Post by Seti Azrael on Dec 7, 2010 14:14:50 GMT -5
(Posted with the permission of the Storyteller of this plotline and creator of Ix Tab)
Chapter 1: Awakening
He did not dream. He had never dreamed. Sleep was a moment in which darkness came, and was followed by a seemingly immediate awakening in which his eyes simply reopened. Though hours passed each day during his slumber, as the sun traversed the skies, sleep had always seemed but a dark and laconic pause to Azrael’s consciousness.
From very far away, it seemed, the Seti could hear the humming of a chime. Following the sound to consciousness his eyelids parted and filled with the dim hearth light across the room from the bed he shared with Zendra, and reverberating through his mind the metaphysical wards placed on his ritual vault some distance away rang clearly. He looked quickly to the sleeping Setess, and then gathered his ebony-hued, silk Tokunese robe around him, walking to the foyer outside their personal chambers beneath the haven called Nocturne. He drew a blade, which rested in the stand near the door of their chambers: a ‘blade of insanity’, specially enchanted not to inflict physical damage, but instead designed to cause metaphysical wounds to spirits of all varieties. Azrael was certain that if the wards of his ritual chambers were sounding, that nothing of the physical world would be lurking there.
The spectral blade of the katana was nearly transparent from the base of the blade, up it’s slight curve and to it’s point. The spiritual echo of the once physical blade hummed softly in the necromancer’s hand, ready to be used if needed against whatever spiritual intrusion was waiting in the nearby room. Though most vampires were not able to wake during the daylight hours, Azrael’s age had given him a moderate ability to resist the sleepy haze the rising sun and daylight hours caused in Kindred. Even so, he could feel Sol’s hateful light burning brightly on the surface above him, like the roar of a perpetually burning inferno in the distance, waiting patiently to consume his undead flesh to nothing more than ash.
The Seti opened the steel door of the private library on the other side of the foyer outside the bedchambers. His pupiless-mirrored eyes scanned the shelves and tables carefully, finally fixing on the heavy iron door at the rear of the chamber. Meters of heavy chain wound through support rings across the door, and affixed to steel padlocks in two rows down each side. All who lived in Nocturne knew that Azrael had designed the door of his ritual chambers not to prevent entrance, but rather to prevent egress of anything within. The truth of the precaution was enough for those residing in the haven to not question his asking that the door never be opened by any but him.
Azrael studied the door for a moment and then crossed the library to a pedestal on which sat a ball of smoky quartz. He glanced to the ball, resting his cold palm on it’s smooth round surface and spoke a command word. The haze of the crystal’s ochre depths swirled and parted immediately, activating its twin on a similar pedestal beyond the chained door. The connection offered a view of the ritual chambers beyond. The intricately carved summoning circles and occult angles that adorned the floor, walls, and ceiling remained inert. But, in the corner of the room, the steel trapdoor that led down into the vault further beneath the complex was framed in a sickly emerald glow emanating from around its edges.
The elder’s pale lips curved into a slight frown. Dangerous and malevolent artifacts of all natures and varieties were stored within the vault, many of which he had acquired during his long years, and many others that had been entrusted to his keeping by individuals throughout the lands.
Azrael removed his hand from the crystal, sending the surface of the quartz once more into its translucent brown hue, as the image within faded, and turned to the chained door expressionlessly. His pale hand released the spectral blade he carried, and it hung silently in the air beside him, hovering like a wraith might in the stillness of the room.
The Seti’s held his hands aloft, palms out, whispering. The heavy padlocks on both sides of the door, fell away, and the steel chain slowly unwound itself, curling into a neat pile to the side. Azrael curled his fingers around the hilt of the katana once more, and he moved to the door, opening it slowly into the chamber beyond. The emerald light filled the otherwise dark room in an eerie haze, brightest around the trapdoor. The vampires discerning eyes recognized the shade of the emerald then, and he understood the likely source of the glow.
