Age of Division

[JRobertH]

The dwarf breathed heavily, clutching an iron pickaxe by its head as he used it to mount a pile of gravel and boulders. At its peak, he could see the human capital on the horizon. It was a little fuzzy, Rrodtul being accustomed to small, dark spaces. Only the hill dwarves would have seen it well enough to make out that tiny needle in the distance, the great clocktower, and there was little hope that there were any that had survived the Curse.

Damn the Curse. Rrodtul reached behind himself, struggling at a pack slung over his shoulder. He turned a circle, muttering dwarven obscenities until it came off, the strap in his hand. He sat rather firmly on the pile of rock and began to dig through his belongings. "Not a dram in two days," growled Rrodtul. He cast the sack to the ground where it unfolded. Twelve empty wineskins sat piled there, along with a gilded dwarven goblet. He thought better of leaving the goblet and pocketed it.

A stream ran by here. The dwarf was surprised he hadn't noticed it earlier. He knelt, took a sip of it, and recoiled. His eyes squinted shut. "Bah! Cold springwater." He smacked his lips as though he'd just eaten a lemon whole, then suffered one more drink. Surely he'd be in good company soon, good company with strong drink.

As he stood, his beard glistening with beads and dribbles of water, he noticed something shifting in the woods across from him. He leaned back, reaching slowly for his pickaxe, and promptly fell over. He scrambled back to his feet quickly, his pickaxe raised to strike.

The corpse of what may once have been a plump barmaid staggered into the clearing, one of its legs very nearly devoid of flesh. Rrodtul had killed two similar shamblers in his journey, though he usually elected to run away from the decrepit and the maimed. Seeing how very slowly this one was moving, he rested his pick over his shoulder, cursed at the creature, and spat in its direction. He walked rather calmly away, hoping not to run into a more able opponent.

A great brownish-grey blur appeared as he stepped free from the forest. It rested atop a green mound, perhaps only half a mile away. With renewed vigor, Rrodtul marched steadily toward the image, gathering new details as he drew close enough for his dwarven eyes to see them. It was a keep, ancient, likely from the time of the Old Empire. Rrodtul's stomach growled. He had neglected to pack food for the sake of his precious liquor.

The sun was low in the western sky as he came at last to the door of the tower. He grabbed the battered iron knocker and gave the door three solid raps. Dust drifted down from the top of the shifting boards with each knock, sending Rrodtul into a coughing fit. As no one answered him, he pushed the door open. It caught against the ground twice, but he shoved it along its hinges until it was swung back to the wall.

The room that lay before him was a dusty haven for spiders and cobwebs. A rotten table surrounded by eight wooden chairs sat in the middle of the space. At one end of the room was a stone fireplace, presently cold and empty. At the other end, a small lectern sat upon a short platform. Rrodtul gathered that this must have been a dining hall, used for some sort of meetings. It actually looked rather cozy, considering the building's purpose.

He began to shove the door closed again when he thought he heard something in another room. He immediately stopped and began to listen intently. Long seconds passed, silent seconds. He pushed the door closed, disregarding the noise, and rested his pickaxe in the corner. He muttered something about a tinderbox and began walking across the room. He stopped halfway, seemingly in deep thought. "No, the wine cellar. There might well be a cellar," he muttered. He changed course, as if he knew where he was going in the first place.

[AAB]

Isabel had built a fire near a large crack in the wall. She had spent most of the evening examining the structure, and was confident that this was the only gap the zombies could easily get into this room (likely at one time a pantry of some sort) through; the rest would require agility and intelligence, something the abominations lacked entirely. Thus, the fire. If the flame did not frighten them away, they would make enough noise being burned to awaken her. Fortunately, Isabel was a light sleeper. It had saved her on more than one occasion.

Isabel paused, sure she had heard some banging near the western side. Assuming it to be the undead, and tired of slaying them for the day, she ignored it. Surely they wouldn't kill anyone during the night; even if they left this ruin, there wasn't a victim for miles.

Isabel tossed another log onto the fire. It crackled. She sat watching the flame for a few minutes. It had been a long day, and she needed rest, but it had been difficult for her to sleep for years. Noelle had given Isabel comfort, but now she was also gone.

