The Knights' Roleplay - Silverkeep Sorcery

[Shadaras]

The sorceress frowned into her black crystal sphere. Three knights danced on the inner curves: the scrawny blacksmith who she had only recently released, the lady-knight healer, and another, darker skinned, knight. “Back into the caves?” She stroked the image and it faded into darkness once more. “I thought it would take a little longer for you to dare that.” Her hand fell, and the blackness resolved into another image. The golden-winged knight, the one with some magic of his own, was being carried down the tunnels. Her lips curved into a smile. “Excellent.” She raised her voice, and said, “Renkins, please go to the holding cell and await our new tenant.”

“Yes, mistress.” The physician scurried off, leaving the sorceress once again alone.

She touched the smooth globe once more, and this time, the image that rippled from her fingertips showed a pair of knights. One young, blond, and righteous, the other older, scruffy, and sly. “What of you?” she murmured, looking at them as they argued soundlessly, stalking through the city she had claimed as hers. Soon, she would no longer need this city; she would have the Knights of the Color Guard and, though them, the King. Her fingers pressed into the globe, and the image disappeared, replaced by a blurry image of the man who had destroyed her home, many years ago.

King Kabe’s regal countenance stared back at her, though he could not truly see her. The sorceress kept her breathing steady, though her fingers trembled in rage and her mouth was tightly set. The image slowly blurred out of the sphere, but the sorceress stayed where she was, staring at the empty black crystal, for quite a while longer before releasing a long breath and turning away. There was, after all, work to be done. There was a Knight to break and more to guard against. She rubbed her forehead and hoped that none of them made it too far; she didn’t want to use herself up magicking Knights away when she could be reaching through them to the King.

* * *

In some ways, Jay was surprised by how much time it took to find a passage into the crypts that nobody wanted to enter but nobody knew why. It sounded, to him, like a magical ‘Keep away’ field being set up. It also sounded like the sorceress’s work. So, of course, he wanted to go down there. And so, of course, he ended up standing at a dusty entrance with a torch in his hand and an obstinate Burns in front of him. “Come on,” Jay said, frustrated. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

Burns shifted from foot to foot, and his eyes were somewhat wider than normal. “Not bad, exactly. Just... not very nice, either.”

Jay snorted. “Would you rather go down there without any source of light?”

“No...” Burns drew out the word far longer than Jay thought possible. “I’d rather not go down there at all, seeing as there’s likely an evil, mind-controlling, sorceress down there.”

“Who stole my fellow knight, who just happens to be your knight-master.” Even though Jay acted more like Burns’s knight-master, much to the knight’s constant annoyance. “You are not getting out of this.”

The thief shrugged and walked past Jay into the darkness. As Jay followed, Burns made a point of staying just at the edge of the torch’s light. It was, Jay found, almost amusing, except for the part where Burns was afraid of fire, and so probably not going to be quite as skillful as he should be. If they weren’t going down into crypts – or going anywhere with any sort of light – Jay might have considered just not using a torch, but there were enough Things That Could Be Creepy in crypts to begin with, and the addition of a sorceress who seemed to Not Like the knights made things even worse.

Thus, a torch. Thus, Burns being skittish. Jay sighed and kept going down the dusty stone passageways, heading for whatever branching seemed to be more travelled each time there was a choice. Eventually, he figured, they’d either end up at the sorceress’s lair or back outside. He wasn’t sure which he’d prefer.

[Deleted]

He woke briefly to the jolting of the hard ground against his back, tearing at his wings as he was dragged unceremoniously by his arms. He quickly decided it was better to remain oblivious to this indignation, and consciousness fled. When he woke again it was to find himself only slightly more comfortable. A stone floor seemed to be pushing up against him, and something cold was pressed against his shoulder. The searing pain was gone, replaced by a burning ache that seemed to radiate through his entire chest and shoulders.

Sarn made an effort to sit up, but thought better of it as a wave of dizziness swept over him. He glanced down at his chest to see that the arrow was gone and his wound had been carefully tended and dressed. This, he thought, made no sense. If they wanted to keep him alive, why would they bloody well shoot him? And if he was a threat to them, why the bloody hell would they want to keep him alive?

The effort of thought proved too much for him. He let his head fall back and gingerly moved his shoulder away from the steel bar of his cell. For a while he lay in contemplative frustration, trying to keep his mind off the pain. Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he would have hit himself if he hadn’t already been so beaten up. As quickie as he could without breaking something else, he sat up and used his disheveled wings to help him to his feet.

