Erratus groaned audibly at the sight of the mountains of parchment held within the room. He pondered briefly whether Lucia would hear him and mistake the sound for the moaning of a husk, but his cogitations were interrupted by a faint rattling. Glad to have a distraction from the disappointment he would undoubtedly be wallowing in otherwise, the thief tried to locate the source of the noise. It didn't take him long to figure out that it was coming from the door at the end of the hall. There was still one other room that neither he or Lucia had checked, and he had half a mind to ignore the sound and go see what was in it. He decided against it, however. While they had the black box Gonye wanted, they still needed to find an exit if they were going to escape. That meant they were going to have to open this door sooner or later, so might as well get it over with. Anxiously fingering the hilt of his new sword, Erratus entered.

Lucia's eyes widened hungrily at the sight as she entered the long room. She opened the drawer which was inscribed with the words basic elementalism. She could already work with nature using her magic, so perhaps whatever else she found in the drawers would serve to augment her abilities. She would then take whatever she found to the table and exam the odd jewelry and ring like weapons.

Once again she found herself wishing that she could spend more time in this place. So many objects in the room she found interesting, but she knew that they would have to leave shortly. Gonye was waiting for them, and magic vault or not, she did not know how long the door could withstand the assault by the husks. Nevertheless,she was in no hurry to depart, besides, what if she found or learned something vital to their escape from these forsaken halls?

Personnel Check

Upon entering this final chamber which was tucked away at the end of the hall, one could immediately note numerous dissimilarities between it and every other room in the vault. The room seemed fairly large, perhaps even larger than the whole vault thus far, though it was hard to tell as the area was also extremely dark. The flaming orbs which lit the rest of the vault seemed to have completely burned out in his room, save a single orb which faintly burned inside its container just to the left of the doorway. Though it was far too dim for Erratus to see the rest of the room, from where he stood he could more than likely make out the shape of rows of desks which lined either side of the room creating aisle ways through out the chamber and in the very center a large square like contraption sat reaching all the way to the unseen ceiling of the vault. Just as Erratus' eyes glanced over this object a figure in the darkness darted away from the contraption which, in turn, produced a light rattling noise.

________

Inside the drawer Lucia found a large stack of parchment pieces which were cut just barely larger than her hand. The parchment pieces were long and rectangular in nature and on each individual piece there was an odd array scrolled with acute complexity in deep ink. Taking the stack of parchment over to one of the tables in the room and giving each a closer look Lucia took notice that each of the sigils drawn onto the pieces seemed to have a similar design at their base. Each paper was marked with a large circle and inside that circle a smaller one existed. In side of both circles a diamond penetrated the outermost reaches of the largest circle and on each corner of the diamond a symbol was inked. Some of the more complicated arrays in the set had more complicated characters scrolled in the corner and foreign looking words scrolled inside the outermost circles rim.



OOC: A very simple designed example.

Upon inspecting some of the items within the room Lucia immediately began to notice a connection. Some of the rings, necklaces and gloves that were in the room were also marked with the similar designs. Many were even marked with wild designs that looked nothing like the ones on her parchment pieces. What exactly were these markings? and why were they printed onto these items?

Erratus recoiled as he caught a glimpse of the shady figure receding into the shadows. He quickly grabbed the container next to him, then drew his sword and began to cautiously approach the center of the room. He kept a sharp ear out for whatever it was he had seen.

Whatever was in the chamber remained almost completely silent as Erratus carefully approached the center of the room and, upon doing so, came across the square contraption set in the center. The apparatus appeared to be a fenced platform that could easily fit six or seven people on it and the fence itself appeared to be in pristine condition, strong, thick, interwoven, and made of iron. Only on the front side, where Erratus was standing, was there an obvious entrance, an iron gate which was locked tightly by crossbars of metal which lined both sides and seemed to be kept in place by a mechanism linked to a keyhole near the gate. Finally, on each corner of the platform was a large chain which was connected to the platform by an even larger latch. The chains rose high, through openings in the enclosure, into an opening in the ceiling which seemed just large enough to fit the platform. As Erratus continued to move closer towards the gates the obnoxious sound of a heavy wooden chair's legs against the tiled stone floor of the vault echoed out through the room. Turning towards the source, Erratus' fire just barely illuminated a figure with long, black, greasy, knotted hair, pale white skin, and loose fitting brown bag like clothing moving across the floor near an overturned chair. Realizing almost immediately that Erratus had spotted it, the figure rose to its feet and broke out in a pathetic sprint for the door, knocking over chairs, sliding desks and creating a terrible racket as it did so.