Something was moving about in a nearby room and making no attempt to hide its noise. One of the zombies must have gotten in. Isabel sighed. It wouldn't hurt to let it stumble about in there, but the noise could keep her awake. She stood and moved toward the door that separated the rooms. "Aperi," Isabel whispered. Nothing happened. She drove her sword into the rusted bolt and the door swung open.

[JRobertH]

Rrodtul bumbled back into the first room, angrily muttering to himself. "What kind of keep has not even a barrel of wine?" He was about to rant about humanity's lack of taste when he was interrupted. A door, near the fireplace, swung open, revealing a woman clad in armor and wielding a sword. She seemed to have her wits about her, and there was certainly a lively tone in her skin. Not a zombie, then.

The dwarf dusted himself off and stood as tall as he could, his chest pushed forward. "Well," he spoke, putting on his most regal tone of voice. He rocked back on his heels, his hands rested at his sides. He put on a thin happy face and continued. "I suppose you'll not kill me, then. You'd have done it by now." He turned from her and wandered toward the corner where he'd deposited his pickaxe. "Tell me, woman. What is your name?" He lifted the pick over his shoulder and turned to face her. "Have men dispelled this Curse that the dwarves cannot?"

[AAB]

Isabel instinctively swung her sword up in front of her face, a defensive attack stance. Seeing only a funny-looking dwarf in the room, she lowered her weapon.

"I am Isabel the Invincible," Isabel announced, "of the Mountain Paladins." He brought up the curse, of course. These days when one exchanged small talk it was less "had some clouds; looks like rain" and more "had some death; looks like zombies." "Men have not dispelled the curse," Isabel said, a twinge of bitterness in her voice as she turned her back to the dwarf and returned to sit by her fire, "and it isn't for lack of trying. Whoever is responsible is a thorough planner." Very thorough...how had he found the secret refuges?

Remembering the dwarf was still there, and had likely traveled as far as she, Isabel beckoned him toward the fire without turning. "If you must eat there is some dried bread in the pouch," she said, "and a skin of water beside it. How did the dwarves fare against the curse?" Usually Isabel cared little for the affairs of dwarves, but she had heard they had done better than the humans against the curse.

[Lars Melkior]

Chetlas hated walking. He hated the ground, mud, grass, grit. The crunching noise of small things under his feet was repulsive, nothing like the smooth rhythm of beating wings. But it was worth it to seem human, sometimes.
Besides, he'd always felt awkward, flying in boots.

The auguries had indicated a ruined hill-fort, a keep from bygone days, as the best place to search, though best was really a relative term, sometimes. Omen-reading, more an art than a science, was never Chetlas' best Talent. Now, after a day's hard travel, it was underwhelming. Cracked stone, streaked with bird-droppings, old doors which looked better for use as tinder than for keeping out the Cursed -- visually, it would be fair to say Chetlas was disappointed. Still.

He ran through his incantations again in his mind, and kept one hand ready on his powder, but made no move to open the door.

This was the worst part of adventuring. The part where you did something daring, like open the door to an abandoned fortress. There could be spiderwebs. Rats. Maybe even the Cursed, though the omens hadn't indicated their presence. Old diseases, spoiled food -- there was no telling.

He wished there was time to revisit his divinations, just once more.

His false nose itched as sweat ran down the seam, wearing away at the glue. Maybe there were people inside.
Maybe he should check his makeup.

Relieved, he set his pack down -- a deceptively light thing he'd chosen for the visual impact it made, and because it could hide his wings better -- and rifled through it till he found his makeup, which paste he then applied vigorously to his face. He would look sweaty and slightly pale, but human -- not that this was necessarily useful at this time of day, this far from anybody. But still. Safety first.

And spiders. Eww.

He shivered and dabbed a bit of dark earth he'd found earlier on the point of his chin, darkening it and suggesting a beard, which he still couldn't grow. Stupid humans and their facial hair.

It took moments to repack everything and situate himself again, curse in one hand and dagger in the other, and then he was in front of the door again, dithering.

[Kyrisse]

Eäriel donned her long coat on, careful to hide her pointed ears beneath the hood. She fastened small clips on her wrists to keep the sleeves from revealing the runic tattoos carved onto the flesh of her arms. The markings were still red and raw, even though several years had already passed since she carved it. Ever since she had been exposed to the Curse that was ravaging the land, her innate capabilities of self healing had waned. Every now and then, the markings would hurt, a sharp reminder of what she had done. Today the runes felt like it was burning her flesh. Unfortunately, she had already used up the salve that could alleviate the pain. She had no choice. She had to make more. And to make more, she needed to gather herbs. And to gather herbs, she needed to go out of the small hut. She sighed.