Despite the drowsy feelings and the clouded manner with which his thoughts came, the Feberi was nothing if not graceful, even in this condition. His wings had always provided a sense of elegance and, more importantly, stability. Feberi had excellent balance.

Sarn ran his hand down one of the vertical bars that so often characterized prison cells, decided they were made of simple steel, and moved back slightly. Standing in the middle of the small space, he lifted his wings and spread his arms. Without hesitation, he began to sing. He let the melody trickle out little by little, but stopped after only a minute. Something was wrong.

“Your voice holds no enchantment here, birdman,” murmured a deep female voice. Sarn’s eyes snapped open and darted around, seeking its source. None presented itself, so when the voice gave a low laugh, almost like a purr, he couldn’t help but feel panic rising in his gut.

“Who are you?” he demanded, doing his best to keep that panic from his voice, but failing slightly.

The voice purred again, pride and gloating washing its sickly scent all over her words. “I am the Sorceress. And you, Knight of the Colour Guard, whose mantle is Golden, you are nothing but a songbird for my enjoyment.”

[Strife]

Within the timespan of recent events, Blacktail explained his predicament to Tamia and Dragus. He had yet to be acquainted with the latter, but he still felt a burning sense of familiarity in his knightly mannerisms. He knew he could trust both of them with his life if need be.

Blacktail told them about his encounter with the Sorceress. Her henchmen had dragged him by the heels to the depths of Silverkeep to meet her in person. That laugh. He remembered the way it sent chills down his spine despite the warmth of its tone, and he knew that she was up to something despite her insistence that she wanted to aid him.

He remembered seeing the face of an older man - possibly an alchemist or doctor of some sort. There was a heavy gap in his memory, and he remembered awakening in some sort of prison cell. He had loathed the idea of being caged like an animal for the rest of his life, so much to his relief, he found that the stone bricks lining the corner of his cell were easily removeable, and conveniently enough, led to an underground tunnel that snaked its way through the mountainside towards the mines. At the time, he had no idea why it was so easy for him to escape, but with his previous memories intact, he realized that it was a little too easy.

"The Sorceress wanted me to escape," he concluded. "She needed a way to spark our curiosity and lure us to Keep... and she used me to do it." His head started to sink, but he quickly raised it. "If we don't find the others soon, they'll be in deep trouble to say the least."

[Rikku]

The firelight flickered on Burns’s nerves, danced its way up his spine; made him twitch, made him shudder, sent fear spiking through his mind. (He heard them screaming, he saw their faces as they burned ...) The fact that Jay and him were all a-wander through a dark maze of underground tunnels in search of a nasty sorceress who held Burns’s knight-master hostage and likely plotted all manner of evil and mischief paled somewhat, in comparison to that.

He tried to distract himself, but Jay kept on shooting him annoyed looks every time he started whistling.

So he tried to distract himself by thinking, instead. He thought over the things that had happened, trying to think one step ahead of the sorceress – they were walking into a trap, and whatever Jay said, that made his nerves jangle near as much as the fire did. Well, nearly near. And it would help if they had some knowing of how to out-trick her; what her motivations were and what she’d do to achieve them and how –

And -

Oh -

“Blackened body of God,” he swore, coming to a standstill.

“What now,” Jay snapped. "And please don't start singing."

The realisation thickened his throat, made it tricksome to talk. “Jay,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve lost track of the plot.”

Jay drew in breath, sharp and startled.

“I can’t figure out how long we’ve been wandering here,” Burns explained, “--it feels like months, and when I try to piece together everything that’s happened in my mind it just won’t fit. There are … gaps, things I can’t remember. I can’t think of where our companions are, or what’s happened, or … I just can’t make sense of it. And don’t make some jest, this is serious. I’m no fool; whatever you think of me you can’t think that. Something is wrong here. Stagnant, almost.”

He hadn’t expected Jay to stay quiet for his whole explanation, but he did, and then he stood there for some time, thoughtful – as best as Burns could judge; it was tricksome to make out his expression, in the flickering firedark. “Right,” he said eventually, firm and decisive. “Only one thing for it, then.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ll have to turn nonsensical.”

“I have always,” Burns said tersely, “quite liked radishes.”

“Do you think that purple?”

“I say old chap! Certainly! What what cucumber sandwiches and tea.”

