Libra: The Eye of Melandros

[Bitzeralisis]

LIBRA: THE EYE OF MILANDROS
Chapter 1: Flipsided

"Halt!" "In the name of the King!" "Surrender now or die!"

You run. You run fast. You run until you can't run no more. You're stranded at a large four-way intersection, panting with exhaustion, with nowhere else to go: for, on every possible escape route, there is a group of soldiers, chasing a lowly commoner just like you.

You four are cornered.

What do you do?

[nerulean]

Jesse's head whips around in bafflement, staring at the guards ahead of him as he brings himself to a slightly flailing stop. How did he let himself get so thoroughly surrounded? He staggers to get his balance back and then raises both hands into the air, although without any particular sense of urgency.

"Woah, woah, okay," he says, taking a step towards the guard who yelled the ultimatum. "No need to get cranky. I don't know why you guys are chasing me, but I haven't done anything wrong," today, at least. "I think you must have got the wrong guy."

[MrEdwardNigma]

"Smeg!" the huge Grekkin Darcy swore. It was what the fishmongers of the town said when they'd become covered in fish guts, but he felt it was appropriate here too.

He looked at the faces of the other people there, and noticed they didn't seem to want to vomit because of his stench. Grekkin guessed this was probably due to the distraction the guards provided, though it was worded much more simply in his thick skull.

The scrawny one begane to talk, but Grekkin wasn't one to stick around in a tough patch like this. When the fish is too big, you've got to cut the line, every good fisherman knew this. He pulled out the large hook on his belt, tied it to the rope with astounding speed and tossed the hook up to a window, quickly scaling the wall.

[deepsear]

"Gods flog this day until it rains like bleedin! Not what I wanted tah do!"

Dol eyes the men with him. The one climbing up the building wouldn't be much help, but maybe that human could hit something with a stick. The elf? Strange little man. Maybe he could use him as a shield, strap the little guy's shirt to his forearms.

Quietly, so as not to attract attention from the guards, he whispers to the human:

"These guy's don't usually bargain, from what I've heard. Maybe we can run into a corner shop and move tah defense. I'm pretty handy with mah hammer."

He rests his hand on the hammer's head, able ready it in a moment's notice.

[Bitzeralisis]

Before Darcy's hook even hits the rooftop, the rope is severed by a thrown sword.

"Do not mock our skills, traitors!" shouts the leader-looking-est soldier. "We were commissioned to destroy you, and only you, for treason against the king! There's no mistaking when one've's got a picture, no?" He holds up a Wanted poster with very accurate drawings of you four on it. Now that he mentions it, you finally notice that hundreds of those posters have been placed up around the walls of the city. Looks like disbelief kept you from spotting them before. Seems that all the dirty looks people have been giving you have finally been justified.

You hear a window shatter. Behind you, one of the corner shops' windows shatter into pieces as a dreadfully powerful-looking fiery laser of magic fires out from it. The laser splits and strikes four of the guards, who fly backwards with intense momentum, crashing into the various buildings on the opposite side of the street. As the falling glass clears, you see a peasant-looking person standing dramatically and acting way cooler than he should be.

He appears next to the four in a blink. "Come, come!" he shouts, magically dragging the four into the shop. He fires more lasers from red, mystical, floating symbols out at the remaining soldiers as he throws you a bit too forcefully into the cellar of the shop. "In! In!" he shoos you, waving his hands at you. A large, concrete trapdoor lays open in front of you, stairs leading downwards inside.

The soldiers advance menacingly. They look hurt, but not as hurt as if they had been unarmored. Looks like all that metal isn't useless after all.

Suddenly breaking his fifteen-second streak of using primitive wording, the man snaps out in an almost snake-like way: "It is our last hope! Go to the Flipside! Seek out E—"

A sword is skewered through him.

He looks at you pleadingly. "P- p- please. G- go. For the s- sake of us- s all..." he sputters, coughing out blood. "I w- will h- hold them of- ff... do not w- worry b- about me..."

[MrEdwardNigma]

"A snap of the line?" Grekkin says, surprised at the physics defying sword that cut his rope before it even went taut.

But before he even got the chance to make another toss Grekkin was pulled in a previously unnoticed cornershop. Before the peasant even gets the chance to tel him to do so Grekkin runs off into trapdoor. The sewers, the underground, he'd be able to escape the guards there. He knew the place like no other.

