“Then how about Nox?” Cirilla stared up at me just a few inches smaller. “From now on call me Nox. My legion’s symbol will be a black owl with green eyes. The name?... The legion's name will be ShadowNova.” Nox didn’t take her eyes from my gaze. The determination in them shone through the black and white of both, patting her on the shoulder I agreed to this but noted one thing. Life was going to become a lot harder, but she was already prepared for that. Being an elf saved her from certain troubles she was put through thanks to her mixed blood.
Like her auntie Kyte. Similar to her mother Awin, Nox was a firewatcher. Being forced to consume fresh blood or eat hearts to survive, this normally resulted in them gaining powers that matched what they just ate, like an increase in mana or an entirely new mana type. Nox however was different she couldn’t gain new powers from consuming blood or eating hearts, she was already at the peak of what a firewatcher could be with the rarest powers they can muster. The willpower of shadow sorcery and a state of berserk that heightens their senses, reflexes and strength they become almost unkillable.
Nox inherited this all from her mother which is why I was unsure as to why her symbol would be an owl, then I remembered when I happened to enter the tomb of the elven royals. On her mother’s grave which was empty was an Owl, one known for their black feathers and green eyes. The shadow owl.
“Alright, then Nox. So, you already know that Nue, Ciaran and Artoria are grand commanders but theirs one you might get along with. I think right now she will be in the training grounds.” Nox stayed behind with me and examined the final body that seemed to be a Crazed knight, who wore armour denoting he was higher ranked. Shuffling around his armour, my hand grazed across a thin letter that was sealed inside an envelope, which was placed in the Crazed Knight’s pocket.
Opening the letter carefully I read its contents.
“I’m still adjusting to the Numenian so can you read aloud.” Nox spoke waving her left hand in front of her face hiding her expression of uncertainty under the stag skull. Nodding I began to read the contents aloud.
“King Riel, the mission is a failure, the tribute has begun their own tribute to another being altogether… I believe it is to the Raven god. I believe we must approach with caution; she knows to have eyes everywhere. You must gather allies to wage the war that is coming, I’ll help when I can. —I can’t read the name, seems to be smudged beyond recognition. Mhm… all I can make out is the first letter or part of it looks like an ‘L’ but upside down.” I sighed rubbing the bridge of my nose in annoyance, the letter though it's valuable is pointless if I can’t figure out who wrote it. A few things I picked up on, it was a letter about me potentially, from someone to Lyron.
The handwriting was unknown to me, even with my photo memory I couldn’t place who could’ve written this thing not even someone in a past life. They also seemed to be someone who liked to keep things brief and wrote Lyron’s name with respect. They were either a god or a very influential noble.
Sighing once more I turned towards Nox, who on the same day as becoming a sororitias she had her first mission. Nox raised her hand and without a second thought she took the crumpled letter from me stabbing it into the rock wall beside us, Ciaran was unsure to what she was doing but I wasn’t. What Nox was doing was a special technique of using sorcery and blood magic to weave her own blood into the paper. This would make it so anything rubbed out or in invisible ink would be seen. Raising her hand, she made a shallow cut across her arm that flowed down her arm towards the paper.
“There is only one word written in blood. ‘LIAR’ What the hell does that mean?” we all shrugged at the word written in blood. That single word threw a problem into the works as this was a word none of us were expecting. No more clues were shown through the blood not even a name. I had an idea of something after seeing so many similar letters yet I was full of uncertainty.
“Should we compile all the letters and see if anything adds up?” Nox asked ripping the letter off the wall with her knife in tow.
…
Compiling all the letters that I had a hold of I placed them in order of first recorded date written to the current date. Nox and I had figured going from the first letter to the current there was a span of at least a few months dating back nearly five months before I arrived in Numena. This gave me a rough idea of how long a grand plan had been going on whatever it was, a few letters noted a few steps of their grand plan like consuming souls through cannibalism or digestion of high quantities of blood. Another step referred to collecting a large amount of good powder that would have to be imported across several weeks, third step outlined something and was the most crucial.
According to the letter the third step was to create an army of slaves using puppet magic that cannot be destroyed in anyway yet, according to the letter’s sender this was deemed impossible because of wraith sorcery and dragon fire.
“There are no dragons in this realm, right?”
“There are actually. A few weeks ago, aethna my old dragon bond left Chornobyl, she came to this continent and began to sleep in the north where all the black sand and grey snow is located. It seems that even dragons have to migrate once in a while.” I laughed picking up an older letter that had Riel’s royal family’s symbol on it. Having never opened the letter thinking I lost said letter I examined the symbol which was smudged like it was hand drawn on. Reading through the contents many things came to light. They were about Lyra who as far I knew was in Tramon with the shogun training under him as his apprentice.
