Glayp'neir (Arc 1)

Sharpe draws his sword and runs after Doc, thinking it would be a better idea to keep track of him. He pulls out his pistol as well, flipping the safety off. He runs off, turn g his look back to the gateway for a quick glance, but nothing is there. Good, nobody else is going to take a risk. As he rounds the corner and sees ahead two houses, he hears a thump from the gate area.

"Shit..." he cusses. Someone else must've come through.

As Jain disappears through the gateway, Airgetlam feels a little offended.

"Did I say something to make him leave?"

She decides instead now to be serious. She bolts for the arch and combat-rolls into it.

She finds herself... in some nether realm of sorts, and Jian is just dusting himself off like it was nothing. She feels her arm tingle a little, her silver arm. Something not quite right. Whatever it is, she feels more energetic.

As Dr. Atrium charges into the house, he looks around. He is rather shocked about how plain it is, the small house has very little to it. The wall are bare and the only furniture that is in the house is a kitchen table, a few chairs, a shelf that is almost empty and a very old mattress that is in the corner. His heart sinks a bit when he sees a picture of the little girl. The picture is hanging on a wall, it shows the little girl on the bare floor playing with a rag-doll. Is this where the little girl lives? This would explain why her clothes are so old and in bad shape. He puts his hands down and walks around the house for a bit. It is very dusty, it would seem like no one has cleaned this place in a long time. He walks onto the kitchen and opens some of the cabinets but they are just filled with dust and spiderwebs. How has this girl been able to live here like this? He takes the picture off the wall and takes it out of the frame that it is in and puts it in his pocket. He looks around the house and finds the doll that was in the picture and puts it in his pocket as well. He walks out of the house and walks over to the other house. The other house is just like the other one, empty, bare and dusty. He doesn't spend as much time in this house then he did the other. He looks over and sees that Sharpe is running at him. He frowns, he knows that Sharpe is going to chew him out for taking off to find the girl and his cat.

Jian carefully gets up looking around. Air comes through but he barely pays any attention to people around him. As he doesn't really know where Sharpe or the Doc went, he just decides to wander off on his own. These exoctic flowers and the fauna has some interesting features to it. He walks up to the plants and flowers and starts to investigate them. He might be able to use them for future cookings and to spice up meals in thier very unique way. He pulls out his blade and trimms off a bit of one of the plants, thier colours are very pretty and attracktive. He breaks down the piece in a really small bits and takes a small taste. This appears to not be edible. He tosses the rest into the plant and looks at the next one. This is a really nice place to be in, this gives him some time to work on what he does best.

Sharpe catches up with Doc, breathing a little more heavily but by no means winded.

"Didn't you hear me back there? You can't just run off like that, man! What if something was waiting for you to claw your face off?" He sighs.

"In any case, do you know where the girl and cat went? We might as well go get them anyway."

He looks behind doc, and sees inside the first house he went into the picture of the girl. He sees why Doc is a bit more sullen now.

She stops pondering the energies gathering within her arm and concentrates on the task at hand: finding the rest of the party. She looks about and is astounded the aether. Kneeling by a bush of exotic plants is Jian, who is sampling them. She walks over to him stridently.

"You don't know if that stuff'll kill you or not." She says to him.

She puts her arms behind her head and looks around, but Sharpe and Doc are nowhere to be found.

"You shouldn't wander off on your own in this place. Do you know where those two went by any chance?"

Dr. Atrium looks at Sharps and sighs.

"I have been on my own for a long time, I know how to take care of myself. Besides, I knew that if I said that I was going to go charging in to find the little girl and my cat, you would say no. Can't say no if I just go and do it."

He crosses his arms and looks around, trying to find some kind of clue to where the two have gone. But he finds nothing, it is like the two have vanished completely. He walks over to Sharpe and pulls out the photo he took from the house and shows him.

"Look, the girl if from here. If we can find her, she may be able to help us find a way to that castle." He points at the castle that is off in the distance. "Not only that, but she may be able to tell us where we even are. I don't know if you have realized this, but we are in a different place all together. My magic has been dulled, there is no sky and the forest we were in is no where to be found. We need to find out where we are before we can press on...I wounder if we can even get out..."

As he ponders the last thing he said, he starts to back track to where they entered. He might as well go see if Airgetlam and Jian are out, they are the only ones that were left outside of this place. He hopes that they weren't as dumb as him and Sharpe was and walked into the place but decided to look around the outside first.

