Quest Parched Throats

[Avela]

"Writing with...lemon?" Avela's brow furrowed, and she examined the sheet of paper again. She'd used lemon juice in her scents before, but she hadn't thought about writing with it. Still, it was interesting. A cypher...She stared at it for long enough that she felt herself go cross-eyed, but was no closer to understanding it. Still, Madeira was right. It was suspicious. She couldn't imagine why anyone would be out here with all of these things, except to do something shady.

"Huh?" Avela asked, looking up at Madeira as the woman's words cut through her train of thought. "Our guides? I...I haven't really thought about it."

She hesitated when Madeira suggested entering the cave, looking into the darkness with some skepticism. She didn't want to enter the cave with the spiritist, but the idea of standing out here alone wasn't appealing to her either. If anything, this whole situation was giving her the creeps. She shivered, and was about to tell Madeira that when she paused, pressing her lips tightly together.

No, she was being ridiculous.

She could trust Madeira, couldn't she? The other woman might have been a Spiritist, but she was an Alvad. She was just as affected by the lack of water as they all were. They were all in this together, after all, bound by a common goal. She could trust Madeira.

Avela felt odd. The dryness, likely. Or something about this place. She folded her arms close to her chest, turning to watch as Madeira walked away to speak to Tobin. She barely noticed Mogens coming up to her until he was standing next to her, and wondered why she was so distracted just then. The distraction made her hesitate just long enough for him to pluck the piece of paper from her hand, studying it.

"It's..." Avela shook her head, snapping back to the present. She wondered what that had been about. Her mind already felt clearer. "It's a piece of paper. Something's written on it, but I'm not sure what it means. Madeira doesn't know either, but she says it was written with lemon." She bent her head to study the coin in his grasp. It wasn't a coin she had ever seen before, or anything she recognized. It certainly wasn't a miza, but before Avela could even speculate on what it could be, Tobin was returning with Madeira. She'd clearly managed to convince him, because he was holding his axe.

Which meant that they were going into the cave. Avela certainly wasn't going to stay out here by herself, after all.

But neither was she going to be the first in. She glanced uncertainly at Madeira, who had suggested this entire thing to begin with.

"Common" "Kontinese"

Template by Gomer Caitiff

[Madeira Dusk]

At the mention of the Speakers, the Syliran stumbled over his words. His voice thickened with an accent that made it seem like he was trying to distance himself from association with her city, or perhaps with its government. Madeira’s ears pricked up.

Gotcha, she thought, and ducked her face to hide the glimmer in her eye. They were hiding something.

Tobin gave her an old, weather-beaten lantern and dug himself out an axe. “We’ll be quick then”, he stated, and followed her gracelessly to the cave. Mogens and Avela were at the wide black mouth, with Emma hovering an awkward distance away. The hunter had a small round disk and the mysterious paper in his hands. The sight of him with both artifacts somehow made Madeira nervous, though she couldn’t articulate why. Perhaps it was the way that he was always so absorbed in whatever was found, especially since neither she nor Avela knew what it could be.

For once Tobin seemed to agree with her. He took one look at the disk and stepped back from the cave, saying it would be safer if they left. Mogens didn’t seem to hear him.

Then Tobin and Avela were both looking at Madeira expectantly. She looked from one to the other with dawning comprehension.

“Shame on you!” she hissed at their guides. “Making the lady go first! Shame. What would your knights think of this chivalry?” she shot acidly at Tobin.

She glowered at them, unimpressed, and turned to the little girl.

“Emma, you go first.”

“What? Why!”

“Because nothing can hurt you, sweetheart. You can just tell me if you see anything up ahead.”

“But-“

“This time you will have light”, she held up the lamp, which glowed yellow through the dusty glass. “And I’ll be with you.”

“But-“

“Scary face, Em. I’m going to be right behind you all the way. Then when we get home it’ll be an entire jar of mist as we tell Raj of your adventure.”

