In the Wake of Two Echoes

Log Info

• Title: In the Wake of Two Echoes

• Emitter: Seldan

• Characters: Ravenstongue, Seldan, Telamon, Verna

• Place: Streets of Alexandria

The return to the surface takes a while, but Seldan's magically-aided sense of direction guides the group unerringly, and soon enough, they are free of the confines. A quick report to the city, and they are free to continue. Seldan turns to those with him, and speaks for the first time since they left the scene of the carnage. "I am again remiss, my lady. Are you yet injured?" His gaze is sober and serious, and he looks her over with keen eyes.

He himself looks quite the fright, although he seems hale enough. Several places in his armor are tinged with blood, and several more slashes mar the pearlescent finish. Most frightening looking is the deep slash from above his right eye and across the bridge of his nose, a slash that placed a quarter-inch lower would have continued right through his left eyeball. He has done nothing to heal himself, beyond what he did below, but does not comment.

Cleaning cantrips are great, but... still. Ew. Ew, ew, ew. Telamon isn't all that fond of the sewers to start with, and this was not exactly a fun ride. "We'll heal, Sir Seldan. That was... terrifying." His hand is in Lana's, and his starry eyes meet Seldan's. "It's gone, right? We don't have to worry about it reconstituting itself a week later or anything, right?" He can't help but shiver a bit, but from fear, not cold.

Cor'lana has cleaned herself off since the end of the ordeal with the aid of prestidigitation magic, and while her expression is grim, it turns into a light smile as Seldan speaks to her.

"The healing that Verna attempted onto me was not successful, but it was only a light amount. Considering the nature of our enemy, however, it might be prudent to have it looked at by an experienced healer." Cor'lana looks to her husband as he speaks, too. "I am simply thankful I was able to cast out the darkness with my spells. Seldan, will you be seeing a healer as well?" Ever so concerned with the state of her friend.

"Mine is naught of import. I had thought to speak to Zeke ere departing for the Mythwood, but there is not time. Perhaps it is fitting enough." Seldan's eyes lower, and he looks like nothing so much as a little boy who knows he's been bad scuffing the cobblestones with his feet.

"It is gone," he agrees, looking up after a moment. "Terrifying indeed, and yet was that but a shadow of the real being. The creature that made that was the creature for which the original wards on your house were inscribed. His involvement, and fate, are something of a tale."

He lifts his eyes and regards the pair steadily. "For both of your aid am I deeply grateful. It is in my mind that I owe you something of an explanation, for this creature and the one who remade the sewers. Ask me what you will."

"There's never enough time, seems like," Telamon admits. He raises his free hand, then puts it on Seldan's shoulder. "I'm glad you were with us, though. We had our hands full." He looks back to Cor'lana, and puts his arm around her once again. "I guess the first question that pops into my head, Sir Seldan, is why were there -two- echoes? We only saw the one when we found it the first time."

Verna's attire may be recently scrubbed by Seldan's magic, but said cleanliness may feel that it extends no deeper. She is relatively silent on the trek from below, though she does offer brief comment in regards to previously-offered healing. "In the interests of safety and the lack of immediate life-threatening injuries, I recommend any magical aid be sought from a temple if not from Seldan, himself."

"That's a bad-looking injury, Seldan," Cor'lana says with a frown. She says nothing further of her own, only adding, "I am going with you on that trip, so at least we can monitor each other as time allows."

She looks thoughtful with Telamon's question. "I admit... a lot of curiosity. When I arrived in Alexandria with the demon crisis, I... reverted to much of my old nature and shut myself, for the large part, inside of my rented room. I thought there was naught I could do to aid in that endeavor. I was much weaker then. This... Salina, however. How did you come to make her from an enemy into an ally? I am thoroughly curious."

Ah. Salina. Seldan's eyes lower at this. "She was - asleep. The horrible things that she did were done - in her dreams. Anger. Revenge for the destruction of Siavonere. She operated with a calculated cunning that was wholly indifferent to morals or the pain of others. And yet was the true enemy Eclavdran, all along. I might have known. He wished her destroyed, and I - I reneged on the deal I struck with him to do so, to save her. I did as the Dreamer asked of me, to save her, even knowing all that she had wrought. That she held my mother in captivity, tortured her, forced a piece of Kol's flesh into her."

He does not yet look up. "I did rightly, for greater is the Dreamer's wisdom than my own."