Atrium and Sharpe make their way back into the garden courtyard and find Airgetlam and Jian near the fancy and foreign flowers unlike anything seen anywhere else on the island continent. The creaking of a large door pierces through the silence, followed by a stiff and cool breeze. Past the fountain a man dressed in a fancy, well maintained, suit is holding the giant double door open with one arm. The other held infront of himself across his chest with a red cloth draped over it. The man looks to be in his early 20's and has long silvery-blond hair, bound in a ponytail. His eyes are a striking vibrant blue and he bears a welcoming smile. He takes a short and polite bow and then moves to the side, gesturing inside.

"Welcome, travelers." He says in a deep tone, just loud enough to hear across the courtyard. "The Master is out at the moment, but he welcomes you to stay for the night untill he returns. He has been expecting you..." He pauses for a brief moment, smiling at the group. "Most of you, in any case."

As the man finishes his sentence the loud screeching of two heavy metal doors distract the group. Behind them a metal gate can barely be seen lowered as two heavy steel doors close in front of it.
The group returns their attention back to the main opening, the man now gone. "But... do hurry, if you please. It shall be a cold night they say." his voice can be heard from the distance as the big double doors now fully open, revealing a very large hall.

The hall itself on first glance looks very extravagant. Marble pillars stand on the checkered floors and an expensive purple and golden carpet is laid out in the middle, going up the ginormous stairway that branches off at the base and reunite at the top floor. In between the two staircases leading up there is a statue of a man in demon-hunting gear holding a sword up to the ceiling. Behind the statue on the upper floor is yet another big double door and the entire hall is lined with chandeliers and oil lamps, casting their warm and colourful reflections over the polished floor. The walls are lined with portraits of various people, all with white or blond hair and very striking eyes ranging from any colour imaginable.

Jian cuts off another piece of a different plant, examining it. As Air walks up to him saying that he wouldn't know about the plants killing him or not, he starts giggling.

"That's a cute thing to say, thanks. But I am certain of the risks and I have been doing this for years now, discovering spices in the most unknown locations from plants people wouldn't of dared touching. I'll be fine!"

He continues to bite into the piece to check it's taste. A sticky aftertaste kicks in which makes him wonder. It doesn't taste bad but it persists quite long. He cuts off a bigger piece to check on it later after having it dried. He then gets up brushing himself off.

"I have not seen where anybody went, sorry. They'll come back or make enough noise for us to find them soon enough... I hope.", he says as he let's the leaf he cut off escape into his pouch. Just a few minutes after Sharpe and the Doc appear back in the courtyard. Jian's raising his hands to greet them. But before he could anything he hears the loud door opening up. The you man in silver hair is greeting them and after finishing, he disappears inside. Jian just looks at everyone else and shrugs. "Uhm... What now? Wanna go in?", he says as he just looks at everyone else, waiting for a reply.

Sharpe stands extremely still for a moment, considering their options. They cannot go back now.

"No way out now", Sharpe remarks "Only a way in. Keep your weapons ready I'd say."

He grips his sword and proceeds onward, with the slowest of his possible strides. The identical mean, perhaps replicated send a strong chill down his spine, as cold as a winter midnight.

Airgetlam stares onward towards the huge presentation of utter uncanny valley. She leans to Doc.

"Do you think the girl is the daughter of whoever owns this place? Also of note, my arm is really tingly, this is super creepy. It's never done this before."

She hefts her crossbow and waits for the others to make a move before proceeding.

Something Ethereal lurks here, and she's sure it does not have good intents.

Dr. Atrium looks at Airgetlam and shakes his head no. He hands her the photo of the girl he found in one of the houses and the rag doll from the picture. When he sees that she has noticed that the rag doll that the little girl is holding is the very same rag doll he has in his hand, he puts them both away. He fallows the silvered haired man into the castle. He chuckles a moment when the man said that his master has been expecting most of them. He knows that the mans master wasn't expecting him, no one from his family would expect to see him again. The thought of seeing Marcus fills him with rage and excitement. He will hear the man out before he strikes, he need to find out why he murdered his family. When he is finished talking, it will be his last spoken words.