[Brickwall]

Elos'dans, who has been cowering and shaking this entire time, finally manages to find speech when the four get pulled inside. He speaks quickly, and in a high voice. His sentences string together, as he goes from one to the next without ever really finishing any one thought.

"What has been going on - getting pulled from one place to another - everywhere nobody makes sense and -EEEP!" He screams as the magician gets stabbed in the chest. He makes no hesitation and dives for the portal to the underground.

[nerulean]

Curiouser and curiouser, but Jesse does not pause to try and figure things out: when one person is trying to kill you and another is trying to save you, there is really only one choice to take. He makes a bolt for the rabbit hole, scurrying in after the genori.

"Not my day," he mutters under his breath.

[deepsear]

"Eh?"

Dol grabs his hammer from his belt, after being thrown down. He fends off any advancing guards as he attempts to close the trapdoor on top of them.

"Dying down here is better than a stab through the stomach and torture later!"

If he fells any guards, he drags the body down with him. Their armaments would be better used by him.

[Bitzeralisis]

As the four rush into the door, the man's eyes turn deep and flaming for a second. He suddenly bursts into flames, roaring in anger, turning into flames, spiraling flames, that burst outwards at the soldiers, forming into the shape of a phoenix, with the burnt shadow of the man at the center, slowly dissipating into nothing, and burning all the soldiers to death—

The leader-looking soldier advances menacingly at the phoenix, shouting over the noise of the roaring flames: "I knew it! I knew you were part of the rebel conspiracy! But I had no proof, I could not get you executed, stupid old man, I knew it, your past was too prestigious, and the abandonment of all that power just stood out! Why else would someone like you give up all that fame and fortune but—"

While the leader is shouting at the old man, a guard makes his final leap for the four. He is crushed by a ton of concrete as Dol hits the lever that evidently closes the trapdoor. The guard grunts in pain, and lets out a deep breath, moaning. He doesn't seem to be dead, but nonetheless, Dol drags the unconscious body down with him, unclogging the door and ultimately closing it once and for all.

The lever doesn't seem to work in reverse.

A final explosion and a hawk-like screech is heard, muffled, through the door.

"... absurd... powerful... ... stupid old man... ... ...my good sword, too!" you hear the same leader-like soldier from before say, behind the trapdoor.

In the opposite direction are more stairs, leading about twenty feet down over the span of thirty feet to an eerily white, wooden, and old door. Almost everything except for the aforementioned door is concrete. A few lit torches hang on the walls.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Grekkin gave the guard a swift kick to the ribs. He then took one of the torches and took a few steps towards the door.

"The net won't hold, I'm afraid. They'll get through soon enough. If we're in any luck that door'll lead to the underground, water where I can find all the good fish. We should take that guard with us to question him later. I know I'd like to punch some information out of him. Or just plain punch him, really. They call me Grekkin, by the way. Who are you fellows?"

Hoping the others would follow, Grekkin grabbed hold of the guard's feet and started dragging him down the stairs, towards the door.

[nerulean]

Jesse grabs another torch off the walls and looks around, running a few steps ahead of Grekkin and checking for anything irregular in the concrete. He gives the door a glance for a moment, then turns back towards the others.

"I'm Jesse. Don't suppose any of you know what's going on here? I mean, no offence," he says with a grin that might seem a little optimistic given their current situation, "but I've never even seen any of you before. What were we doing on the same poster?"

[MrEdwardNigma]

Grekkin raised an eyebrow.
"You've never seen me? I'm in the marketplace every day! I sell the best fish in town. Everyone knows me"

Arriving at the end of the hallway Grekkin drops the guard for a few seconds as he opens the door.

[deepsear]

"I'm Dol Mar, but you probably haven't heard of me. I just do a little metalwork in town. Grekkin, I mighta bought fish from yah once or twice, but I'm not really in enough money to frequent your establishment.

Anyway. The poster? I have no idea. Probably some simploid burercrat tryin to make some arrests tah look good. However, that flamin pheonix man person hints slightly at somethin a bit more. Whatever it is, we should just keep low, and try tah figure out what in the blazes is goin on."

He doesn't move to the door, and instead checks the guard for any useful or dangerous things, like a weapon. Or information.

