NaNoWriMo 2020: Echoes of an Eternal Empire - Volume I

When at long last Ignatious reached the top of the marble staircase it opened up into a wide room in the shape of a semi circle - with the evening moonlight pouring in through the tower's embrasures and dancing playfully on the polished stone of the room's floor. Two guard stood at attention next to the staircase's landing, human knights adorned in shining platemail and silk capes that pooled dramatically on the floor beneath them and rested carelessly over the the hilts of the guard's swords. Each of the humans stared forward from the positions in an apparent attempt to appear alert and disciplined - but Ignatious' heightened senses could hear the men's rapid breathing even through the armored helmet that concealed his own face.

Ignatious continued his march forward, the hilt of his battlestaff now striking the ground with irregular metallic "twangs" with each of his armored footsteps. Another human male - this one dressed in fine cloth and without weapons - fiddled nervously with his hands as he stood anxiously next to heavy wooden desk at the half-circled room's back wall. Next to him was a woman looking equally anxious and struggling to catch her breath. The page has proceeded Ignatious up the tower's steps at a significantly faster speed than him in a poorly concealed attempt to warn the nervous looking man about his arrival. Ignatious did not mind the woman's interference however - in fact he almost delighted in it. At least someone in this damned tower still feared the Alvain.

Ignatious continued his march forward, intending to stride past the desk to the heavy set of doors behind it. They were sealed shut and flanked by yet another set of highly-polished knights, but Ignatious could easily make out the sound of laughter and music from behind them. For the briefest of moments the nervous human seemed to step out in front of Ignatius to blocked his path - but reconsidered hastily and instead merely cleared his throat and croaked a stammered greeting. "l-lord Ignatious pre Virtutem - what a pleasure to graced by anther visit. Lord Stanier is currently in military council and has asked not to be disturbed. Perhaps if Lord Abrony.. " but the man's voice trailed off mid-sentance - his attempt to assuade Ignatious silenced with a mere raise of the alvain's gauntleted hand.

"I request that you alert the Lord Stanier of my arrival in Genovia Cross, and that you impose upon him my immediate need for a audience with him." Ignatious' voice seemed to almost darken the room around him when he spoke, echoing deeply through the plating in his helmeted mask and casting his words in an uncomfortable metallic grit. He noticed with satisfaction as one of the knight's behind the manservant shuffled ever so slightly with discomfort. Ignatious towered over the human, his already tall frame expanded upon by the heavy layers of plate upon him.

The manservant gave a panicked look to the woman beside him - her face still flushed with exertion - and settled his gave back on Ignatious, his eyes falling just shy of the alvain's helmet face. "Uhmm... of course I will let my lord know. But as I said... he has asked not be disturbed by anyone short of Lord Abronycius and..." Once again the manservant's voice failed him and Ignatious merely tightened his grip on the heavy staff in his right hand - his masked face giving no hint to the alvain's state.

"I would ask your name manservant." The statement was polite, formal, and devoid of all emotion. The preferred form of discourse for alvain and human nobility alike. yet all the same the man seemed rebuked as if by some invisible threat.
"My name is Osfrid sir, I come from the city of Pere-" but the man was once again cut short was a slight raise of Ignatious' hand.
"Osfrid. Your intention is to serve your lord - a loyalty in your kind that I both value and respect." Ignatious left the statement hang in the air for a heartbeat before continuing "But my presence in Genovia Cross is at the direct request of The Alvain Assembly and the Loyalist Alliance." Osfird gulped almost comically as Ignatious continued. "So you may rest assured that by following my commands you are indeed serving the interest of your Lord Stanier." Ignatious turned his attention to the two knights guarding the door, "So either you can ask these men to step aside of I shall instead. Which is the preference of Lord Stanier?"
The knights both turned their heads ever so slightly to look at each other before placing their hands on the hilts of their swords with a tentative slowness to the motion - but the tension that had been pouring into the room since Ignatious' arrival seemed at long last become unbearable for Osfird. "No - no!' the man said - panicked at first before quickly slipping back into the polite appeasement that his kind seemed spill with everytime they spoke. "P-please just allow me a moment to alert Lord Stanier of your presence."

Ignatious nodded politely to Osfrid with this concession, his metallic voice growling as the man strode briskly to the heavy set of doors behind him. "Then I shall wait here while you announce me, but I recommend you advise the Lord Stanier to receive me quickly. I am immortal but I am not patient."

Osfrid pulled the heavy doors aside and slipped into the small gap he opened between them - the laughter and music from within being suddenly amplified before being snuffed back down again as the doors slung shut behind him. For a handful of moments the alvain stood silently in the half-circle room. The only sound other than the muffled music being the page's labored breathing only now begging to return to her control. Ignatious merely took this time to furhter inspect the pair of knights that stood before him. The helmets they wore hide their face much like his own mask, but even then Ingatious knew the guards were not able to meet his gaze. Behind him however he felt the stares of the two stairway guards boring a hole into the back of his armour. He briefly considered turning his attention back to those two, to see if they would continue their watchful sentry under his own gaze or look away in deference when the music in the room abruptly stopped - replaced instead with the hushed clamor of a group of people intending to whisper but failing to control the volume of their voice. A few moments later the heavy doors were pulled back as Osfrid slipped back into the room - the tense black silence of the room behind him clinging to him like a fog.

"Lord Stanier is delighted to hear of your.... unexpected arrival in Genovia Cross Lord Ignatious pre Virtutem. He is meeting with his generals and military strategists currently and - " Osfrid nearly leaped aside as Ignatious purposley strode past the manservant, covering the distance to doors with a speed that defied his impressive stature. The door guard furthest to Ignatious merely froze as the towering alvain strode towards him but the closer of the two foolishly stepped forward and placed an arm out to stop the alvian. With a casual backhand Ignatious merely pushed the armored knight into the stone wall behind him, watching with pitiful disappointment as the trained knight trained in vain to regain his footing as his ridiculously long cloak became entangled with the tapestried wall behind him. None of the room's other inhabitants seemed prepared to react - let alone intervene - as Ignatious effortlessly pulled apart the heavy double doors and exposed the room's contents. Olfrid seemed to offer some complaint or protest at the alvain's intrusion - but the word's that had been eluding him all evening seemed to have long last deserted him altogether. He heard the sound of panicked footsteps behind him as the stair guards began to round up behind Ignatious, but he merely held his empty hand out behind him and the two guards approaching him instinctively stopped - suddenly unsure of how to proceed. To his right Osfrid was hissing hushed commands to page and guards behind him in a futile attempt to regain some form of control over the chaos Ignatious' arrival was causing. Beneath his helmeted mask, Ignatious merely shook his head and stepped through the open doorway in front of him - leaving Osfrid to begin struggling to detangle the disheveled knight on the ground behind him.