“Rainbows,” Jay agreed solemnly, adjusting his monocle. And they went and fetched the others and Sarn sang them magically to the seaside and Blacktail, it turned out, in addition to being a smith, had also been a stage magician and they watched his show and applauded politely and then the lot of them went walking down the beach eating ice-cream – the Sorceress had been very helpful at coercing the ice-cream-seller into giving it to them, which was, they all agreed, quite decent of her – and rather traumatising a few children clutching buckets and spades, who stared at them as they passed. Burns found this quite rude. But the sea was awfully pleasant.






((… *hides somewhere very, very far away* Not serious. Very obviously not serious. xD; And ‘course I’ll delete it if folk take offence or in a few days either way. Er um. This was just niggling at me a bit, this just sitting here, and I know folks are busy and whatnot, but. Still. I’d have liked to spur it into some sort of action with a proper post, but I read through the thread a couple of times with a few months between each reading and I still couldn’t really think of anything. Poor at roleplaying please don’t kill me! So – if anyone who knows the plot better’n me has the time or inclination to revive it …? Won’t be too irked if you don’t, I mostly just missed my Burnsy, but it’d be nice not to leave it all unfinished, mm?))

[Draco]

Dragus stroked his chin as if he had a beard, taking in what Blacktail just said.

Thinking to himself, "Well this is a predicament.... There are a number of things we can do now." A number of plans go through his head before he takes his hand away from his chin.

"Well, we have two choices right now. We can either go after the others, and get caught in the same trap. Or we can go directly to the source."

He looks up at the direction of the keep.

[Deleted]

The Sorceress paced slowly, delicately, so that her regal dress fell just so around her. She tilted her head slightly and examined the large hall in which she towered like a monolith. It was too bright for her liking, much too bright for her to be at her best, and this would need to be rectified.

“Renkin,” she snapped, “find some black cloth to cover those windows.”

“I ... I ... the windows, Mistress?” he stammered, looking up from his hunched position on the marble floor.

“You heard me, fool.”

Renkin sighed and hobbled out through the grand double doors at the far end. The wretched physician was a nascence, but he had his uses, and she needed an ugly minion; the uglier, the better, in fact. Being a Sorceress was much less to do with magical talent as one might have thought, and much more to do with style.

Oh, sure, you had to have the talent and the unending thirst for vengeance, power or both, but those were such loose criteria that many hundreds of failed Magicians could easily fit the profile. No, what really mattered was how much pride Sorcerers and Sorceresses took in their work. Everything had to be done with elegance, grace and a flourish. There was a certain art to villainy that few knew, and fewer had mastered. Every other hard-done-by practitioner of magic who didn’t take pleasure enough in his work to become truly evil only ended up as drunkards or angry old men who were much bitterer, and just as cowardly as they were in their youth.

Everything had to be done with a certain amount of decadence, there had to be ominously glowing orbs and staffs of power, there needed to be blacks and deep purples and crimsons, and above all else, there had to be pride. A sorceress glided, she never walked. She would never dream to stoop, but only loom menacingly. She did not cackle like common witches, and she did not under any circumstances, run.

The Ritual of the Binding was certainly a complex piece of magic, but a skilled Sorceress such as herself could have conducted it in a mossy cave with a few sticks, some herbs and a rusted knife, but that was not what made her a Sorceress. She was better than that, oh yes, and she would have her revenge. Those upstarts would have to think twice.

Because, aside from having great fashion sense and admirable taste in decor, all Sorceresses were, as a rule, bitter.

***

The wheezing noises were the first sign that someone was approaching, followed closely by a soft padding noise. These belonged to the physician, who climbed the flight of stairs to the cell with great difficulty. Two armed guards followed him impatiently. The old man extracted a key from the dirty folds of his shirt and fiddled with the lock. As the key turned, there was a loud hissing noise that told Sarn it was enchanted. He made a mental note.

“You are to be taken to see the Mistress,” panted the physician, motioning the guards who seemed annoyed at this. Nonetheless, they took up positions on either side of the Feberi and would have taken hold of his arms had he not already started walking down the stairs. They shrugged and followed close behind, hands on their blades. They had been on the walls when Sarn had flown in, and even if his magic was useless here, he was a Knight of the Colour Guard, and that warranted caution.

The two guards threw open the two large doors revealing the long grand hall beyond. They ushered Sarn through, and shut them behind him. For the first time, Sarn felt a little nervous. He took a few delicate steps forward and peered into the splendid gloom to where the darkened figure of a woman sat. She looked up as he approached, and scrutinized him with unseen eyes.