The slightest of frowns crossed his pale elven lips once more, as the metaphysical glyph on the trapdoor continued to chime it’s warning loudly in his mind, though the rest of the room remained as silent as the stone from which it was built. He crouched carefully over the door, the silk of his kimono shifting with him, as he traced the rune of the ward with his free hand and the alarm ceased.
A soft hum could be heard now from the vault that shifted in intensity with the viridian light pouring from it. Azrael opened the trapdoor, and made his way down the steep incline of stone steps to the large room at the bottom. Hundreds of artifacts lined shelves, rested in display cases, and among the long tables of the vault. The intensity of the light was bright here, filling the room to a nearly blinding degree. Azrael’s sensitive mirrored eyes squinted slightly and he looked to the Emerald blade resting on a sword display on the back wall of the room.
The blade had been entrusted to his care and was linked to the demoness Ix Tab, and her ilk….created or brought by her servants during her early nights in Sosaria.
As the Seti approached the blade, a voice whispered from the faceted emerald surface of the stone blade, above the low hum of its vibration:
“If thou would seek devil’s doom; then raise me high before the moon, when moon’s light and blood do meet, then our palaver will repeat.”
Then the bright light of the blade faded dramatically, and the vibration from the sword ceased, replaced by a soft emerald glow deep within the blade’s core. Azrael retrieved a long metallic box from a nearby cabinet and set the sword carefully inside, wondering which of the entities affiliated with Ix Tab wished to speak to him. The Seti had spoken at length to her and her minions in the past, though indeed it had been sometime since last he had done so. Quietly, he closed the box and locked the case lid, securing the sword within.
His mirrored vampiric eyes studied the case in the now utterly dark room for several quiet minutes. He decided that a meeting to learn what he could of the seemingly inactive demoness would be beneficial to all that had been involved with her in the past. While the voice from the blade had been indistinct in gender, he was certain it was not the voice of Ix Tab, which was curious.
The instructions had been simple enough. Azrael nodded to himself, as he turned toward the vault stairs, deciding to perform the ritual for the opening of a conduit for the meeting in the coming nights, somewhere safely away from this haven. The moons would reach a zenith soon as well.
A few nights of preparation would also be adequate time for the Seti to find a disposable candidate to act as a source for the blood…
Chapter 1: Awakening
He did not dream. He had never dreamed. Sleep was a moment in which darkness came, and was followed by a seemingly immediate awakening in which his eyes simply reopened. Though hours passed each day during his slumber, as the sun traversed the skies, sleep had always seemed but a dark and laconic pause to Azrael’s consciousness.
From very far away, it seemed, the Seti could hear the humming of a chime. Following the sound to consciousness his eyelids parted and filled with the dim hearth light across the room from the bed he shared with Zendra, and reverberating through his mind the metaphysical wards placed on his ritual vault some distance away rang clearly. He looked quickly to the sleeping Setess, and then gathered his ebony-hued, silk Tokunese robe around him, walking to the foyer outside their personal chambers beneath the haven called Nocturne. He drew a blade, which rested in the stand near the door of their chambers: a ‘blade of insanity’, specially enchanted not to inflict physical damage, but instead designed to cause metaphysical wounds to spirits of all varieties. Azrael was certain that if the wards of his ritual chambers were sounding, that nothing of the physical world would be lurking there.
The spectral blade of the katana was nearly transparent from the base of the blade, up it’s slight curve and to it’s point. The spiritual echo of the once physical blade hummed softly in the necromancer’s hand, ready to be used if needed against whatever spiritual intrusion was waiting in the nearby room. Though most vampires were not able to wake during the daylight hours, Azrael’s age had given him a moderate ability to resist the sleepy haze the rising sun and daylight hours caused in Kindred. Even so, he could feel Sol’s hateful light burning brightly on the surface above him, like the roar of a perpetually burning inferno in the distance, waiting patiently to consume his undead flesh to nothing more than ash.
The Seti opened the steel door of the private library on the other side of the foyer outside the bedchambers. His pupiless-mirrored eyes scanned the shelves and tables carefully, finally fixing on the heavy iron door at the rear of the chamber. Meters of heavy chain wound through support rings across the door, and affixed to steel padlocks in two rows down each side. All who lived in Nocturne knew that Azrael had designed the door of his ritual chambers not to prevent entrance, but rather to prevent egress of anything within. The truth of the precaution was enough for those residing in the haven to not question his asking that the door never be opened by any but him.