The room before Ignatious held the same semi-circle shape as the one behind him, except only about two thirds of the side. It's contents were dominated by a long elegant table of polished wood, it's sides hand carved with intricate patterns. Scattered around the table's edge was a half score of human men, many of which bore the disheveled clothing and red-skinned faces of intoxication. Sure enough, Ignatious could not fail to notice the scattered array of fine bronze and copper jugs of wine mixed in with a disorderly pile of dirty plates and cutlery. The dishes and half eaten food were scattered all along the table, burying various stacks of parchment under their squalor. A few scrolls had even been piled carelessly at the table edge closest to Ignatious, and a few had already fallen from their perch the be trampled and torn underfoot - the writings they bore now indistinguishable from the shit and dirt that marred their faces. The room itself was dimly lit by a handful of candles in a manner that suggested the men had begun their collaboration before sun fall and had been too taken in with the day's affairs to notice the room's ever growing darkness. Skirting the outside of the room were three human women clad in thin silks that hung low on their necks - each carrying yet another jug of wine - and a nervous looked young-man in the far corner who held a fiddle in his hand - clearly unsure whether to continue playing. A fourth woman had seemingly abandoned all sense of presumptive servitude and was simply perched on a heavy-set bearded man near the end of the table, her drunken and glassy eyes dancing carelessly over the room - seemingly oblivious to the sudden tension that had entered the room with Ignatious. At the head table sat Lord Stanier. ruler of the city of Genovia Cross and owner of the northern tower and it's surrounding castle. Lord Stanier was a wide faced human face with long brown hair that had begun thinning at his forehead. Under normal circumstance the lord would normally cut an impressive figure, albeit by human standards, with his towering height and finely crafted tunics, but this particularly evening found the man as red-faced and swollen lipped as his companions, with a splattering of greasy stains marking the front of normally pristine tunic. The men and women surrounding Lord Stanier seemed frozen in place, one so far as holding his goblet out in front of his open mouth while his eyes gapped up nervously at the heavily-armoured Alvain. Not a single noise seemed to emanant from the room besides Ignatious' heavy metallic breathing - the humans seemingly under the impression that if they didn't move then perhaps the alvain wouldn't be able to see them. Lord Stainer's face held no hint of surprise however, instead carrying the haughty arrogance and contempt that only the human nobility could truly master. The silence and tension were both broken simultaneously however with the panting stammer of Osfrid slithering through the door behind Ignatious, the four guarding knights shuffling precariously behind him.

  "My lord! A thousand apologies - I asked Lord Ignatious to wait but he would -" but Lord Stanier too was able to control these with merely a gesture. Osfrid stammered to a close when Stanier lifted his hand and shooed the manservant away.

"No need to apologize for Lord Ignatious' poor manners Osfrid - I'm sure our unexpected guest has an urgent and pressing matter to bring to my attention this time. Especially seeing as he found it fit the assault my staff and break down my fucking door." Lord Stanier's voice lifted with anger at the end of his sentence, the drunk women on his guest's lap slowly slipping to her feet and slinking back against the wall with her peers. The other men around the table merely shuffled uncomfortably, suddenly overly interested in various parchments on the table around them or even clumps of hlaf eaten food on their plates. Ignatious neither moved nor spoke. Instead merely watching the human lord, his own expression indistinguishable behind his mask. Osfrid merely slunk away to the reception area, the four knights taking positions on the outskirts of his peripherals. The knight closest to Ignatius's left was taking quick and angered breaths - struggling to compose and discipline himself after the embarrassment of his tumble.

  Stanier shook his head sarcastically as he continued, "Well? What do you want Ignatious? Why are you here without my Invitation?"

  Ignatious cocked his head slightly at this statement, his voice cooing deeply with the threat of laughter. "Invitation?" Ignatious took another step forward, his staff clanging heavily on the stone floor, the four guards behind him taking a half step with him. "Why... my Lord Stanier... a millennia ago I walked the among the fields and hills of the very land this tower is built upon. I can recall easily when this country was unspoiled and undotted by your species clumsy architecture."

  Ignatious took another long step, this time bringing his massive armored physique to the foot of the table, causing the man closest to him to shift uncomfortably to furthest edge of his chair. Ignatious placed a hand down casually onto the wooden table, brushing aside food scraps to reveal a parchment underneath. He brought the parchment to his face and examined it. It was report on grain and oat harvest projections to the frontline for the surrounding countryside, with an empty space at the bottom for Lord Stanier's signature.

Ignatious growled, "So you must forgive my reluctance to accept that I require your "invitation" to return the very lands that we grant you residence."

  Stanier's face curled in disgust, but his tone at last seemed to have found it's place. "Of course my lord." Stainer grimaced, "I, like my forefathers before me can only express our gratitude for the guidance and support of The Alvain Alliance ... I only meant that Abronycius did not send word that you would be visiting us Ignatious. We haven't had to proper time to prepare for you arrival. I mean, i can put togeter a report but it may take a few days for us -"

  Ignatious interrupted sharply, his voice booming deeply over the small confines of the room. "That is Lord Abronycius para Invantis and Lord Ignatious pre Virtutem. Surely I do not need to explain to the lord of Genovia Cross about the importance of respected titles."

  Stanier ground his teeth, respoding in kind through their grit, "Of course not. My sincerest apologies Lord Ignatious pre Virtutem. I meant no disrespect to yourself or Lord Abronycious. I simplyy must insist however that you return tomorrow so we are bettered prepared to discuss... whatever it is you deemed worthy of visiting for. See, we almost exclusively deal with Lord Abronycious, and he didn't inform me that he was sending you."

"The treaties your ancestors signed are clear Lord Stanier. As the leader of the demnse of Genovia Cross you answer to the Alvain Assembly through the ambassadorship of Abronycious, not to Abronycious para Invantis directly." Ignatious discarded the neglected report onto the ground at his feet and returned his sights on the man at the head of the table. "And despite what Abronycious para Virtutem may have told you I most assuradly do not answer to him" Ignatious twisted the heavy staff in his hand once again, it's metal frame grinding loudly against the stone beneath his feet. At the tip of the staff the flume of fire perputually burning at the heart of the staff blossomed briefly between the jagged forks at the staff's head before simmering back into their nest once again.