“I have seen men of the earth toil in the mud, and I have seen birds of the air soaring high, but never have I seen a man ride the winds as you have.” The deep female voice murmured gently, almost invitingly. Sarn stared back woodenly. When he did not reply, the Sorceress stood, her long gown falling neatly around her slim body. The light caught her fiery locks as she rose and glided forward almost noiselessly.

She paced behind the Feberi, who remained motionless, and ran a long, thin finger over the curve of his wings, circling around to face him again. She smiled a smile to chill the marrow and continued.

“I have great use for you,” she purred, “are you willing?”

A strong scent filled Sarn’s nose and made his eyes water. Then he heard the faint tinkle of music like little bells and chimes, and when he bent his head to wipe the blur from his eyes, the Sorceress’ hand touched his cheek. He looked up and into her deep green eyes for the first time. Something stirred in his chest.

“Mistress ... Most beautiful Mistress, what is your desire?”

[Shadaras]

As they wound their way down through the crypts, Jay and Burns found the stone growing cleaner, not dustier and more abandoned as would be expected. A glance between them was enough to agree: the sorceress had to be making her lair somewhere nearby.

They continued on, torch flickering on the walls like the beating of their fragile hearts.

-=-

At the mines, Blacktail, Tamia, and Dragus sat silently for a minute. Then, Blacktail spoke: “We have no choice. We need to go back and hope we find them before the sorceress does.”

“Back through the tunnel, you mean?” Tamia looked at the mine where Blacktail had so recently come from. “That’s mad.”

“Riding to the keep would take too much time.” Dragus crossed his arms. “If we go now, we might get there soon enough to spring the trap before it’s ready.”

Blacktail nodded in agreement.

Tamia took a deep breath. No matter how worried she was – for the tunnel’s safety, for Blacktail’s health – she had to admit that the other two were right: they had to go in. “Okay,” she said. “Find a light source. Let’s go.”

-=-

The Sorceress tickled her new pet’s chin. “My desire?” She smiled, and it was like a bloody rose opening. “I wish for you to sing, my dear knight. Sing to your comrades, to your king – call to them, and bid them listen. Then...” she let her voice trail off into a soft whisper. “Then sing my words to them, once they are well and truly caught in your web.”

The golden knight nodded in understanding. He set his feet firmly on the ground, and his wings – his beautiful wings as gold as the sun – spread slightly as if he were preparing to fly. The Sorceress knew this was not the case – her spell bound him too well for him to soar, especially in the low-ceilinged rooms they currently occupied. Then he closed his eyes and opened his mouth and the purest sound the Sorceress could remember hearing sprang from his lips. If there were words, they were not in any language she understood, and the sound wove around itself, two distinct tones – a drone and a melody – coming from one throat.

For the space of a breath, the Sorceress was caught as surely in the Knight’s spell as he was in hers. Then, she blinked, and breathed, and remembered her goal, and found the silver knife and bowl of carefully prepared herbs soaked in warm water that now held their essence. The knife rested across the bowl, and this she took up first. As the knight sang on, she carefully let flow three drops of her own blood into the bowl, letting it mix with the water and herbs, slowly tying the spell she was about to cast to her and her alone.

Then she turned to the knight, and hoped that he was deep enough in the trance of magic and music not to notice her touch. Carefully, she took his hand – his left hand, the hand of binding – and cut diagonally from the muscle of his thumb to the base of his smallest finger. From this cut, she let nine drops of blood fall, bright and sparkling, into her bowl. Then she took up one herb – a tiny bundle that smelled like wet cat – and pressed it against the wound. She folded the knight’s hand around it, bidding him with her spell to keep it tight.

Only then, once all preparations were complete, did she turn to the knight and say: “Heed my words, and listen well: Tell them, all of them, what I now say.”

She took a breath, and began to speak, in a language older than the kingdom itself, words powerful enough to bind a king.

-=-

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Jay turned from the door he had been fruitlessly examining. The path branched, and he could not tell which path had been trodden on most in the last months. His skills were for the forest, then the city – not this trackless underground.

“The singing.” Burns glanced back at Jay’s torch for a moment, winced, then pranced – it wasn’t quite walking, nor quite dancing, nor quite anything, really, but movement – over to a plain door and placed his ear against it. “Yep, sounds like singing. Pretty voice, too – got to be our knight with the golden tongue.”