Going out was never something she looked forward to. Her small hut stood in the farthest edge of the small town, almost hidden by a huge elm tree. But despite her home being a ways away from the general population of the town, people sometimes wandered in its direction, probably out of curiosity. The rumor had started a long while back, just a few days after she arrived in town. A young boy had accidentally seen the runes on her arms while she was putting out herbs in the sun to dry. Having no knowledge of runes and their connection to the elven race at his young age, the boy had automatically believed that she was a witch. Believing that all elves had gone on their ship and cowardly sailed off, the townspeople believed the boy's allegations. And so, they left her alone because they thought she was a witch. They tolerated her because they all believed that she was human.

Behind the small hut was a small patch of soil the elf had cultivated into a garden. In that small garden, she grew several wild herbs and flowers, most of which she used to create salves. She didn't really need to wander far away to gather the herbs as she grew them herself but she detested going out for a variety of reasons.

Every single human reminded her of Gedric and their fallen allies. The memory had always driven her almost insane with guilt and sorrow.

The humans hated elves, believing that they were deserters who only thought of their own safety and survival. Seeing an elf living among them would, no doubt, enrage them. Not that Eäriel could blame them for that.

With another sigh, she went out of the little hut and headed towards the small garden. Three boys were gathered around the small garden, their backs turned towards her. They were crouching down onto the ground and appeared to be uprooting the herbs that she was growing in it. Eäriel rushed forward. "What are you..." she began but a stern female voice spoke up behind her.

"Caleb, Arthur and Tristan! What do you boys think you're doing?" A tall brown haired woman stood a few feet away with her hands planted on her hips.

All three boys jumped up to their feet guiltily. One after the other, they scampered off. The tallest among the three, in his haste, pushed Eäriel aside, making the elf fall backwards onto the ground. The hood of her coat fell off of her head. The woman turned to her. "I apologize for the horrid behavior of my children, wit--" she cleared her throat awkwardly. "...I mean, madam. I told them to buy herbs. Not steal them. I will---" she stopped short as her eyes fell on Eäriel's pointed ears. Her eyes widened. "You're an... elf."

[JRobertH]

Rrodtul grunted and walked over towards the fire, peering at the pouch that allegedly held dried bread. "The dwarves are strong," he said, his stomach rumbling. "We burn our dead in the furnaces. Sometimes it is difficult to keep them in there until the bones are burnt away." Discussing it made him strangely hungry; not for dwarven flesh, of course, but a finely charred steak would be nice.

He fished out a piece of bread and sat at a nearby wall, eyeing his hostess. "O' course, not everyone feels right about it." The dwarves traditionally buried their honored dead to be remembered forever. Now the Curse had forced them to neglect their usual ceremonies, taking old wine jars and filling them with ashes and bits of bone.

As Rrodtul began crunching through the dried morsel, he noticed a spider gently disembarking upon his shoulder, a silvery strand of web in its wake. He didn't mind so much; these tiny things weren't a tenth of the size of the cave spider brood he had dealt with in the mines. Of course, he'd never encountered an adult cave spider. Those were not to be trifled with.

The stars were visible through a high window. Rrodtul's eyes could barely appreciate them.

[RedRising]

Shartla was becoming tired, though she was trying desperately to ignore it. This marked her second consecutive day without any real sleep besides an occasional doze.
The time spent without sleep was becoming increasingly longer with each case study she did of the cursed. It was the intensity, the focus that kept her up and watching whatever dead one she had chosen to follow, but it was that same dedication that quickly zapped her energy away from her. It probably wasn't the most efficient research method, but in this particular area Shartla kept pushing that idea aside.

The subject that she was trailing behind (and above) was a formerly tall, middle-aged man; now over-expired and hunched over with creaking back bones. His shirt remained on his frame but his pants and belt had fallen off as his hips narrowed from loss of muscle and fat. The lack of covering and armor didn't seem to faze him in the slightest, but Shartla had made similar observations long ago with other undead so she didn't feel the need to record it again.
Her true focus these past two days was their walking patterns. They didn't appear to have a true aim, looking as if they were mindlessly wandering; but the fact remained that they congregated around areas with more potential victims for them, beginning to appear less and less frequently the farther from the capital she traveled.