As everyone decides to go in, Jian follows them. The man said some of them were expected, is he one of them? That is highly doubtful to him. Even then, too many people seem to seek business regarding him or anything that regards his actions, so he can't be too sure. They all walk in and he hears the Doc chuckle. What is it that makes him do so? Jian kind of starts falling into a train of thought, but he won't be able to figure it out most likely. The hallway receives a lot of attention from him, it's quite eye-catching. This is one of the most high-class looking places he has been for years, so it's quite an event.

The group enters the entrance hall one by one. From first glances it appears that the whole place is exceptionally well maintained. The floors shimmer with the reflections of the group as they make their way across the expensive purple carpet and up the stairs to the upper floor of the entrance hall. Having arrived there the group finds itself without a guide and in fact without any living soul in sight. Brief confusion makes its way through the group but before anything major can spring from it another set of big wooden double doors opens inward, leading into a hallway decked in just as many riches as the entrance hall but less well maintained. There are some generic statues of knights in purple tabbards and various weapons lined along the wall and various doors going down the hall, aswell as two stairs going up each side, and another two underneeth them leading down into a basement. At the end of the extremely long hall is another set of heavy iron cast double doors with a crest in between them. The crest is silver and bears a sword thats hilt consists of three roses, pointing diagonally across the crest.

As they walk in, Sharpe notes the weapons on the wall, which if they're not ceremonial, could prove useful. And that of the statues, as well as the opulence of the floor and the concourse in general. Whoever furnished it either has a lot of money, or they have some serious know-how. Either way, it looks a bit too grandiose for his taste.

He peers forward at the next set of doors at the crest. A family crest perhaps, but unknown if it perhaps is that of the original owner, or if it's the current occupant, assuming the current occupant is not the original one. The crest itself looks like it's from an old legend of when knights were still very prominent.

Airgetlam frowns, looking about, she sees no sign of alternate pathways. It's just too well-lighten in the hall for her to do anything, and it appears there really isn't much in the way of side passages.

She feels her pulse elevate.

"Maybe we should walk a little slower. There might be traps. I know it seems like I'm on edge, but this place really gets to me. It's too bright and too quiet. Inhumanly so."

Her arm affirms this, as it continues to make her feel like she's being very lightly pricked with acupuncture. She wonders if it'll start humming or singing next with how it's acting. She even wonders if perhaps it has it's own will.

Dr. Atrium looks at the weapons as they pass, he notices a set of daggers on the wall. He walks over to them and takes them off. Marcus doesn't deserve to have the daggers that were given to him when he passed the assassins exam. The daggers are made from blackened steel and has barbs on the back of the blade, on the blade itself there is a silver crescent moon. He puts the daggers in his coats pocket in a way so he can put his hand in the pockets later and not cut himself. He walks over at Airgetlam and pats her on the shoulder.

"You need to relax Air. I will look at your arm later to see if it is okay. I am sure that it cannot be comfortable and putting you on edge, but you need to calm down. Know if you want to brake away from us and go looking for the girl, tell me now and I can make it so you can split from us without anyone noticing."

Jian, being behind everyone sees the Doc taking off the daggers of the wall, then slipping them into his pocket. He wants to raise his hands and stop him from randomly stealing things, but as he tries to say something, nothing comes from him and his hand drops down again. Then he sees the Doc and Air whisper about. He's not close enough to listen, but things seem to get really suspicious inside the group. Is the integrity at risk? He rolls down his sleeves and hides his face under his hood of the sweat-jacket, he gonna keep low, holding a bit of a distance to everyone. He carefully checks his surroundings to make sure nothing's wrong for now. All seems fine, but if it's the case is a different question.

Sharpe turns about and notices Doc taking some daggers from the wall that look rather uniquely crafted. He squints at what purpose that would serve.

"Is that really necessary, Doc? I mean, yeah, it's loot, but still, I wouldn't exactly expect that from you."

As he's peering back, he notices Jian at the back, keeping a ways away.

"You might want to stay close for a bit, until something that merits spreading out comes out way. You might get picked off."

Even though anything could probably happen, physical attacks likely won't, as there isn't really much in the sense of vectors in this corridor. He scans some of the wall-racks, but isn't really wowed by much of it. He's fine with what he's got, hasn't failed him yet.

Airgetlam shoots Doc a look.

"Uh... I would not take things if I were you... and also, my arm's not in pain, just I think it's telling me we REALLY shouldn't spend much time here."