  Lord Stanier merely chuckled under his breath and took a long swip of the wine in his cup before signaling a nervous looking young woman to refill it. The woman refilled his glass while the entire room watch, her hands tremoring as the wine filled her lord's cup. Ignatious merely picked up another parchment, examining it with the same casual curiosity as the first. It was a written summary of legal complaint featuring a pretty dispute between two minor human nobles. The parchment was wine stained and crumpled, and it too had the disappointed air of a parchment that would never be read.
"I have been asked to inquire on behalf of the Alvain Assembly as to recent irregularities in supply shipment's from Genovia Cross. I have been lead to believe that we are now on the third consecutive month of missed quotoas on both coarse grains and crossbow ammunition." Ignatious discarded the parchment in his head and took in the room's inhabitants once again. Everyone but Lord Stanier was staring down meekly at their plates and the serving women were pressed up against the wall with an intensity that implied they were trying to pass through the gaps in the mortar. "The Assembly and I were hoping we could better understand the conditions here in Genovia Cross."   "The conditions here in Genovia Cross?!" Stanier parroted back at him. "The conditions are that we are at fucking war my lord. Surely that should be apparent to anyone of your station by now. It's been nearly eight fucking years of your war nowm and quite frankly were running short on both patience and men to work the fields." Ignatious heard a few murmurs of agreement from the men seated around him - the first signs of life from these bloated wrecks since Ignatious had first entered the room.   "My war?" Ignatious purred menacingly, "I do not believe that it was I who killed my brother and stole his title and lands. That was the man you now call the "Traitor King" wasn't it? Nor was it the Alvain who caused the famine in Bareshield."   Marcius shook his head softly, the metal plate of his helmeted mask looking even more menacing in the dim dance of lantern-light.   "No, it was you humans who did that. It was you humans behind a list of atrocities since before your grandfather's grandfather stacked the first stones of this wretched tower."   Marcius idly ran his gloved fingers along the rim of the table. It truly was a marvelous piece of furniture. Nearly twenty feet long and carved from a single piece of wood. Ignatious even felt a ping of pity that the craftsman responsible for its construction was likely long dead - yet another recipient of the lesser races' great gift of mortality.   "Make no mistake Lord Stanier. This is humanity's war, and history will not care one war or another which noble houses sided one way or the next if the destruction of this continent continues."   Stanier growled in contempt and tossed the empty plate in front of him carelessly aside. "This is ridiculous Ignatious. I refuse to be lectured and belittled by anyone in my own fucking castle." Stanier gestiulated wildly, "Why are you even here? Where is Lord Abronycius?! Abronycius handles my family's relationship with Alvantes - not you! He has worked with my family since by great-grandfather held my title. He understands me, he understands my people, and you he understand the sacrifices I've made to ensure people like... you can continue to use this war for your own private benefit!"   Stanier was growing increasingly angry, and his sour mood seemed to trickle down to the men at his side. They too were now glaring down the long table at Ignatious pre Virtutem, they're plump ugly faces distorted with sneers and villainous thoughts. "You think that I don't know about you Ignatious - but I do! Abronycius told me all about you... he told me you're a sniveling coward who relies on cunning and brute force because you're too stupid or stubborn to accomplish anything of merit. He says you wear that armour because you think it makes you look strong, but inside that shell you're a weak, immaciated runt who's grasp of the arcane arts is less than a human arcanist."   Ignatious felt the crackle of electricty uncurl slowly within his chest - a shivering snake of patient rage that had begun to quicken at the sign of a new release. Stanier did not notice the change in Ignatious however - how could it when the alvain was concealed completely in his suit of armor. So the Lord of Genova Cross pressed on. "Abronycius told me everything about you. He said despite all your posturing and projection you do waht you're told and consider yourself his rival despite never stepping an inch outside of his shadow. He said he knew you when you were a child, and that when you were young you -" Ignatious cut him off suddenly, his voice hissing like the heated edge on sharprened blade.   "Abronycius para Invantis is dead."   A silence rushed into the room with a force that seemed to pull the air out of Lord Stanier's lungs. The colour drained from his face, and he slunk down pathetically into his chair. "W-what?"   "Abronycious' position was overrun by rebel forces and he was forced to make his escape via the sea. From what I understand he was harassed by the Stormbreak Island Navy and refused to surrender. His vessel sunk a dozen miles from shore and there were few survivors. One of them saw Abronycius dissapear beneath the waves and not resurface."   The room was speechless, it's inhabitants unable to meet each other's eyes. Along the wall to his left Ignatious heard a woman sobbed softly into her hands. "A ceremony will be held in his honor in Alvantes. I understand the entire Alvain Assembly will be in attendance." Ignatious sighed loudly, "While I must give admittance that Abronycius para Invantis and I had found ourselves at... disagreement as of late, the death of any immortal is of incomprehisble horror for me. The Kaldari must pay for this atrocity, and the countless before it."   Ignatious took another deep breath, feeling the jittery crackle of arcane power smolder once again deep in his chest. "Which is why it is imperative that Genovia Cross continues to do it's part for the war effort."   "Our part?!" Stanier barked, his arms flailing about him dramatically as he spoke, "I've sent a generation of my demesne's son and daughters to fight in this war! Goddess' Mercy Ignatious I buried my brother and nephew in this last year alone! What more could we possibly give to you that has not been taken already?!"   Stanier's words rang along the stone walls, drowned out only by the affirmative grumbles and urges of agreement from the table, the men flanking Stanier at the table seemed to have at long last found their mettle. The guard to Ignatious' left lowered his hand a half inch closer to the sword at his side.   "I understand the pain of your loss Lord Stanier. But while your family has the sympathies of Alvantes I have been sent here to remind you that your responsibilites here at Genovia Cross take precedence of your... slow descent into decadence, gluttony, and... self-pity." Ignatious gestured broadly to the room around him.   The silence now gripped the room with such intensity that the only sound that could be heard was flickering candlelight on the table between them, anchored down by slow, rythmatic rings of Ignatious' echoing breath filtered through the steel carapace of his helmet. Stanier merely stared at Ignatious - red faced and clenched jawed - with the mix of arrogance and disgust that only the highest born form of humanity seemed capable of mustering.   "Get."   "The fuck."   "Out."   The silence poured back into the room as quickly as Stanier's words had chased it away. Ignatious' breathing hissing in and out through the steel filters in his mask in objective defiance to the deafening spell cast on the room.   "I hope for your sake Stanier, that you are far drunker than you appear, because if you would think for a moment that - "   "GET OUT!"   Stanier hurled his goblet across the table, falling short of the table's edge and splashing the final legs of it's volume along the table's length and causing the men seated around it to wince suddenly and flinch away from the projectile. Sensing the moment to redeem his earlier embarrassment, the knight to Ignatious' left reached at last for the sword at his hip.   Ignatious was far too fast for the man.   Before the hilt had been pulled more than a few inches from the scabbard Ignatious' left hand clamped around the guard's forearm, locking it in place. The man grunted in surprise for half a hearbeat before Ignatious squeezed. The plate on the man's arm held for the briefest of moments before crumpling under the Alvain's powerful grip. The man's forearm was a trivial matter after that and he screamed in surprise and pain as the bones in his arm shattered. Ignatious heard something incomprehensible from the guard to his right - a plea to stop perhaps?   It was far too late for that of course.   The crackle of power had been building in Ignatious' chest had been building since he begin his climb to the top of the north tower, and now it was screaming within him - an insatiable inferno of rage, hunger, and vindication that was as at long last being unchained.   Ignatious looked at the man before him, wailing and whimpering in pain - his ill advised attempt at redemption only a few seconds ago already forgotten to him. "You were a fool to try."   Ignatious released his hold on the hungering flame within his soul, and shuttered as it erupted within him and filled his body with a ecstatic surge of magical arcane power. Ignatious surged that power through him and into his left arm, muttering a chorus of spell under his breath as he did so.   The knight exploded in whirlwind of flame - incinerating him into a pile of ash and red iron before the man had the time to sream. The flames exploded outward from the epicenter in long lashing whips of white hot flame, igniting tapestries and filling the room with blinding hot light that caused those further from the blast to shield their face and caused the unfortunate nobleman sitting closest to the blast to scream in pain as hot red blisters formed and seared on his now leathery red face. The guard behind the incinerated knight was caught directly in the chest by the lash - a vertical streak of pure heat that melt the outer layer of his plate armour from his hip to his shoulder - causing the man to howl incomprihensibly in pain as the metal shell on his chest melted into his boiling skin. The man crumpled to the ground flailing wildly as the ashen corpses of the first guard already began to crumble under the weight of it's scorched and cindering armour.   The room was in a storm of chaos now, men and women pushing and fighting to simultaneously get away from the inferno while somehow moving to the exit behind Ignatious. At the end of the room, Lord Stanier merely sat in his chair the end of the table, his eyes wide and his mouth half open in shocked horror.   