Shartla had a theory that once falling to the curse, the dead developed a 'hive mind' like mentality, a state that might allow them to be dimly aware of each other and to gather around the capital as they did, surrounding it with their shambling ways to actually create a perfect barricade that locked the people in. She was trying to find proof for the idea by following an individual far from the Capital, trying to see if it would eventually wander and loosely join with a band of others.

Her results....weren't quite as easy to read as that though; they very rarely were when it concerned the cursed.
The dead man did in fact look to be mindlessly wandering; pausing, shambling, turning, falling, limping, whatever he seemed to fancy at the moment. There were times he went back the way he came, but it always looked accidental, or as accidental as aimless walking can be. During the few times he had bumped into other cursed, he sometimes did join in the same direction as them for a while....but that appeared to Shartla to be just because they happened to be shambling in the same direction in the first place. Eventually either her target would leave or the other fallen would make a sudden turn or just crawl too slowly to keep up with him.

Despite all the data, Shartla wasn't sure what to make of it without a breakthrough, and her tired state made her worry that she would miss that potential key moment when (if) it came.

She clung onto a sturdy branch, her bag of journals pressed against her hip, as a most undesired setback came into view;
a river. It cut through the edge of the forest, marking the border between the trees and the rocks on the other side. It was also the thing that her subject was heading straight towards.
Don't you dare.... Shartla growled to herself in her native tongue, and as if by her force of will alone the Cursed human stopped and stared at the water for a moment before beginning to journey to his left, following the water on the rock-strewn shore.

'oh, please don't, nono, get away, don't-'
But sure enough Shartla's thoughts came true as one crippled leg lost balance on the wet stones and sent the entire body into the slow moving stream with a ghastly shallow splash.
Its little weight and bumbling movement caused it to occasionally surface, but the current, weak as it was, was enough to casually tug the moving corpse along downstream. The monstrosity vanished from Shartla's sights after being swept around a bend.

'well...' Shartla thought, exasperated, 'that ruins that study.' It was true, she had been meaning to observe their natural movement in relation to each other, now that the water had forced it off course (if the undead man even had a real course in mind) there would be inconsistencies in any data she gathered from it now.
She let her head fall against the tree with a faint thunk, unsatisfied with her lack of progress. At this angle, something on the other side of the cursed river caught her eye; a bundle on top of the stone terrain.
Interest rising once more, she let go of the tree to glide down to that area, crouching down as she neared to be closer to it.
What she found confused her, a small sack with twelve wineskins dumped out of it. She carefully moved some; they all appeared empty.
The data she saw confused her; while it wasn't unheard of for people to try to attempt to live out here with the curse still raging on it certainly was unusual for a pack that they might carry to be completely filled with alcohol, especially since they would need their wits and other supplies to avoid the dead.

Shartla toyed with the idea that it might have been a pack on an undead, but dropped it almost immediately; from what she knew so far an undead wouldn't have had the mind to take off the pack on purpose, and the straps and material were in too good a shape for them to have snapped off and fallen on accident. A traveler was nearby, or had been. An alcoholic traveler at that.
'Or he could have been....' Shartla banished the thought before she lingered too long on it, the hope of seeing a dwarf being shoved aside. It had been years since she saw one, and even then she hadn't talked so much as watched her elders interact with him.....

Her test was ruined now, but fresh curiosity burned through her once again. She turned and took to the air once more, already having an idea where the wanderer might have headed; the old ruins that were in sight had served as her protection from the undead on more then one occasion and were in view for even a short creature on that hill.
She flew close to the treetops, clawed hands gripping tightly to her satchel that held her journals. The first few lines that she would write about this new investigation were already running through her head.

