[Secyclion Harbour] Call of the Dead [Closed]

[Cerius]

Death.

The taste of it was strong, almost tangible. Once upon a time, that sense would have been enough to convince the elf to stand up, draw sword and make a run at whatever lurked in the shadows. Not now, though. Age had brought with it wisdom. Checking that his sword was loose in its unassuming scabbard, the elf stood and wandered over to Vanderlou, Ality and the native, just in time to catch some question from Vanderlou about someone he referred to as 'the Bone Woman'.

A strange group, the elf thought to himself. A girl who hardly seemed fit for the task at hand, or matching the 'warrior' description that the criers had called for. A half-elf, scarcely more than a boy by Cerius' reckoning. Finally, a native, a man who seemed capable, if perhaps a little self absorbed. He looked capable of handling himself in a fight, at the very least - which would prove useful, given that whatever was approaching didn't feel friendly.

"Serale," the elf said casually to the trio, before looking expectantly at the Secyclionian as though expecting an answer to the other man's question. In true form, the elf never said a word more than was absolutely necessary.

[Nimh]

ooc: Picking this up [Permission granted from Tarot] Anyone who is still around, welcome to continue onward, of course

ic:
The young man tilted his head towards Vanderlou as he asked for information on the Bone Woman. For a moment he said nothing at all, just looked out over the dark expanse of beach where they had arranged their camp. He pressed his lips together and smiled thinly. "It would be a lie if I told you I knew who or what the Bone Woman was. It seems everyone has a different story--she is an old woman, a bag of bones that lives forever; a beautiful woman, enticing in every way to a man, that eats the flesh from bones and makes of them her house; not a woman at all, but a demon or a harmful spirit bent of keeping this place to herself. There are many stories about the Bone Woman. It's hard to say which is right or which is fiction."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "But all of the stories say the same--that to see her means your death. That she radiates it from every pore of her being. Death, I mean."

He shivered, but smiled boldly at Vanderlou, as if he sought to confirm to the man across from him that there was nothing the pair of them had to worry about. "I wouldn't worry. There are plenty of us and only one Bone Woman. I know I will spend my prayers tonight hoping that the woman is fiction and that the rumors are just that--rumors."

He looked up as Cerius approached. "Chariete. Have a seat, would you? We were just speaking of the Bone Woman, although I would advise the pair of you get your sleep. It will be a long brightening tomorrow."

Cerius and Vanderlou were left to themselves at that point. It was getting dark and many of the party wanted to be well-rested before dawn came upon them and they struck out in search of the missing students.

Vanderlou's meditation sunk him carefully down into Clara and in it he could see the subtle forms of the arcanic essences around him. Ordinary...until his eyes lit upon a delicate figure ghosting its way along the beach. It seemed to be walking towards him and while it was in the form of a person, this delicate massing of arcana, it did not appear wholly...there.

The figure paused and it seemed, had there been eyes in this mass of arcanic energy, they would have been looking right at Vanderlou.

And then it disappeared and moments later there was the touch of breath against Vanderlou's neck, the tease of fingers in his hair. The sensation of lips at his ear was soft at the lobe. Was that breath brushing past his ear? "A handsome man such as yourself should not be so alone." The voice was breathy, but unmistakably female and a trace husky with the promise of...something.

It was enough to jar him out of Clara and the feelings of the fingers and mouth dispersed. But there was a heavy feeling in the air, as if someone lurked just behind him. "Come." The voice again, quiet, close to his ear. Tantalizing, seductive. It pleaded.

Meanwhile, Cerius could see nothing at all of what Vanderlou had just seen. But the sensation that something was present hung heavy around him as well. A trace of malice thickened the air around Cerius. Death waited. Wanting something. Someone.

[Vanderlou]

Finally, here were some snatches of information on the infamous bone-woman that could actually prove useful in the search for the missing students. As the man spoke about this Secyclion figure of myth Vanderlou silently committed his words to memory though the half-vagaran found that the more he knew about the bone-woman the less he wanted to learn about her.

If the bone-woman had lived for so long what chances would a paltry crew have against her? While it was true that the presence of all these able-bodied people offered him a certain measure of comfort he had lost some confidence in the concept of strength in numbers. He had seen a single mage shatter a dozen thick and tall pillars of stone back in the brightshadows academy with but a motion of his hands, how much more a legendary and immortal lich - if that was what the bone-woman even was?