To his right, Ignatious saw the glimmer of movement and the flash of steel before the guard to his right brought his sword down against Ignatious - aiming high to remove the towering Alvain's head from his pauldrons. Ignatious merely shifted his weight slightly and tipped to head of his staff to intercept the man's aggressive blow. The sword caught the staff high, just before it's clawed, crown like tip - ringing sharply as the steel of his sword met the with heavily enchanted and reinforced frame of Ignatious' Pyromancer Warstaff. The man's sword cracked loudly a piece of the blade flew across the room, causing a women to gasp in surprise as it found home in her flesh. The fire within Ignatious burned hotter, salivating with liquid flame at the new acquisition. A spout of flame licked hungrily upwards from the tip of the warstaff, and Ignatious brought the weapon's massive metal frame around his body with a inhuman speed - crashing it horizontally against the knight's frame and crumpling the man's body and armour with a sickening wrench of metal and cracking shatter of spine.   Ignatious stepped over the man's lifeless body without concern, rounding now on the final guard - his sword drawn and held out in front of him with shaking hands. Briefly, in the back of his mind Ignatious considered letting the man live. He had not attacked Ignatious yet - and was no doubt merely wishing to protect and serve his liege lord. Loyalty was a trait he admired in his humans after all.   But The Pyromancer had been unleashed now, and there would be no considerations for the preservation of assets until the Pyromancer had been appeased.   Ignatious reached out with his left hand - feeling out through the space between them with his mind - probing for the man's body through through arcana - muttering the incantations softly as he did so. The steel in the last knight's armour made him easy to find, and the fear radiating from him like a stench made his body's natural magical defenses easy to overcome. Ignatious effortlessly lifted the man - armour plate and cloaked - three feet into the air. The man whimpered in surprise his fear now running out from him in heavy waves. Ignatious savored the man's powerlessness for a second. Then another.   Then the Pyromancer ignited the man; he began to scream.   The room filled with firelight once again, this time an oppressively wall of heat and light that filled every corner of the room and chased the shadows of the room into the deepest shallows and corners. The room's panicked increased, as the remaining inhabitants justled and screamed as they nearly trampled each other in their selfish escape from the pyromancer and his flames. Some of the room's inhabitants had already succumbed to flames and smoke and were now slumped over each other lifelessly on the ground or crawling along the floor aimlessly as whimpering bags of cindering clothing and melting skin. The majority were screaming in panic as they slipped through the double doors behind Ignatious, the heavy black smoke pouring through the archway behind them.   But Ignatious simply watched the knight burn as the poor souls' body was kept levitated in the air with a negligible fraction of the Alvain's power. At some point the knight had stopped screaming, either because the man had given into shock and unconsciousness or the flames had simply seared off his remaining nerve endings and he no longer felt their burning kiss. It didn't matter. Ignatious took no joy in the suffering of humans. No more than he took joy in their happiness at any rate. No... the pyromancer merely watched as his flames danced along the man's body, confusing his flesh and cloth and twisting the melting slags of his armour into a dripping pool of molten metal beneath him.   It was beautiful. It was always beautiful.   Ignatious watched the display for a time - either a heartbeat or an eternity, he knew not which. But when the flames had had their fill and retreated from the knight's charred husk the burning power inside Ignatious has simmered down to a slow boil as well.   Ignatious sighed deeply, suddenly feeling the fatigue of the past few weeks settle in. This release was good. He had needed it.   He turned his attention back to room before him. The entire left wall was engulfed in flames, the heavy tapestry cascading down it's length an orgy of fuel for the inferno he had unleashed. Flames and dark sinister smoke swirled around the room - the heavy wooden frame of the tower's ceiling groaning from the heat. But within his seal armoured the pyromancer was at peace.   Ignatious' gaze fell upon the sihoutte of a man at the back of the room, coughing and pressed up against the back wall, his features obscured by unmistakable through the smog.   "Lord Stanier. it would have been wiser for you to have fled with the rest of your advisors." Ignatious strode slowly towards the Lord of Genovia Cross, the weakened floorboard's beneath his heavy form wheeping in protest from his weight. Ignatious approached the long, heavy table between himself and Stanier, and with a single hand he lifted it's end off the ground and hurled it's immense frame against the flame infested wall to his left. The table shattered on impact, cracking with an explosion to rival thunder as flaming wooden shrapnel hurled out to patter harmlessly against the pyromancer's armour. Lord Stanier was not so fortunate however, and yelped with pain as a piece of flaming debris found it's mark in his thigh. With nothing between them now, Ignatious closed the distance across the room with a few strides of his long legs.   Lord Stanier gasped for air amidst choking on the soot and smoke now coating every surface of the room. Tossing his frantic attention rapidly from the wooden steak now impaled in his right left, to the advancing armoured pyromancer approaching him rapidly, and the wideset open window he was half pressed against in consideration of escape. Ignatious almost laughed at the idea. They had climbed at least a hundred stairs to reach the top of this tower and the window Stanier was pressed against opened out high above the battlements below them. A good seventy foot drop at least - more than enough to ensure a fatal fall and a slow death.   But the lord of Genovia Cross had just seen what the pyromancer was capable of, and was no doubt only a few moments away from deciding which form of death was better than the other, but Ignatious was upon the man before he could make his decision. Ignatious wrapped his massive hand around the man's bird-like neck and lifted his weight off the ground like it was nothing. Ignatious stared into the man's eyes... they were cold, grey and filled with the panic and fear that all men had when they knew they were in their final minutes.   Lord Stanier's hands flailed helplessly against Ignatious' arm, his fingernails scraping against the pearl white paint of his armored forearm. The man stuttered a few sounds through his suffocation - getting only a handful of syllables out before Ignatious could slowly choke them away.   "P-please.... I'm... s-s-sorry..."   Ignatious shook his head. A slow purposeful movement that held none of the anger and rage he had unleashed only a few moments ago. There was a time when this might have been personal for Ignatious. When the thought of tearing the doors down on the arrogant human nobility to rip them screaming and burning from their stone bunkers. Ignatious had dreamed of such moments in the past - even dreamt about them at time. But now he just felt numb to the pointlessness of the ordeal. The whole experience was rather... disappointing.   "I'm afraid the time for deference and appeasement has passed Lord Stanier. Your opportunities to remedy the situation have been exhausted and it is now clean to me that a change in leadership is required in Genovia Cross."   Ignatious released his grip by a fraction, just enough to let Stanier speak. The man's face was now brihgt red and his eyes were bloodshot and bulging. He even had tears streaming down the side of his face now. "How curious," Ignatious thought.   "P-please.... my lord... don't.... don't do this." Each syllable seemed to cost Stanier a portion of oxygeon that he was rapidly in short supply of. Between each word the man's mouth was opening and closing like a stupid fish run up against hte shore. He was dying and he knew it. Ignatious tightened his grip.   "P-please... I have... a family. M-my... son." The tears were now flowing freely down Stanier's face, the burning inferno of flames that now surrounded them reflected on their surface like they were tiny glass mirrors. It was beautiful.   "Then I hope for you family's sake the new Lord of Genovia Cross is more prepared for his responsibilities than his late father."   Stanier was now kicking wildly at ignatious, his feed bouncing feebly against his thick steel plate, fighting against the certainly of a the death now promised to him.   "Goodbye Lord Stanier."   Ignatious reached out in his mind, once again nudging the cracking electricty deep in his chest. The inferno was still there, napping sluggishly after it's recent expenditure - but it roared to life within him at it's beckon, filling his body and limbs with the same intoxicating power and vitality as before.   The flame at the end of Ignatious' staff was now fully ignited, blasting forth with a white hot intensity that drowned out even the burning room around them.   Stanier screamed as he burned.             A dozen knights stood at the bottom of the staircase of the north tower in Genovia Cross, their swords drawn and ready, and shields raised towards the stairs. The long ceremonial capes the knights ussually wore had been removed, and were now pooled among themselves in haphazard islands of fine cloth in scattered collections of cloth on the hall's polished stone floors. Osfrid looked nervously from the knights in front of him to the hall's large archy way to his back. He had sent a servant to summon the Lord's reserve bodyguards, the gate guards, and the east tower's garrison - but even then he didn't think it would be enough. Osfrid made sure to keep as many of the knights between himself and the staircase as possible. Each of the men was a trained warrior - sworn and prepared to give their life in defense of thier lord and lands. But Osfrid has seen how the Alvain moved through the knights at the tower's height. He saw the man shatter steel with his bare hands and ignite two of the lord's bodyguard in a single moment. Osfird could still hear their screaming but that wasn't what made his hands keep shaking. No - it was the smell that was doing that. The unmistakable smell of burning flesh slung to the inside of his nostril like an invasive layer of soot and brine. Each breath of air he took in filled his lungs with the crackling flesh and bone. Osfrid had tried to breath through his nose instead, hoping that if he did so he could escape the haunting smell.   