The ghost considered this carefully, her scabbed lip between her teeth.

“Scary face”, Madeira pushed, nodding to the shadowy cave. She knew she had won when Emma sighed and clenched her little hands into fists. The ghost drifted into the cave with her eyes closed and lips twisted into a determined scowl.

Madeira, true to her word, was right behind her, one hand holding the lantern high and the other white and hard around her crossbow. The light cast tall flickering shadows on the wall that followed them deeper inside. Emma was more visible here in the close quarters, yet so was her effect. The temperature dropped as her agitated soulmist moved restlessly through her form.

“The little girl won’t hurt you”, she called over her shoulder to the two men she knew would be just as nervous about the cave as they were about the ghost. “Come on, I think I can see the end already”, she lied.

What she could see, however, were the signs of life Emma found earlier. What the ghost didn’t find, and couldn’t experience, was the thick, rotting scent that hung like a miasma over it. It seemed to be coming from a pile of blankets crusted with black fluid. Holding the arm with the lantern over her nose and mouth in a feeble effort to block the stench, Madeira nosed the lumpy blanket open with the point of her crossbow.

[Chameleon]

87th Winter 517

The paper worried Mogens. He ran his eyes over it, confusion colouring his face as he did. "Lemon? Whoever wanted this clearly didn't want us to read it." He passed it back, letting his attention fall on the coin. Finally, he noticed the real attention around entering the cave. Almost without them noticing it, he slunk backwards, returning to searching for something in the burnt vale around them.

"My knights," the sarcasm dripped off his voice, although it was contradicted with the rising strength of the accent on it, "Despite their stupidity, are not stupid enough to spelunking in strange camps when their have their city's needs to think about." It was the first sign of aggressiveness that had really come from the man but with it he also stepped back, showing his hesitation. She had hit a sore topic, although now he was regretting reacting so badly. Now she knew that she had judged him badly - that Syliras was the city he was distancing himself from. The only reason his accent kept coming out strongly was the nervousness and hesitation - things that distracted him from masking his accent from the rest.

At least she was distracted now, by the ghost and prospects of venturing inside. And, before he could really say much else or warn her further, not that he was really prepared to at this point anyway, she entered, following the ghost in.

Avela looked as though she was to follow, too. Perhaps the spiritist could venture in, but the poor little Konti needed a little more protection. He stepped forward, pressing the axe handle into her empty hand. "I'll be behind you," he lied, wishing he could convince her otherwise, but she had already moved forward after Madeira. Tobin lingered back, watching them go. If nothing happened within a few moments, he would follow.

It was a shame that Emma was so scared. Perhaps if the little girl was a little braver, she would have been focusing more clearly on the surroundings. Perhaps she would have noticed more strange symbols on the walls of the cave, now they were illuminated. By the time she noticed them, it would be too late.

It was a shame that Madeira was too distracted by the pile of blankets too. Her focus was on the wrong place. And it was a shame that Avela hadn't followed her in deep enough yet. She wasn't in close enough to see the glyphs.

Which was a shame, as the place was glyphed to detect living beings like them, and their simple presence set it off as soon as they approached.

A groaning seized the front of the cave, as if it was being pulled out of a long and heavy sleep. The cave mouth seemed to yawn, then rock quickly began to form, closing it up before either of the girls who had ventured in could have a chance to react. Tobin, who was still on the edge, debating whether to venture in, let out a quick shout, quickly dampened by the stone formed between them. The light cast from outside flickered before it was extinguished. At once, the flickering spotlights of the lantern rose in intensity, now their only source of light.

Something seemed to be shuffling in the cave, but it was hard to tell whether it was their own footsteps or something worse.

If the blankets still interested them, the girls would notice the sticky crusted fluid. There were few things that it could be. Smeared between the blood, a few whiter streaks could just be made out against the lighter blankets. The source of these was much harder to distinguish.

