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 Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 2:10 am
A creeping stillness claimed Scholomance as its domain. The water never moved. No breeze rattled the trees. No life stirred in the sprawling swamp until the page arrived with captain in tow. Scholomance welcomed its visitors callously, with mud crawling up their boots and threatening to swallow them whole. No portion of the wonder spoke kindness or welcome - for even the very sky looked baleful in its ubiquitous grey. No view of the rings remained tonight, and no clarion view of the stars would come about in many days.
Immediately the Page of Scholomance felt the dolorous pressure urging him onward, inward, outward. A dichotomous need pervaded him, demanding that he both learn the very secrets of the petrified swamp and leave it for a distant location. During that time he yearned for the captain to keep hold of his wrist, for he suspected that he couldn't withstand the oppressive solitude of the place.
Sometimes, he thought he felt the fog worm into his stomach.
Where they stood, Scholomance faced the vast expanse of dead red maples that interwove themselves throughout the swamp. He recognized the pool nearing the muddied beach where they stood. The swamp itself looked brighter in the diffuse lighting, but the shapes of gnarled branch against withered trunk proved stark, depressing, and malign. If Scholomance held any sentience - and the page wagered that it did, else this derisive curse would not plague him so - then he imagined it an awareness so blackened with hate and spite that every fiber present in the wonder dripped in misery. The page hated returning to his place, and found it significantly more wretched since his last visit.
"Welcome to the fabulous Scholomance," he breathed, though his usual laconic wit lacked presence.
To his back, and Ashanite's fore, the lake spanned a vast unbroken distance from their shore to the next. The size of the lake could not be determined, as the retreating fog bank pooled over the opposite side, but in the distance stood the damningly foreboding silhouette of a structure that claimed dominion over the wonder. No details grew clear through the thick haze. And yet it demanded notice, it demanded gaze both covetous and harrowed, it demanded that all present take heed of its size and timeless stature.
That they bow for it.
"I don't like this place." Scholomance closed his eyes temporarily to bolster his own courage - that which he displayed so prominently in slapping Ashanite last time. He half-turned, intending to sweep his gaze across the shore, but a dilapidated pile of dark wood caught his eye before it could cross the lake. Tattered white sails hung from what he assumed was a mast, though the great crack toward its base foretold the boat's end. The body of the boat looked relatively intact, if not eroded from some manner of acid. If it showcased any printings on its sides, they vanished long ago to stress and misuse.
Well, he thought suspiciously. That wasn't there before.
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Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 5:23 pm
Ashanite narrowed his eyes. As soon as they landed on Scholomance, it became rapidly obvious why its Page despised it. This was not the same ground his cathedral had risen from - this utterly disgusting swamp with its sucking mud and horrible clinging fog made him a little ill just by presence. He kept his grip on Scholomance's wrist, a physical reminder that at least he wasn't alone in this sticking hellscape.
He flipped his braid over his shoulder, which didn't reduce the length by much but was still better than risking it dragging.
"That's...one way to describe it," he said, somewhat dubiously. The building in the distance, at least in silhouette, felt more familiar, but that didn't make it at all comforting. This place felt...wrong. And it couldn't just be because he was corrupted, because it was obvious that Scholomance felt it too.
"I no longer have any questions pertaining to why you might want to nuke this place from orbit. Just so we're entirely clear."
The presence of the boat seemed inherently ominous. He certainly didn't feel like he wanted to step in, because never mind the inherently creepy feeling of this place, there was no way he was trusting a thousand year old boat. Nope.
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Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 4:29 am
"Excellent. Now that we're on the same page, shall we go for a romantic boat ride across the lake?" Scholomance gestured grandly toward the toward the boat and left little room for discussion. He started toward it through the mud and tried to fight his way through the quagmire.
"I met a page once who told me that he found his own dead self on his wonder. I never saw anything while I was there, and I never saw such things while here either. Of course, I only went to this godforsaken place once and took off as soon as I found a jawbone, so I can't say I've gone exploring for long. However, since I've been here..." He faltered as he came nearer to the boat. Nothing about its appearance suggested a heavy foreboding or maliciousness, but Scholomance hesitated just the same. He paused, considered how he might approach this explanation, then continued knowing that Ashanite might well consider him mentally askew.