Instead he could taste it.   Osfrid took another long breath of air through his nose. Setting himself to stop his trembling hands from shaking and considering how foolish it would look if he were to empty his stomach in the middle of the hall right now. Poor Millie had polished the floor just this past 4th - she would have a fit if he was to vomit on her floor now.   Osfrid laughed. A short high pitched yelp of a laugh that surprised him and drew the curious glance of the two knight's closest to him. "Have I gone mad?" Osfrid thought? He hoped not, but considering what he had witnessed in the tower just ten minutes prior it was a possibility worth considering at a later time. "If you get a later time" Osfrid correct himself.   Yes, quite possible mad.   Osfrid returned his attention to the room around him, the guards each engaged with each other in a well-practiced defensive position. Their swords were all angled towards the base of the narrow stone staircase - ready to stab forward as a single unit should the Alvain assailant prove to have somehow surivved the inferno he had unleashed. "Perhaps he simply flew away? Or perhaps he hopped off the top of the tower and is already on his way back to Alvantes? Can his kind fly? For the life of him Osfrid couldn't remember. He was certain he knew the answer, but for some reason he just couldn't stack the thoughts together properly in his head. It was if the world disarranged itself in the last few minutes and he was suddenly a stranger in a new country.   It suddenly occurred to Osfird that he didn't really have a reason to be there anymore. He was not a warrior, nor was he a general. He had done what could have been expected of him. He ran and gathered the knights he could - even thought that summon the reinforcements while the other of the lord's advisors were content to scramble and flee for the perceived safety of their own person guards. Osfrid could leave... He could even slip out the back quietly, the knight's attention was focused intently on the stairway before them. If anyone asked he could simply say he left to check on the reinforcements. I mean... what more could they expect from him? If the alvain was capable of both unleashing the horror on the north tower and surviving it and cutting his way through the dozen guards that sat between... Godess knows Osfrid certainly wouldn't be able to stop the armored behemoth.   Clang.... Clang... Clang...   The sound echoed down the staircase. The knights raised their shields in tense anticpation. "This can't be possible." Osfrid thought.   But the sound grew louder.   Clang.... Clang... Clang...   It immistakbel. THe heavy methodic ringing of that accursed alf's armor. The heavy clang of metal on stone with each step and strike of his murdeous weapon.   Clang.... Clang... Clang...   The Alvain was coming. He was alive and he was going to murder last one of them in this fucking castle.   Clang.... Clang... Clang...   "Why are you still here?" The more sensible part of Osfrid's mind asked him. Osfrid didn't reply. He may have gone mad but that didn't' mean he was just going to give in and start talking to himself.   Clang.... Clang... Clang...   The steps were closer now, he was surely about to round the final bend. This was his chance to leave. His last chance to live. But he stayed, his ash covered feet either unwiling or unable to unroot him from this spot. He wanted to be. He had to be sure. Ignatious had to be dead.   Clang.   The sound stopped. The alvain had reached the bottom of the stairs and was no doubt concealed it he deep shadow that permeated the staircase beyond the faint torch of the hall's lighting. The knights between the stairwell and Osrid shuffled slightly - a tense and nervous energy that seemed to almost scream in rhyme with the similar silence in the north tower.   Then the shadow moved, and Osfrid realized in horror that Ignatious was not concealed in the deep shadows of the stairwell - he simple was the shadow. A massive black form shuffled slowly into the hall. A towering suit of nightblack armor wielding a massive warstaff that swayed forward with the man with a visible weight. Ignatious' once pearl-white plate armor was now coated in a thick layer of black-grey ash, gibing him a haunting shapeless figure of soft black. The massive alvain strode slowly forward, his pace the slow and purposeful stalk of death itself - his expression unreadbale behind the steel helmet that conceal his face.   Every inch of the man's armour was chalky and black. Expect for his his eyes. The lenses on his helmet were thin and sharp, but they glowed faintly orange - like the last lingering embers of smoldering fire.   The knights closest to Ignatious took a half step backwards. The another. Their swords were drawn and pointed but the order to attack was not given. The hall was filled with a silence that olly Ingatious' heavy mettalic breaths seemed to fill. Osfrid knew at that moment that if he lived throughtonight he woudl hear those breaths in his dreams until the day that he died.   A knight at the flank of the formation tire gus eyes from Ignatious to glance apprehensively at his peers. A few returned the glance with nervous consideration. It suddenly occured to Osfrid that these men would not - could not - bring themsleves to bring their sword against an alvain. Even one that had jsut gruesomely murdered a half dozen of thier kin. "Obedience will be our downfall," Osfrid throught.   Whether Ignatious realized this truth about the armed men before him, or simply bore no concern about the deadly threat of their blades, Osfrid coudl not be sure. But Ignatious merely looked down at his soiled armor and patted himself clumsily with his left hand, stirring a thin cloud of soot and ash into the air around him. A knight coughed quietly, a violation of the oath of silence the entire room seemed to be apart of.   "Manservant." Ignatious croaked. A low guttural growl that somehow sounded both regal and barbaric at the same time.   "Y-yes my Lord." Osfrid responded, almost impulsively.   "I request your forgiveness, but in all of the excitement earlier I seem to have forgotten your name."   Osfrid simply stared at the Alvain, his mouth hanging half open with confusion and disbelief. Perhaps he was madder than he thought?   "M-my name, m'lord?"   Ignatious nodded slowly. The knights between them lowered their swords a fraction of an inch.   "My name is Osfrid. If it pleases you."   What possible reason could he want to know this? Why doesn't he just kill us already?   "Osfird. Yes. I remember now. Thank you." Ignatious strode slowly forward, passing his way through the thickest portion of the knight's formation, each of the men-at-arms circling slowly out of his but still with their swords drawn. Ignatious continued to close the distance, seemingly oblivious to or uninterested in the knight's intent.   "Osfrid, am I to understand that in the absence of the Lord of Genevoia Cross, it is yourself who is in charge of this land's administration?" Ignatious asked with surprising air of curiosity.   "M-me my lord? I mean... for certain matter I suppose. But for military concerns the matter would be -" Ignatious sileneced Osfrid with a wave of his hand.   "No matter Osfrid, your consideration for duty will suffice for now."   Osfrid swallowed, and he considered yet again whether it woudl be appropriate for him to throw up right now.   "I regret to inform you all that Lord Stanier has been found guilty of dereliction of his duties and been executated on suspicion for holding sympathies with enemies of the Alvain Loyalist Alliance."   The knights surrounding Ignatious gasped in despair, raising their blades up once again and stepping a half inch closer to the alvian. Osfrid wished they would stop.   "I'm sorry to hear of... of Lord Stanier's... condition... Lord Ignatious pre Virtutem."   Ignatious sighed heavily. A raspy metallic sound that made the singed hair on the back of Osfrid's neck stand up. "Under the hereditary inheritance laws of Genovia Cross and The Kingdom of Astoria, it his the lord's oldest son who is now in charge of the demesne of Genovia Cross, is it not?   Osfrid nodded. "Yes. He is but a boy though. Only his eleventh winter."   "Of course. But I understand you humans grow up rather quickly, don't you ?" Osfrid had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that. So he just nodded. Thankfully that seemed to appease the alvain.   "Since the new Lord of Genova Cross will no doubt require time to grieve the death of his late father, I think it best that I leave my instructions with you Osfrid."   "Your... instructions... sir?"   "Yes," Ignatious replied patiently, "the instructions I came all the way to Genova Cross to delver myself."   Osfird nodded sharply, the knot in the pit of his stomach slowly loosening. Perhaps he doesn't intend to kill us after all...   Ignatious spoke, slowly and clearly to ensure the entire room could hear him. "The Grand Marshall believes we are in the stages of this war, and an aggressive push now will mean we have the opportunity to end this treasonous rebellion now instead of in the next decade. Do you understand me so far Osfrid?"   He nodded slowly.   "Genova Cross has missed fourteen of the last twenty two quotas. This is detrimental to the war effort and must be remedied at once."   Osfrid nodded again.   "If Genova Cross fails to meet its obligations to it's countrymen, the alvain, and the Grand Marshall - I will return here myself and replace the new Lord Stanier with someone who can meet this land's obligations."   Osfrid nodded. The knights around him had lowered their swords to their waists.   Ignatious began his purposeful march again, strolling past Osfrid and leaving him and the dozen knights behind - a dense trail of ash and soot tailing behind the alvain as he made his way to the hall's exit. The room's inhabitants simply walked the man leave, seemingly incapable of mustering the will to even offer to pretense of protest of his violation of their home. Right before he exited through the archway Ignatious stopped - and Osfrid felt himself and the knights to his side tense up immediately.   But Ignatious merely turned her black-scarred masks and set his glowering amber eyes on Osfird. "I will see you again Osfrid. I trust for your sake it will be under more polite circumstances than this."   Ingatious left, leaving nothing behind but his trail of ashen footprints and the heavy mettalic clang of his armour fadiing down the hallway.   Then - suddenly and with little warning - Osfrid puked.    

