Journal Entry 1049.
The 20th of Hammer, Deepwinter, Midnight.
Ruben City, The Slums.
Active Quest : Find the traces of cult activity within the slums of Ruben.
I have finally caught a trail connecting to the cultist’s activity which lead me to the city of Ruben. I travelled alone overnight for several days to catch up to them here, and I plan to attempt to uncover their activities tonight. It is still unknown as to who they are and what their goal is, but their months of abducting people from the slums of cities needs to be brought to an end before it comes to fruition.
Jace Arcanis, Second Officer bearing the Golden Cross of the Platinum Shield.
Closing the journal, Jace places it beneath the sheets on the floor that make his bed in the room. The room is constructed with old planks, surrounded with the stench of rotten food and feces, and the only furnishing inside is the aforementioned sheets. He stands up smoothly and walks over the creaking planks to the crumbling frame of a glass-less window laden with snow.
Dressed in clothes that blend into the dark and cover his entire body all the way to just below his golden eyes. He stares into the shadowy alleys of the slums, watching the people move through the sleepless night. Exhaling softly through his mouth, the steam of his breath escaping through the fabric covering his face and rising into the cold winter air, he raises one foot to the misshapen windowsill which oddly ignores the pressure of his weight as he propels himself out and into the dark world.
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The rats of the slums meander through the mixture of snow and dirt that cover the alleys, searching for the dead or rotten food both forgotten. But there is one area they avoid as if a plague even worse than the one they carry exists; an unseeable force keeping them away.
Men dressed in long cloaks decorated with multicolored scales move through this corner of the slums, the sounds of scale-mail clinking beneath their draped figures and their feet crunching on the snow. They carry gagged and unconscious people with them, collecting into the entrance of an unsuspecting, crumbling building.
A shadowy figure resting upon the supports above the ground of another nearby collapsed building watches attentively with two piercing golden eyes. He silently pulls out another journal of different color from the one earlier along with the tip of a broken quill that he holds firmly between his fingers.
2 alleys N of SE corner of slums. Cult of the Dragon.
The clumsy writing of an improper writing tool makes for only a short statement, which briefly becomes luminescent. After seeing that the words successfully illuminated, he closes the journal and stores it away again. Turning his attention to a ring on his right index finger, silver band with a black stone, he briefly whispers something incoherent causing the stone to emit a faint black light which ripples across his entire body turning him into a completely imperceptible living darkness.
He approaches the targeted building amidst the dark, feet not even crushing the snow. Monitoring of the nearby alleys tell him that there are no cultists outside, so he focuses his attention only on what is inside to determine the danger lying within.
Standing just near the entrance, but behind the door should it open, he listens closely for any sign of breathing or movement on the other side. He determines that there is nobody near the door guarding it as to avoid the attention of anyone who passes by. Not that anybody in the slums would care about suspicious people actually being there, but telling the guards might result in a little profit.
He stands up and presses his palm against the door, again muttering incoherent whispers. A ripple of transparency pulses over the door twice, once to remove the alarming spells and once to remove the sound of creaking wood and hinges. The door opens to a pitch black chasm with stairs descending. He promptly begins to climb down in the void without fear of the blinding dark but wary of the hidden traps that await him.
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Deep below the surface of Ruben City lay the catacombs, filled with the ancestors of the city’s inhabitants and ignorant of the existence of the cold world above it. A score of cultists gather in a large hall where at least a dozen unconscious men and women are strewn about.
The floor of the large hall is inscribed with the large white runes of a magic circle, all the unconscious victims are gathered within its borders. The room is illuminated by the flickering flames of torches held by a few cultists, but their lights fail to reach into the shadows of the corridors leading to this hall.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Deep within one of these corridors, part of the shadows move as an impossible to notice figure watches their activities.
Catacomb, Hall, Approx. Y300. 12 victims, Magic Circle, Arcanine Chalk, 20 cultists. No leader yet.
Jace quickly writes in the journal, but closes it immediately to avoid the letters illuminating his whereabouts. He waits patiently for the leader of the cultists to appear, determined to slay him and escape to delay their activities until reinforcements arrive by word of his journal.
Moments later, the cultists are all gathered around the magic circle, the ritual most likely to begin soon. Jace still waits for the leader to reveal himself so that he can destroy the pillar of the ritual itself, clutching the hidden blade within his sleeve.
As he resolves himself to absolute stillness, relying on his shadow illusion spell to make him unnoticeable, he feels an oddness about him. As if waiting for this feeling to arrive, a voice suddenly whispers from behind him into his ear, “It seems that you’re waiting for someone, could it be me?”
Jace’s eyes become panicked and he tries to dodge forward out of reach, but his body is immediately suppressed by a mountainous force. His shadow illusion spell is broken from contact with another person, and his body once more becomes perceptible.
“Ho? What peculiar eyes you possess, you must be a servant of the Platinum Shield. How unfortunate for you, I am not one of those haphazard cultists who do not practice precaution.” A deep, raspy voice comes from the mouth of a red draconic humanoid that presses down on Jace’s body. Such incredible strength capable of holding him in place and eyes that could detect him from the shadows, no wonder this person isn’t even human.
Jace can only struggle in vain against the draconic man’s strength which negates any attempts to free himself, and watch as the incoherent speech of a sleep spell force their way into Jace’s mind. Even as his vision fades he struggles with every ounce of power he can muster, but each spell is ruined by the claw pressing against his jaw and each movement is suppressed by the strength of the draconic man’s body. He soon lays still from having sunk deep into a state of unconsciousness like the rest, the blade in his sleeve falling out of his grasp to the floor.
The deep raspy voice pervades the room once again, “Put him with the others, a human is still a human even if they’ve been blessed.” The cultists carry his limp body into the magic circle, dropping him without gentleness onto the floor. “We will begin the teleportation at once, no need to wait until those pitiful Platinum Shield lackeys arrive.”
The cultists all take position around the circle, and the draconic man begins to chant incoherent words that reverberate through the air. The circle slowly begins to illuminate starting at the piece closest to the leader and making it’s way around and inward. In a short five minutes, the entire circle is brightening the whole room, swallowing the bodies of everybody present.
The light immediately vanishes, and there is nothing remaining in the hall except for the flickering torches and scattered chalk dust of the magic circle. The light from the torches briefly flicker into one of the corridors, a small silver ring with a black stone and a discarded blade casts an unseen reflection into the catacombs.
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Two days later, the footsteps of several people echo through the corridors leading into the empty hall. A woman equipped in polished and decorated steel platemail enters the hall, her golden eyes thoroughly looking at the remnants left behind. Her presence drowns away the dreariness of the catacombs with the aura of a valiant knight and the beauty of a black-haired goddess. Several other men and women dressed in chainmail enter behind her, beginning to collect the evidence.
One of the men approaches the woman with obvious anxiety, his hands fiddling with objects. “O-Officer Mardia, I found these in the right corridor. I-I believe it b-belonged to Officer Arcanis..” The woman’s sharp gaze stares into his outstretched hand, as if challenging the existence of the ring and dagger that lay there. Her face betrays any attempts at stifling her anger and worry, she snatches the objects out of the man’s hands.
“We’re returning.” The only words that have come from her mouth in several hours, creating an intensity about them. She turns and storms back down the corridor as if marching to a war that she cannot yet see. The rest of the men and women follow behind her nervously, a fear of accidentally invoking her anger hangs over their heads as they disappear down the dark of the catacombs again to find their way in the winter world above.