Maybe he was tired, or maybe it was the ambiance of this lonely island. Perhaps all he needed was a good night's sleep like the native had suggested but with all Vanderlou had heard here it seemed like he wouldn't be able to get a wink if he didn't perform a quick arcanic survey of the premises. At the very least the strain on his vis would make his sleep heavier and get him through the night and so without wasting his time he slipped into clara and the familiar sight of a world built from essences replaced that which he was looking at only moments ago.

At first, everything seemed in order. As weird as the island was its essences weren't in the least way distorted though something suddenly caught his eye. A dense collection of essences appearing in the shape of a person was gliding towards him, stopping a short distance from him before fading into nothingness.

It had disappeared as quickly as it had came and the amateur sorcerer had to wonder exactly what that mass of energy was. For a moment Vanderlou considered the possibility that he had simply made a mistake, that maybe this was a usual occurrence and his lack of insight was to blame for thinking that it could have been something more but it seemed that something was going to prove him wrong.

The warm sensation of someone breathing down his neck, the invisible set of fingers running through his chestnut hair, the soft lips that were tickling his earlobes and the words that they whispered into his ears were more than enough to send the now panic-stricken sorcerer out of clara leaving him with the feeling of being stalked.

Exactly what had happened to him he didn't know but even an idiot would understand that there was clearly something supernatural going on here and whatever it was that had called him was clearly coming from behind.

Turning around ever so slowly Vanderlou peered into the darkness and with lantern hand the half-elf stepped forward cautiously, determined to find the source of that tantalizing voice.

[Nimh]

The camp was surprisingly quiet as Vanderlou lifted his lantern and took that fateful step forward. The wind whispered around Vanderlou, warm, comfortable...with the hint of something more. It stood his hair on end and send a chill down the length of his spine that rattled the lantern in his grip. The wind curled around the light source and in moments the light was snuffed, the only lingering glow coming from the fire that dancing in the island breeze.

The wind stilled and settled and Vanderlou found himself encased in a strange darkness. The air was heavy and the silence irregular, the crash of the waves against the beach somehow muted. All talking had stilled and the movement in the air had ceased. Silence. Heavy and thick. As if someone had stolen his ears and tucked them in their back pocket for their own use.

The figure shivered ahead of Vanderlou, just out of the corner of his vision. Still, a quick look in that direction and it remained standing there, the lithe figure of a woman draped in torn rags that did little to hide well-formed limbs, her long, pale hair drifting in the breeze as it stirred again. There was no mistaking the pale face that turned towards him, the eyes and mouth too dark in the night to see clearly. Still, there was the sense of eyes staring at him, waiting, watching, looking for something.

And then she was gone, disappeared, and the sound of the beach with its crashing waves was audible again and someone coughed from practically beside Vanderlou. He had wandered, it would seem, even without his realizing it. He stood at the edge of an out-cropping of rocks, tips of toes at the very edge of what looked like an abrupt and rather distant fall into crashing waves below.

The man looking at him wore one of the local Secyclion skirted garments and regarded Vanderlou somewhat uncomfortably. "You had me going for a moment there." The man offered a nervous grin, eyes agleam with relief. "Thought you were gonna walk right over the edge for a moment, walking like a ghost had you in its grips or something."

Just beyond the man was the camp, a faint silhouette in the darkness. "Should be off getting some sleep, not wandering the darkness, you know. Up early tomorrow and all that."

[Vanderlou]

The woman left as quickly as she had come and with her her disappearance the fog that stole all his senses vanished leaving him standing at the edge of a high cliff overlooking cold and turbulent waters. Realizing his precarious position the sorcerer stepped back into relative safety and he quickly noticed the presence of another person, a man from the camp who had probably come out here to look for him.

Vanderlou turned to the man his face a little pale and he was about to share his experience of his encounter with what he suspected was the bone-woman when he stopped a second short of moving his lips. No, that couldn't be a story he would share unless he wanted the others to think him mad.

"I thought I saw something and went to scout the area," he explained, his face still and expressionless as he could make it. "but it seems I was mistaken. Let's go back, I still feel a bit of an appetite and I remember seeing leftovers earlier." and without waiting for the man to react he moved past him and followed the trail back to the camp, his mind still wandering to thoughts revolving around that mysterious voice and the pale but beautiful woman from earlier.

[Nimh]

The rest of the darkening passed without incident. Vanderlou, troubled though he was with the sight he had seen and voice he had heard, found sleep easily and was roused only by the sound of people gathering in preparation for the hike into the island. They left their camp erected with a small number of individuals to guard the place and after a brief morning meal, the search party struck out into the island.