---

The Sculptor

    The city of Kaluswind was built along the northeast corner of the ocean shore. Nestled into a fertile patch of land between The Kallus Cliffs and the Shatterfrost Sea the walled city of fishermen and farmers was no stranger to hardship even before the war started. A long, jutting expanse of land to the north of Astoria lurked behind the cover of the Northern Astoria Mountain Range, and the uncivilized men and monsters who made that wild land their home hardly let more than a handful of winters pass between each of their raids. This, the ice cold sea water that was the city's lifeblood, and the particularly harsh bite of winter made Kaluswind an unpopular place to for people to visit, and a downright miserable place for anyone to live.   Even worse, there was a heavy, miserable fog hanging over the city of Kaluswind as of late. The kind of miserable thing that sulked into the deep corners of one's mind and sat there - sulking like an impetuous child - so that even if the more resilient of Kaluswind's residents had gathered the will to force a artificial sense of cheeriness they would have only done so with the uncomfortable certainly that they were in fact... anything but cheery. Which made sense considering that the people in Kaluswind had very little to be cheerful about lately.   The sugar rations had once again been lowered this winter and any hopes that the enforcement of quotas on meat and salt being released were quickly dashed with the recent news from the warfront. The Cascadians had routed The 3rd Fleet and now any hopes the city of Kaluswind had of resupply from the Shattered Coast were dashed. It had been a hard winter for Kaluswind - not that there was any other - and there had even been some hope of things changing with the arrival of Spring just a dozen days earlier. This hope too was dashed - as the miserable fog had settled down into the old bones of the city on the 3rd of Spring and had shown no interest in dislodging itself from it's wretched perch between the damp wooden houses and cobblestone pathways. The fog was easily the densest that anyone still living in Kaluswind had ever seen, although an old sailor at the South Pub boasted loudly about a deeper fog he saw in Rystanburg thirty years prior to all who would listen. The fog in Kaluswind seemed unnaturally stubborn. It would form thick opaque walls in whatever direction you seemed most interested in travelling - seemingly always no more than four feet in front of you. It gave the air a strange metallic taste and took on an penetrating chill in the evenings that somehow ignored however many layers of furs one stacked up against it.   The citizens of Kaluswind knew their city of course, so it was rare for anyone to get turned about for longer than a few minutes, but the think trickle of traders and merchants who dared brave this close to the warfront were often swallowed whole but the fog only turn to up disheveled and disoriented a few hours later on the other side of the city. A glassblower's apprentice even vanished one evening on his way home from the tavern. He and two lads from the docks were dousing their frustrations and worries with wine and lagers before the trio split up to return home a few hours before the morning horn. The marshal searched his home and found no evidence of foul play - but the apprentice's landlord insisted she never the young man return in the evening. The man's sudden disappearance was of course an incessant source of gossip and rumor for the entire city. Word was that even Lord Sheffield had taken a lordly interest in the boy's disappearance, although the disappearance of someone trained in a trade like glassblowing was perhaps something a lord should be doing.   A search party was formed for the lad, nearly half of the East District had turned up to volunteer, and they combed through each district, street, alley, and corner of the city of Kaluswind for the better part of three days. However by the end of the week though the excitement and mystery of the glassblower's disappearance had faded away, and the excited theories of Lycean manstealers and Kaldari Recruiters all faded away with the accepted reality that the Glassblower had simply died in the middle of the night and the damn fog made it so hard to see that nobody had found his body yet. By the start of the 1st day of the 3rd week of spring hardly anyone who didn't know the glassblower was even thinking about him anymore. Attentions turned once again to recent news from the warfront and the more recent grossips that snaked thier way through Kaluswinds.   The fog stayed heavy over Kaluswind deep into the 3rd week of spring. Across the gloomy city of damp stone and timber the citizens bustled and worried each day the same way they had the day before - hardly any time to stop and cherish the fleeting years of their mortal human lives. No, life in Kaluswind was far too loud and too busy for that.   It was precisely because of this that nobody could hear the Glassblower's Apprentice scream.   Deep beneath the musky wooden building of Kaluswind and the tangled connection of piping and sewers beneath it rested the old catacombs. A half collapsed network of subterranean hallways and narrow jutting nooks, the catacombs were "old" long before the first human settlers in the valley had settled here - likely constructed millennia ago in the age long before humanity first sprouted from the banks of Astorian River. The catacombs had been discovered well over a century ago but pure happenstance. A sudden unsettlement of earth beneath the city was discovered by some workers during an expansion phase of the city's sewer system. It had exposed the upper portion of a heavy metal door with what had likely been intricate carvings on it's heavy iron face but were now erased by an age and a half of attrition and sediment.   Despite the barriers dilapitated state, it took four strong men armed with iron spikes to pry the heavy door from its hinges - exposing the narrow, twisting hallway that opened up deeper into the belly of the earth. The discovery was of course of immense excitement to the fledging city - who hoped that such an exciting archelogical find would at last put their lackluster home on the maps. The lord of Kaluswind ordered the selection of an excavation and exploration team to explore the depths - eager to reveal the lost fortunes and sunked history beneath their city. The explorers spent the next week in a nearly constant stake of discovery, dislodging dirt and debris to reveal even more corridors, welded doorways, and shattered statues of unrecognizable origin.   The entire city was still holding its breath in excitement, the building sense of discovery only growing with each passing day - when word reached back to Alvantes. Intrigued by the discovery a group of Kinderstarke arrvied from Stolzetrum in short order. Half a dozen Kinderstarke men and women who carried with them the sort of patient wisdom that only an immortal archeologist could wield with such casualness. They spent little more than a half week investigating the catamcombs while the Kaluswind residents who had been previously plunging into it's depth waited anxiously outside - their presence an unwanted distraction to the formal inspectors. In the end the team returned and revealed that the "ancient" discovery was anything but - merely a millenia old foundational substructure for a long forgotten Kinderstarke palisade. Nothing of value was inside, however they did determine that the catacombs were dangerously unstable and it was only by the Goddess' mercy that the cavern had not collapsed on the clumsy explorers who had preceded them. At the Kinderstarke Expedition's request, Lord Sheffield banned any future explorations of the catacombs and with the assistance of Stolzetrum they capped the entrance to the catacombs off with a heavy iron door, sealed and protected by a set of powerful arcane enchantments.   This of course took much of the excitement and mystery out of the old Kaluswind catacombs and the city's gossip quickly turned to new topics of excitment and intrigue (The Lord Sheffield's nephew had been caught with an uncomfortably young girl and word had gotten out despite the noble family's best interests.) Some of the more stubborn or conspiratorial human's refused to move on form the subject of the catacombs. Instead they spread rumors and theories of Kinderstark gold being stolen by the "dwarfs bastards" from under their very nose, or even outlandish theories of ancient dragon skeletons being discovered in the catacombs. The exact treasure being stole or hidden changed with each retelling, but in the end the legend of the catacombs took on a life of their own after this event - being retold and revised with each passing generation so that now almost two centuries later the humans in Kalusiwnd still exchanged stories of the ancient treasures locked in the vaults beneath Kaluswind.   