Quoth the Raven

Spectral Recovery

The mystic fugue passed before them, closing in on their spectral forms with wispy fingers of entropic energy. The madness surrounds them, a myriad cacophany of screams, bellows, insane laughs, and other raucous sounds that leaden the senses.

"We can't stay here long, Mandolus. I'm not sure I can take it." Nikola imparted to his partner, his mind wavering under the constant deluge of maddening inconsistancies. "Nothing makes sense here."

"We made it this far, Nikola, we can't fail now." Mandolus returns, unable to hide the waver in his answer. Gliding onward, driven by the power of the spell of their casting, the spectral Tabernacle entities are drawn.

The mists part below (at least they believe it is below, but in this hellish Chaos, it might as well be above or beside them) revealing their long lost quarry, catatonic, unmoving, stayed and rooted to spot. Drooping wings cover a besotted head, bedraggled, broken.

"Mandolus, look at him. This place has already corrupted him." Nikola intones, shuddering at the sight of the Oracle. They alight nearby, drawing near cautiously. "Is he... alive?" Nikola asks.

A wing shudders, causing them to fall away, taken aback, frightened. "Apparantly so." Mandolus answers falling close in to the frozen form. "We have to get him out of here."

Floating upon each side of the fallen god, they take each others hands, forming a circle about the shrouded form. Their prayers reach through the ether, through the gate, beseeching the awareness of their Mistress, begging for a miracle, for the power to do the unthinkable. The power to bind an immortal.

The mystical energies flow into them, the blessed and beloved of the Tabernacle, allowing them to shape the flows of the arcana. Navarre shudders under the magical barrage, but remains unmoved. His form shimmers, reshaping, remolding. As the energy dissipates, a spectral raven, sits between them, its blank eyes ignoring them. The white bird remains aloof, unseeing, uncaring, even as Nikola gently takes hold of the animal.

"Lets get out of here now!" Mandolus says wearily. "Already this place is dragging on my senses. I don't know how he even lived through it this long."

They swoop away, ghosts through the entropic landscape, flying toward an unseen gate. A gate leading back to the realms of darkness. Back home.

Prelude to Release

Nikola gasped as he entered the vast chamber, its seamless obsidian walls filling the expanse with a pearlesque magenta glitter as the torchlight reflected back at them. The vaulted chamber was immense stretching into the darkness, beyond view. "Mandolus, this has to be the place." Nikola whispers, awe struck by the immensity of the cavern.

"You should see this." Mandolus answers from the cavern floor below, the circle of his torchlight reflecting in golden glints. Nikola makes his way carefully downward, finally reaching his comrade and the rest of the sentinels.

The base of the cavern is bevelled, forming a basin into which magical golden sigils have been inscripted, forming a circle of protection. "No doubt, this has to be the place."

"Alright everyone, this is what we have been looking for." Nikola begins. "I want you sentinels to stand about the perimeter, along the inside of the circle, while Mandolus and I prepare. NOTHING gets in, nothing gets out, unless we say otherwise. Am I clear?" He stares emphatically at the remaining troops, none say anything.

From the volumnous folds of his cloak, Mandolus withdraws a container and removes the lid. Walking about the perimeter of the circle, he casts a glittering sand, barring spiritual entrance and escape within the range of the spell to come. Nikola unfolds a golden byre and sets it in the exact center. Arranging the fuel components, Nikola quietly chants. Magical fire leaps to life in the byre, radiating no heat and glowing a pearly white.

"Are we ready?" Mandolus asks quietly, the severity of what is about to occur weighing down the room. "Yes." Nikola answers, sitting before the magical flames. "Sit across from me." Taking his seat, Mandolus begins to synchronize his chanting with that of his brother, their words losing meaning, melding with and bouncing from the cavernous walls, overlapping and echoing.

The glyphs react, glowing with their own ambient light. The sand ignites into flames, reflecting their own black fire to counter the white flames before them. The sentinels gasp, backing further into the range of the ring, away grom the black fire.

Their chanting halts, their eyes open simultaneously, staring into each other. Their irises are gone, Nikolas reflecting the pure white of the pearl flame, while Mandolus' sight reflecting the ebony fire. Their speech alters, taking on the echo of ages, beyond mortality, beyond ages.

"The barrier of dimensions for ages has now stood." recites Nikola.
"Broken now, in dire need and desire, by consecrated blood." recites Mandolus.
"We open now the gate to the realm of Chaos lost." intones Nikola.
"Retrieving that which was miscast, and untimely crossed." recites Mandolus.

The flames, dark and spectral, brighten, flare, fill the expanse with power. A pair of screams escape the soldiers as two fall forward, lifeless. "What in the name of the realms is going on!", yells a soldier, hastily sweeping the area with a gaze, seeking the source of the attack.

Nikola and Mandolus' eyes grow dim, their heads slump forward. Alarmed the sentinels rush forward, yet stopping short of touching the Tabernacle priests. "What should we do." Asks a confused sentinel. "We wait as instructed." answers the captain. "Surround the mystics, keep watch, stay away from the flames."

+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_

Nikola awakens. At least he thinks he is awake. He raises his hand to his face, but feels nothing, whether lack of a hand, or lack of a face, he senses neither. He merely is. He exists.

He is aware that Mandolus is nearby. Unseen, yet there all the same. "It worked." he imparts, for nothing is heard, nothing said. "Yes, it worked." comes Mandolus answer, silently.

"We must hurry, we cannot survive this spectral form long." They descend into the flames of the byre, through the unseen gateway opened by the arcana of their magic. "Goddess protect us."