There were paths moving away from the beach. The darkening prior some scouts had seen to a quick scouring of the area and had found one that was broader than the others, as if it had once been a major throughway in a time when the island had once been inhabited. Now it showed signs of disuse, the dirt path strewn with thick patches of grass and wild blossoms. People spoke in hushed voices and the Islander that Vanderlou had spoken with the darkening before kept alongside of him with long, easy-strides. For the most part his guide was quiet, but on occasion he pointed out a bird common to Secyclion or made comment about some wildlife tracks in the ground that were almost indiscernible to the untrained eye.

And then they reached it, the sight of a place that had once been a home but was no longer. It was large and incomplete, a building that would have been a rich man's mansion had things not gone wrong. There were still tools scattered around the build sight and the foundation of the building--shovels and other small hand tools that had been dropped and abandoned. People seemed to slow here, almost grown hesitant as they came upon the sight. It had a ghostly air to it, as if a building could die and give birth to a ghost that haunted the flat land upon which it was built.

Just beyond the house, the level of the land continued upwards at an almost sharp slant, a smaller pathway winding up the mountainside towards its peak. The mounded hill was not tall, but it did serve to overlook the build site. "That is where they say the coffins are, where the dead were buried." His companion's distaste was apparent in his face and in the rich tone of his voice as he gestured towards the hilltop. "And where they say the Bone Woman lives."

"We'll fan out and search here." The order rang out crisp and sure and people began to spread out around the build site to inspect the area, studiously avoiding the base of the path that led up the side of the small mountain.

A movement shifted at the top of the peak and a person stared down at Vanderlou, obscured by the bright light that rimmed the hilltop. The light flashed with the obscured shadow of a person...and then they were gone and the hilltop was empty. No one else acknowledged it. They searched.

[Vanderlou]

He couldn't say he didn't believe in ghosts, he was still somewhat skeptical though the incident last night had been burned into his memory. If there really was a bone-woman then there was a more urgent need to find the missing students - and soon.

When they finally arrived at a the ruins of what could have been a large mansion, one that looked as haunted as it was abandoned the search parties were instructed to fan out and search. However, despite the obvious appearance of a mysterious figure on the top of the hill everyone still busied themselves looking for the students in all the wrong places.

Clearly the most suspicious site on the perimeter of the search area was none other than the hill overlooking the unfinished building site, and by the way everyone avoided the site there could only be something waiting up that hill. This logical reasoning, coupled with the zeal of the inexperienced good Samaritan who genuinely wanted to help led Vanderlou to the bottom of the pathway that would slowly lead him up the hill and without even bothering to get a companion to go with him he hurried up the weathered path expecting to find something at the peak of this rising mound.

If the students were there, then he'd had found them and they could leave this accursed place, if they weren't then at the very least he could use the view that the hill provided to scan the landscape for anything left behind by the students.

[Nimh]

Silence met Vanderlou at the top of the hill. The wind sucked away the noise from below, tossing it out to sea, and he was left without even so much as the sensation that he had come here with other people for no one had followed him up the rocky, almost unused pathway that he had chosen to tread.

Here along the top of the knoll, the path jutted to the left of the rise in the island. The dark maw of the cave was easily discerned, tall and wide and easy enough for a man to walk through.

A rock skittered along the path and a woman emerged from the cave into the light, a pale hand lifting to cast shadow across her eyes. She was young, not much older than himself by the looks of her...a fact seen through looks only because she wore nothing more than worn, tattered cloth hitched about her hips. The material hung about mid-thigh and when she took a slight step forward, further into the sun, the material parted further to reveal white, white skin that seemed to have been untouched by the suns. White as bone, her skin.

Her breasts were adorned with nothing save for dark markings, runes and symbols and a sun that dappled its rays outward, with the longest stretching from its base down to her navel and from the top to the hollow of her throat. Her hair was a pale white-blonde worn loose and ragged about her shoulders, fluttering in the wind that stirred and erased the noise from below.

She lowered her hand and pale, bone-yellow eyes stared at him, her mouth was thin but stretched into a faint, almost friendly, smile as she stared across from him. She said nothing for a short time, but when she did finally speak it was in a soft, soothing voice in a language that sounded very much like the ones the people below spoke among one another. She switched quickly enough, extending her hand towards him. "Supper, I've made. Come in, yes?" The smile, the voice...it was all innocent, inviting. The woman wore no weapons, not even any ornamentation, save for the markings on her breasts and chest. Harmless? Surely.