"It's like this damn place has been breathing down my neck. I can feel it judging me for my every life choice. I don't like it." He wasn't certain if his wonder was anything different from the rest, or if his paranoia got the better of him since discovering his namesake. "Every morning I wake up, get dressed, make breakfast and feel like I should be doing something else with my time. Every night I make a drink, relax with some light reading, and feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up while this damnable place tries to tell me that I've got other responsibilities or something. I'm not even sure what it wants from me - even when I'm powered up and patrolling, it just... Never ceases." Which led him to believe that the feeling was endemic to his own neuroses projecting onto this dead wonder. He hoped it was so.
"Now, if you don't mind..." Scholomance paused while he surmounted the rim of the rowboat and found steady footing inside. He praised his luck for the boat becoming half-beached, for otherwise he would not be able to stand quite so well. The two oars tucked away inside looked perfectly useable despite the questionable condition of the craft. "What do you think? Should we paddle out and make perfect horror victims of ourselves for the sw-..."
The page's voice caught when he noted the looming figure of a great building just beyond the fog. It looked centered in the lake as well - and he knew, with a certain instinct, that it would be worth investigating.
"Grab an oar if you will. I expect there will be more to find than just endless trees and mud out there."
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Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 12:51 am
"You're joking," Ashanite said, and his tone indicated exactly how dubious he found the prospect of stepping into a thousand year old boat. On the other hand, it would be counterproductive for the Wonder to try and kill it's Page - or so he figured. Their oath implied a sort of mutuality to the relationship that he had never particularly felt, personally, but that he supposed other Knights might.
So the Captain exhaled, heavily, and followed Scholomance to the boat. The mud was thick and heavy, sticking to his pants and to the boots underneath. It was a good thing uniforms repaired themselves - but he had no intention of face planting in a thick chunk of mud and getting it on anything more than necessary.
God, this was disgusting.
"I suspect Saturn has its share of corpses. The catacombs under Ploutonion were filled with them. I found my own sarcophagus, effigy and all. Hell of an experience." To put it mildly. He still wasn't quite over looking into a stone face that was so eerily like his own.
But the rest of what Scholomance said - that he had no reference for. He had felt called to his Wonder, certainly, but it had lacked the sense of...looming, foreboding energy. Instead it had been a refuge until he had begun to realize that it might have outlived his usefulness. He didn't say that out loud, though - getting too into detail of his own relationship with his abandoned Wonder would undoubtedly require getting into the whole dangerous concept of those strange dreams of the future.
"I never got to know enough about Wonders to know if that's common," he said, instead. "Have you spoken to any of the more experienced Knights about it? Surely someone else has had an unfortunate sort of Wonder experience." He stepped into the boat, and found it sturdier than expected, which was good because the last thing he wanted was to drown in a swamp on Saturn. After all the other s**t he'd lived through, that would he a particularly ignominious death.
So he grabbed an oar. "Perhaps finding the heart of the place will make it give you some peace," he suggested. It seemed reasonable enough, if one ascribed some sentience to the places they protected - though Ashanite wasn't sure how well that bore out. Camlann has certainly spoken of his Wonder as if it were alive, and given the "magical bullshit" nature of everything they did, it didn't seem too far-fetched. And it was an interesting bit of information to consider, that a Wonder found drive its Knight. He wasn't sure if it had value to the Negaverse, but deciding what was or wasn't useable was beyond his job description.
"Off we go, merrily into what is surely not some kind of mystical slasher film. If it's any comfort, the likelihood that something murderous is still inside after a thousand years is fairly low." Unless it was magical. s**t.
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Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 9:01 pm
"Unless you can magically teleport us from here to there without stepping over the ocean of bones, then no, I'm not joking." Scholomance leveled him a natural look which, coupled with the shape of his eyes, looked rather bitchy and brooding. Heavy lids acted the part well.
"Personally I'm starting to think Saturn is a giant dumping ground. I haven't seen too many of its wonders, but I've seen enough to recognize a pattern. And what's with finding your own dead self? First Mont Blonc tells me he's seen a ghost of himself, and now you're talking about a sarcophagus. Who in their right mind would want to be a knight and face all this morbidity?" He looked to the looming shadow of the building beyond, arms stretched outward in mock apology. "Sorry, but I didn't sign on to be a ******** mortician! Would've gone into that field a long time ago if I was so damn interested in tending bodies." He huffed afterward, and dropped his hands.
