The Trial of Power (Euripedes)

[Aegis]

The Summit of Power

Frost 88th, 121 AoS

Euripedes would feel the door that she kicked open spin around on impossible hinges, striking her in the rump and tossing her into the Trial of Wisdom and the door immediately disappeared after. The budding bard being booted would discover herself upon a rocky ridge. All around her was stone and sky. No life, no plants, no structures, and no people. She was utterly and truly alone. In the distance, upon various crags and minor peaks, glints and glowing could be seen.

There was no wind, nothing moved, and Euripedes would only be able to hear the heart beating within her chest. If she moved, she would not be able to hear the sound of her boots on stone. If she breathed, she couldn't hear it. If she screamed, nothing would come out. Then the objects in the distance glowed brighter and brighter, illuminating the entire area in a soft, blue light, and the world's sounds returned. The wind, the breathing, the grinding of stones underneath, it was all there.

Then a high pitched, piercing scream cut through the world, splintering Euripedes' vision. As it did, a rune the color of stone was carved into Euripedes' sternum. The glows faded through the area and it was back to a world of silence. And all through the mountain range, shadows could be seen flitting to and froe, racing around the peaks, following the ridges. They were too numerous to count, but as they collided, they merged and grew bigger. And each of them was emitting a high pitched squealing noise, like that which came off a single string of a very poorly tuned lute.

Euripedes' own shadow was dancing wildly, completely out of unison with her own body and the ambient light of the world around them. Violent, sharp, exaggerated motions in a seemingly nonsensical pattern. She would be able to feel each motion in her own body, would be able to feel it draining her physical energy as if she were making those same exact movements herself.

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[Euripides]

It was the silence that hit her more than the door.

The lack of sound from her steps, mouth as she attempted to speak — to call out for Jiuen as she always did because what if she’d been behind the door, waiting? But such was not the case. Just darkness and silence and rocks and sky. The violent screech that should have been let out with this revelation was swallowed by a soundless void all the same. Would she be trapped in this strange, soundless world? A fat lot of good coming through the door had done her. Perhaps another trial would have been a better choice.

Before she could even think of turning around, a scream cut through the silence. Seemed to rip through the bard and carry over as a light came to the darkness of she’d been engulfed in since her entry through the door. Something carved itself into her skin and when she looked down, Euripides found a rune. There on her sternum. Of all the places they could have chosen. The sting lingered for a moment, and the hiss that slid through her teeth was cut off as the world fell into silence once more. But not darkness.

Enough light had returned for her to see the jagged movements on even more jagged cliffs. Twitchy, bizarre flailing of the shadows that she felt tug at her limbs. And the notes of a song that didn’t sound quite right. Our of tune, or perhaps out of order on top of it. She felt that tug at her limbs again and turned, thinking she might have been put on a string. Maybe she had been. A puppet in a farce trial. A play put on for little children, of heroes conquering some force of darkness. A cruelty came to her smile at the thought. Surely, those children would need to learn that the very darkness they worried over was the adults sitting fat and warm in their floating houses. While those same children would go and beg on the streets. Maybe join the skyguard to make a name for themselves. End up stuck leading criminals to their death in the Warrens, eaten by something they’d only ever dreamed about defeating.

Oh, but in the puppet shows, she had always liked the little songs. Another tug of those puppet strings as she stared down at her own shadow. Moving out of sync with herself, dancing. Oddly, dysfunctionally. Did it want a song, something it could dance to? The bard pulled out one string from the left, felt the chord tug in protest beneath her fingers. A pathetic twang — a sound. She allowed only a short moment of rejoicing, before she pulled two more out. More pathetic, mournful twangs as she did, then balled them up to shove them into the hole of the guitar — and watched it begin to change shape under her demands.

Smoothed over, the bone had shifted to something softer, the neck narrowing out. She pulled a ring from the strap, watched teeth grow where it had once been to latch on to the ring beneath it. The instrument complied, once it knew what was happening. Three strings were pulled taut as a reshaped pick pressed against them and she breathed. Followed the beat of her heart and the erratic dance of her shadow before she began to play.

She’d snuck into one of those low-level whorehouses, once. Just to watch the performers, of course. Her and — well. She wouldn’t think of him. Couldn’t, for the moment. A blessing or a curse, either would have been fine, but she felt like it could have been the latter as she tried to play by memory. Fit the notes into the spaces they belonged in, her hands moving at the pace they should. The trill of them echoing. A silent is this what you wanted in her expression.

Song

[Aegis]

The Summit of Power

The song that Euripedes was playing echoed out around the mountain range. And as she played, the notes grew stronger, and her own shadow began to dance to the song, still defying her own body's motions. Some of the movements were out of beat, or perhaps as suggested earlier in thought, out of order. But they certainly seemed to be closer to the truth now.

As each deeper note was struck, silent lightning flashed across the area, causing all of the shadows to momentarily pause in their motions, and shrink ever so slightly. But it was temporary, after all, a song can't be made up solely of deep and deeper notes, at least not in this day and age. As the higher notes were struck, the mountain peaks grew taller and more jagged, raising Euripedes and her entire stage higher toward the clouds.

But as she did, the air would grow thinner, making it harder to breathe.

Her own shadow though, had no stopped dancing. It was standing there, wielding a shadowy variant of the instrument Euripedes had. Euripedes would be able to see it bobbing back and forth to a song, entirely different from the one she was playing, as well as seeing its mouth opening and closing in silence.

However, the shadows hadn't gone without notice. They began to race in curving pathways around the peaks and valleys, but all making their way toward Euripedes' location. Every time the lightning flashed, the paused, looked in pain, but would ultimately continue onward, reaching out for her.

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[Aegis]

The Summit of Power

However, before Euripedes could react, there was a flash of light, brighter than lightning, coming in silently from overhead. It raced down from the sky like an impossibly large meteor. It reached the peaks first and they began to shine in color. As it continued onward, the shadows fled from it, and Euri would be able to hear their cries as the went, haunting, full of terror, an impossible sound by normal mortal standards. The light caught up with the spectral beings and erased them from existance. The death of the mountain was replaced by life. Plants grew where there was dust, animals sung where there were bones, light existed where darkness prevailed.

And Euri was allowed one long look at the beauty of it all, before she disappeared.