[Kyrisse]

The woman stood rooted to the spot, her eyes staring at the elf that was still on the ground. Her mind was confused. Elves no longer existed in the world. They have all fled to some safe haven in their big ships as soon as the Curse came to be and left the humans to fare for their own. Why would one still be in the village, living among them? And in the guise of a human, no less. "Traitor." the woman muttered under her breath. "Elves are not welcome here." She stated in a low almost hostile tone of voice. For several years they had tolerated the 'witch' and she had even gone out of her way to be kind to her, thinking it unfair to be misunderstood the way she seemed to be. But now that she has seen what the 'witch' was hiding under the hood of her cloak, she couldn't help but feel infuriated. She had been falsely led to believe that the elf was human like the rest of them while she was actually some sort of parasite, living off and leeching off HUMAN land. She didn't deserve to reap the benefits and the protection that the wall offered. Her anger was fueled even further when the elf stared back at her. She turned around and found one of her children standing a few feet away, staring at the elf with a look of fear and hatred on his face. "Fetch Hector, Caleb." the woman called out to him.

The boy with widened, fearful eyes, nodded. He turned and ran the opposite direction without so much of a word.

Eäriel looked at the woman. It was the woman who had been kindest towards her. While most of the townspeople had ignored her and stayed out of her way, this one had made an effort to say a little something everytime she passed by her hut. Once, she had even left a small basket of bread by her door. Eäriel had never said anything in return but she appreciated the kindness. But now, she was looking at her as if she was some sort of criminal. And the more she stared back at the woman, the more infuriated she seemed to become. Eäriel reached back and pulled the hood over her head. She stood up and brushed herself clean. It was time for her to go. She had apparently overstayed her welcome.

Eäriel laughed sarcastically to herself. As if she had ever been welcomed.

"What is it Melissa?" a tall, thin man called out as he approached. His gaze fell on the hooded elf before he turned is attention to the woman. A small crowd began to gather behind him.

"This woman is an elf!" Melissa exclaimed, pointing one accusing finger towards Eäriel.

The man looked surprised. His eyes narrowed as he turned his attention back at Eäriel, squinting to see beneath the hood. Melissa walked over to the man's side and began prattling hateful words in his ears about how the elf should be thrown out in the undead infested land outside the town's walls. The small crowd, overhearing Melissa's words, began to whisper amongst themselves. An elf in the town was unacceptable.

A small stone whizzed past Eäriel's face, missing her by only an inch. The elf turned her head towards the direction where the stone came from and saw that it was the boy named Caleb. He was holding another stone in his hand, poised to throw it at her. "Get away from here, elf!" he shouted. And as soon as he did, the crowd that was gathered began shouting themselves.

"Traitor!"

"Deserter!"

"Selfish pigs!"

Some demanded her to leave while the rest shouted insults and profanities . Another stone whizzed by, this time hitting the elf on her shoulder. Eäriel didn't budge nor did she step away but she could feel her own temper rising. She wasn't the one who had chosen to leave. She had been against it from the beginning. She had even fought alongside humans to free the world of the Curse. However dismal the result had been, she had fought until there was no more fight left within her. And this is the treatment she gets. The necromancer was the problem. The necromancer was the source of the Curse. But by the treatment she was getting, she might as well be the cause herself.

Her hands trembled. Violent thought began crossing her mind. It would only take a single rune to destroy this small town. And these vindictive humans would be left to fare against the Curse without their precious wall to protect them. Eäriel clenched her fist to stop it from trembling.

Despite the anger that was bubbling inside her, at the back of her mind, she wondered if she deserved the treatment. She had, after all, failed her companions. Both human and elf fell to the Curse because she could no longer protect them.

She didn't wait for any more stones or any more blasphemy to fly. She didn't even bother gathering up any supplies. She felt that she'd completely destroy the town if she stayed a minute longer. Without a word, she turned on her heels and left.

[AAB]

Isabel gave Rrodtul a slow nod. The Mountain Paladins encouraged cremation just for this reason. Of course, few humans wanted to see the bodies of their loved ones burned and preferred them to rest on grassy hills. It was obvious that most, if not all, of the undead were human forms.

Isabel rolled over, using her arm as a pillow. She was still in full armor, except for her helmet which sat nearby, but had slept with it on even before the curse. She was ever-vigilant, prepared to fight the instant she was awakened. In truth, before the curse she would not have been comfortable sleeping with her back turned to a dwarf she had barely met. She had been more suspicious then, especially of non-humans, for any may have a hidden reason to slit her throat in the night, or at least run off with her money pouch. These days Isabel gave little thought to the living.