Scholomance prodded at the mud with his oar, wondering if he could push off in such a manner or if he needed to get out and shove the boat into the lake. He hoped for the former, though he had very little experience with boats to know for certain. Considering the way the boat hardly budged, and he sank his oar to the halfway point of the paddle, he expected the former. "I haven't found many other knights. Or any, really. Not that I'd know how to, either - I've heard of Hvergelmir, but barring some way to find her, I'm s**t out of luck." If there were other Saturn knights besides Mont Blonc, he felt uncertain. Knights seemed altogether scarce, and impossibly difficult to contact. He lacked all means of communication with them, from what Aegir told him.
He cast a last glance to Ashanite when he spoke of finding the heart of the place. He felt a naked fear chase through him and cool all ire he held before. Finally he let go of his oar and stared skeptically at it while it stuck out straight from the mud, as if cemented in.
"I don't know that I'll find anything close to peace there," he offered in a low voice. "This entire place just feels wrong. And I'm not sure it wants me to find any sort of heart, considering how it's ******** impossible to push off in this mire."Noir Songbird pls to tele captain - edge of the island should be marginally visible
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:35 am
Ashanite considered Scholomance's suggestion for a long moment. Yes, he certainly could magically teleport them there - it bespoke this Page's inexperience that he didn't know that.
"Perhaps not always a dumping ground, but certainly somewhere the dead were laid to rest. Sometimes, apparently, with no thought at all." He said. His catacombs hadn't alarmed him - but there was a large difference between the dead laid to peaceful rest and corpses scattered haphazardly and unexpectedly. "I hadn't been to any Wonder but my own before this, so I'll have to trust your observations on trends."
That the Knighthood was scattered was certainly no news to him. "I know of a few others, but until you get your signet, barring random chance, names aren't much help." Pointing a new Page in the direction of Camlann or Megiddo might produce interesting results - perhaps an eye on the fracturing of the Knights would make him consider a more organized alternative. But corruption wasn't his goal, not today.
Or at least not the primary one.
"As to magically teleporting us there..." He reached into subspace, and pulled out an energy sphere. Teleporting two people would be tiring - if he wanted to make it through exploring Scholomance, he would need the boost. The glowing ball gave easily under his fingers, and sank into his skin. "I can do that." He could see the edge of the island from here, and he reached out to gently grab Scholomance's sleeve - and then, with a whoosh, they were there.
"One of the conveniences of Chaos."
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:17 pm
'Certainly somewhere the dead were laid to rest'. In some instances, maybe, but I wouldn't call it 'resting' at the bottom of a lake. I don't know, though; Norse funerals would have these bones very intentionally at the bottom. Or, maybe, that wasn't the intention here and a lot of people died quite violently in this area. Perhaps I'm supposed to find out. Peering down at the surface of the water only yielded so much observation of the bottom; the lake's surface reflected the night sky so cleanly and clearly that it lent him a sense of vertigo. He considered making ripples solely to comprehend it.
"How ironic would it be if I learnt more from a Negaverse agent about my powers and goals as a knight than from someone of Order?" It sounded quite a real possibility. Ashanite, or Ploutonion really, already had experience as a knight. Scholomance was starting to wonder if more agents came of a similar background, and that corruption was commonly a choice. But with Ashanite and Cinnabar as his only examples on the matter, he couldn't render generalizations. And given how they met, he had no time (or inclination) to ask Cinnabar of her experiences before corruption. Unless she was born as a dragon lady. Too many possibilities lingered there. Did some agents become monstrous at random? He couldn't say.
The teleportation came quite conveniently - a tug of his sleeve, and they no longer stood in the ancient boat. Scholomance could admit that teleportation became far more bearable as a knight, given he endured only a keen sense of vertigo upon shifting spatial position across the lake, and none of the nausea he endured as a civilian. Of course, Cinnabar teleported him then, and he was uncertain if there was a stylistic or personal flair to those who could do it. But Ploutonion cited it as a perk of chaos, which sounded terribly convenient, and he wondered if there were some way that he could learn much the same skill without the chaos. As his head swam with a complete misunderstanding of his surroundings and their depth, he wondered if it would even be feasible.
