Once home to the Crystal Cities of the Hunter clans, Craiss Caverns is now a hollow empty shell of its former glory due to a strange misfortune in the past. Man-made tunnels now lead to this place, but tales tell of some never returning. (+3 Defense, +2 Offense)

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Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/13/2016 4:55 AM

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Janarel never did like caves. Something about them just didn't sit well with him--- the darkness, the way the air was always still, the way the stone seemed to press down all around him. Sometimes it felt as if he couldn't breathe. He knew better now, of course; he would stand still and take a few deep breaths, ignoring the stale scent of the place, and right himself again.

Still, he wished they hadn't come here.

Elaniel was already ahead of him, one hand holding aloft the sconce that held the eerie green veilfire she had lit at the mouth of the cavern. The flame flickered, casting sickly shadows along the walls. Her other hand was splayed against one rough-hewn stone wall, braced for balance.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/22/2016 8:39 AM

Janarel sighed, and closed the distance between them. "Ela," he said, with a light touch on her shoulder to let her know he was there. "Let me take point. We don't know what we're going to find in here."

"I'm the one with the torch," she said, turning to face him. The flames drew flickering shadows across her features, rendering them briefly unsettling, briefly old. "There's no point if you can't see."

"Then at least let us walk together," he said. "You do remember why I'm here."

"Yes, yes, you and your tin-can friends can take a sword to the face better than me and my measly robes," said Elaniel with an air of obvious exasperation.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/22/2016 9:10 AM

Janarel frowned slightly, glancing down at his armor. "I don't really look like a tin can," he said, but his tone was uncertain. At that, Elaniel subsided slightly, taking half a step back and turning to him with an air of expectation.

"Very well; I suppose it would be a shame if I died. You would never let me hear the end of it then," she said. Janarel immediately brushed past her, but not without sparing her a grin over his shoulder.

"You're right about that. I'd hire a mage just to badger your ghost." She rolled her eyes at him. Turning around, Janarel tried to look ahead, but peering into the dark depths of the tunnel, he couldn't see far, even with her holding the torch aloft to aid him. "Remind me, why are we investigating this place?"
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/22/2016 9:18 AM

Elaniel was leaning over to look around him after all, his warnings be damned. Janarel quietly moved to block her again. "There were reports of a disturbance in the Fade in these parts," she said. "Demon sightings, people hearing voices. The usual."

"Isn't that the Inquisitor's job?" Janarel asked.

Elaniel shook her head. "We're not here to seal a Fade tear. Our job is to scope it out. It might not even be that; demons found their way out often enough before, so there's no reason for them to stop now."

"Please tell me you're not hoping it's a demon," said Janarel, dismayed.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/28/2016 8:27 PM

Elaniel rolled her eyes at him. "No one hopes for a demon," she said. Janarel took comfort in her dismissive tone, but held his tongue. He remembered full well what she had said when they were children, creeping through the old ruins that the Keeper had forbidden them to explore.

As they ventured deeper into the cavern, the air grew steadily colder. It was high summer, and at first the coolness of the cave had been a relief from the noonday sun. After an hour's walk, however, Janarel could see his breath in front of him when he exhaled, and the water that dripped from the stalactites left an unpleasant sting where they struck skin.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/28/2016 8:31 PM

Janarel was glad now for the furred trim on his own armor, and the thick padding beneath the leather and plate. Elaniel wasn't so lucky. Neither of them had anticipated this particular problem, and her robes were of a thinner, breezier material suited for the season.

He spared her a worried backward glance at one point, only to have her wave him impatiently off. When she thought he wasn't looking though, he could catch her shivering in the periphery of his vision.

"Let's find this thing quickly," he said. "I don't like this place." Of course, he didn't know how right he was about that.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/29/2016 3:47 AM

It started with hints of movement along the cavern walls. At first, Janarel wrote it off as his sight playing tricks on him. The veilfire's light was already flickering and wan, and it didn't take any stretch of the imagination to turn its shadows into creatures scuttling about in the darkness. But then the movements became bigger, and he began to realize they had a shape to them.

"Spiders," said Elaniel. He could hear the air crackling as her staff flared to life. He backed up a step, though whether to better protect her or to stop her, he didn't know. It depended, he supposed, on what the spiders were doing. But none approached, even though he could now make out their beady eyes staring at them.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/29/2016 7:54 AM

He held his breath, waiting--- this wasn't good, they were surrounded now. He had encountered larger cave spiders before, they both had, but never so many at once. The pressure around them only grew more palpable as Elaniel tensed; Janarel held his shield at the ready. But nothing charged. The spiders only milled around and stared, with not even the smallest stepping out from the perimeter they'd formed around the two elves.

This wasn't right. Spiders weren't this smart. "Something's controlling them," he said.

"The demon," Ela said grimly.
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/29/2016 8:00 AM

"No."

It was only thanks to years of training and being a hunter that Janarel didn't startle at the voice that rose from the seething mass of spiders. It refuted Ela's claim of demonic nature, but it certainly didn't sound human. No human's voice would have such a strange resonance, nor the strange echoing undertones, as if something--- the spiders, perhaps--- were repeating what it said long after the words were spoken.

It spoke again: "No." Janarel's spine crawled. "No demon," it said. "It comes without welcome and it insults us... What is its purpose here?"
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Re: Eyes on the Walls [self]

Postby crow » 04/29/2016 8:15 AM

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A boy stepped out from the seethe, which parted before him as one. In another context, perhaps, he might have been quite mundane. There was not much in his physical appearance to suggest anything otherwise. He was thin, perhaps starved; his height and face marked him as no older than twelve, and more likely younger. He wore a tattered shirt and pants torn off at the knees, and his limbs were covered in old scrapes.

His eyes glowed. He opened his mouth and the terrible voice spilled out again. "What does it want?" The tone was soft and lilting, but the spiders began to mill around restlessly behind him.
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