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A Mother's Love
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2023 6:32 pm
by Masagh
3rd Day of Frost, 123rd Year of the Age of Steel
Masagh slid along the slipspace with what was now a familiar ease. When first his sister had carved onto his soul this Cardinal Rune that other space had been eerie and dangerous. Now it was just as dangerous, but it was a familiar danger, like the city of Gel’Grandal was. Masagh was leading the nervous ghost Indira through it though. The uninitiated could become lost forever if left alone in this space between. So Masagh was careful about following the correct aether lines back across the coast. The dark mysterious aether swirls did not distract the ghost from their thin tendril of guidance. She floated very close behind him, and Masagh could feel the cold chill that emanated from her.
He was a practiced traverser, though, and Gel’Grandal may be a day’s flight south in his Pterincus totem form but it was only a few minutes walk in the Slipspace. Soon they were stepping out into the dank sewer system just outside the warded property of the Creth compound. The flickering portal behind them shrank into nothingness as the two undead stepped out.
“This is… unexpected.” Indira said flatly, staring around at the rounded sewer tunnel with sad eyes.
“This is the sewer, not the compound.” Masagh explained. “Though our compound is connected to the sewers. Daylight is too risky for a ghoul.”
“Why, the villagers will come poke you with pitchforks?” Indira asked, eyeing him.
Masagh looked her way, then began to walk slowly towards the compound entrance. “No, well yes maybe. But it is dangerous because the daylight kills us.”
“Kills you?” She was incredulous. “As in you just keel over if you go out during the day?”
“More like we roast to ash.”
“That seems… Hard.”
Masagh’s mind flashed to Cynfael’s last stand. The wrongness of his pale undead face in the light of day, as though his entire existence was out of place. “It can be, but we are careful. Now speaking of being careful…”
Masagh turned to her. He had thought this over as he walked her home through the Slipspace. Dread turned his lower gut. “I think it best if you remain… unseen in the beginning here. My mother will be displeased with such a long unexplained absence. Worse for us, she will be curious and require answers.”
Indira frowned up at him. Only an hour of knowing each other and she was realizing his position was already more precarious than expected. “Should I be worried?” She asked, folding her arms protectively and glancing down the tunnels. She had never known the city that was Gel’Grandal. All the world was unfamiliar to her now.
“No, she won’t hurt me. Well she won’t-” Masagh found himself fumbling his reassurances. “I won’t be killed. And you won’t be seen to prompt more questions…” He growled under his breath. “She doesn’t much respect liches. I also didn’t tell her I was going to that ruin, or that I knew about it.”
“So you were inexplicably gone for a year, and now we’re going to walk in there and just hope they don’t require an explanation?” She asked.
Masagh grimaced, the expression stretching his gaunt features. “No, of course not. I will have to tell her the truth. But I’m hoping I can get away with just some of the truth.” He fingered the subtle black chains of the Fademantle.
Re: A Mother's Love
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2023 6:41 pm
by Masagh
“What do you think will happen?” She cut through his bullshit.
Masagh snapped his teeth together and pulled at his knuckles, the pangs of hunger settling in once again. “She will either exile me or confine me… But either way I will have to defend my actions. You should not have to be a part of that.” Indira was too vulnerable to be expected to withstand whatever peripheral ire he invoked from Emerande Creth. The ancient master of House Creth could wither a soul with her stare when angered. No doubt she had mourned him, undoubtedly still does.
“Alright, time to face it then.” He grunted, his mind still racing with explanations. Then he lead the way through the muck to the Creth compound entrance. The familiar halls did not seem vastly different since last he stepped into them. The tall statue of Quetharax still stared out over his head as it had always done. The smooth stones of the floor carried no extra dust. In the home of such long lived people, time changed less. He could hear murmuring in the Grand Hall.
Straightening his back, Masagh stepped into the largest room in the Creth Compound. All his plans for what to say and lies to tell fell away. Almost the entire house was there, gathered at meal. For him it had only been about half a day since he had last stood here. The truth of Indira’s words abut the trap circle was etched on his mother’s expression. Her gaunt features widened in genuine surprise and shock. The pale glow of the soul totem she wore about her neck roared into a blaze, and reflected in her wide eyes. Cyran next to her gasped and made to stand shakily.
The room was quiet and mostly still. In the floundering silence he felt the gentle cold press of Indira’s presence behind him. Comforting and invisible. Then there was a blinding movement from one of the front tables.