With the way they crested the shore, he looked out toward the lake. Of immediate notice was the quietus of the land, and how it lost sentience from this angle. In the swamp of the place, he knew a certain sense of foreboding and attributed it immediately to the pools, the maple trees, the sucking muck - but he started to wonder if it were not so. Secondly he noted that the ground here lacked that quagmire quality, and that taking a step in any direction proved quite endurable. Lastly, as he turned around to face the remainder of the shore, he noted his viscera wrenching into a frozen pit as he set his sights upon the grand, looming structure that now appeared so close. Suddenly standing in that boat and making fun of attempts to shove off from mud sounded a far better way to spend time at his wonder than attempt to breech its secrets - if it had any. He wondered if supernatural stories then held any truth to them - and that a haunting, or perhaps demonic presence caused such a feeling. He wondered, again, if that would be more preferable to a complete mystery surrounding this unendurable trepidation.
When he was certain that his mind processed the ground and its location accurately, Scholomance started a few tentative steps in the direction of the building. It looked built upon from many ages, given the marginal variances in structural styles between what he supposed were additions to the building. It held a few smaller spires attached via skybridge to its main location, and possibly renovations to the main building itself. Initially he thought it might've been a cathedral given the architectural flairs, but while he noted archivolts above the understood main entrance, he noted no transepts or towers or finials to the main portion of the building that would indicate such. The remaining spires, sometimes, offered windows with lobed foils and tabernacle pinnacles above noteworthy lancet windows or doors, but nothing further to suggest a veritable cathedral. The fog offered very little comprehension for the tops of the building, however; he could not see beyond possibly fifty feet of it. Somehow, the fog seemed thicker here and higher up, but when he looked out across the lake he found it curiously more penetrable to sight.
"Cheery place; can't wait to see how they decorated it on the inside." Advancing forward felt much like a compulsion instead of an actual consideration. It felt more like he found the ground closing between himself and this building rather than an actual effort to walk toward it - an unnerving notion, at the least. More of the petrified maples formed the grounds of this island, seemingly more purposeful in their placement than earlier. Small domes pockmarked the grounds in regulated intervals, perhaps five feet in diameter and as tall as either one of them, with the desiccated remains of markedly different plants beneath - or he assumed so, from what he could understand of them. Most suffered a far worse state than the maples.
When he reached the portal, he noticed a distinct lack of a trumeau between the entrances. The doors sealed against one another in an arch that mimicked its pointed archivolt and gable. At the very top, just beneath the point of the gable, the symbol of an eye stood with lashes only tracing the bottom and no notable tear duct on either side. The pupil looked much too small to fit the eye, as if widened in shock or fear. He wondered, then, if it would be a mistake to enter - if this symbol warned against passage to the uninformed. Beneath the lashes stood an isosceles triangle pointing downward, as if gesturing toward the doors.
While an elderly wood, the doors themselves offered no knobs or handles with which to open them. Instead, something akin to a wrought-iron hinge sat in the center where one should've been - and only a very shallow recess in the center where the doors met offered any clue. Writing stood engraved above the surface, showcasing an alphabetical or photographic writing symbol. The page stood no chance at comprehending it. Without an obvious keyhole, Scholomance figured the place wasn't locked, but when he pushed against the doors to gain entry, he found that they refused to budge an inch. A harder push with both hands braced against the door offered still nothing. "You can't be serious," he muttered to himself. After a moment's consideration, he tried slamming his shoulder against the great portal to no avail. Next came a kick, then another shoulder, but nothing offered the slightest hint at entry to the pair.
"Looks like we can't get into the impossibly creepy building. Guess it's time to go." A last few steps backward and a glance up at the symbol were spared once more. Hope you're not too terribly crushed."Noir Songbird pls 2 stick signet ring in small indentation~
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 7:13 pm
Ashanite laughed, just a little. While his information hadn't come from an officer, it hadn't come from a Knight either - Aegir had provided his introduction to the war. "Apparently, ex-Knights are easier to find than current ones," he said. "Some of my information came from one as well, though his expertise was mostly in the Negaverse." From what he'd gathered generally, Quartz hadn't been a Knight for long at all.
He rested a hand on Scholomance's shoulder briefly, just in case he needed steadying - sudden changes in surroundings weren't exactly a good way to stay well oriented. His first few attempts at teleportation had left him exhausted and dizzy, and while he was far more used to it now, he still significantly preferred it as a last resort than a general method of transportation.