Icy Trek across the Mount

The screams of the wounded are disconcertingly confusing, blending with the raging ice laden wind. Sheets of ice and sleet bounce from Mandolus' face and woolen cap. The thick snows make traversing the meager ledge precarious at best, which is likely why the nightmarish beasts chose to ambush them here. Pained eyes, stung by the biting hail and the endless squinting against the bitter wind and blinding sun glare against the snow, sweep the blizzard swept sky. "THERE!" Mandolus screams to make himself heard above the roar of the wind, "IT'S COMING BACK!"

A dark speck materializes against the raging white backdrop of the polar sky. Growing larger and larger, advancing quickly. The peryton wheels through the air, its raucous screech grating the nerves, heard well above the storm, and making the hair on the back of Mandolus neck to stand up. Dragging his snow laden feet quickly through the deep dunes to better place himself in a position to strike, Mandolus irritatingly casts a glare at the soldiers confusedly milling nearby. "It's coming back, Sentinels, form up. There.", he points emphatically at the quickly approaching beast, "THERE DAMN YOU!" Quickly he throws himself behind a sleet covered boulder, muttering a few arcane syllables under his breath.

The remaining Sentinels rush forward, finally recognizing the threat, forming a wall of steel and flesh betwixt the raging beast and the Tabernacle lorists.

Sweeping across their ranks, the abomination drags one soldier from the ledge, his screams echoing up from his long fall down the side of the mountain. The peryton glides quickly beyond reach of their weapons, the glint of it's malevolent eyes clearly displaying it's intentions to swing back about and launch another attack. Over their heads a blazing arc of mystical energy pulsates, crashing into the peryton, causing it to grow confused in its flight and crash to the ground like a leaden stone. Dirt and snow cascades through the air at the force of its impact, the monster weakly rises upon its eagle taloned feet and shakes it's stag head in confusion.

"Forward for the kill!" screams the captain, his arm sweeping forward to throw a hand axe. The momentum of the weapon causes it to revolve end over end before burying with an audible thud in the left wing of the peryton. The beast shrieks wildly and begin thrashing about with its talons, raking many of the men that stray to close.

Mandolus stands, eyeing the beast with determination, a prayer slipping from his lips, the miracle unfolding before his eyes. The air grows colder, ice builds about the struggling beast until its movements become sluggish, slowed, then halted. Its flesh slowly takes on a bluish tint until not even the monster's breath can be seen escaping its snout. "Quickly, hack that thing to pieces ere it devises a means to get out of that!" he commands, casting his long scarf across his mouth and plunging his frostbitten hands into his cloak.

He trudges back against the far wall, listening intently as the soldiers hack and hammer away at the frozen beast. Already, the snow has begun to cover the deep tracks that he and the soldiers made on their way to the edge of the precipice. It won't be long ere the blizzard completely blocks off the whole ledge with ice and snow. Before him, within the meager glow of lanterns and torches, the wounded are arrayed.

"Nikola, how fare the wounded?" Mandolus asks quietly, placing a hand upon the shoulder of his laboring compatriot. "I'm afraid that the attack was quite devastating on the forces of the Sentinels. I haven't the means to treat these men in this place. The exposure alone can kill a healthy man here, much less a man gravely wounded by those monstrosities." Nikola glances backward, as if reminded of the creatures which caused the current strain of maladies to befall the searchers. "What say you on the disposition of the remainder of the beasts?"

Mandolus grits his teeth, "I'm afraid we have lost a number of more men, but we were able to eliminate the last of the beasts just now." He wrings his trembling hands beneath his heavy cloak, unsure if it is a symptom of the extreme cold or the recent shock of activities that have occurred.

"We shouldn't linger here. Carnage such as this will draw more unwanted attention." Nikola whispers, his comment nearly lost in the throes of the storm. "We need to continue on. We are just too close to give up now."

Upward and onward. Mandolus looks up to the heights of the mountain, where the lone peak is shielded by the snow laden clouds. "Goddess grant that the chamber spoken of exists on this dread place."

+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+

"I see. I have been deceived." His voice echoes.

"You see nothing! The all seeing Oracle, yet, you never foresaw this instance in Fate did you?" laughter erupts, disrupting the roiling fog.

"Don't get him riled up again, we need him pliable." squeeks another voice.

"You can't hold me here forever." he weakly answers.

Location Imparted, Trek Departed

Within a dream the answer came to them both, the loving purr of a kitten followed by the glowing eyes of a cat appearing before their mind's eye. Unfolding like myst, the knowledge was imparted in bits and pieces.

A dread lich, unknown to this world, now dust. The trials of Zayne and the Tabernacle in their search through the Underdark city of the drow. A decaying book full of dark necrotic arcana. The dread sigils of Necros declaring the means of opening the border to Chaos. The wind swept, ice covered peak of Mount Caelestistelum. A long forgotten chamber.

With a start, they awaken, simultaneously. Quickly gathering their equipment, Nikola and Mandolus make ready for their long trek, a trek with an end finally in sight. "Sentinels, to arms and prepare to march!" Shading their eyes against the muggy heat and waves of bugs buzzing about in Amazonia humidity, their eyes sweep to the southern pole, to a chilling and freezing environ filled with dangers and further mystery.

"We have the means for opening the door. We have but to ascertain a way of securing his capture safely." intones Mandolus, his gaze peering knowingly at Nikola. "We have time, brother, the mysteries of the arcana are known to the Goddess, a way shall be made clear in due time." responds Nikola hefting a walking staff and smiling with determination. "Soon. This trek shall be completed."

_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_

The incessant laughter fills the foggy landscape, originating from nowhere, everywhere. Gone are the moments of lucidity. Gone is the sense of identity. "At last, he has succumbed!" gloats an insidious voice. "It was inevitable.", answers a timid, weasellish whisper. The fog swirls and eddies, the passage of giant wings covered from sight.