Azrael studied the door for a moment and then crossed the library to a pedestal on which sat a ball of smoky quartz. He glanced to the ball, resting his cold palm on it’s smooth round surface and spoke a command word. The haze of the crystal’s ochre depths swirled and parted immediately, activating its twin on a similar pedestal beyond the chained door. The connection offered a view of the ritual chambers beyond. The intricately carved summoning circles and occult angles that adorned the floor, walls, and ceiling remained inert. But, in the corner of the room, the steel trapdoor that led down into the vault further beneath the complex was framed in a sickly emerald glow emanating from around its edges.
The elder’s pale lips curved into a slight frown. Dangerous and malevolent artifacts of all natures and varieties were stored within the vault, many of which he had acquired during his long years, and many others that had been entrusted to his keeping by individuals throughout the lands.
Azrael removed his hand from the crystal, sending the surface of the quartz once more into its translucent brown hue, as the image within faded, and turned to the chained door expressionlessly. His pale hand released the spectral blade he carried, and it hung silently in the air beside him, hovering like a wraith might in the stillness of the room.
The Seti’s held his hands aloft, palms out, whispering. The heavy padlocks on both sides of the door, fell away, and the steel chain slowly unwound itself, curling into a neat pile to the side. Azrael curled his fingers around the hilt of the katana once more, and he moved to the door, opening it slowly into the chamber beyond. The emerald light filled the otherwise dark room in an eerie haze, brightest around the trapdoor. The vampires discerning eyes recognized the shade of the emerald then, and he understood the likely source of the glow.
The slightest of frowns crossed his pale elven lips once more, as the metaphysical glyph on the trapdoor continued to chime it’s warning loudly in his mind, though the rest of the room remained as silent as the stone from which it was built. He crouched carefully over the door, the silk of his kimono shifting with him, as he traced the rune of the ward with his free hand and the alarm ceased.
A soft hum could be heard now from the vault that shifted in intensity with the viridian light pouring from it. Azrael opened the trapdoor, and made his way down the steep incline of stone steps to the large room at the bottom. Hundreds of artifacts lined shelves, rested in display cases, and among the long tables of the vault. The intensity of the light was bright here, filling the room to a nearly blinding degree. Azrael’s sensitive mirrored eyes squinted slightly and he looked to the Emerald blade resting on a sword display on the back wall of the room.
The blade had been entrusted to his care and was linked to the demoness Ix Tab, and her ilk….created or brought by her servants during her early nights in Sosaria.
As the Seti approached the blade, a voice whispered from the faceted emerald surface of the stone blade, above the low hum of its vibration:
“If thou would seek devil’s doom; then raise me high before the moon, when moon’s light and blood do meet, then our palaver will repeat.”
Then the bright light of the blade faded dramatically, and the vibration from the sword ceased, replaced by a soft emerald glow deep within the blade’s core. Azrael retrieved a long metallic box from a nearby cabinet and set the sword carefully inside, wondering which of the entities affiliated with Ix Tab wished to speak to him. The Seti had spoken at length to her and her minions in the past, though indeed it had been sometime since last he had done so. Quietly, he closed the box and locked the case lid, securing the sword within.
His mirrored vampiric eyes studied the case in the now utterly dark room for several quiet minutes. He decided that a meeting to learn what he could of the seemingly inactive demoness would be beneficial to all that had been involved with her in the past. While the voice from the blade had been indistinct in gender, he was certain it was not the voice of Ix Tab, which was curious.
The instructions had been simple enough. Azrael nodded to himself, as he turned toward the vault stairs, deciding to perform the ritual for the opening of a conduit for the meeting in the coming nights, somewhere safely away from this haven. The moons would reach a zenith soon as well.
A few nights of preparation would also be adequate time for the Seti to find a disposable candidate to act as a source for the blood…