Orichalcum Blade comes thus time through Ykanga, since the wards still are stifling the Staff effectively. Once Priya's hand is on the blade and she has it free and clear, the rumbling increases. This time, its focused on the back of the room, where a part of the ceiling swings down. Out of the hole in the ceiling falls a perfectly circular boulder. A very large perfectly circular boulder that is demolishing everything in its path as it rolls along, and is headed right toward Priya. Hmm. I look from the advancing boulder to the air shaft I entered through, and with a quick calculation sprint toward my intended doom. The boulder rolls inexorably toward Priya. One last glance to my target, I gather myself and leap. I land heavily on the top edge, a chosen spot defined by where it is as the boulder rolls, using momentum to add to my mass, and then pushing off, using the boulder's momentum to catapult me up to the air shaft. Fortunately, Priya is agile enough to make the maneuver. It isn't a graceful landing, with more scrambling to find purchase than I would like, but inhuman nails and sticky padded fingers do the trick. Below, the boulder starts demolishing everything in its path. With the sword in one hand and Varuna in the other, it is a quick rush up to where we are free to use magic again. I expect to reach my room at father's house. Failing that, it will be interesting to see where we end up. Out of the pyramid, sword in hand, the spell goes off without a hitch. There is a sudden implosion as Priya transports herself from a world above the waves to a world beneath one. A burp of air bursts softly about her as she winds up next to her bed, in Rebma.
"Thank you." I address Vox after Varuna and Ykanga's confirmation. "Priya?" comes the voice, downstairs, of Father. "Yes." I answer Father, wrapping Vox in the shawl I routinely use while I read. Cleanly shrouded, I leave him on the blanket that drapes across the edge of my bed and leave to join Father. "Honestly, I had not concerned myself with informing the Pattern. It does not strike me as something I am required to do, but we can when and if opportunity presents itself."
Coming down the stairs I leave the conversation behind to focus on father, who I expect to pop into view very soon. Father meets Priya at the base of the staircase, a scroll, possibly reading material,held dangling in his left hand. "I thought I sensed your return." he says with a smile. "There is a new note to the esoteric imprint of your inbound teleport spell. Two notes, actually, but it was unmistakably you." "Two?" I pause to consider that. "Unless you speak of the imprint, I should introduce you to Varuna." I offer the staff for Father to examine. "He came with me from Thera, as Ostegos did. The other you sense is Vox, a sword of the last age I intend to gift to Ostegos." "I don't speak of your bound artifacts." Father replies. "Although I should like to see this..." he takes Varuna in his hand, setting down the scroll so that he can grasp Varuna with both. "Somewhat like a design I would expect if Rebma were a kingdom above the waves." he says. "Ah, I see. The staff is made of a material particularly suited to impressing a personality into it." He returns Varuna to Priya.
"Yes, Thera shares many things with Rebma, though I am grateful that the ebb and flow through Shadow has its limits." I reply, looking at Varuna, remembering the first task be helped me with. "I am sorry our last conversation ended poorly. I was surprised. But I think, in your position I would have taken a similar approach." That said, I draw myself up and face my father. "Possibly" Minos/Mael says, turning and regarding Priya. "You must understand, Priya, that like some of the older beings in this era of the universe, my perspective and viewpoint is often difficult to reduce to the level of an ordinary life. It is a balancing act that does not always work as well as one might hope." True of many things... This conversation as well from where I am standing. "I suppose, now that you have departed, and returned, that you have more questions?" Father adds. "And they think the Queen plays a long game," I muse, though I am not certain I feel up to discussion. "I do have questions, but they should wait until we can sit comfortably. The sword, Vox, was held firmly in a temple. I would like to see what I can find on his history, or what I can translate from the murals on the temple walls, before I give him to Ostegos. Do you have time before you return to your reading?" Minos gives a nod and a smile. I keep reaching for how our relationship felt before, hopefully the ease we once had can be reclaimed. "Of course I have time." father replies mildly. "My reading can certainly be set aside for the moment. You may wish to clean your hair before leaving the house, however." he adds. "You look as you did the day when you were ten years of age and had resolved to dig to the base