The wagon cleared the gate and soon instead of mud passing beneath me there were city cobbles, the old wheels ground over them making enough noise for me to now shift myself without alerting anyone.
Peering out from under the edge I could see the streets were nigh on empty, with only the occasional passerby, or patrol of guards. I waited until the last torches disappeared around a corner before I dropped to the ground, waiting for the wagon to pass over me, stood up and quickly assessed my surroundings before slinking into an alley. I held my breath for a moment, but no one called a warning, the night was perfectly silent except for the rainfall and the grinding of the wagon wheels as it continued to make its way down the street.
I bent down and removed my cloak from its pouch at my waist. It was dark brown and luckily imbued with properties that let most kinds of light slide off of it on its outer layer, allowing the user to pass by all but the most watchful of sentries. I quickly hung it around myself, strapping it onto my armor.
I stepped from the alley into the street, a mere shade to any prying eyes. I made quick progress further inside the city, only stopping to hide in another alley that I slunk into on my right when a patrol came by. The alley was filled with refuse, the building on my right was an old warehouse in need of repair, its pale brown bricks and boarded up windows spoke of an owner who either didn't care about fixing it anymore or no longer had the money to, or possibly was long dead or just gone leaving it to decay. The building to the left was what was left of what might have been a bakery of sorts, racks meant to hold oven hot bread stood open and forlorn in windows that might once have looked grand. I imagined the old warehouse might have housed tired and sweaty workers who on their breaks would have welcomed the sweet scents of freshly baked breads, sweetmeats and pastries with all manner of delicacies and would have been enticed to make their way over after a long day of labor. When the factory closed for whatever reason the bakery would have lost its main source of customers and as the area around naturally would have suffered from the loss of jobs that the closure of the warehouse would have caused, this would have eventually forced the owner of the bakery to close shop as well. It made me sad to think about it and a part of me ached for this forgotten place.
The patrol came by in a team of five; red cloaks covering solid armor, the joints were evenly covered in thickly chained mail. For all intents and purposes these men were well armored for city watch and they moved freely, but as they grew closer I saw they seemed to move too freely. The armor they wore curved in the wrong ways, bent at the wrong angles, they actually seemed to sliderather than walk and it turned my stomach to see it. As they passed by I peered out after them and I took out the Energetic Crystalis and after removing my helmet and clasping it to my belt peered through the Crystalis at them.
I felt a chill about me as I peered at what I could only describe as a dark mist about each of them. Where normally a person's energy and vitality would have glowed brightly I could only see darkness enshrouding each of them, not even death looked like this as flesh that decomposed renewed the world and helped to bring about new life, this was abominable to all creation and I had seen it before and knew it well.
“Well that solved that question." I said under my breath. I grasped my blade Talthin its sheath reflexively, a war sword, forged in years past, it now served as my blade. Ten runes adorned each side, each made to battle an enemy of the eshiri. The Dark Kyn were without doubt one of those enemies.
The patrol passed out of sight and I put the Energetic Crystalis back into its pouch and placed my helmet back and it slid home with a click. Slinking back out into the open I resumed my journey once more, sweeping my eyes across the city until they rested on the Fortress Proper and seeing it now I realized why the walls and towers around it looked the way they did. The fortress bore signs of poor reconstruction, as though after it had been torn down by a child who had then attempted to put it back together, caring more for how it looked than how effective of a fortress it was. The towers all around it had a mimicked design to them, copying the surviving towers regardless of tactical location necessitating the design of each and the only meticulations present were those that still existed on the surviving structures, apparently these fools had been unable to replicate that particular design or hadn’t deigned to, not understanding or caring enough to even try.
I found a secluded place with a view of the Fortress, an abandoned market, empty stalls awaiting the morning arrivals that might or might not be arriving in the coming dawn to fill them, depending on weather. The place didn't have the same abandoned look the warehouse and bakery had had so I assumed that this part of the city at least thrived with some form of life, either that or its abandonment hadn't become apparent yet.
I pulled the Energetic Crystalis back out of its pouch and after removing my helmet and clamping it to my belt again, placed the Crystalis over my eyes, staring at the ancient castle. My breath caught in my throat and I stood rigid on the spot as pain lanced into my eyes and mind, yet I could not tear my eyes away. There, hanging over the castle itself was the spirit form of a mighty dragon, ethereal wings longer than the highest towers, its mouth opened wide would be likely as large as the gate to the fortress itself. Some ancient being in a long gone era had imbued the dragons form to forever guard this ancient citadel, to protect the inhabitants from vile creatures such as the Dark Kyn, rendering them unable to use their abilities in its presence, and yet here there were Dark Kyn in this city and at that moment I began to notice that its majestic form was not as perfect as I first took it to be. Ethereal energies bled out of cracks in its armor, great holes had opened up in its wings. Its maw bled a great fountain of energy so brightly vivid it almost looked like a waterfall of ethereal blood. The spikes lining its spine seemed to be withering, its great eyes were shut and its tail coiled weakly around one of the fortress towers, its main body latched around the keep, once great talons now had rotting holes in them as they clutched at the keeps walls. Whatever forces bound it here were weakening and the creature was using its own life forces to keep itself here, but at great cost. I doubted it would last much longer and would likely either die forever and pass from this plain, or find a way to free itself from whatever bound it to the castle to roam free on the ethereal plains, at least that’s what I hoped.