“Off topic but what’s that?” Nox pointed towards a weapon that was hung in my office beside the grand shelf of books.
“That’s an old scythe... I have no talent for such weapons. In my life as Marin, I had a daughter Kara my firstborn that was her scythe, before she fought her last. Kara sealed the scythe away beneath the citadel.” I explained to Nox that the Scythe wasn’t like her elven curved sword or my odachi, in a sense it was like Excalibur well Red Death which I still couldn’t think of a name for. Kara’s scythe was sentient only partly, it could choose who could wield it but other than that nothing.
Kara’s scythe had no name of its own meaning its existence isn’t known to anyone other than the fact it’s nicknamed the scythe with no shadow. The name was something that Kara took pride in. she just liked to call it ‘thorned anchor’. Turning back to the task at hand I shifted through the letters to sort each one Nox used her sorcery on each to trace hidden words. One word on each letter, over the ten or more letters a single sentence was written in blood.
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“well fuck. This escapes me what does ‘A lair waits in between Ravens and wolves.’ Mean? What there’s more? ‘Towering trees hide their true forms in clouds of thorns.’ It’s a poem?” Nox scratched her head writing the bloodied words on a separate sheet of paper with a question mark. The poem doesn’t have meaning by itself but looking into the history of onrath as a whole, it's more serious than people might think.
“It’s not just a poem Nox. It’s a wife’s tale. In the past woman who found their husbands to be cheating the poem would be a way for them to say it without problems. When I found it as artura it was used by Druids in their brewing speeches or whatever they call it. I tried to find the meaning yet that’s all I’ve stumbled across. Right now, I’m not sure what it means, though the part Ravens and Wolves does stick out.” I momentarily paused writing the poem on my own sheet of paper circling the exact part I was mentioning. Remembering rightly Ravens are mainly referred to as death birds or corpse eaters.
Wolves on the other hand are largely referred to as pack animals not working alone. Thinking about these animals it struck me, that ravens finish off the parts of the meal that wolves cannot get to or voluntarily give away. Ravens and wolves, like to share when it comes to what they consider food, in this context I’m assuming it would be human life, the rest though I couldn’t figure out what it could possibly mean. Nox in her own interpretation added to my own thoughts. She suspected that the passage about the trees could represent a pseudo mask they could wear to hide their true intentions.
Slowly we began to piece parts together making our own assumptions. Of course, this was just all speculation to what the bloodied words of the hidden message could actually mean. Whilst everyone tirelessly worked to rebuild Numena and establish an empire on this continent me and Nox grew tired of hearing our own voices. A few times we thought of things but they just felt off, writing them down nonetheless just in case they could help slightly along.
“What the fuck could thorns mean?! This is so fucking frustrating!” I exclaimed dragging my mechanical hand down my face slouched in my chair behind my desk. For the next two hours, Nox and I made some progress, adding to our thought concluding that these letters were meant for someone. It started to become clear that this blood writing was for me. I hadn’t thought of it before, jumping around my room I grabbed an old book. Tattered and worn down to fibres in the parchment, the personal notebook of Rold. Rayenfur’s husband and aide. Slamming the book onto my desk, accidentally made Nox jump. Seeing the old book, she raised a brow with a genuinely unsure expression.
“This is the personal notebook of Rold. I suddenly remembered that the wife’s tale was noted in this very book. Ah HERE!” I yelled flicking through the rough aged cream parchment pages going directly right to the pages of notes on the seer race. The predecessors of the elves and shamans. The wife’s tale was described in this notebook as a way for the seers to describe the overworld to their young. To the average person or scholar, they wouldn’t think much of it yet from the countless times I have seen Rold’s ghost looking towards the northern ruins. It had to mean something.
Now understanding the old numen language, a lot better, I read the words as they were written even the words that were scribbled out.
‘Today Rayen made an amazing discovery that I believe could make a breakthrough for all. An entire colony of first epoch Seers live below our feet gone unnoticed for so long, when we made first contact, they were unsure of us but… once they understood our motives they were very helpful. It seems before the ‘humans’ came to this continent; the seers ruled it all eventually driven out by the ‘humans’. It seems we weren't meant to come to this realm as a whole. The seers warned us that one day our fall will begin.’ The paragraph ended there making me scratch my head in unsureness. If the seers warned Rold and Rayenfur about their fall, why didn’t they give extra detail.