[Bitzeralisis]

From the guard, Dol is able to retrieve a longsword and two daggers of different types. He also has two potions, one murky-blue and the other grey and thick, a scroll with a magic symbol drawn on it, and a wand. Dol is about to turn away when he spots an anomaly on the guard's wrist. Knowing that the armor there wouldn't have a bulge unless it was really, really badly crafted, he examines it... and it turns out to be a hidden wrist blade.

The concrete is old from age, not use. Nothing seems to be growing on it, though. Similarly, the wooden door is dry and crackled. But nothing is growing on it.

The door opens. A warm but dry breeze washes over the party. Behind it is, oddly enough, a hallway with rough, whitewashed walls. The uneven hallway is littered with broken wood, apparently the result of concrete seeping in from the various other rooms the hallway was connected to by doors. It's oddly house-like. The roofs and walls have been slightly compressed and cracked by the weight of the concrete. The floor here is fuzzy, a thick, rice-colored carpet. The place is strangely devoid, as if it had been ransacked at a time far in the past... there are also empty wooden cabinets and broken shelves lining the right side of the hallway, which is the direction it jaggedly curves in. About ten, fifteen feet long, the whole area is covered by a strangely thick dust. At the end is a balcony and staircase, and small, unobstructed double-doors leading to the left.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Grekkin picks up the guard and tosses him onto the area of dust.
"Never trust the dark patches of water"

He then continued into the hallway and looked at the balcony, stairs and door.

((Do the stairs lead up to the balcony, or are they a different thing entirely? It wasn't quite clear))

In case the balcony isn't connected to the stairs, Grekkin tosses up his hook and climbs up, inviting the others to join him. Otherwise he'll opent he door.

[nerulean]

"Now that's just weird," says Jesse, hanging back with Dol and watching as he examines the guard, though he is clearly commenting on what is revealed beyond the door as well. "This whole thing is just weird. I'd feel better with something sharp about my person. You going to do anything with those little pointies you've got there?" His tone is casual: it is, of course, finders keepers, and if Dol wants to keep the daggers then he'll get no argument from Jesse.

[deepsear]

"Nah, everyone help yourselves. I have my hammer."

Dol looks down at the guard's wrist blade, and decides to try and remove it. Very carefully.

"After I'm done, Grekkin, can I borrow some rope?"

He sounds a little uncomfortable calling a person by his race's name.

[MrEdwardNigma]

"Nah, everyone help yourselves. I have my hammer."

Dol looks down at the guard's wrist blade, and decides to try and remove it. Very carefully.

"After I'm done, Grekkin, can I borrow some rope?"

He sounds a little uncomfortable calling a person by his race's name.

((Grekkin's human, actually. He just looks a lot like a Grekkin, and he's even stupider than most. And he reeks))

"Why do you need the rope?" Grekkin asked

[deepsear]

((I guess what I meant to say was he felt uncomfortable calling a person Grekkin, Dol's race name, like if you were to call someone Human Jones. Sorry if that was vague.))

"I just need it to tie this bugger up. That way he'll be a little more managable when he wakes up."

Dol spreads the loot on the guard to one side, in plain view of everyone, and begins to take off the wrist blade.

[Brickwall]

During the introductions (yes, I'm retconning)

"I am Elos'dans, and it's a name you'd do well to remember, for I'll be a world-renowned inventor someday!" He strikes the crystal on top of a short stick against the wall, and it begins to glow. Then it sputters out.

"At least, I would be if I weren't a fugitive now."
_______________________________

"Give me those magical items, I'll see if I can't tell what they do. I think we'll need all the help we can get." The Cerulean adjusts a pair of spectacles on his eyes, and gathers the potions, the scroll, and the wand. He attempts to analyze them quickly, but stuffs them in his pack after a minute (at most) regardless.

"We should get moving. I'm worried that trapdoor won't hold long." With that, he follows Grekkin.

[Bitzeralisis]

The stairs lead down from the balcony, to a lower floor. The stairs themselves have carpets, and turns sharply right at the last few steps. The railing for the stairs is wood, though the balcony's is a small wall. At the bottom of the stairs is a small elevated section, one step above the rest; facing it from the bottom of the stairs, there are two large double doors at the end and sections of carpet, one large room and another blocked-off hallway, to the left and right, respectively. Or, a bird's eye view:



In the door to the left, there is a large room that's (in my bird's eye's sense) vertically up and down, with the upper right corner connected to the entrance. A small door to the north is blocked, but one of the windows is broken, where there seems to be a small concrete passage leading into the darkness.