Telamon's eyes widen at Seldan's tale. He manages to restrain an exclamation, though his expression speaks of confusion and shock. "I... believe you to be the better man than I in this, Sir Seldan. I would be hard pressed to not hold a grudge had someone mistreated my mother that way, even if it was the will of Ni'essa to take a different path." He exhales. "And yet... it would've shown as nothing else would that you sought the true enemy, and not a cat's paw."

Verna's hood turns to glance briefly at Seldan at the details shared; unpleasant details, to say the least. "Indeed. The archfiend's plans were halted by your choice and will." Her focus turns back ahead of them as she adds for all, "None would know those threats and events better than Seldan."

"And that's what led to Eclavdran's reign of terror?" Cor'lana asks gently. The sympathy in her face is written as boldly as her words as poetry are, an aching in her eyes for her friend. "Seldan--I am so sorry. Sorry on so many measures. Not that I am the party who aggrieved you nor yours, but... The fact that you have dealt with so much. Someone ought to have said it already if no one has."

She purses her lips into a tight line. "Kol was a servant of hers, then," she says. "It seems... So many things are interconnected. More than I imagined. I suppose that's the nature of the world. No person is an island--and neither is that of evil's grasp."

"Even so." Seldan's eyes lift to look at the others, and he reaches up to cover the hand on his shoulder with his gauntleted own. The gauntlet itself is not part of the armor, but done in a different, ornate style, a steel rather than mithral thing. "Kol was indeed a servant, and a means by which she harassed the city. Him - and Yukia. For these two did she teleport them into the city, and withdrew them ere they were slain."

He offers Cor'lana a very, very small smile. "That which I would leave behind is not for the evil against which I have been set, for that am I called to do. Indeed, I yet remain for that very reason. There is yet evil to be opposed, and tasks to be completed, and I find myself with better allies now than then." A quick look at Verna. "The Mourner and I have long been allies and, dare I say, friends, and indeed did she stand with me in the fall of Eclavdran. Your aid is, as always, most welcome, though I do not presume overmuch upon the friendship."

Back to Telamon and Lana, but not for long before his eyes lowered again. "The demon harassing your friend Aya is a minion of Eclavdran, with whom she had struck a deal and to whom she had given herself."

"We find friends and allies in unlikely people and places. I admit when I came here I didn't expect to be ... caught up in such momentous events. But..." His expression grows firm. "I won't shy from them. I'll face them with open eyes, but I won't flee."

Tel's eyes glitter as Seldan brings up the fiend that had tormented Aya -- among others. "Was," he says with a note of finality. "That scum won't be harassing anyone ever again. Lana saw to that."

"You speak the truth, Seldan," Verna looks to him once more. "You need dare naught. I did so then and shall continue to do so. That said, I welcome the day when we need no longer stand together against anything under the archfiend's name, nor any threat, and can merely do so as friends."

Her hood swivels about at Telamon's clarification. "That is excellent news. One less evil is a boon to all." She turns a bit farther to regard Cor'lana. "I am wholly unsurprised that Cor'lana was its better."

Cor'lana smiles a smile that is just as small as Seldan's with the praise. "It was needed," she says. "For it was evil in the world--and it was evil that had hurt the man I love more than anything." Here, she looks up at Telamon and smiles all the wider, warmth in her violet eyes.

Then she turns back to Seldan, the smile disappearing. "I suppose with that--I am... mostly curious. If we are truly done with the sewers and if the last of Eclavdran's presence in this world is truly gone. And if what had possessed me was... that archfiend, or simply the 'soul' of the echo."

Her eyes are dark. "Its time in my head was brief, but I hated every moment," she says.

"It is in my mind that it was but the soul of the echo," Seldan replies, something in Telamon's words finally drawing a hint of his usual ease to his demeanor. "Nasty enough, and yet was the true mind of Eclavdran - not to be spoken of. Verna and I were afforded but a glimpse -" He shudders, a thing he seldom to never does. "I shall not forget the touch of evil in that way."

"You say that the demon was destroyed? Not merely sent back to the Hells?" This is said carefully, and curiously.

Telamon takes a deep breath, his eyes flicking to Lana's, and he squeezes her hand. "It is gone," he states. "The means, well... that's not really my tale to tell, but Lana's. But it won't be returning."

He tilts his head at Seldan's description of the 'echo'. "This reminds me of something I read about, how there are some, thankfully rare, entities that refuse death and dissolution even when all reason would believe them to vanish. Thankfully, this archfiend's 'encore performance', to borrow the bardic term, was mercifully brief."