There was of course, absolutely no treasures locked in the catacombs of Kaluswind. Not unless you counted privacy of course - which The Sculptor did in fact count. It was because of the catacomb's near-mythic nature and presumed inaccessibility that Gregorovich had chosen them as the location for his current workshop. He had been working from the side-basement cellar of an old farmhouse in Central Highland Region of Kaldaria before coming here. The farmhouse had been mostly suitable - the farm's owners were too old to tend to their homestead now and any children they may have had showed little interest in their familial estate. He had originally intended to set up in the farmhouse for a few weeks - a month at most - but the inattentive nature of the caretakers was a surpising boon for Gregorovich. He ended plying his art in that dank moldy basement for two winters before being discovered. He had no idea what brought the old man to venture into the basement for the first time in two years, but when he heard the horrible sound of the old man's shuffling steps outside the shed's door he had little choice but to ensure the old man's silence. His arrival had surprised Gregorovich more than it should have. He was unfortunately deep in concentration working on a particularly obstinate piece at the time, so he didn't hear the old man until the last second and in his panic he had lashed out with the only thing he had in his hands. The sculptor had knocked the man into a loose heap with a single blow with the mallet in his hand. The second blow ensured the injury was fatal. The third blow was mostly born of frustration.   So The Sculptor left the farmhouse cellar and gathered his things to head north. Another winter was calling quickly on Alwaus and Gregorovich could already feel the deep cold begin to settle into his bones. He was hardly a young man himself anymore and the each winter seemed to hit him harder than the last. He had grown particularly frustrated last winter when they cold settle tightly into the knuckles of his liver-spotted left hand - causing a deep shaper pain whenever he tried to grip his tools too hard. He tried various remedies for the sensation, even trekking out to the nearest market city to inquire about more portent alchemical tonics. The apothecary was quick to offer suggestion and take The Sculptor's silver but in the end the perfumed chalky oil had done little to relieve the arthritis. Gregorovich had little interest in reliving the sensation for a second winter, so he took the incident with the farmer as an indicator it was time to move on.   The Sculptor moved north for the next year, stopping at various cities and locations of interest - always watchful for new inspirations or locations to set up a new (hopefully more permanent) workshop. Gregorovich even took the opportunity to meet with Kosutic, a long-time associate and fellow sculptor. It had been nearly ten years since the two men had last seen each other, and despite finding Kosutic in a new condition the two quickly fell into old steps with other - laughing and reminescing with old stories from when they were much younger men.   Art was so often a lonely affair, their sculptures more so than most, so the two old scultpors decided that perhaps it would be best if they moved along together now. The needless competitiveness that had existed between the two of them for most of their lives had long faded with their advanced age, and the simple pragmatism of a partnership now seemed far too appealing to give up for the sake of petty ego. Both men had their best years long behind them now - physically at least and Kosutic most of all - and a partnership now seemed the best chance for both men to at long last complete the masterpieces they had been chasing for their entire lives.   So it became that the two Sculptors joined together and continued their journey north into the Cascadian Peninsula in hopes of a suitable location large enough for their ambitions while discreet enough for the two old human men to avoid unwanted attention. They set up a few workshops over the next few years, plying their craft in various corners of the peninsula but careful never to stay rooted to a location too long. Inspiration was a fickle mistress during those years and it seemed to both men that a seditary nature was likely stifling their creativity. For weeks at a time the two men would stare at whichever uncarved canvas they have selected, discussing between the two of them the best additions and substractions to achieve the results the men wanted. Kosutic had become a refined minimalist in his winter years, and seemed to always suggest shaving, carving, or outright chopping in certain places that Gregorovich would have never considered worth note. Gregorovich, on the other hand, had only grown more ambitious as the years passed, and on more than one ocasion Kosutic had to veto the addition of a set of bat-like wings to a piece. It was a tumultuous partnership at times - one that neither men could have tolerated in the heat of thier youth - but they both saw the beneifts in the arrangement. Gregorvich was in fact producing some of the best woks of his life - even to his own ever increasing standards - and he found himself desperatley plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of his art, desperate to produce his masterpiece before his lifetime ran out.   Rumors of the catacombs in Kaluswind had reached Gregorovich around this time, and with some gentle persuasion Kosutic agreed to uproot his post in Cascadia and explore the rumors of the catacombs for themselves. They took no stock in the rumored treasure of course - both men were well educated and far too sensible to believe that the Kinderstark would have ever left anything of worth behind when they sealed the tunnels. Instead, what attracted the men to Kalusiwnd was the idea of an untouched, forgotten, and most importantly private area where they could set up their workshop and really focus on their craft. No disturbances, no distractions but with a bustling metropolitan just above thier head. A place where they can resupply, research, and most importantly acquire new canvas.   It didnt't take long for Gregorovich to find the entrance to the catacombs nestled deep in the city's feculent sewer system. The heavy iron seal the kinderstarke expedition had left on the access nearly two centuries prior still blocked the entranceway. It was a massive iron plate at least a foot thick that jutted deep into a heavy grove in the stone floor of the sewer - it's grimy surface carved with the emblem of Stolzetrum and the words "Dangerous - Do Not Enter Under Pain of Death" carved into it's face in deep, perfectly carved letter.. While the enchantments protecting the plate from the grime of elements had long since given way, the protective enchantments still prevented the worst of any would be Kaluswind treasure hunter from breaching it's archway. There was some heavy scratches cut deep into the sit of the plate near where it melded with the stone walls around it as if someone have tried to wedge a spike into the space where the seal met stone but the tooth was unable to find purchase - not that it would have done the intruder and good. The arcane enchantments placed on the seal would have stopped anything short of an ironclad from breaching it's iron face with brute force. Instead The Sculptor took a more delicate approach.   The enchantments placed on the seal had been powerful at one time - at least considering what they were designed to protect - but nearly two centuries of attrition had worn away the magical protections to the point that Gregorovich's cunning mind was able to dismantle them in the lesser part of an hour. He worked slowly as he peeled each layer of the magical propections back, careful not to disturb the delicate arcane sigils and holographic runic texts. Twice he had to stop and reference the collection of books he had brought with him into the sewers in order to ensure his pathway through the convoluted maze of kindertarke enchanting was at least pushing him in teh right direction. Once he had even stumbled into a portion of the code that jerked awaked from it's century old slumber - alerted to The Sculptors clumsy attempt at intrusion. Gregorovich didn't know what sort of retaliation he coudl expect from the old 'dwarfin technology but for a breif moment he felt certain that the enchanted defenses had been alert and he was about to face a sudden and painful death. Much to the sculptor's relief however, the old defenses had eroded away to the point that they either didn't notice the sculptor's intrusion or simply didn't care - and shortly afterwards Gregorovich was rewarded for his efforts with a slight crackle of static eletricty in the air between him and the Iron plate before it's heavy iron frame dislodged from it's century-long home in the stone frame with dramatic snap-hiss.   