Sabrione crashed into him hard. He had brought his hands up to defend but she had wrapped her strong arms around his neck and drove her head into his shoulder, sending him toppling. They both landed hard on the tiled floor but she made no reaction to the blow. Her movement had triggered everyone else to exclaim or move and the hall was alive with sound again. Even in that din though, he could hear his sister’s faint sobs.
“I’m sorry, Sabrione.” He murmured quietly, just for them.
“I thought….” She croaked. “I thought you were gone.”
They struggled to their feet and Masagh saw that Riah and another newer knight had come over. He hugged her also but was forced to turn to his mother then.
Emerande Creth had descended the dais and stared unblinkingly at him. She slowly walked forward and all parted for her. The smooth bald head of his mother tilted slightly to the side, examining his face as she approached. Pain creased her expression and her lips were slightly parted. When she reached him she reached out a tentative hand and touched his chest gently.
It was as if a dam in her heart broke when she finally confirmed he was no illusion. She gasped and gathered him into a fierce hug. Masagh held her, shook by her open affection. It was jarring, to say the least, to see such a response in them all. She pulled away from him and held him at arms length, a smile curling her lips and creasing the ends of her eyes.
“My son, I did not think…” She began and swallowed. “Where have you been? We looked all over. My scrying could not see you, but we knew you weren’t dead.”
They deserved a real answer. None of his half-baked lies flitting around his head could be given voice in the face of that genuine love.
“Was is the Kinvaren? We raided one of their safe houses.” Sabrione asked with barely contained menace.
“We stripped the flesh from their bones but neither of the ones we caught gave any information.” Riah said, cold fury weighing her words. It had been a year since he had last seen the novice knight. Gone was the wide-eyed naivety. She wore more confidence now, and the weight of the role sat comfortably on her shoulders.
“It… wasn’t the Kinvaren Coven.” Masagh said hesitantly. “I went to the old lair of Lithicus.” His eyes drifted to his mother’s when he said the words. He searched there for understanding.
Re: A Mother's Love
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2023 6:43 pm
by Masagh
He found it.
He watched the love in her face become tainted with a bright hint of betrayal. A fire lit in her eyes. Emerande Creth was the granddaughter of the progenitor of their entire race. She had been nobility in the archaic Undead Empire which few living souls remember. For centuries she has wielded the sort of magic only a handful on the continent can use. When one such as her became angry, truly angry, it oozed from every part of them.
Her eyes grew flinty and the cold mist of her soul totem began to swirl violently. She grew still and the smile left her face.
“Lithicus? Who is that?” Sabrione asked, frowning from her mother to Masagh.
“How dare you hide this from me for a year?” Emerande asked, her tone ice. Others backed away from them now.
“I was trapped. The lich laid a circle.” Masagh began in a grating voice. “It did not feel like a year to me.”
She let go of him then. She watched his face as though she wished her gaze could burn him. “You went against my wishes for what? Some provincial back water upstart-”
The frustration was finally boiling over. Two centuries of confinement and still she wanted to bridle them. It pained him to see her so hurt. Her anger was still love. The love of a mother afraid to lose what was left to her. They could not let that stop them though.
“I went for us all.” Masagh said. “I went to find answers on how we could break free-”
“For us?! You have been gone for a year! You are a ghoul of the line of Creth!” Her pitch was higher now and her words resonated in the air with power. A slight ethereal vibration of authority entered her voice. “What can some hedge witch who flayed his own soul teach us?”
“He was a lich, like Quetharax.” Masagh began, but she flung a hand out as if to cut his words.
“He was nothing like Quetharax, my naive son.” She said, pointing a finger at him. “Quetharax is a being of Apocrypha, a servant of Lyren. That lich was nothing compared to him! Holed up in his little cliffside den living like some sort of hibernating bear!”
“He had connections of his own to Apocrypha. And now I have them.” Masagh said coolly, gripping the cloak about his neck. The black chains clinked with his movements.
Her eyes fell to the cloak, searching the details for knowledge he knew she could attain with a glance. “So you think looting his one shining prize from that realm justifies risking yourself?” She did not take her eyes off the cloak about his shoulders. “We were already down two knights. Riah was barely a season into her knighthood. Then you were gone and now they are barely three.” She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders. “You risk so much because you are agitated here? Bored in the safety so many have bought with their lives?” She turned her gaze up to him and he could see the pain in her eyes, and the frustration there. She had been mourning a son for a year, and then he had come back just to ruin that reunion with the tang of disappointment.
“Mother.” Sabrione muttered, crossing her arms and grimacing.