He tapped his foot slightly mistrustfully on the ground, like it might start shifting or sucking under his feet if he wasn't careful - which given that they'd just come off a swamp, didn't seem too far-fetched to him. The building before him bore some general architectural similarity to his cathedral (it still felt like his, damn it, even if he had chosen to leave it abandoned) but only in general stylings - Gothic leaning seemed to be the preferred look of Saturn's people and its places.
"I'm sure it's all fancy doilies and bright colors," sarcasm was evident in his voice, as the Captain took a few steps forward towards the doors. Although this wasn't his Wonder, curiosity still pushed him onward - what might one find in the place called Scholomance? He wondered how much connection it had to the place named in Dracula - if it truly were a school of the black arts, which felt like a reasonable place to be built on Saturn.
His eyes drifted over the door, and he considered it for a long moment, especially the odd indentation in the door. He narrowed his eyes at in, and while Scholomance tried force, he stepped forward and considered it.
"I think I have an idea, actually," he said. This seemed terribly recursive and silly, but the dimensions of the indentation seemed correct - he reached into his pocket (and he was very glad his uniform pants had pockets) and withdrew his old signet ring. "I have no idea if this will work, all the other magical functions of this damn thing stopped when I corrupted." But if the shape of a Knight's signet was the key, and not the magic in it... He pressed the ring into the indentation. The place was likely designed with the idea of a Knight constantly in residence in mind - that a newe Page would arrive with no one to guide them hadn't been in the mind of whoever had created this lock.
"I'm not sure if I want this to work or not," he admitted. The place was creepy as all hell, and he was fairly certain it would only get worse beyond the doors.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 1:48 am
Scholomance huffed and turned from the door, clearly unimpressed that his wonder barred him entry at all. "Aren't I supposed to own this place? What is the point in locking me out?" Turning back, he backed up to gain more perspective on the massive building. Tell me they're not expecting me to climb through a window. Whoever 'they' is. I'm starting to sound like Ida. What's to say that any place like this is sentient? But the feel of this wonder...
Scholomance waited a few paces away while Ploutonion fiddled with the indentation. The ring he withdrew from pocket looked relatively unremarkable - he wasn't certain why the man thought it would work - but after he pressed the ring to the center of the door, a peculiar set of events occurred. First a latch sounded, and the depression deepened. Next, the depression glowed a royal blue before fading out with a soundless pulse - and that pulse traveled over the whole of the mechanism before it faded from existence, exposing a similar symbol carved over the door as the one crowning the doors. Scholomance watched it curiously, expecting some second half of the phenomenon that just occurred, but nothing more transpired with the door. A quick press of hands against the surface proved that the door no longer barred them access. Instead, it yawned wide to expose a foyer unlike any he'd ever visited.
The ceilings grew tall, at least twenty feet by the look of it, and featured an ambulatory that surrounded the main area. Of this, Scholomance was certain it reminded him of a church, with several offshoot doors leading to other rooms. Many of the pillars supporting the ceiling crumbled or shattered, leaving a scanty few to bear the weight of the ceiling overhead. A vast layer of dust settled on the ground from such mishaps, and from settling of the thousand-year-old enclosure. The space did not look terribly ransacked - most books remained on the shelves behind a large desk at the back of the room, and the myriad tapestries coating the walls looked more rotted away than intentionally sabotaged. Individual posts for thick satin ribbons of royal blue formed a walkway toward the desk, as if discouraging guests to wonder amongst the ambulatory and visit different rooms. As Scholomance proceeded forward, a scanty few of the globes topping the posts glowed with an unfriendly white light. Some flickered, as if some lightbulb within them were dying, but the Page knew that no such technology could exist here, for no lightbulb could span the amount of time this place looked deserted.
"At least you found a way in." His voice echoed, even amongst the surfeit of tables and chairs toward the end of the roped walkway. When he reached that point, the room had opened out to its widest point, and there stood all the intended seating areas. Behind the desk that he approached, a pair of grand spiral staircases intersected above it to form a landing, and then split off again toward the unseen upper floor. "This tower looks monstrously large. Was your wonder like this? This room alone is at least a hundred feet in diameter, and you saw how far it extended into the fog. Somehow I don't think we're getting the grand tour on our first visit." Assuming Ashanite came back with him - and he had no reason to believe that he captain would.