of the seamount." "Oh dear... Have I gotten that unrepresentable?" I have to laugh, glancing down at myself, and I am a bit grungy from creeping through the air shaft and temple, given the state of my dress, I can imagine what my hair must look like. "Only not quite so much under my nails." "Not quite so much" Father agrees. I look up from my hands with a smile. "Fortunately, for some of what I wish, I do not need to leave the house. I indicate that he should follow and head for the study adjacent to my room with only a brief pause to grab a towel to clean my hands. "After my trek through Ebaea and the temples there I found myself quite fed up with my ability to draw, or rather, my distinct lack thereof. The murals were amazing, and while Ykanga and I could clearly picture them, I had no means to get them out of my head in a manner that did them justice. After a long series of trial and error I developed a means to duplicate what I had in my head." I pull a large travel journal from the cabinet and open it to the appropriate pages, laying it on the table and sliding it to Father while I get the box it was sitting on top of. "The pages are cellulose, like the material used at the library and for the Cards the Artist make, but this has been painted in an additional solution that allows me to project an image onto it. As you can see, my first images are somewhat faded and course, but as I worked with the process I was able to add a degree of color and detail that pleased me." I draw a treated page from the layers in the box, each crafted page buffered from its neighbor by a thin sheet of vellum intended to protect it from scratching or accidental handling. "Ah yes" Father says. "I believe you showed that Trump Artist, Corlianus, this variation on paper that you helped perfect" he says in recollection. "Once the solution and process were improved I used all the remaining material so that I had a supply. From here, it is a matter of concentration." I put words to action, drawing up the memory of the first wall, waiting until I could picture it clearly before I lay my hands on the paper, projection what I saw in my mind's eye onto the waiting mage-crafted paper. With it so fresh in memory, the power of Priya's recall, and the magic that allows her to transfer it onto paper, the murals that covered the tomb of the Orichalcum blade come to full life and color, rolling down the page like a ball descending a slope. Father looks on in fascination as the script and hieroglyphs and pictoglyphs unfold. "Now, then" Father says "it looks like we have some work to do in translating all this. Might take all night, and we'll want to pull out some of our books to do this. I am assuming." he looks at Priya "you want to start immediately, of course." "I do," I agree, pleased with the results and excited to see what will be revealed... but life is more complicated than it once was. "But I left Ostegos securing additional rooms for us in the city, so we have more freedom to come and go, with the expectation that we would meet after. He is usually efficient, and I may already be late, but I suppose if we brought him here, everything in play could be summed up. I intend the blade for him, it would be reasonable to let him have some part in this." "Well, let us do this then. I'll start some preliminary work,. the basics..." Father offers. "You can go and fetch Ostegos to bring him here. No doubt, as you say, the old soldier has long since obtained quarters for the two of you, and perhaps is only awaiting your call to come. By the time you return, we can all move forward together, and learn just what sort of blade you are gifting him." "He likely will have a slightly different reaction to the offer than would, say, one of the scions of Moire's Court." Father adds, in an amused tone. "Which is one reason why I am making the offer to him, and not one of them." Father nods. "Indeed" I wrinkle my nose and step away from the table. "I will return shortly." Upstairs again, I leave the dusty, cobweb shrouded clothes in the laundry and set aside the still folded outer garments. Cleaned off and dressed in fresh clothes I address Ykanga. *Do you have a location for Ostegos?* I brush and reset my hair absently, already focused on the next task. "Yes" Ykanga says brightly. "He is currently in a residential building on the outskirts of the city of Amber, close to the ocean's shore. Shall I contact him? Bringing him here without preparation would require time and effort." "Please. I would like him brought here in as short a time as possible, but certainly have no need to surprise him." "I shall use an invented messenger spell to contact him and offer transport" Ykanga says. The Spirit Guard pauses. "Is there anything in particular you would like to say in the message I send?" "You should know" Varuna puts in "I have noticed a 17% increase in the draw of local mana in Rebma within the last hour."