She looks around again nervously.

"How can I relax if we're in a nether-realm like this?"

Subconsciously as a nervous tic, she cycles the bolts already loaded in her crossbow. When she notices this, she starts considering if she should start loading incendiary bolts, just in case. But no, she wants to save those. They cost too much money already, it would be a waste.

Dr. Atrium shoots them an angry frown.

"I'm not stealing because I think we will need these. These daggers are given as a reward for making it from the rank journeyman to member, there were several ranks in the guild. Once someone became a member they were able to leave the guilds walls, that was why they were given the daggers. The man here, this "Master" does not deserve to own these daggers."

As he tells the group about is families ways, it fills him with sadness but when he says the last sentence there is venom and hatred in the words. He looks back at Air, some of the anger is still in his voice when he talks to her.

"Do you want to sneak away and find the girl? Yes or no?"

He wipes some sweat off of his forehead. Why is he getting so hot? It isn't warm in this castle, and yet he can feel himself getting warmer and warmer. He isn't getting sick is he? That cant be, ever since he learned how to cure illnesses, he hasn't gotten a cold. His healing magic has boosted his immune system through the roof. So what could be happening to him?

Jian doesn't like where all this is going, all seem to lose thier face over this. He back off more and more as people seem to get more angry, keeping his face hidden in the shadow of his hood. He readjusts his glasses and grips his blade. Not a single word comes from him, not a single gesture is visible. Just him keeping his slow pace, viewing them from a fair distance. At this rate, he'll breaks apart and tries to find any clues about the situation on his own. His brother might be here, knowing that he's been following Jian the whole time according to what he heard back in the town. "Tch, like I would give in to him...", he mumbles, looking down to the side as he keeps walking.

He can't afford to people lose it. He was dragged into this, and being left alone would be the worst thing to run into. He wouldn't find his way back either. But he can't trust this too much from the looks, so he has no choice in this case. As he keeps walking, he steps onto something. He stops to pick it up and takes a look. It's an amulet with a red-pink coloured gem. It's round and the gem is framed by a golden rim above and below it to keep it in place. He looks up and quickly lets it slide into the pocket. Nobody is watching anyway, so there is no suspicion raised as he's doing so. He then keeps on walking in his careful pace on the longer distance.

Sharpe turns fully to face the party, in doing so he waves his hand for a single wave down his face and he breathes in. He does that every time he needs to think his way through a tough situation.

"We need to stay calm and collected. The only people I'd allow to split away would be Air and Doc, and I'd very much like to keep Doc close. It was part of the plan anyway that Air would scout ahead to find our objective. Up ahead she should be able to find a passageway that leads into the dungeons, which if they exist, and they most likely do, the girl is likely to be there. The main group, consisting of me, Jain, and Doc will head to find the owner of this estate, and perhaps reason with him, and if necessary, coerce him."

He looks around with his arms up like he's surrendering, then lowers them, his palms facing the ceiling.

"Is that fine? Don't worry about her, she can take care of herself. Might do you some good in a way too."

He winks at Airgetlam with a small grin.

She looks to Jian, seeing him start to become cold again. She looks to Doc, whose anger and sense of retribution are begetting a boiling of his blood. Finally, she looks to her dear old friend Sharpe, whose wink she catches. Its his "All will turn out ok" wink.

She sighs and pulls on her cloak hood.

"Ok, Proceeding with infiltration. I'll have her back in no time."

Her cloak starts to mimic their surroundings, and gradually she melts away into complete invisibility. She waves her hand in front of her face, moving it up. She grins devilishly.

"Now you see me, now you don't.

Rendered completely invisible, she runs off up the hall, and blends into the shadows, as if her presence were never there to begin with.

Dr. Atrium stares for a moment then laughs. He should of know she would have an inadvisability cloak on her. He waits for Jian to be at his side and grabs his shoulder. He remembers Maxwell holding him like this when his nerves were getting to him or sadden at failing a spell. He mimics the smile Maxwell had and repeated his words.

"Don't you worry lad, all will be okay. When this is over, we will all be glad."

He gently motions Jian to be in front of him, so he is in the middle of him and Sharpe. They exit the hallway and walk into the dinning room. He look around and isn't shocked how big it is, it reminds him if some of the other old castles he has looked through. He looks at Sharpe and Jian to see there reaction to seeing this big place.