Closed Into The Maw of Madness

[Perplexity]

The air was filled with silence now. The night had swallowed up the forest completely as a predator would wrap its claws around the limp body of its prey. Evalin’s footsteps through the underbrush were as peals of thunder in the dark. On the outer edges of the Immortal’s senses was the scent of roses. It was small but it was enough to form a trail. It was a point to focus on that was foreign to the natural flora of the Zastoska forest. The stoic pines and shrubbery did not warmly welcome such beautiful flowers. As the sorceress ran an amused chuckle echoed in the inky black.

“She seeks. She hunts. But does she know the Path?” The whisper of the thousand voices flittered across Evalin’s reverie. The whispers were on the very edge of her senses, close enough to nearly feel the chill of icy fingers upon her neck but far enough to remain undiscernible. The shadows of the forest seemed to surge forward blackening the world to the point where not even Evalin’s morphed eyes could penetrate the abyss that stretched on before her. All around her the voices whispered until a deep and malevolent voice spoke above them as she ran.

“Does she feel the darkness swarm around her? Does she feel it creep its torturous path into her eyes, tearing at the strands of her hope until it eats away inside her? Tell us, tell us how it feels.” The sinister laughter reverberated through the woods before the darkness was lifted. The oppressive shadows faded from Evalin’s vision before the moonlight returned. The sounds of the night were still muted, silent, a sign that whatever this creature was it was still lurking not far away. The deep voice ghosted through the landscape pricking at the Wretched One’s ears.

“The fire she brings will go out. The life she has stolen will end. All that she is…will fade.” The voice drifted away as the sounds of the night returned. Slowly Evalin’s senses would no longer be dampened by the murky weight of the presence that had filled the forest. The ground however, was familiar. Indeed, the grass bore signs of passage. The trees carried the scent of familiar blood. For all of her tracking, Evalin had gone nowhere. The creature, the shadow that haunted the most terrifying nightmares of the Guardsmen’s sleeping hours, seemed to have unparalleled mastery of the world around it.

A high pitched chittering split through the dark. The rustle of movement came from Evalin’s right. Another chittering accompanied the first followed by the rustle that hinted at speedy movement. Evalin was not alone in the clearing. The smell of roses still lingered on the outskirts of the sorceress’s senses. Whatever and wherever that scent was coming from, it undoubtedly held the answers she sought. It seemed though that the night would be long as the creature was intent on toying with her. The chittering came again as eight blood red light came into being several feet in front of Evalin.

Then came eight more.

And more.

In the span of a few seconds, with the sound of rustling grass and high pitched clicking it seemed one hundred blood red eyes stared at Evalin from the darkness, glowing with the same fire that had stared at her from the endless void. There came a hissing screech.

The eyes raced forward. Evalin was under attack.

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[Evalin]

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The faint scent or rose petals drew Evalin deeper and deeper into the looming darkness, her body hunched in a half walking half crouching position as her head swung from side to side, up and down as she sniffed at the air and tried to pierce the ever increasing veil of darkness around her. The sudden whispers made the Immortal pause, looking back over her shoulder to the Irylid who was floating close at hand.

It seems the thing has not left.

Surely my master already knew this to be the case. His reply was matter of fact, but to it Evalin only shrugged and continued, Indeed, for it is what we would have done as well, is it not my dear Tsenrika?

Do you know the path... It made Evalin wonder, even more so when the shadows darkened the world around her even further so that even her enhanced eyes could not pierce the veil. Did she know where she was going? And why?

The smell of roses is odd for a place such as this. Tsenrika said, coming to follow closer at the Nuit's shoulder, So unusual that, even in the pitch darkness one could still follow a straight path simply by following its scent. Is that not a path, my master?

Indeed it is so. Evalin said, a slight shiver running up her spine that she knew was not from the cold.

Evalin tried to keep her mind focused, eyes forward following the path she could not directly see, but the sounds and whispers around her would draw to mind musings and images of terrible and terrifying things with pointed teeth and glowing eyes.