“We are meant to protect.” Masagh hissed out. “Here in this hole I have felt like I only protect me and mine.” He stepped away from her and raised his arms. “But there are more undead out there than the lucky ones in this hall. Lost souls without the knowledge or ability to protect themselves.” He was speaking to the whole hall now. He could see familiar faces at the tables. The family he had saved a few weeks ago, no a year ago now. “We have the ability, we Creth. I was not made to sit still here my entire existence. None of us were. You would not put a blade in my hand, nor the runes on our skin if you meant us to be idle.”
Re: A Mother's Love
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2023 6:45 pm
by Masagh
“You were meant to survive! We need to survive if there is hope for this future.” Emerande yelled back.
“Hope?” He felt himself yelling also, more than heard it. “What hope? We’re the ones with the knowledge and the birthright and all that garbage. What, you think some young ghoul is going to figure it out when all the Runemasters of Creth won’t even leave their sewers?”
A heavy silence followed his words.
“Mother, I can’t sit back anymore and watch my friends be picked off. I was raised to fight for the dream of a new Empire. You put a sword in my hand and told me to be strong.” He said, more gently.
“Maybe that was a mistake.” She whispered. She wasn’t sobbing, but then again she almost never did.
“Mother, you don’t-” Sabrione said quickly, stepping forward.
Emerande held a hand up to silence her youngest daughter. Then she turned her cold gaze upon Masagh. “Your juvenile antics and irresponsible recklessness have gone too far. You deprived us of a knight for a whole year-”
“But he brought back me!” A voice said, scared and shaky over his shoulder. “He told me this was a safe place for undead. I-I’m that… n-now. Doesn’t that me he did what you wanted?”
Masagh turned to see Indira behind him, looking furtive and out of place. She was close to his shoulder, as if that would protect her from the crowd of ghouls.
“Is that not the goal? A safe place for all undead?” She finished timidly.
Emerande stared from her to Masagh. “Secrets.” She said as if a curse.
Masagh glared at Indira, but instinct told him not to take his eyes from Emerande for too long.
“Ghost, I do not know who you are, but this is between my son and I.” Emerande began.
“But it isn’t! He told me Creth meant to protect any undead who came to them.” Indira interrupted her, pleading. Masagh ground his jaw and stepped slightly in front of her. The ghost was indeed bold to interrupt Emerande Creth. “Isn’t that a step to… this goal?”
Everyone stared at the ghost behind him.
“Brother, who in Lyren’s name is this?” Sabrione asked, staring incredulously.
“She was a servant of the lich Lithicus, and haunted his lair.” Masagh grated. He felt like he was losing what little control he had over the situation. “Indira is her name.”
“You are welcome, Indira.” Emerande said coolly. “He is correct in that all undead are welcome here within our walls. But I will deal with my son without interruption, and as I wish.” Then she turned her gaze back to him and lifted her chin slightly. “You have acted recklessly. You are lucky to be here now. Lithicus was a dolt, but his lair could have easily been dangerous enough to kill you. I cannot allow you to carry a blade in our name any longer, until you regain my trust.”
Her jaw twitched as she met his gaze and he saw the raw pain there again. This hurt her to say just as it hurt him to hear. “You are hereby removed from the knights, and confined to the Compound until further notice. If you-” She raised her voice as the hall broke out into murmuring and Sabrione made a choking noise. “If you leave the compound again you will be expelled from this place!” She finished in a yell, radiating power.
Sabrione and Riah both attempted to protest. Masagh only crossed his arms and stared at her. It was an old fight, and she must know his stance wouldn’t change. She had always pushed him further, not tried to hold him back. Was this some attempt to safeguard her offspring? If so, it seemed like she was letting her emotions drive her.
“Mother we need him!” Sabrione said. “He has years of experience! Without Masagh the three of us-”
“Will be just as fine as you have been for the past year.” Emerande interrupted her, still holding Masagh’s gaze. Then she stepped in close and embraced him again. “I love you, my son. But I can’t just let you stumble blindly.” Then she stepped away and turned to leave the hall.
Masagh watched her exit with an ache in his heart. He was no longer a knight of the house. He felt as though she had ripped the identity out of him.
Re: A Mother's Love
Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2024 5:18 am
by Zora
Review
XP: 8
Magical XP: N/A
Loot: -
Injuries/Ailments: -
Comments: To me, what really stood out in this thread was family bonds. It's clear that Masagh has complicated relationships wrought with secrets, emotions, and grudges. It made for an interesting read!
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