But once he reached the large maple desk, he noticed that beyond the thick dust that settled upon it, the stationary present there was arranged in a very meticulous manner. Two sheets of paper lay stacked on the right side, with a much larger stack of it on the left. Quill and ink sat in their respective wells built into the desk, and a single projection sat to the right of the quill where a ring rested unceremoniously. A stack of written papers lay to the far left, which looked somewhat like newspaper articles to Scholomance's sensibilities. He could not read them, but the composition of the text struck him as odd and much like a collection of articles instead of letters, or applications, or... He wasn't entirely sure what they would've processed here.
Scholomance picked up the quill, found it so desiccated that it effectively dissolved in his grasp, and then chose to inspect the ring instead. Initially he couldn't wrench it from its projection, but the ring soon came to life and Scholomance found he could remove it quite easily. Holding it up, he noted the same eye symbol emblazoned in its center, and that deep blue gem sat within a band of gold. It matched his uniform impeccably.
"A few people have told me to go find a 'signet ring'. Do you think this is it? Said I could send messages with it. I guess it stands to reason that's what they did here. Maybe Scholomance is a giant post office." He held it so for the pair to scrutinize simultaneously. "What do you make of this place?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 8:43 pm
"I'm guessing the theory is that you wouldn't show up without a more experienced Knight." Ashanite said, and when it was clear that his trick had opened the door, he tucked his ring back into his pocket. There was no way he was going to risk losing it - not when it had come with him through corruption and everything else.
This was far more magic than he had seen at his own Wonder - self-lighting torches and a gate that wouldn't open couldn't even touch a magically-locked door. He hesitated for a long moment, and when he stepped through the doors, there was a small part of him that expected he would be thrown back somehow - because he was corrupted, and even though his signet had opened the door, he was somehow half-expecting to be barred from the sanctum of the Wonder itself.
When nothing like that happened, he let himself look around, taking in the sheer scale of the place. It was as massive and imposing inside as it had been outside, and he very rarely felt small - but in the foyer of Scholomance, he did. For a moment, he wanted to touch, to feel the thousand-year artifacts under his fingers - but this wasn't his space, and things that old might well be incredibly fragile.
"I can't believe that worked, honestly," he admitted. It had been a slightly blind guess, but signet rings were signet rings, it seemed, whether it responded to him or not. "The upper portions? No - it was large, about the size of Notre Dame," and why could he remember that as a comparison? The nagging facts that stuck in his head were incredibly frustrating, "but nothing like this. The catacombs underneath, I could have spent a lifetime exploring and still not turned up everything, I suspect, but that's the nature of catacombs."
He followed the Page to the desk, carefully avoiding touching any of the papers, but examining them anyway. "Some of these symbols look familiar - there was lettering around my Wonder. Ancient Saturnian?" Of course a thousand-year-old society on another planet would have a wholly different alphabet. He itched to know what those papers said, what historical information might be contained within. How much light would be shed on the past if they could only read what was written?
But those were thoughts for another time. For now, it seemed Scholomance had found something rather important.
"If that is your signet ring, it's easy enough to test - write a letter, address it to whoever you like, and stamp it with the ring. If it is your signet, the letter will vanish and be delivered to whoever you addressed it to." He said. It wasn't the same styling as his own, but it still looked like it could easily be a signet - the repeated eye symbol felt enough like a sigil for this place.
"I think that a post office in the middle of a swamp sounds a bit far-fetched, but I suppose there are worse locations if you have magic." He considered, for a long moment. "I doubt that's all there is to it. This place is more questions than answers - and I'm going to guess you're not having any helpful flashes of memory?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:51 pm
"And I'm guessing that this place is an a*****e. It seriously thinks I should drag some other poor knight to this hellhole?" Scholomance scoffed, and expected the place to feel somehow apologetic to him, but received nothing in return. "Nothing about coming here screams 'good time', does it? No alcohol, even, to ward off the shitty feel of it. It isn't worth bringing company along - no offense." Not that he expected Ashanite to take any - he'd been a good sport about it so far.
"I'm starting to suspect that dead bodies are the uniting factor for Saturn knights," he commented offhandedly. Ploutonion's wonder sounded much like a charnel house to him, and he wondered if they could visit it. Not that he found a particular need to - Scholomance filled his corpse-viewing quotient for the day many times over - but to see another Saturn wonder and start making extrapolations between the three sounded interesting. Or maybe it simply sounded self-punishing. Or, perhaps even further, he was just looking for a reason to drink. "Can you take me to your wonder sometime? Not today, of course, but there's a certain value in exploring another Saturn wonder, I suspect."