[Vanderlou]

The suspicious circumstances surrounding this encounter with an even more suspicious woman led Vanderlou to come to one simple conclusion. That this lovely naked woman in front of him could well be the bone-woman herself, or that she knew a thing about the bone-woman if it turned out that she wasn't the enigmatic figure of Secylion folklore.

When the woman invited him to supper a number of things crossed his mind. Did she mean by supper that he was going to be the main course? Or did she mean that she was going to be the main course? Her offer was definitely tempting and yet common-sense dictated that he should be running the opposite way as quickly as his legs could carry him. Of course that didn't mean that the half-elf would, on the contrary, despite how loud the voice of reason screamed for him to move away he still took that first step forward. He knew that the woman wouldn't let him go at this point - if she was who he suspected her to be.

"Yes, please lead the way." he would respond politely, waiting for the woman to move so that he could follow her lead.

Still, at the back of his mind he considered another possibility. One that was both next to impossible but still plausible. Perhaps the bone-woman could help him on his search for the students - if she wasn't responsible for their disappearance in the first place anyway.

[Nimh]

The woman turned her back towards him--seemingly not afraid in the slightest of what damage he might do to her--and stepped into the cave. For a moment she was merely a shadow within it, framed by the light outside, and she stood at her tallest, shoulders back, eyes watching him and waiting with a quietness that was so much like the watch of death.

Then she smiled at him, so sweet and disarming, and gestured for him to come further into the cave with her and the feeling that death watched him dissipated, leaving behind nothing but a faint chill that ran down his spine.

The sunlight soon became no longer an issue as they walked into the cave. The ground descended downward at a gentle slope while the ceiling remained fixed high above them, making it feel as if they dropped deep into a rock belly. The mouth closed and swallowed them, or so it felt for the suns were suddenly gone and the darkness was heavy around them, leaving Vanderlou feeling slightly damp with trapped cave moisture. Rocks skid beneath his feet as he walked and ahead the woman was like a pale torch, a shadow but visible in all this darkness.

She had no problems seeing and occasionally she paused, reached out and grabbed his hand or touched his head to guide him through a low overhang.

And then they came to a chamber. Light streamed in through small holes above, illuminating the place faintly and casting shimmering streams of light on square blocks of stone that protruded in rows throughout this chamber. Tombs. Rows and rows of tombs.

The woman smiled at him and gestured, leading him towards the back of the chamber, threading her way through the tombs with ease. In the back a small fire kindled and over it was a pot, black and old and chipped with use. The smoke from the fire mingled with the sweet smell of the pots contents. She gestured for him to sit on some pelts that were spread along the ground, a place she clearly used for sleep and relaxation. "Sit. I get you bowl," she instructed him and she bent over a pack nearby, picking through it until she came up with two bowls, equally old and chipped, but these were white and smooth...for the most part.

She scooped the bowls into the pot and handed one over to Vanderlou. It was slick with the stew, which was pale yellow in color with dark red lumps of meat and strands of a leafy substance mixed within it. "Good, you eat," she told him, miming the eating action. She sat down across from him.

And that was when he really started to pick up on the area around him. Behind the woman, held together with twine and string, were bones. Many bones. The skeletons were half-shrouded in shadow and set at an angle that it would have been hard for him to see them until he looked. Two bodies made up of bones, yellow-white and grinning at him. They hung from the ceiling from strings...their bones clicking together, animated by a faint breeze.

[Vanderlou]

Needless to say the cave was by far the darkest place he had ever gone into. Not that Vanderlou regularly frequented dark and cold places, but if he did the half-elf was certain he would still rate this cave pretty high on his list of creepy places he'd visited and if he had any say in the matter this would be the last.

As the native led Vanderlou lower and lower into the cavern he would soon realize that the darkness was only an appetizer, what would really set the goosebumps crawling up his neck were the rows of rectangular slabs of stone which could only mean one thing.

"This place, its a tomb... Isn't it?" of course he didn't really need to hear her answer. That was the only reasonable conclusion that he could come to, anything other answer would most likely be a lie.

Eventually the woman brought him to the back of a chamber where a lone blackened pot was being used to boil pale-yellow soup and she offered some to him in a bowl that felt disturbingly like bone. "Does this have crab in it?" the question was more an effort to buy himself more time before he tried the dish than one of curiosity or concern. He didn't even know what was in the bowl and red meat usually meant raw meat, and Vanderlou wasn't so fond of half-cooked meat.

"I have a question, I'm looking for a number of students..." he bit his lips realizing that she might not even know what a student was. "People like me, have you seen them walking around the island recently?" he couldn't really look at the woman face-to-face, at least not while she was practically naked so instead he looked right past her into a collection of hard-to-spot bones.