The weave of magic through a shadow, even Rebma, can be visualized any number of ways, depending on the practitioner's style, methods, and level of ability. Similarly when a spell or spellcraft uses the magic in an area, that can be seen, felt, sensed and noticed. When Priya turns her attention to the draw, she can see it. A spell, especially one that crosses shadow boundaries, can use the mana of both the origin and the destination shadows to fuel itself. That process often begins with a mana drain in both locations. Its too early to tell the details without a serious, engaged, time consuming effort, but its clear that a large spell is in the works whose origin or destination is within the city of Rebma. "Hmm...." I pause in the rest of what I am doing. After the events in Thera.. and the way events seem to reflect both ways, this is not something to ignore. "Father? Is Princess Lewella, or are you, engaged in cross-Shadow sorcery at the moment? There is something large, incoming." "Not I" Father says. "I do not know if the Princess is engaged in any such sorcery. You say there is a large spell in progress." He closes his eyes. "Something is disturbing the local magic in a large way. Perhaps this is the doing of the Queen thanks to the Pattern?" "No... I do not believe so." I examine the disturbance, comparing it to what I have experienced with the Pattern. If things were solidifing in some fashion, or even rearranging, I might be more inclined to accept that it was a repercussion of the Queen's activities, but having been at the center for that, I would expect to recognize it more readily for being related. Indeed, Priya would. It's not the Pattern that is backing this. "If it is not the Queen, I, or the Princess, it may be some sort of play by one of the Amberian sorcerers, in response to Moire's decree. Who else has this sort of arcane ability?" Father doesn't appear to be satisfied, however, that is the correct conclusion. Priya can feel him extending his own abilities. "Ostegos has received the message and he is ready for transport." Ykanga puts in.
"Not Amber, if I must guess." I reply to father. "It will open in the Peleps, I will be there." "I am going to go to the Palace. Defenses may be necessary." Father starts creating a transport spell of his own.
There is agreement from both the Spirit Guard and the Staff. A minute passes, and Ostegos takes a tentative step out of a white disc of light, two yards from Priya. While I wait, I concentrate on directing one of the stored transport spells to land at the Plaza. The change in the spell is not a difficult one to manage. "Your staff told me that there may be trouble" Ostegos says.
"Mana draw increases." Varuna says. "Sixty seconds until the outside spell reaches culmination." Father disappears softly and silently. "Yes... much as we did in Thera, we have an incoming spell, but this one of unknown origin." As I talk I gesture for him to follow as I near to run up the stairs. "I had wanted to do this in an orderly fashion. The sword is old, similiar in ways to Ykanga and Varuna, and he should aid us, but his history is largely unknown and interesting." I scoop Vox from the foot of my bed and drop the cloth I had wrapped around him. "Vox, this is Ostegos for whom you are meant. We may have trouble, and I wish for you to help us if we need it. Our relationship may be revisited depending on the outcome of this." I eye the sword sternly, hating to be rushed but anxious to have every available advantage. "I understand" Vox says, aloud. Ostegos is unfazed. "You do not need to carry him now if you have concerns." I offer him to Ostegos, but am perfectly ready to drop the sword back to where he had been laying and go. Time is short.... "A soldier goes to the war with the weapons available" Ostegos says, taking the Voice against the Wyld by the hilt and testing it. "Not familiar with the metal of the blade, but the balance is good. I accept the weapon." "Good" Vox announces.
The feeling of being unprepared is something I dearly detest. There are many ways to express frustration, but I refrain, concentrating on retooling the spell with Ykanga as quickly as possible. I would much prefer that we were dressed for battle, but we shall have to make do with being well armed. I make certain Ostegos is within the sphere of the spell, and as soon as it is done, cast. It takes another five minutes to make sure that the spell cannot be disrupted, and the spell goes off without a hitch. Priya and Ostegos land a few dozen meters away from the plaza and can reach the archway leading into it quickly. In the shadow of one of the archways that lead into the plaza I turn to face our aggressors. *Ykanga, warn Father.* I send the view of the Plaza.
They are surrounding the portal, which has taken the form of an ajar bronze door. And then all of my attention is on forming a plan for attack. If we can prevent them from solidifying their hold here, we will be much better off. The civilians have all scattered and fled, fortunately, leaving few non-combatants between the hastily organized Rebman soldiers, and these invaders. The former don't have a lot of leadership, and are likely just a squad or three from a nearby barracks who came rapidly at the sound of trouble. As Priya and Ostegos look over the situation, a brash figure bursts into the plaza from the opposite direction. A drylander, from her style, skin color and weaponry, she has tore into the enemy soldiers with a fierce passion. She seems to be concentrating on what appear to be the mages surrounding the Door, but taking any target she can get on the way. It's clear to Priya that the figure is familiar with the enemy... Backlinks |