Hissing between her teeth Evalin shook her head, glaring at the lifting darkness around her as she pulled back the features of the hound so that she could speak clearly once more, "Care I not for such insignificant things as hope. This world has long since been without it, so no need is there to hold onto it. Only the weak cling to such foolish notions."

Perhaps you should not provoke the spirits in their own domain...

They begin to infuriate me. Evalin replied as she started forward once more in the moonlight, Care I not to be toyed with, even by something perhaps stronger than I... What ridiculous questions it asks, as if one such as I would truly be dependent upon such things as hope.

The silence was perhaps the most unnerving of all, and would have given her more pause were Evalin not growing used to the silence that followed her often wherever she went. The scent of blood pricked her nose once more as they made it into the clearing, Evalin standing straight to walk toward the center of it now, the corners of her mouth turning down as she came to the realization that...

We have come about in a circle.

Observant as always I see... to the right and left Evalin looked, setting her hands on her hips as she bit her bottom lip in thought, It seems to have more sway over the environment than we thought...

Or perhaps just our senses. Tsenrika offered, Easily it stole from you your grasp of your magics and your connection to me was muddled. What if this creature can do that to more than just magic, but to a sense of reality itself?

That would be a dangerous thing indeed, to loose your sense of self. Hope I that you are wrong, for if it can beguile our senses of the world, what could it then do to our senses of time and space?

The high pitched chattering filled the air and Evalin glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes hardening.

Perhaps now is not the time to be pondering such things. Something is upon us.

When the first eight red lights appeared Evalin's face darkened further, It seems many somethings... And when the next eight came she knew already what was about to befall them, and without hesitation she began her preparations.

"Tsenrika," She called through the darkness, her voice full and loud with confidence, "Dak Dalla Na!"

"As you command." Tsenrika said, his voice deep and cold like the glaciers of the north. With sudden speed he drifted up and over Evalin's shoulder, then coming to rest several feet above Evalin's head. Then he grew, his size increasing until he was nearly 5 feet in diameter, a great hovering orb that rested over his Master's head like a great reflective moon.

Clapping her hands Evalin drew upon the power that rested within her, great amounts of translucent res spilling from her and from Tsenrika as well. Evalin gathered this res around her, sending some into the ground at her feet, the rest filled her hair, coated her bare arms and hands and draped down her back. The res around Tsenrika formed two rings that crossed, and with a hiss from Evalin the rings ignited into a blazing flame that lit up the area around her with flickering red light.

Clenching her right hand into a fist she felt her djed beginning to move and collect into her right arm, focusing around the ring of bone on her finger. While this began Evalin also plucked once more at her djed, focusing now upon those that controlled her vocal cords, lengthening and stretching them even as she pressed upon the softness of her lungs to expand them, along with her chest cavity and diaphragm.

As the lights of the void began to rush in Evalin drew in a deep breath and let out a wailing call that filled the night air and would scathe upon the ears of most living creatures. Long, loud and high the wail went, filled with as much spite, rage and hatred as Evalin could pour into it. A challenge, and a warning. This was Evalin. This was her power. To come to her was to come to your death.

The power had been building for more than half a chime, and now Evalin raised her fist high, eyes on the ground, wide and wild. She burned bright with anger and contempt. How dare this thing mock her, toy with her. Take her for a fool! Yet even beyond that anger there was uncertainty, a fear of just whatever it was. It could be more powerful than she was. It could consume her utterly. It could kill her, or wipe away her magic as it had before... But no, an icy determination filled her soul as she rejected those thoughts. She would not die. She would not fade.

Releasing the hold on her Djed Evalin called out once more, "Know you not who I am! I am the Darkness between the Stars! I am the All Consuming Flame! I am the whisper before the storm, and the boom before the lightning strikes!" She slammed her fist into the ground, the power of the ring shooting up her arm, reinforcing her bones and flesh and sending a ripple through the very earth so that it quaked and the ground rolled and cracked in an expanding radius. As she did Evalin lit her djed, filling it with all of her hot anger and solid determination, stuck somewhere between gushing flames and exploding rocks, and what was created was something equal parts of both. Between the cracks she created her res burst forth, white hot and flowing like water, fire leaping forth as molten lava was throw up in a wide radius around her, bubbling, rolling and gushing as an extension of that raging determination, and that will to live.