Verna frowns (well, more) as a line of thought forms. There are often so many, which is not always a boon. "I agree with Seldan that the true essence of the archfiend was shattered," she continues to avoid his name, "but fragments may yet linger on, so potent at twisted as it was when whole. Some attached themselves to those of us that shattered the original. Others may well have been drawn to the circle to which his essence was already tied. I hope such were the last remnants."

"The demon that you saw me slay with the weapon of truedeath was the same demon that was harassing Aya--and the same who had strangled Telamon a year ago in the comfort of our own home," Cor'lana explains. "She had tried to force us into a pact to not divulge her existence in the city. That was a pact we refused. And now--that demon is gone."

Cor'lana looks slightly nervous at the mention of other fragments. "I hope so as well, for everyone's sake," she says quietly. "I do not like the idea of these echoes existing in the world."

She turns to Seldan. "So... I would ask, 'what now?' but we both know our direction. At least in one part. The Spire and the Mythwood."

"Nor I," Seldan replies promptly. "The demons that attempted to impersonate myself and Malik, were possibly of that same ilk. Those must yet be found and destroyed, did we not do so in the destroying of the echoes. His lips set into a thin line, and he is left to continue to stare down. "My lady, I would heal you and your lord, at the very least, if we are to travel. Mine are of no concern. I have borne far worse, and would let it be a reminder that I failed to protect you."

Telamon offers Seldan a smile. "Please don't blame yourself for their tactics, Sir Seldan. I should have been expecting an ambush as well." He makes a face. "I really need to invest in something to avoid being grabbed like that. It's unseemly, not to mention dangerous."

He squares his shoulders. "While I was manhandled, I took no injuries from it -- presumably they had some filthy plan in mind regarding me. Please, heal yourself in lieu of me -- I don't think you need any reminder, visible or otherwise, of your duty." He pauses. "Besides, Malik might complain if you don't."

"I concur with Telamon," Verna notes to Seldan. "Tend to yourself. If not for your own concerns then for those of others. As well," she looks to the others, "I bid you all success in your ventures. If there are more of these echoes, or other lingering threat from the circle, I shall do what I may to see all made safe."

"I will not object in the slightest to you healing me, Seldan," Cor'lana replies with a small smile. "Especially considering you and I are due shortly to embark on another journey. And like my husband says--clearly the both of us need to invest in that measure. While I'm pleased I can manage a limited wish spell on my own--it's one that's taxing on my reserves, and it'd be sensible to invest in something that can help keep me safer in that regard. Birds don't do well being caged, after all." That's a slight joke on her part there, her violet eyes twinkling.

With the very smallest of smiles, Seldan dips his head in acknowledgement and steps forward, removing both of his gauntlets. It is clear in this action that they are different, for one matches the armor, and the other one is much more ornate and fitted with brass and steel instead of pearlescent sheen and mithral. These, he hooks in his belt and reaches for Cor'lana's shoulders, closing his eyes.

It takes him a moment or two, but rather than a defined prayer, his approach appears to be repetition of what Telamon will recognize to be rote prayers often used for meditation. A silver glow forms under his hands as he does this, sinking into the half-sil's skin and mending her wounds.

Only when he is done, and his hands drop, does he answer. "Spellcasting is taxing, I have learned. But come, I should see to myself, ere we depart, do you think it meet. I would reserve some of my power for the journey, but some can be spared, I think." He blinks a few times, then lowers his eyes again, clearly conflicted.

Telamon's eyes brighten as he watches Seldan mend his wife's injuries. "Many thanks," he says sincerely. "And yes... it seems only yesterday I had to focus all my will to bring forth a simple spell. But..." He shrugs with a grin. "I guess it's the same way you get to perform in the Theatre District and get top billing. Practice, practice, and more practice." He looks to Lana. "Are you well, love?"

Cor'lana sighs in relief as Seldan's prayer of healing affects her. She nods in gratitude to Seldan as his hand drops away from her.

"I am surely healed, my starborn king," Cor'lana says to Telamon, "but I must see to it that our friend gets to the Temple--so that he can have his power in full--and then to our destination. For the Mythwood awaits."

Her violet eyes twinkle. "If anyone there knows your father, I'll be sure to send them your regards, of course." Then she looks to Seldan with another nod. "Let's go. I have to say my own prayer of thanks to Ni'essa, anyway."

So off the group disperses--in the wake of one trial and two to face another.