‘It has been ten years since we made first contact with the seers, it seems they have subgroups from beings who can use drugs to see visions, some can use mana that allows them to speak to nature but there is one group that are considered outcasts. The djinn.’ Flicking to the next page the paragraph continued explaining the groups. ‘These djinn are a concern to us, tricksters and war lovers, yet they have mostly been wiped out by their own.’ According to the notes, the djinn had a very big problem of in fighting among their ranks, leading to their downfall more or less.
Rold wrote various lengthy paragraphs before he wrote what the wife’s tale meant to the seers. This old wife’s tale is strange it has its roots in various places such as Pthulminthian and Babylonian mythos, but something strikes me as wrong. This wife’s tale was spoken without knowledge of these two mythoi, I’m unsure as to why it seems off though, further research may be needed.’ Rold went on abit of a tangent through various more pages until he arrived back at the old wife’s tale. ‘Through further research, I have concluded that the Old Wife’s tale is a poem once decoded will lead the decoder to something that can show them an answer to something. This isn’t concrete just speculation, I will note when I have more of an answer.’
Rold seemed to research into this old wife’s tale quite a bit until his health started to deteriorate. From what I could tell by these scrawly writings, worse than even doctors some might say, eventually his writing does pick up again which I presume Rayenfur started to write what he spoke. ‘According to further research, I have concluded that once the poem is decoded, coordinates will be shown in blood upon a map. I am unsure what this could lead to maybe an answer or something else entirely.’ Once again his writing got worse as explained in his notes after some time of finding the location of the coordinates, he said that Rayenfur was now dead.
Not wanting to give up on his wife’s memory, he tried to finish his research until he could no longer write.
“Mhm. He found the location, but he couldn’t gain entry. His last note on the matter says the following… ‘On my final days, I have reached the location deep in the everglades of black mountains, a wintry blood eclipse is above… my final day is near maybe tomorrow in fact. Doing my best to figure this out I have surmised that some ritual must be performed.’ He goes on a tangent again. Here we go. ‘With the last of my strength, I write this note… nevertheless, I'll return my notebook to the citadel. Anyway, finally I have the answer as to how to gain entrance. You must have the blood of the veritas running through your veins and the dragon blood as well.’ You can enter that way.” I looked up from the book to Nox who looked back.
“Yes but, Look Rold didn’t write down the coordinates nor did he tell you what the poem actually means. I believe once you find the location you will forget after some time unless you gain entry, or he died before he could write down the answer. That would explain the absence of the answer.” She noted standing up from the desk, shuffling through the letters to have a clear view of the map drawn into the table. Looking at the map I looked towards the black mountains where Rold said the location was in, the vicinity at least anyway.
“That vast wall of rock! It would take years, right?” In frustration, Nox groaned not realizing what I already had. The black mountains might be a vast wall separating east to west, they held many secrets, and large tunnels were carved inside down towards the large cities. This was all detailed inside Rold’s notebook. Of how much Rold delved into the djinn, the entrance to the poem could be in one of three places that is noted. The old ruins of Caldrin, the second being the site of inhibition my birthplace as Marin, the third was the place I wanted to check myself, the caves of Lacrimosa.
Carrying on with deciphering the poem I ran into a fair few problems as I began to become stuck with ideas that I had already written down, this became a bit of a dilemma. I did gather a few new ideas. For the next couple of hours I spent going over everything I could, the new and old ideas together I felt the time pass so effortlessly. I hadn’t realised but the day turned to night. obviously unbeknownst to either me or Nox we had spent the last twelve or so far hours on this. In those twelve hours from Rold’s own notebook and the collective effort from Nox, we had pieced together what it all nearly meant aside from the clouds. Taking a moment to think about it, I stared longingly at the notebook before seeing words that I hadn’t before.
‘The clouds have no meaning other than the sky above.’
New words were written on a page that I hadn’t seen before hidden by magic. With this hint, I started to piece everything together. “The old wife’s tale poem means ‘A trickster waits between a group who shares their sacrifice to beings who hide their true intentions from those beneath them only seen by the world tree Yggdrasil.’… well, noth--That worked!?” I shouted questioning the words that I spoke on a whim with no regard for what I actually said.
Nox jumped out of her chair trying to scramble to her feet in surprise at my out-cry of questioning.
“WHAT?!” she screamed as I in turn stared at the coordinates written in dried blood over every letter I had on hand. The mahogany blood stains crumpled, quickly trying my best not to fuck as I wrote the coordinates down frantically. When the coordinates were fully written down and wouldn’t disappear on me, I looked at the map carved into my table. Searching over Numena It didn’t take long to find. The location I had to venture to was the place where I had first killed a Talos pantheon god who called me a ‘LIAR’.