Straightening Evalin clapped her hands together, not pausing to question what had just happened but instead pulled the res around her and made it spin, expanding out in a sudden gush of wind that whipped her hair back from her face and caught the flames of the bubbling rock to send forth a wave of heated air and streaks of fire.

"I proclaim myself the Dark Witch Evangeline, Goddess of Vengeance! At my hand this world will crumble. At my will all life will be lost. At my beckoning the darkness will come!" Hissing between her teeth Evalin turned to the left and the right, looking past her own destruction into the darkness where the void lights flickered, "Thus I have made myself known to you. Now, creature of the endless night, I call to you. Make yourself known to me! Speak your name that I might know it!" Her voice was coated with all the authority she had within her body. From centuries of practicing the art of summoning Evalin had learned that some creatures had to be shown your power before they would concede or offer negotiations. Now Evalin did just that, calling out this thing and demanding by her own rights that she should know its true name and form. .

[Perplexity]

The destruction that Evalin conjured illuminated the darkness of the night bringing into light the creatures that attacked her. Black spiders roughly the size of small house cats lunging for her in droves. Their eyes burned bright red but soon they, along with the threat that they posed were wiped from existence. The blast that radiated outward from Evalin was enough to tear trees from the ground. The grass was burned to ash, those trees that weren’t uprooted and tossed outward from the blast radius were reduced to charred husks. Evalin herself stood in a burned crater from which smoke rose. Cinders rose up from the ground swaying in the wind. The devastation caused by the powerful sorceress extended approximately one hundred yards outward in diameter.

As the smoke cleared and the wrath of the mighty sorceress abated a shadowed figure stood at the very edge. It was nearly undiscernible from the smoke that rose up in the ashen clearing that had formed around her. Trees still burned, bushes still cracked in the flames that Evalin had conjured. Through it however there stood the shadow. The clearing was filled with the weight of an intense focus. Evalin had garnered the attention of the dark entity. The deep voice laced with hushed whispers slithered through the crater.

“She is tainted…the stain will never wash out…” The form of the shadow began to waver.

“Her soul will never be the same again…” As if made of smoke the shadow at the edge of the light slowly dissipated. The voice echoed in its wake.

“Tainted…broken little toy…”

A sharp intake of breath followed by a rattling exhale washed over the clearing. With it came a rush of wind that stole the life from the fires that burned. The smoke cleared and once again the forest fell into darkness. One thing was different however, in the distance there shone a light as if from the window of a cottage. The sounds of the night lingered in the background though the charred clearing was as silent as a grave. Whatever game the creature had been playing with Evalin it seemed, for now, it was over. The question remained however what awaited both her and her Familiar along the path that now lay in front of them? As Evalin would stand there a single rose petal would drift in front of her. It would dance along the currents of air briefly before spiraling away toward the pinpoint of light that hovered in the distance.

Evalin was being invited deeper into the Zastoska forest. The night was still young. Clouds had begun to gather in the night sky charting lazy paths across the heavens. This was the fork in Evalin’s road thus far.

Continue into the unknown or retreat while her life was still her own?

NoteRandom: Spiders that big are actually real. Also, I couldn't resist the perfect opportunity to borrow a train of dialogue from one of my favorite scripts. So if some of the phrasing is familiar, that's why. The wording isn't all the same but the phrasing is close.

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[Evalin]

"Spiders...?" Evalin whispered softly under her breath, glancing around at the carnage she had created with only passing interest as her eyes focused on what few remains there were of the many legged creatures. Just as quickly as the attacking swarm had come they had ended, and now something new came to take their place and drew the Immortal's attention in full.