Erratus almost shrugged and turned his attention back to the apparatus in the center of the room. Almost. Whatever had just fled the room was clearly afraid of him, and it wasn't as if it would be escaping that way. However, he got a faint inkling that ignoring who or whatever this was could prove dangerous, even if it wasn't a threat to him. Suddenly, it struck him.
"Hey Lucia, watch out!" He called and, content that a simple warning would suffice, went back to examining the contraption. From the looks of it, it was somehow connected to the floors above. Perhaps this could be their ticket out of here, if he could figure out how to operate it, though just thinking about it made his head hurt.

Gesturing a very awkward bow, Kechts began to speak.
"- am Kechts Udyde, information broker. - was curious - why men such as yourselves - still out here."
His speech was more akin to a harsh croak. His words simply became inaudible or indecipherable at some points, but were at least understandable as a whole. Most would wonder how one's throat could become so mangled as to produce such a spine-chilling voice, yet Kechts spoke this way naturally.
"It is about - rain. Will you not - shelter?"
Furrowing his brow and shifting his eyes, it was apparent that Kechts was very uncomfortable with speaking, not that it hurt him in any way, but rather because he feared he could not be understood.

Talaitha muttered thanks after the Lord of Silk disappeared from the tavern. Standing up, she kept in mind his instructions as well as his warning. Clutching her jambiya as she exited the tavern, aware of any danger she might have provoked earlier in the tavern, she repeated the instruction to herself in her head. She was to find The Roost, wherever that was supposed to be.

Nero's eyes hurdled hastily from the ground as Kechts spoke. A door... Yes, that was it, a door, old and rusted in a deep dark room, opening gently and stopping abruptly only to start once more and end just the same. Kechts voice was that of an aged cell door which one could only assume would create guttural, craggy noises that would yank a man by his flanks and jolt him to attention, just as it did to Nero.

Nero gulped and idly bit onto his lip as he listened with much attentiveness to Kechts every broken word.

"Shelter?" Nero finally belted out, "Do know of a place where we could go?"


"Hold yourself boy, should we really be trustin' someone like him?" The mercenary crudely interrupted as he removed himself from Nero's side. "Just who are you? What angle are you working?" Cautiously, though in a very smoothed manner, the mercenary strutted up towards Kechts, c*** his head, and began to walk about the odd man in a circle. "You don't look like an easterner, northern? Nah, I don't think I heard an accent, though I didn't hear much. How could I have..." The mercenary lightly teased before scrambling back to his thoughts. "South? Riverlands? Or perhaps you're an Aestarian like us... But what would an Aestarian be doing out this way, away from comforts of the cushy west?" The mercenary seemed intent on grilling answers out of the stranger, and though it seemed clear to everyone that Kechts more than likely meant well, even if it was in quite an awkward way, the mercenary still wasn't willing to trust him.

"Quentyn!" A voice called out in the distance as two people approached, a man dressed in the same armour as the mercenary named Quentyn, and a dark skinned women who appeared to be about middle-aged.

"We met up with the first gypsy, but we couldn't find the other, or Kariya for that matter" The new group of two approached Nero's position and gathered about him as Quentyn continued to inspect Kechts.

"Who's this one then?" the new mercenary asked impatiently.

"Don't know... He was just 'bout to start explainin'"



________________________________

Exiting the tavern, Talaitha found herself in the streets of a much different town, a town that was far transformed from what she originally remembered setting her eyes upon. The deep blue, open skies which had originally hung over Venosaar were now dark and filled with clouds and the air around the town was abundant with the overbearing smell of moisture which was gathering above in the dark skies. Alone in the streets Talaitha stood, the hundreds or even thousands of people who had been sharing the same space with her before she had entered the tavern house seemed to have vanished completely leaving behind them only closed windows and doors. Even the tent villages that sat far back from the tavern where Talaitha had once walked were completely empty. For the first time Talaitha could see the district in its entirety, it's solemn, chilling entirety.