For a moment, a frightening thought popped into his head and his blood went cold. Could it be possible that he had followed a cannibal into her very house? Certainly there was a fair chance of that being the case but still, Vanderlou's good nature wouldn't allow him to judge a person outright. No, he would have to test his theory first and then if that did turn out to be the case he still had his zinn'ka to protect himself with - at least he hoped that would be enough.

Swallowing hard Vanderlou looked right back at the woman's face and he smiled at her. He couldn't really jump to conclusions right? What was a bone or two... or two hundred anyway. The half-elf was almost about to dismiss the idea when the dull sound of bone striking bone reached his ears. He immediately looked up to find the source of those eerie noises. "You've got an interesting taste for decorations..."

[Nimh]

The woman looked at him oddly for a moment, her pale yellow eyes looked somewhat confused. She looked around her at the upraised rectangles of stone. "Tombs? Ah..." she trailed off, head cocked to the side. Then she nodded and smiled. "Yes. Tombs."

And his other question, concerning the crab, was met with a blank look that did not eventually garner comprehension. She just set her lips tightly and shook her head. She did not, apparently, know what this crab was and whether or not it was in the soup. Couldn't be, if she didn't know what it was.

A third question and the woman smiled at him, the look of someone who knew something. Sly. She eagerly scooped up soup and ladled it into her mouth, savoring the taste and a lump of red meat that she had taken up with the wooden spoon in her hand. "Like you, hm? Yes, yes. They walk the beach. I seen people like you there, hm." She made a small motion with her hand, people walking.

She had another mouthful of soup and watched him in amusement as he looked around him, smiled, then looked again. And saw the skeletons. She did not seem phased at his own distaste, which was evident even in the bland comment about her taste in decorations. "People like you, eh?" She pointed a finger at him and chuckled.

And then she set the bowl aside and stood. Half-naked she loomed over him and then squat next to where he sat, bone yellow eyes level with his. They gleamed as she looked at him and her smile was...friendly. Or satisfied. Both seemed one and the same in that moment. "They walk the beach, come here to see, yes? Like you." Her breath was hot and rank and she smelt decidedly unwashed. And as if the dead walked among her.

"Come, you see them." She held her hand out to him and gestured impatiently. She wanted him to take her fingers in his and to stand. That much was clear.

[Vanderlou]

The answer to his inquiry was exactly the answer he had been hoping for. In truth, the half-elf should have been elated. He was only a step away from finding the missing children though a touch of uncertainty kept him from the verge of excitement, somehow it all felt too easy and with all things that came without effort there was certainly a catch - or at least his experiences in life dictated that much.

"Alright then," he accepted her hand, fervently hoping that the woman was nothing more than a very generous local with an unusual penchant for skeletal decorations. Not that he had a lot of faith in that idea. "So exactly where are they and... Are they... well... well?"

[Nimh]

The woman's fingers were strong around his as she helped jerk him up to his feet. She grinned at him, with a finger sliding vertically across her mouth. She shook her head and then turned and pulled him along with her. Their path led them straight towards the two dangling skeletons, which they had to squeeze past in order to get into a narrow cave beyond them. Unfortunately, that also meant that Vanderlou's arms and face felt the brush of bone as he moved past them.

The corridor was as dark as the first sets they had all come through and very narrow, so much so in one or two places that Vanderlou had to squeeze his way sideways through the passageway. At long length they came to another pocket in the underground cave system and Vanderlou found himself staring at a vast array of bones in varying degrees of fleshlessness. Some still boasted stringy pieces of old muscle dangling from them, some were picked clean. He could see this because he came face to face with the arranged skeletons on an upraised dais.

The woman stood to the side and smiled at Vanderlou, amused. She reached out and picked up a knife that grated against the stone and she proffered it to him, holding it out on the flat of her hands, offering to him. "Take. Yours." Her bone yellow eyes were bright, anxious.

Behind him, the wind moaned through the corridor and the breeze brushed against the back of his neck, like the lingering touch of a lover. "Take," the woman insisted.

But the moan of the wind increased in its noise and suddenly the bone woman shrieked and her hand spasmed, dropping the knife with a clatter to the ground. She withered and twitched and it seemed that something grabbed her and shook. She went rigid, yellow eyes suddenly aglow. She stood, staring at Vanderlou, eyes glowing yellow, white-pale skin gleaming in the darkness.

And then the bones rose, the bodies shifting forward. Sitting up, if you will.