Red eyes stared unblinking at the thing as it spoke, not daring to move a muscle as her mind whirled, and were it not for Tsenrika's calm and Icy thoughts she might not have had the sense to keep her mouth shut till the end. Then her eyes were widened as, with just a breath, all of her fires were snuffed out as easily as a candle in a fierce wind.

"Shyke..." Evalin whispered, holding up her hand as the thing vanished and begin pulling in the remaining residual res that floated around her and that still circled the Familiar.

Perhaps... Tsenrika began, shrinking down to his original size to hover at Evalin's shoulder.

No. She interrupted, eyes already following the single rose petal as it drifted down, spinning and tilting this way and that as it made its way toward the light in the distance past the carnage. Taking a quick step forward Evalin would reach out with her hand and try to catch the petal, and if she could she would bring it to her eyes, examining it curiously before curling her fingers around it and resting it close to her unbeating heart.

See you not what it can do? Just as those fires it might snuff out my Master's life, with but a breath and no thoughts to spare.

This did give Evalin pause for a brief moment, but then she looked sideways at her familiar and smiled, "My dear Tsenrika, have you learned nothing from our time together?" When the Familiar didn't answer his Master turned back to the light and started forward, "We have been invited, and for good or for ill it would be most rude to turn away from such an offer. We who walk in red rarely are given doors to walk through that are not fraught with danger, death and torture... But this, oh heart of my heart, is how we grow stronger and reach those unreachable goals."

There would be no arguing with Evalin once she had made up her mind, and so Tsenrika followed close behind her. They made their way toward the light, and as they went Tsenrika thought, and pondered, and mused. Never could there be an invitation without a risk, and if this creature was as powerful as it seemed it should have killed them in an instant. Instead it was showing them a path, offering them a way.

If it wished us dead it would have done so already. No, what this most likely means is...

It wishes to show us something. The Irylid finished, but his voice was not one that was eager to see just what was about to be revealed to them. For Evalin however there was a stir in her soul. A rising chill in her spine that would have set her heart racing had she still been alive. A deep, chilling fear of what was to come, and a shiver of excitement at the unknown expectation of it all.

[Perplexity]

To Evalin’s eyes the path ahead was clear. The ground beneath her feet was soft and warm, a byproduct of the destruction that she’d visited upon the world around her. As she walked there came no signs of attack. The looming presence that had peered at her from the darkness seemed to have evaporated within that instant. The only thing that remained was the pinpoint of light in the distance.

The rose petal was a dark black edged with violet. Smooth and warm between her fingers. With every step she would take more petals would drift through the air. A trail had been created for her to follow through the darkness. Should she reach for the petals each one would be warm in her hands never falling prey to the cold that permeated the Wretched One’s body. From them was a sense of being lost, the desire to be reunited, and a deep sadness. It would not be long before her path came to end. Before Evalin stood what appeared to be a once great house. The structure had long since become a dilapidated husk of its former grandeur.

A lonely thing, the roof was partially collapsed, the walls were weathered with the weight of time. Three stories high it was obvious that this house once belonged to a figure of prominence. Now, forgotten in the mists of time it was an echo of a different era. From within the structure there shone a single candle in one of the high windows on the third floor. The door to the house stood open or rather, it stood partially rotted off of its hinges. Upon close inspection the shape of a house sigil could be found. A rose, at the center of which rest a single eye. Silence pervaded the area. The sounds of the night were non-existent. The clouds in the sky had gathered tightly blocking out most of the starlight. Leth’s moonlight bathed the fallen house in a pallor that reeked of sickness and decay.

Something was different about the silence that pervaded the area around the house however. There was no sense of being watched. There was no oppressive presence of darkness. It was simply as if this place, this ruin, had been removed from the natural world. In her observations, a shadow passed over the light shining in the window. The definitive outline of a figure watching Evalin from within the house.

The dark entity was waiting.

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[Evalin]

It did not matter the immortals age or state of being. Even now as she walked among The falling petals Evalin could feel a sense of beauty to the scene that was portrayed before her. There in the middle of a silenced forest was a building that was bathed in moonlight, as if all this world wished to bring attention to it.