Scholomance's spindly fingers brushed through a few of the pages on the desk, dislodging dust at an alarming rate. He, personally, didn't care due to the half-mask. "I have no idea what this language is. I hope they don't expect me to write in it to send letters, then." He kept sifting until he reached a blank page, and after taking the pen in hand, he paused to look toward Ashanite. "How do you spell your name? We'll see if this little trinket works."
"It does," came a voice from the stairs.
Scholomance spun abruptly, hand steadied on the desk, and searched for the owner of the voice. It wasn't a difficult task, but it exacted a measure of trepidation from him that he struggled to admit to. There, descending the staircase that loomed behind the desk, was a man of curious quality - sandy blonde hair, a trimmed beard to near stubble quality, broad shoulders, and a uniform that looked much too similar to his own (and yet, he found, more strangely luminous - as if some portion of the wonder's energies lit the outfit in a fit of arcane symbols). However, the most striking feature of this man was not in his uncannily bright garb, or in how his features were much too easy to look upon, but in his transparency.
"You're see-through," Scholomance objected dumbly.
The visage offered no response to this. Instead, he rounded the banister for an easier look at his composition, and examined his own fingers rather than look directly at the pair of intruders. "Interesting company you keep. We're more alike than I thought we'd be." He approached then, looking either to Scholomance or past him; the page was uncertain of which. "Blaine van der Linden," he finished at last, and held out a hand for shaking. "I was the last Scholomance."
When Scholomance tried to reach for it, he found nothing to grasp. Blinking, the page returned his attention to the ring he still held. "Well then, I suppose I don't have to introduce myself." And, he figured, Ashanite could manage his own presentation if he particularly wanted to. "I'm sure you can guess there's about a thousand questions to ask right now-"
"I do," the man cut in with a closed smile. He looked too comfortable in his own skin. "I can tell you that's your signet ring you're holding, and that you're standing in the check-in area for the Observatory of Scholomance."
"And what is the Observatory for? What's the point of any of this, and why did they decide to build it in the middle of a shitty quagmire?"
"... I don't remember." Blaine answered, his smile unfaltering.
Scholomance shot Ashanite an exasperated glance, as if to ask if he bought the story.
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 3:09 pm
Ashanite raised an eyebrow. "I have no idea what you're talking about. The swamp was positively charming." Dry sarcasm heavily layered his tone. Perhaps other Wonders were more pleasant, but he was really beginning to believe that Camlann's idea of "bonding" with these places was ludicrous. Empty gates, inhospitable swamps? Whatever Camlann had must have been far different.
He looked a little surprised at the question. Going back to his Wonder had never been high on his list of priorities. If he were more bitter, he might have tried to sabotage it, but it hadn't been terrible, just empty. "Well, given that I'm no longer a Knight, I doubt that oath will work for me - but teleportation, perhaps? I hadn't thought if it before, but from Wonder to Wonder, it might be possible. Assuming they aren't on completely opposite sides of the planet, or something." He could still visualize the interior of the cathedral perfectly - could even visualize the exterior. Perhaps from the right place...
But now wasn't the time, because a second teleportation, energy spheres or no, would likely leave him unconscious or at least heavily exhausted.
He was prepared to spell out his name - had even set up, in his head, a stumble over using his Knight name before sliding into his mineral, because that might have sold his story just a little better - but he was suddenly, slightly horrifyingly, made aware that they were not alone.
He jerked in the direction of the voice - this was not a memory, not what he had experienced in those brief visions of Vincenzo. This was a...ghost. As best as he could tell. A fully communicative, entirely human-looking ghost.
"Bloody hell," he said, under his breath. Good, now he could add actual ghosts to the ever-growing list of magical bullshit he had encountered. Truly, this was ridiculous - there had to be a limit to what this strange world could produce. Past lives, magical gates, teleportation of multiple kinds (for messages, of people), magical transformations - and yet somehow ghosts seemed both particularly alarming and particularly unbelievable, despite the evidence being right before his eyes.
But if he paid attention, he knew this could be a source of invaluable information - because if this man named himself the last Scholomance, that meant that he had likely lived for the war that had ended the Silver Millennium. That made him an invaluable resource.