The pain building up in my mind finally became too much and with a snarl of effort I wrenched the Energetic Crystalis from my face. I gasped as my vision returned to normal and the world became dark once more. A part of me ached, longing to behold the majestic form of the dragon once more, but I crushed it. The ringing pain in my skull spoke to how foolhardy a notion that was.
I dropped the Energetic Crystalis back into my bag, vowing not to use it again when viewing the castle.
I moved on, stalking from shadow to shadow, looking left and right. I knew my cloak would shield me against most eyes but I wanted to take no chances, especially with the dark kyn seemingly possessing the guards.
The rain kept coming, splattering off every rooftop and pooling in every crevice. My boots glided softly over them, making no noise and barely a ripple, not that anyone would notice with all the rippling from the rain.
The buildings in this part of the city were downtrodden, old and in need of repair. Sad really that such a kingdom with obvious wealth would let any part of their domain decay like this. My eyes drifted over one ramshackle hut to another. I doubted anyone but the lowest scum of the city still lived here. That tended to happen, the bottom of the barrel. Pickpockets, thieves and other such scum.
My eyes suddenly stopped dead, resting on a single house. Something about it piqued my interest, but I simply could not put my finger on what it was, but my intuition said there was something about this place that wasn'tquite right.
I centered all my attention on it and stepped into an alley across from it to stay out of sight. It was three stories tall which made it taller than most other buildings in this quarter but I was sure that that wasn’t the reason it had first drawn my attention. Its shingles were old and crumbling, rain trickled through them easily spilling into the innards of the house. Windows either hung open or sat on rusting hinges or were simply broken. The front door looked like it had once sported a symbol of some kind but time had long since eroded that away. Whatever this place had been, an echo of that lingered strong enough to have drawn me.
Before investigating further I took the Energetic Crystalis out of my pouch and somewhat more cautiously than before, (and making sure the castle wasn’t anywhere in my field of vision) peered through it at the house before me. I saw absolutely nothing different, which in and of itself was strange as I could almost always see something, an echo of people who had lived and died there, auras of lost life essence, but there wasn’t a single sign of anything. Almost as if… Then it hit me, a nullifier, someone had placed a very strong nullifier over this old ruin and was either keeping it strong or had found a stable energy source to keep it strong in their absence. I put the Energetic Crystalis back in my bag and drew Talth, ready to use it at a moment’s notice. I approached it cautiously, peering back and forth down the street, but there was no sign of any living soul.
The front steps looked very weak, made of ancient and worn wood but they didn’t even creak as I stepped onto them. The porch wound all the way around the house on both sides, what looked like the remnants of chairs sat in disorderly heaps. I stepped onto the porch itself and faced the door again. What was left of that ancient symbol carved into it was more discernible now, but I still couldn’t decipher exactly what it was. I took another device from my pouch; an Occulas Crystalis, this one however was long and tubular, with delicate glass winding down its length and ends and with an intricate crystal inside, it was capable of recording images of what it was directly pointed at. I pointed it directly at the door and wound it, keeping it perfectly still until I heard the telltale click that let me know it had done its function. I quietly stashed it back in my pouch and once again considered the door. Unlike the rest of the house the door did not appear to be made of wood, but rather stone, worn as it was. Stepping back from it I decided to try and just open it, extending my left gauntlet towards it carefully, Talthheld tightly in my right. I touched the door then drew my hand back quickly, nothing happened. I touched it again and this time I actually pushed with my not inconsiderable strength but it didn’t budge an inch.
I started to actually put weight into my shoving and still the door refused to budge. Looking for a handle, hoping it might actually be pulled rather than pushed was when I realized there was no handle; this wasn’t a door, just a stone slab inserted where the door was supposed to be. A chill ran up my spine as I realized that no one entered this house unless they either knew the incantation to make the slab move, or could just break it down. I could do both, but I wasn't sure if I could find the way to do the former, especially in any decent amount of time so instead I simply placed the tip of Talthagainst the slab and began to channel energy through myself, into it. The runes began to glow as I began to slowly chant the Shanzo Mianshar, focusing my mind. I was going to simply overload the slab and then shatter it inward, anything caught on the other side would likely be outright killed but considering what was most likely to be in there, that would be no great tragedy.
Just as I was forming the energy to deliver the shattering blow, I felt the energy I'd been pouring into the stone come to a culmination and quite suddenly the symbol that I had been unable to decipher earlier glowed to life, an intricate symbol I did not recognize, with many shapes, curves and other meaningless forms danced before my eyes before it and the slab vanished from sight, leaving only an empty space before me.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvqDbvE4Diq
