Finally, though, he found himself standing at top of a set of stairs leading down into darkness. There wasn't exactly a sign or anything but he'd checked just about everywhere else and this was one of the last possibilities. Though he had no ******** clue why someone would be waiting down there for him. Seemed kinda creepy. Still, he had to do this. Taking a deep breath, Tedan started down the stairs, trailing the fingers of one hand along the wall as he went.
He tried to go slow enough that his eyes would adjust to the lower lighting by the time he got down there but there really wasn't much light in the first place. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused, frowning at what little he could see.
A room. Just a fairly small room with a single torch in it, shadows flickering over the walls. "Uh, hello?" he called out, taking another step forward. He was starting to think they'd all been pranked or something, told to come find their partners here. Or else this wasn't really "The Cove" after all.
And what was up with that wall over there anyway? The torchlight shouldn't be making weird symbols show up like that. Unless it was some kind of special magical torch. That guy did mention magic, right? s**t.
Even though a part of him thought maybe he should just ... go back up the stairs and try somewhere else, he was drawn to the wall. Moving across the room, Tedan blinked and shook his head slightly at an odd drone coming from somewhere. Sounded almost like one of his roommates in college used to after they'd been on a bender, then fell asleep wrong. A kind of growling snore or something, he'd never been able to describe it.
Trying to ignore the noise (because obviously no one was really in here, he'd be able to see them if they were), he moved closer still to the wall, reaching out tentatively to touch fingertips to one of the symbols. Looked kinda like a stylized spear or something.
And it seemed to vibrate under his hand. "s**t!" he half-yelped, jumping back and then glancing around quickly as if to be sure no one had heard him. The room was still empty.
Okaaayyy this was really strange. Wondering if the same thing would happen, he touched another symbol, and this time it almost sounded like someone was whispering to him, but just barely too soft to actually hear. Touching a few more got variations on the theme. Tingles. Soft humming. A snatch of melody not-quite-familiar. Interesting to play with, sure, but what was the point?
...... Was the snoring getting louder? Frowning, Tedan touched another symbol, the one a sort of axe, he thought, and instantly the snoring was louder, as if the 'sleeper' was right beside him. "What the hell...." he muttered.
Tedan yanked his hand back at that, and the tile or whatever the symbol was on simply tipped out of the wall as he did so. Fumbling, he caught the thing before it could fall on the floor and break or something, then stood staring at it. "The wall is talking to me. I'm going crazy, but it's okay. Gonna fix it ...." he muttered softly. Before trying to put it back into place quickly. Didn't wanna get caught breaking s**t.
Silence. More staring. "Yup, crazy," Tedan told himself with a decisive nod. Back into the wall you go, silly symbol-y thingie. He felt like laughing hysterically or something here.
the voice came again. And suddenly, the tile seemed to almost elongate, stretching out into a pole, and get a lot heavier at one end. Tedan managed to catch himself before he fell over and looked down, eyes widening when he saw the head of a huge axe now resting on the ground.
Waaaaaaait wait wait wait a damn minute. Their partners were weapons?! And not only weapons but apparently really awesome ones. He stared at the axe for another moment or two, processing. Okay, magic. Right. He could so get behind this. Should've guessed from the start that it wouldn't be straightforward with this jokers. "Uhm. I'm Tedan," he said finally, some part of him still finding it incredibly silly that he was talking to a huge axe. That used to be part of a wall. And yet ... at the same time, it felt incredibly right.
The newest Hunter trainee blinked at that. Heh. Lazyass. "A'right. You got it, Arda," he murmured, struggling just a bit to pick up the axe before heading back up the stairs with his new partner.