As soon as the blankets were uncovered, the stench would be overwhelming. Through watery eyes, they'd be able to make a corpse, clearly half preserved by someone who knew what they were doing. There were neat stitches across the naked chest, some sort of wax spread across the neck. It stopped there, the rotting face hidden behind more blankets, the limbs barely there. Some seemed to be chewed away, with human-sized bites.

The blankets may have hid more, too, but it was a little too late to think about that.

The shuffling became clearer. And it was most definitely not them.

A short, humanoid shape emerged from the darkness, lingering in the shadows where it was hard to make out clear features. Still, it was definitely not human, with its oversized head, the arms that were too long and the legs that were too short. Cracked skin studded with bulges of rock shuddered as a shrill screech echoed through the cave, betraying the vastness of the space they were in.

A few more gluttural noises followed. Then the creature made to charge for the girls.

[Avela]

Avela drew in a breath to gather her courage, then took her first step into the cave after Madeira. She didn't even notice that Mogens had run off--so focused was she on the cave and what she was about to do. Every fiber of the Konti's being wanted to stay away from that cave. There was something unnatural about it, something terrifying. She didn't know why she had agreed to go in the first place, but Madeira was already walking into the darkness, trusting that Avela would be behind her. If something happened to her because Avela was too scared, because she couldn't keep her promise...

Avela didn't know if she would be able to face that, or if she would be able to face herself.

Clenching her jaw against her fear, she took another step into the cave, shivering as she stepped into the shadow of its mouth. At Tobin's hand on her shoulder, Avela paused, glancing behind her at the man. She was surprised to feel the axe handle in her grip. Her fingers closed around it automatically, but she wasn't sure what to do with an axe - she didn't even knew what to do with a knife. Still, the weight of the weapon in her hand was reassuring, and Avela tightened her grip on it. She nodded at Tobin, her face bloodless and pale, and followed Madeira deeper into the dark.

There was an awful smell in the cave. A terrible smell, a wrong smell. Avela didn't want to know what made that smell, she wanted to turn around and run. She forced herself to keep walking forward though, one aching, inching step at a time.

She had only gone a few paces when she heard the groaning.

Avela's eyes widened, and she spun around in time to see the mouth of the cave start to close up, stone rising from the ground and the walls to seal off the entrance. She saw Tobin on the other side of it, framed in a steadily dwindling circle of light.

"Tobin!" she yelled in alarm. The hole closed before she could even stretch out a hand, leaving her alone in the dark. Her own voice echoed off of the cave walls as Avela stood there, breathing hard, gills flapping uselessly in the fetid air with the force of her terror. Steadily, she turned around to face Madeira, who was standing over a bundle.

Oh gods, the smell was overwhelming. She couldn't think past the terrified, rabbit-quick beating of her heart, but she raised her sleeve to her mouth anyway, trying in vain to filter the air. Avela coughed, fully aware that she could easily lose her lunch as she moved forward, towards Madeira.

"Madeira," she said. "Madeira, what do we do? I--"

She gasped, breaking off as she drew up closer to the girl. The sight in front of her, Avela had never seen a sight that horrible. Her vision wavered, and Avela turned away, unable to stop herself. Her gorge rose, and she retched, emptying the contents of her stomach right onto the floor of the cave.

At the very least, she didn't get any of it on Madeira. Avela grimaced, feeling weak and drained. She wiped her mouth off on her sleeve, straightening up and turning towards the other woman.

"Madeira..." she began, but she was cut off by a sound. The sound of shuffling. It was growing closer. Her eyes widened in alarm and she froze, watching as the creature emerged from the darkness. Animal terror held her in place for a moment as it screeched, and then Avela reached out, seizing Madeira's arm tightly with one hand. It was done without thought, without reason, the simple fight-or-flight reaction of prey faced with a predator, but Avela knew that they couldn't stay here.

"Run," she said, breathlessly pulling Madeira away. "We have to run."

But run where? With the entrance closed, the only place to run was further into the cave. Avela didn't think about that now, though. All she thought of, as she ran, was that she needed to get away.