"Ploutonion," he introduced himself, and he crossed his arms, and everything in his tone and posture dared this Blaine to challenge him on that assertion. He was in the role of the stolen Knight, and he would play it until it no longer benefited him. For now, it had plenty to offer.
He had thought this spirit might offer resources - apparently, he was wrong. The present Page was given a distinctly disbelieving look.
"You don't remember?" The Captain asked. That sounded completely ridiculous. "How do you not remember?" Were this apparition's memories as fragmented as the bits of past life he had recovered? Moreso, apparently - he had remembered the purpose of the Gate fairly quickly. Then again, there was a possibility that he was playing stupid in the presence of an officer, which would have been fairly clever - and it wasn't as if he could judge the skills in subterfuge of someone he had just met. Blaine van der Linden bore watching, either way, because his memories might come back - or he might open up a bit more, if his allusion regarding Scholomance's choice of company meant anything.
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Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 12:34 am
"Doesn't sound familiar." Blaine did not say so discourteously. In fact, he looked positively puzzled as he checked over Ploutonion, as if he could not discern the core of the man's existence. Regardless of the thoughts that crossed Blaine's mind over the matter, he did not offer voice to them.
Blaine's courtesy smile still didn't falter with Ploutonion's staunch objection to his noncommittal response. "When someone asks after the purpose of Scholomance, they're looking for a distinct, clean, and proper answer. But Scholomance has none of these. Now, Scholomance stands as a warning. A ruin built in swamp lands. And this..." His hands open outward to gesture toward the whole of the building. "This Observatory acts as your training grounds, Knight." He paused to observe the two, before he turned and started toward the stairs again. When he spoke, his words echoed about the derelict chamber. "Nothing you find here will be straightforward, I'm afraid."
Scholomance sighed through his nose and glanced to Ashanite once more. The captain proved worth his salt in calling the ghost out on its own lack of memory. "I don't think I'm terribly fond of following the dead. Plus, I don't think you've covered the basic intimations of 'why should we trust you'. Personally, I'm more fond of going back to earth and writing dirty notes to Ploutonion to see if I could make him blush." While the captain looked somewhat acclimated to more carnal talk, Scholomance wagered that he could wrench a shade or two from those cheeks. Perhaps they could strike up some fun times without the involvement of a dead voyeur. He imagined, then, that instances like these proved his lack of interest in catacombs or graveyard sex.
"I got what I needed from this place. Did you want to look around more, or are you fine with leaving? I don't think we're losing much by ditching out on the dead guy." Were he absent other company, Scholomance would not react so calmly to the presence of the living dead in his wonder. Naturally he felt suspicion for the man - he provided no qualifiers beyond appearance to assert that he was, truly, a knight of Scholomance in the past. And even then, their outfits showed minor differences that he didn't expect. Likewise, Isaiah heard of many malevolent ghosts in his years, and he considered that 'Blaine' may well qualify. Ultimately, he wasn't prepared to follow a memory-challenged ghost on a tour of a potentially dangerous area.
But the look that he received from Blaine disturbed him in a more basic manner - not that he was ashamed for dismissing his ancestor so readily, but more a primal fear that often stemmed from the wonder on clear nights. Scholomance seized Ashanite's hand then, damning social convention under his breath.
"Nothing is holding you here, Scholomance. It will be as you found it when you return." Blain continued his ascent up the stairs, as if he embarked on a tour himself. "Be watchful."
"Goodbye to you too, freakshow," the page muttered quietly.Noir Songbird one more post from you and i can write a close?
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Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2015 6:31 pm
That the title was unfamiliar was interesting. Was Ploutonion isolated, or was Blaine's memory really missing? Was he covering for his lack of memory with this overblown showy mysticism? So many questions, so few answers. Ashanite itched to press the ghost further, but chasing him into the depths of the observatory felt like all sorts of a terrible plan.
"That's definitely enough mystical bullshit for one day," he said, and he shot a pointed look after the ghost. "I'd much prefer dirty letters. It's too bad I can't send them back." He sighed, perhaps a tiny bit overdramatically, but he did a lot of things overdramatically when given the opportunity.
"This is your field trip, Scholomance. If you think it's time to go back, I'm inclined to agree." And so when Scholomance took his hand, he tugged the Knight over just a bit, shooting the ghost the sort of smile one generally reserved for people one despised but had to interact politely with. "Back to Earth, then?"Strickenized should be good for a fin yep~
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