“Sarn?” Jay hurried to join Burns, even ignoring how close to the thief he had to get to join him in listening at the door. Through it, he could distinctly hear the Feberi’s voice. With a curse, Jay tried the door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. He scowled, then said, “Can you open it?” He resented the words as soon as they had passed his mouth, and they left a bitter taste on his tongue, but he couldn’t’ take them back now.

There was a pause. No doubt that thief was taken aback by his question. Then: “If you move out of my way, Knight.”

Jay moved. Burns knelt by the door, pulling out tiny little tools that Jay would have sworn he shouldn’t have been able to own within the castle. The knight made a mental note to check over Burns’ belongings later, to make sure that he wasn’t hiding anything else.

It didn’t take long for the lock to open. Burns stood, a very satisfied smirk on his face, and opened the door with a mockery of a courtly bow, letting Jay into the corridor. Jay barely looked at him as he passed. As soon as he was past the door, he broke into a run, following the sweet song trailing through the barren halls.

-=-

Down there. Oran sat at the entry of a corridor that looked like any other. The feathered one is down here; I can smell him.

“This way,” Tamia called, and set off after Oran as fast as he could lead her, Dragus and Blacktail following behind.

-=-

“Amerie kana verisse meglio vashe...”

The words rolled off her tongue and into the knight’s just like sunlight. The Sorceress was vaguely surprised by how simple this was; she had expected there to be more resistance in his mind, more power countering her in the other knights’ and their king’s. But her power was flowing out of her with ease, nothing blocking her but the speed with which she could speak these ancient words.

-=-

Jay skidded around a corner and halted at the scene in front of him. The sorceress stood in the middle of a circular room, seven lanterns evenly distributed around the walls. Sarn stood in front of her, rapturous, singing as wildly as the wind and the sun. There were words in this song, words that slid into Jay’s mind, though he felt them only as cold water trickling through his skin. He paused, and Burns ran into him, sending their torch falling to the ground.

In reflection, that one little thing was what set off the rest.

The sorceress turned at the sound of the torch falling.

Burns jumped away from the torch – not back into the corridor, but into the room, backing away from the fire, towards the sorceress.

Another door opened, and Tamia, Dragus, and Blacktail came through. Not quite opposite them, a third door opened, and the physician entered, saying “Mistress, there has been—”

The sorceress whirled back to Sarn and grabbed his hands, practically screaming words that he mindlessly repeated back at her in song.

Burns saw the physician and ran to grab him.

Jay swore and charged at the sorceress, drawing a knife. He wasn’t completely sure what he was planning, other than distract her.

“Jay! Keep clear!”

Jay threw himself to the side at Dragus’s shout. A stone came whipping through the air where he had just been. Tamia’s slingshot. Of course. He heard it strike flesh, but only after he came up from his roll could he tell who it hit. A red blemish marked the sorceress’s shoulder, but she hadn’t stopped her chant.

With a cry that sounded much like the bird he had been named for, Jay leapt for the sorceress. He was almost too far away to hit her with his knife, but it bit into the back of her leg, drawing deep blood.

She screamed.

Another stone sang through the air. This one hit Sarn’s hand – the one holding something, Jay belatedly realized. The Gold Knight’s hand convulsed, and a bloody bundle fell to the ground. As it hit, the song that had filled the air fell silent.

“No!” The sorceress backed away from them. “You will not destroy me!”

“I rather think we will.” Burns’ voice, cold and calculating, came from behind Jay. “We are six to your one and a crippled half.”

Jay didn’t turn away from the sorceress, but he swore that if Burns had done anything terrible to the physician he would be punished.

The sorceress laughed madly and lifted fingers stained with red liquid to her mouth. “You are not that lucky.” She spoke words to the air, words that resonated with power, and before any of them could reach her once more, dust rose up and the air clapped, and she disappeared.

Silence.

“What... what just happened?”

“Bad things,” Tamia said to Sarn. “Bad things that we stopped, but didn’t quite end.”

-=-

Later, back at the castle, after everyone had been debriefed, the Envoy sat up in her room, drafting a letter to the Mage Guild. It began:

Dear Archmage Celestial,

It has come to my attention that there are problems that we cannot solve with force alone, nor you with magic alone. Perhaps you would be amenable to a close alliance of our orders...

The Envoy smiled as she penned the final flourish, and sent it off with a messenger.

Today was the end of one chapter of Dunburrow’s history. Tomorrow, she hoped, would begin another, with a blending of sword and sorcery under the crown that had not been achieved within living memory, a blending that would bring honor and glory to all their kingdom.

She stood at the window and watched the moon rise, wondering what the new dawn would bring.