One of the potions seems to be of healing, and the scroll has some fire-property spells on them.

[nerulean]

Jesse reaches down for the daggers, picking them up and quickly checking that they're sharp before stuffing them both into subtle loops in his belt that now look suspiciously like they were intended to hold daggers, even though they didn't before. "Thanks," he says with a grin at Dol. "Those could come in handy."

((I'm assuming Grekkin and Elos have gone down the stairs from the balcony we came out onto. If that's not the case, ignore this next bit.))

Jesse begins to follow after the others, but pauses along the way at the double doors to the left, opening the first one and sticking just his head inside to see what he can spot.

[Bitzeralisis]

In the upstairs door to the left, there is a large room that's (in my bird's eye's sense) vertically up and down, with the upper right corner connected to the entrance. A small door to the north is blocked, but one of the eastern windows is broken (it's pretty large), where there seems to be a small concrete passage leading into the darkness.

The whole room is empty and bare, as if it were plundered a long time ago. The walls and floors seem eerily used, and once again, everything is covered in dust.

The lower floor carpeted room is placed horizontally (bird's-eye perspective, again) and is quite large (about twice as long and high as the part you can see in the bird's eye). It seems to be made of two parts, cut in half up-and-down by a not-so-protruding-and-obvious arch. The arch itself is small and looks exactly like the walls; it's wooden and whitewashed. As explained, the whole place is bare and dust-covered. There is a door at the bottom-right of the left part of that room, which won't open. Also, some windows line the east, north, and west walls of this room; all of them are blocked by a solid wall of concrete.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Grekkin looked out both windows, the downstairs one first. Supposing they led to the street (an unlikely fact due to the route we have taken, but the city might have height differences, I suppose) Grekkin went inside again and slapped the tied-up guard until he woke up.

"We need some answers, slimeguts"
Grekkin took out his hook to be slightly more convincing in his argument, though merely being around Grekkin was practically torture with that smell of his.

[Bitzeralisis]

The passages in the windows both lead to the sewers.

The soldier panics for a second, then regains his senses. He makes a flicking motion with his wrist, and plunges the wrist dagger into Grekkin's chest. Wait, what wrist dagger? Oh, right. You removed it. The soldier decides to revert to panicking.

"What? What do you want to know, traitors?"

[MrEdwardNigma]

"Why are the guards after us, smegging codfish?"
Grekkin let the hook gleam in the light of his torch, and seemed to be considering which part of the guard to open up first.

[deepsear]

Dol chuckles at the guard, with his attempted attack. He watches on, prepared to intervene if it actually got to killing. He didn't like that.

Looking behind him, he sees the guard's longsword, and hefts it, checking for balance and craftsmanship. Satisfied, he takes it and vows to examine it later for any possible reverse engineering opportunities.

Deciding to help out, Dol walks in front of the guard, out of Grekkin's way, and checks the edge of the blade, trying to look dangerous. Not hard, when you're black-skinned, muscular, and have large fangs.

[Bitzeralisis]

"Conspiring against my King!" shouts the guard loudly! "Conspiring! Plans to rid my Liege from this world! You—" The guard takes in a sharp breath, and coughs. He looks around. "You shall face the vengeance of my Liege when you are taken to captivity! Soon, my Liege's most elite soldiers will strike down upon your filthy bodies! Soon, you shall be punished with not death, but worse, as a puppet to draw magic from..."

A puppet to draw magic from. That was the worst fate of all. Megenihood. It is only spoken of in books. It is only experienced by the worst of the worst. It is when they chain you up in a dungeon, feeding you only the worst of food, dressing you in nothing but a single cloth. But such is not as bad as what the guards decide to do to you, playing with you as if you were a toy and not a being with rights. They use the natural factories of your body, drawing the mana that naturally builds up in one using dark magics and rituals, treating you as nothing but another processing unit to gather mana from.

"...and blah blah blah, punishment blah blah blah blah yabber yabber rant..."

You're starting to get annoyed at the ceaselessly talking guard.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Grekkin plunged the hook in the guard's leg and pulled, slowly.
"If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll gut you like a fish, slimeguts. Why do they think we have it in for the king? What proof do they have? Who set you up to this?"