With a groaning roar the hear iron plate counter-clockwise spin on it's edge, filling the reeking tunnel with the unbearable sounds of iron scrapping and rolling alon unfinished stone. Gregorovich covered his ears with his hands to protect them fro the deafening clamour half-concerned that the sound would reverberate along the snaking stone sewer system and out of the crowed streets of Kaluswind above. But after a few seconds the plate rolled to a stop and the dank, dark sewer system seemed strangely quiet in the absence of the grinding iron plate. Before Gregorovich the section of sewerwall that the plate had been protected was now exposed. A series of brings can be broken away and removed from the wall; exposing the dark dry soil beneath it's stone facade beneath. A few strings of dead fauna clung desperately into the side of the soal, weaving in and out of the copper-red dirt like a set of infesting worms. But in the middle of the stone, soil, and roots was a crooked gash in earth - a dark jagged oval about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide at it’s largest point. From within this hole came the stench of stale air.   Gregorovich smiled. For the first time in nearly two-hundred years the catacombs beneath Kaluswind were finally open.   The two sculptors spend the next few weeks clearing out their space in the catacombs and moving their supplies and projects through the swersystem in the dead of night to be snuck through the jagged opening in the catacombs below. The two were careful to avoid the watchful eyes of the town guards and on more than one occasion they were forced to spend several hours waiting out stubborn patrols or even traverse a few miles further down the district to a less convenient but also less populated access point to the sewers. Gregorovich had to do most of the heavy lifting, as Kosutic’s days of physical labour were now long past him - a situation that would normally have caused Gregovich a great deal of annoyance at one time. But Greogrovich found himself unusually festive and hospitable during these weeks. The discovery of the catacombs had been encouraging and exactly the sort of breakthrough in fortune that the two had needed to find for their work. But the trip through wartorn Cascadian had and through to Kaluswind has been difficult for Gregorovich, and hauling their supplies through the disgusting miles of human shit and piss seemed to take an even larger tool on him still. He was becoming increasingly aware of how old he had become in these last years - and how precious little time was left to finish his masterpiece.   In the end though, the two sculptors were able to set up the finest workshop either of them had ever worked in. The catacombs themselves were mostly a jutting, half-collapsed section of corridors and hallways, but they chose the largest and most stable-looking of the remaining rooms to function as the workshop, while a smaller odd shaped room deeper in the ruins served as a bedchamber for Gregorovich, while Kosutic’s lack of need for any real privacy meant he could simply reside in the workshop full time.   The workshop was sectioned off into separate areas, the library and dry storage sat along the back left wall and quickly filled with the bland grains and dried vegetables that the sculptors subsided off of (their work had a habit of killing the appetites of most men and the two of them were no exception), while the immediate left to the entrance way was the curtained off area where Kosutic matriculated. The wall to the immediate right was of course a selection of coldboxes and wet storage, as well as the reserve apothecary supplies that was needed for the men’s work. The rest of the room was dedicated to work space: a wide unbroken series of carved stone tiles that quickly became sectioned off with cotton curtains and heavy wooden tables and platforms as the men set hungrily to their art.   It was here that the sculptor Gregorovich worked around the clock, stopping only to defecate, sleep, or eat when the pangs of hunger grew too much for the old man to bear. Time lost all meaning for the man in a way that it can only for a bemused old artist working a hundred feet underground. He measured time only in provisions, as the lamp and heating oil would need to be resupplied from the merchants in Kaluswind every second week or so. Their supply of food seemed to be surprisingly resilient however, and The Scluptor quickly lost tack of the last time he needed to resupply on the musky oats and moldy rations the two men had acquired.   Gregorovich had arisen earlier than usual that morning - or whatever could be considered morning down here. He had the rather urgent need to urinate, a urgency that his body had felt worth awakening him over. He lit a bent shriveled candle to give his old eyes some light and shuffled over to the grass chamberpot in the corner of his room and began to relieve himself. The stream was spurting and pitiful and much to The Sculptor’s dismay blood red.   He had first noticed the faint red tint to his urine the week they arrived in Kaluswind. He had arisen in the morning unusually early (much like this) and relieved himself against a young deciduous tree near their camp. The sharp pain in his groin is what initially caught his attention that morning, and a closer examination of his stream revealed a subtle pink discoluraton. He had written it off as merely the physical strain of travel on his old body - an idea that was only reinforced by the darkening of the stream a few weeks later when they finished setting up the workshop. But now Gregorovich found himself urinating blood more often than not in the mornings, and it didn’t take a man with as much medical training as Gregovich to know that was not a good sign.   The old scluptor sighed and tucked himself back into his robes. He shuffled down the broken stones of the catacomb hallway to the workshop. There he grumbloed a morning salutation to the muttering Kosutic behind his curtain before refilling the old oil generator, setting some water to boil and (when he was positive Kosutic wasn't paying mind) uncorked a vial from a vial and pouring the last remenants of it's contents down his throat. The tonic was a cold, thick liquid that tasted like a salty slug slowly slurping it's way down his throat. He had procured the tonic from an apothecary on his last trip to Kaluswind in the hopes of correcitng wahtever imbalance was causing the bloody urine. There was plenty of medical conditions that could cause persistent hematuria and Gregorovich knew most of them off hand (he had been a doctor in another life). If the alchemical remedy he had been taking for these past two weeks had worked he could have written the condition off as a mild infection or perhaps even the early signs of glass-stones. But as the last of the salty tonic washed down his throat it settled in his stomach accomanied with a freshly renewed sense of dread and anxiety.   He was running out of time.   Gregorovich dragged the drawknife lengthwise down the side of his most recent sculpture. The edge of the tool was razor sharp (Gregorovich had learned long ago the importance of taking care of one’s instruments), and with each long stroke of the blade the sculptor removed a thick layer of material from the sculpture - a footlong strip of material so thin it threatened translucence. Each long stroke produced another thin strip from the mantle’s side to float airily down.   Gregorovich dragged the drawknife lengthwise down the side of his most recent sculpture. The edge of the tool was razor sharp (Gregorovich had learned long ago the importance of taking care of one’s instruments), and with each long stroke of the blade the sculptor removed a thick layer of material from the sculpture - a footlong strip of material so thin it threatened translucence. Each long stroke produced another thin strip from the mantle’s side to float airily down.