Template by Sevaan
"Common" "Kontinese"
(•̀o•́)ง

~Avela~

[Madeira Dusk]

The cave groaned low and long, and Madeira realized she had made a mistake. Avela screamed, Tobin yelled, and the light that filtered in through the enterance vanished. The battered storm lantern she was holding seemed to shine all the brighter as it became the only source of light. It hit the walls with a startled brilliance and Madeira saw for the first time the glyphs that ringed the cave. She knew what they were, even if she couldn't read them. And not for the first time she cursed the fact that Rune Cartiff-Craven saw fit to leave this vital bit of knowledge out of her education. Madeira could feel her heartbeat thundering in her fingertips as she held the lantern high and cast it's light around the cave, looking for any more traps and surprises. Emma whimpered, and Madeira whipped around to face her just in time to see the ghost glance nervously towards the blocked entrance.

"No, no, Emma. You will stay right here. Do you understand me?" Madeira demanded, all traces of the gentle, motherly encouragement evaporating in the face of real danger. "If you leave us we will not survive. Do you understand? Stay."

Beneath the glow of the light the ghastly sight of the body became clearer. Someone had tried to preserve the corpse, but not well. The scent of rot was thick as cream and about as breathable. But who was trying to preserve a corpse in a cave? Why? In Alvadas corpses were burned. Yet Madeira had seen a preserved corpse before- that time at the Illusion Festival almost a year ago, where she accidently kissed a Nuit.

As she bent lower to get a closer look at the bite marks (some sort of big animal?) and the crusted black blanket (embalming fluid?) Avela lost her composure as vomited. Even the Spiritist's stomache was churning, though she had seen many more corpses in her line of work. When the Konti was finished Madeira answered her as firmly as she could:

"What do we do? We stick together, no matter what. Maybe we can try to dig our way out-."

From deeper in the cave a shuffling echoed off the walls. Madeira's blood turned to ice as she turned, raising the lantern before her, to see a creature skulking in the shadows. It was deformed and misshapen, it's skin cracked like a dry riverbed and embedded with stones. It looked like it was built from mud a by a child who had only the vaguest notion of what a human looked like.

There was a dry scrape as it moved in the dark. Could it see them? Smell them? Was this the creature that ate the corpse? She raised her bow to it, and held her breath to keep her hand from shaking.

Suddenly it gave a piercing screech, and the chill in the air redoubled as Emma's soulmist whipped in a storm of panic. Avela grabbed Madeira's arm holding the lantern with a crushing grip. Run she was saying, we have to run.

Madeira couldn't agree more. Already backing away, she aimed wildly for the thickest part of the creature she could see and pulled the trigger. The snap of the bowstring retorted around the cave, but Madeira didn't wait to see if she hit it. Turning on her heel, heart in her throat, she ran.

The light of the lantern swung drunkenly in her hands, and by its light her pale eyes were wide and looking for anything that could save them: a hiding place, a weapon, an escape route, anything. After a second of fumbling she shoved the lantern into the Konti's free hand. She needed two hands and precious seconds to reload the bow, and she wasn't about to put down their only source of light to do it.

From behind them there was a feeble snarl like the one she had persuaded out of Emma in the entrance of the cave, only thick with ghostly fright. It was cut off abruptly. The ghost had found her loyalty, if not her courage, and had tried to possess the creature to slow it down. Yet Emma was a dismal possessor. If it worked at all it would buy them no more than a few chimes before the ghost was exhausted. Madeira willed her feet to fly.

[Chameleon]

87th Winter 517

Her bolt ricocheted into the darkness, missing the Yukman but definitely not by a large berth. The sudden speeding object past him shocked the monster, causing him to stumble in his charge and give the girls a chance to run. His rocky skin cracked as he twisted, trying to grab them on their way past, but a moan escaped toughened lips as they slipped past. Besides, he had better things to worry about.