From their bond Evalin could feel the Irylids missgiings, but he said nothing and neither did Eva seek tohear his thoughts fortheir contents wer as clear as still water to her mind. There was pause as the Immortal looked up to the room with the candle and saw there a figure that had lead her to this very spot. What did it want? What did it wish to show her?

No sense of danger came as Evalin drew closer, nor as she ascended one step, and then another And another untill she stood before the door and gazed now at the half hidden image of a house sigil upon it. Long nails and delicate fingers touched this carving, looking it over as her other hand absently stroked the petal she held with one finger.

"Beautiful..." she whispered before shelooked into the darkness of the building beyond. Just before she stepped over the threshhold though she stopped, looking up with searching eyes before whispering, "i thank you for your hospitality."

With that she stepped through, Tsenrika at her shoulder into th house beyond.

[Perplexity]

“She is strange to us.” There was curiosity within the voices that whispered in the dark. “Most flee. Most go mad with terror. But she does not. She stands defiant. Her fire burns brighter. Her mind seeks answers to questions she does not know.”

The boards of the house creaked with age. In front of Evalin stretched a long corridor. Upon the walls hung rotted tapestries belonging to a bygone era. The furniture was decayed. The floor was marred with the weight of unknown years.

“What is it that she searches for in the Garden of Darkness? What flower blooms that she longs to pick? We wonder…” The voices fell silent. Further into the house Evalin would find an expansive layout. To her right there stood a spacious den where guests might once have been brought to partake in revelry. To her left was a dining room. The table stood as if waiting for the undoubtedly long dead family to come together over a meal. Further into the interior of the first floor a study could be found. The bookshelves were caked with dust but it was a grand room, two stories high and lined with bookcases, a great window stood at the rear of the study. Where there were no bookcases on the walls there were chalkboards. Notes were still scrawled upon their black surfaces in chalk. At the base of the great window stood the dilapidated remains of a large circle, rusted wires and broken pedestals obviously a ritual place devoted to the study of magic. In the center of the room atop pages stained dark with dried blood there rest a robed skeleton.

At the rear of the first floor there stood a staircase. Covering the railing and the steps themselves were runes that could only be Glyphs. Though their exact workings were beyond Evalin’s ability to discern, their fundamental intent however was clear even to her. Contain. Protect. Ward. Similar diagrams could be found scrawled across the surface of a few of the blackboards in the study.

Adjacent to the staircase stood a greenhouse. Portions of the roof had collapsed, the plant life had overtaken sections of the glass and covered the floor. At the center of the greenhouse there grew a rosebush. Blossoming in the bush were roses with petals as black as pitch, the edges the velvet shade of violet, exactly the same as the petal Evalin held in her hands. The whispered gathered though their words were not distinct. Footsteps echoed in the shadowed places throughout the house. Laughter bubbled in Evalin’s ears. Still, the sense of emptiness pervaded the house.

“Careful, Little Toy, there are dangers yet unseen in places the eyes cannot go.”

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[Evalin]

The voices were becoming a constant companion. A spectator who offered commentary on every move and action Evalin made. It might have unnerved her were she nt accustomed to a constant voice within and without, and somehow these voices brought to mind a great curiosity that tugged at her curiosity in their existance at all.

The house was grand, more impressive thaneven what its exterior suggested it might be. Zhe walked slowly, cautiously with Tsenrika always at her side. Though the den and the dining room made Evalin pause to glance about, it was not util the study came to view that th Immortals full attention was caught. It was a combination of the books and notes upon the walls, and also the largecircle that captured her mage soul.

A man... perhaps he was the master of this house?stepping into the room Evalin tore her eyes away from the books and knowledge to lookoveratthe skeletal body that lay just as he died however many years ago.

"Perhaps... and wonder I if it was he that called this power to the forest." or worse. What if he had not?