At the approach of the ghost, the Yukman ripped out in another screech, tearing at the space of soulmist. But his hands - nails were crusted in what could have been blooded, but could have been dirt trapped beneath them - floated through nothing. The ghost gave her snarl and the monster couldn't bat her away any further.

For a tick, it seemed to be working. The Yukman's eyes glazed over and Emma could wrench enough control to hold him back. But then he reeled back control, expelling the weak ghost easily. It wasn't skill on his part, but a lack on the ghost's.

Free again, he began to lumber after the girls. They had disappeared in the darkness but it wasn't hard for him to guess where they had gone - there was only one way they could have run.

As they moved, it was almost impossible for them to figure out whether they were actually going deeper into the cave or not other than their starting orientation, given the total darkness that surrounded them. The cave walls rose up around them in strange shapes and passageways, only lit by the flickering lantern light, until everything seemed open up.

There were too many passageways to pick from. There was little distinction between them, apart from the strong foul odour from the left-most and the slight hint of a breeze from the one on the right. The centre two loomed like dark holes into nothingness. The passageways were slightly smaller than the main cave they were standing in, but they could still stand upright in them, at least for the first part that they could see. Each path was about as wide as their arm-spread, lined with moss. The slimy green plant was thicker on the two right-hand paths.

The rambling creature was almost upon them. He had picked up his pace to match the girls, after his initial stumbles. Perhaps his running wasn't very elegant, but neither were the girls he followed, so the race was close. If they didn't want to meet him, they'd have to make a decision quick.

[Avela]

Avela ran as fast as she could, not daring to look back to see if Madeira's bolt had struck home. She didn't understand what Emma was doing with the Yukman, but she knew that she definitely didn't want to be around to see what happened. She spurred herself on, disregarding the burning in her lungs and the strain in her limbs, her heart beating rabbit-quick as she and Madeira ran into the darkness.

It was hard to think - the only thing that Avela could feel was fear. She was regretting ever leaving Alvadas, regretting ever signing up for the expedition. She was convinced that this was the end, that she was going to die this way, except that this wasn't how she wanted to die. Gods help her, this was not how she wanted to die.

Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, help. The prayer was said on the inside of her head, because she didn't have the breath for it otherwise. Ionu, Avalis, please help, please help.

Her feet scraped against the stone of the cave floor as she ran. Once, her foot slid a little further than was comfortable. Avela tried not to think about what would happen if she slipped and fell. She put all of her energy into running.

And then the passageway opened up.

Avela stopped for just a moment, frozen with indecision, as she looked around at the four passages revealed by the light of Madeira's lantern. Which way was she supposed to go now? Which way? Each passage was the same as another, except--
she looked to the left and nearly gagged at the foul odor emanating from the leftmost passage. Every fiber of her being recoiled from the idea of going that way. Not that way.

The rightmost passage? Something tickled at her face. Was it a breeze?

Whimpering rather than wasting energy on words, Avela tugged on Madeira's arm, starting to run towards the rightmost passage, the one where the breeze was coming from. It was clear that the girl wasn't thinking, though, that she was moving only on instinct and fear. Madeira was more than welcome to stop her, if the Spiritist could think of a better way to go.

Template by Sevaan
"Common" "Kontinese"
(•̀o•́)ง

~Avela~

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira's heartbeat was thundering in her ears, her breath burning in her throat. The monsters shuffling steps echoed off the stone walls and she could feel the miles of mountain above their heads bearing down on them. Would this be her tombe? Was she going to be buried far from home where no one would find her, with a stranger and a monster? Would Emma find her way home, or would she searched the darkness endlessly, calling for her? And she only had to do was think of Allister for her will to crumble. The Kelvic would know the moment she died. Their bond would shatter into a million shards, and it would kill him.

Allister. She came out here to save his life, and she had done nothing but kill him faster.

She couldn't let that happen, she wouldn't. As she ran she fumbled out another bolt. Unwilling to stop long enough to step in the stirrup, she braced the loop of leather in her palm and cranked the lever back with her opposite hand. The bow gave a strong click as it armed. Madeira jammed the bolt into the shaft and gripped the body tightly, feeling much less helpless with a loaded weapon.

But the action slowed her down, and she was a few steps behind Avela when the Konti burst into the widened cavern. In the tick it took Avela to judge the situation Madeira had caught up, and the girl sieved her by the arm and pulled her towards the right-handed cavern. Madeira didn't have time to question her decision, and blindly followed her. But from the light of the swinging lantern she could see the wet reflection of slick moss, and even in her mind clouded with panic recognized that green and wet meant water, which was what they had left Alvadas for. But the animal panic roared with terror, because green and wet meant water, and she couldn't swim.

[Chameleon]

87th Winter 517

The mossy passageway narrowed as they moved into it. The walls sloped in towards them, getting a thicker covering of the natural tapestries as the girls moved further down. Eventually, they reached a point where it wasn't even wide enough for the two of them to move side-by-side. The only benefit to the narrowing walls meant the lumbering Yukman struggled to keep up his pace behind them. Every now and then, over the bubbling noise, they would be able to hear rocks scraping on rock as he elbowed the side, followed by more screech noises.

The bubbling noise that began to flood the passageway only reinforced poor Madeira's fears. Bubbling flowed into gushing and gushing into the sight of a river. A breeze picked up from downstream, where the cave seemed to get brighter, but compared to the other directions, it didn't seem to be much. Was that light from outside, caught in the peaks of the ever-changing mountainous waters, or just a trick from their own lantern.

Above them hung cave teeth, stalactites, a multitude of whirled rocks. The stone that lined the river was much darker than the pale teeth above - the murkiness of the river seemed to absorb the darkness from the stone around it. It was a strange colour, that water, between the white froth when it rose too angrily. The colour was a fresh blue, but only somewhere. Elsewhere, it was a black, other places even a tinged yellow. Where it rose up on the stone beach the cave passageway opened out to, it was a brown, murky, but not enough to fully hide the stone shelf it sat on.

On the stone beach sat a few pieces of scattered drift-wood. Most were small, but a few larger pieces were about the size of the girls' arms, if not a little bigger. Why driftwood would be found in a cave was a little strange, but it wasn't like they had much time to look into it.

The Yukman gave a screech behind them. If they hadn't moved onto the beach, he would be upon them. His eyes glinted at the sight of the river. There was something in it, a sort of fear, a fear that mirrored Madeira's so closely. It was her he made for first. But the creature stumbled on the rocky beach, arms flailing out, stone catching itself on stone. Within seconds he had scrambled back up, giving out a frustrated groan. Every wrong movement was pushing him further behind, but every time something did go wrong, he just became more eager to reach his prey.

He made another charge, changing at the last moment to dive towards Avela.

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

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Avela

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Madeira Craven

Skills

• Socialization: 2xp
  Leadership: 4xp
  Land Navigation: 1xp
  Investigation: 5xp
  Spiritism: 1xp
  Logic: 2xp
  Persuasion: 4xp
  Negotiation: 2xp
  Interrogation: 1xp
  Cryptography: 1xp
  Hypnotism: 1xp
  Intelligence: 1xp
  Intimidation: 1xp
  Weapon- Crossbow: 2xp
  Running: 2xp

Lores

• Lore of the effects of dehydration
  People: Avela Sallis
  Land Navigation: how to read a map
  Location: burnt clearing in the Unforgiven
  Leadership: prioritizing obedience over prowess
  Persuasion: reassurance
  Negotiation: bartering with Emma
  Interrogation: pressing for answers
  Cryptography: looking for anagrams
  Hypnotism: fostering underhanded trust
  Persuasion: convincing others to take a risk
  Lore of knights with no chivalry!
  Location: cursed cave of the Unforgiven
  Monster: Yukmen
  Crossbow: rearming on the fly

Awards & Retribution


Notes