All of the books seemed old, and either the covers were obscured or age had damaged them for she could not make out their titles at the first glance. Looking back at the skeleton Evalin did somethingshe rarely did. She offered a small note of professional courtesyand dipped her head in the mages xirection before turning around and exiting the room. There would be time later to comb the books there. For now there wasa bigger mysteryat hand.

The stairs she saw were covered andprotected by runes and glyphs similar to those she saw described in the study. Some small part of her wanted totestthose protecgivr forcess... but th sudden warnin from the legionmade her consider otherwise.

Finally she came to the thing that drew herfull attention the bush of roses that were blackasnight and edged in violste. There seemed to be a theme. Thescentof roses and s pathof petalslead her here, the symbol of this house was thaof a rosewith an eye at its center, and now this. A rose bushin a broken greene house and cryptic warnings of things unseen and placeseyes cantgo.

Coming closer to the bushEva crouched down and glanced around herself, "Come i here to know what it isyou wishme to know. Allow me to see your garden of darkness. I desire to know of you... thatis what i seek. Show me whatyou will, I am your guest"

Tapping into thatpower within a suddenpain in her headmade he Imortal close hereyes as theworldwasmasked in a layer of magic. For a few ticks she would simply listen, and taste and scent the air. Was it a riddle? Was theresomething that could not be seen? Then she would open her eyes to examen the bush before her, questions burning in her soul.

[Perplexity]

As the power of Evalin’s magic opened for her new objects to perceive, the nature of the rose bush in front of her was revealed on a small level. At the heart of the bush there rest an object. It glowed bright with magical shine that much Evalin could tell. The exact nature was beyond her ability to discern at a glance however. The bush itself dripped with the sweet smell of a spring field. Violet thrummed around the edges of its aura hinting at properties that would take much time, much energy to reveal. What did readily present itself was the lattice work of a Shield over the internal structure of the rose bush.

The branches of the bush formed an organic sphere around the object resting at its heart. Laced between the overlapping branches was a barrier that seemed intertwined with the life of the bush. It was an ingenious design. As the plant grew, the Shield would feed off of the djed of the plant. As long as the roses were given water and the light to grow, the Shield would stand for as long as they lived. Should the Immortal Witch study the Shield for a short while the first property would make itself evident.

The negation of foreign djed.

There was no telling exactly how powerful the Shield itself was but Evalin’s forceful gifts with magic would be of no use against it, it seemed.

A curious note to the aura of the bush was that the aura felt…familiar. As if she had stared at it before.

There was nothing more that Evalin would be able to tell unless she was willing to exhaust herself. Nevertheless, the small amount of skill she possessed with the Discipline of Insight had revealed things to her that were not visible with the naked eye.

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[Evalin]

the longer she stared the worse the headache became and her grip upon the magic began to slip. Still she pushed through, just a chime longer before she squeezed her eyes shut and released her hold on the magic.

"what this is... is beeyond myknowlede." standing Evalin looked towardTsenrika,"A workof a master. It grows with the bush itself and its powers can negate even my fiercest strike. "

"There was something contained within. The source?"

"Perhaps... what skillwas used is similar to that which guards the tairs and the shelves in thestudy." Shepaused and the familiar finished her thought, "Think you ananswer may be found in the old mages study...?"

"Or onhis person. There is no puzzle without an answer and no lock without a key. There is something here, and to discoverit we must find what is missing. "

A quick pace carried her back toward the study and directly to the robed skeleton. Coming around ro its sidthe immortal would smile, "Please forgive the disturbance. We shall let you resumeyour rest soon. "

She would search his pockets and ckeck all the robe for anything that might be concealed, even looking withn th:-)e skeleton:-) itself if it came to that. Then she would begin a slow and methodical search of the study. Hands touching spines of books and reading their coverse arefully, aswell asnotes on the chalk boardin search of ajything that might be useful. From time to tie she would tap i to her auristics ince more for brief glimpses through magical light, thughno holding it for ong as she was nearingher limit. While she did this Tsenrika began searching the den and dinning room, and if he had the chance he would moveon to searh the greenhouse for any further clues they may have missed.