Just after noon, when the sun was at its summit in the sky was when Talaitha was told to assemble with the others in the town square but with sky completely filled with darkness there was no way of knowing just what the time actually was. Searching for some way to tell the exact time Talaitha's eyes wandered across the empty skyline before finding something quite unusual, or rather, something that didn't seem to be there before. The edges of a red archway, perhaps even a gate... Far down the road, running parallel to the square but eventually far away from it was the tip of a large archway just peaking over the top of a set of structures. If this were the gate that The Lord of Silk had told Talaitha to find it wouldn't take long to simply pursue the road and enter The Roost...

OOC: Let's get this party started again! Whim <333333333333

Lucia inspected the jewellery with the strange markings which she did not understand. She sighed feeling frustrated; had she been given the proper tutelage as a child, she would have known what all this meant. She may as well have been illiterate. Nevertheless, she took two of the rings, and one of the necklaces to inspect them. Perhaps there would be information somewhere regarding them. However, before she could begin, her thoughts were interrupted by Khast who told her to look out. Look out? Look out for what? She was sure the husks hadn't broken in, that vault door looked incredibly solid, for them to have broken though, there would have been a great noise alerting the both of them. Perhaps he had toyed with something magical again? She rolled her eyes and got up from where she sat to see what she was to "watch out" for.

Just as Lucia rose from her seat in the chamber a figure, lurched over, almost as if it were running on all fours, stumbled into the doorway of the room. Falling onto the ground, the figure let out a short moan as it picked itself up from the floor and rose up onto one of its knees. The figure's long, black hair slowly rose from the floor as the face of the 'creature' lifted itself into Lucia's view. It was a man...

The man was pale and thin, he wore a deep brown, tattered tunic, a pair of grey trousers which were secured to his waist by a rope and a disgusting, foul smelling fur around his shoulders which draped down his back as if it were some cloak that had been tailored by a complete novice and cut four of five sizes too small. The man's face was long and concave, his irises shone a stoney grey, though one of his eyes, the right, seemed to be much murkier than the other and all around the outer ridges of his eye a large black ring stood prominently against his pasty skin.

Letting out a gasping breath the man shuffled himself along the floor for a moment before he uneasily staggered to his feet. The man's face seemed deathly frightened as his head turned about the room before he suddenly jerked to a stop facing Lucia. Without warning the stranger's face shifted in an incredibly uneasy fashion from terror to intense 'interest'. His eyes seemed to scan over Lucia from head to toe, then back over and over before a large, open mouth smile crossed his face. Had the man been grinning any harder the few rotted, yellow teeth left in his head would have likely fallen out but that didn't stop him from continuing do so as he took a step toward Lucia.

"Yer ah... ah person... Ah lady." The man's voice seeped through his smiling lips, his voice seemed lame, as if his mind weren't completely there. Each time he spoke a vowel the letter drew itself out from his vulgar, nasally voice almost like he were stressing each and every vowel. "Ah... Ah p-pretty... pretty girl..." The stranger's eyes slowly crept down and away from Lucia's face as he began to focus himself more on her body than anything else. "d-did you come looking... just for... for me?" slowly but surely the man was closing the gap between himself and Lucia as he continued to shuffle himself across the floor, his eyes still fixed upon her.

Though perturbed by the sudden change in the town seeing how she just barely entered the tavern, Talaitha took notice of the archway and made her way through the desolate square toward it. She tried her best to ignore the sky, but it seemed rather ominous that it grew so dark as she was on her way to find a man that for all she knew might not exist.

"F-forgive me. I - not mean to intrude."
Kechts was visibly upset by the relentless pressure of the mercenary. After a moment, he reposed himself and reintroduced himself to the two arriving men.
" I - Kechts Udyde of Ashenryk, or as - prefer, the Riverlands. I am - information broker, but I am not - for business."
He looked around to confirm that everyone could hear him, avoiding eye contact as he glimpsed their faces.
"- know of a place - can stay. The coming storm - quite dangerous."
He gathered himself and tried his best to look directly at the audacious mercenary who had just pressed him. Attempting to relax his expression, Kechts desperately tried to convey his genuity to the subject of his gaze.

Lucia stepped back warily as the man entered the room. Where had he come from? Had he been trapped inside the room all this time? She raised the back of her hand to her nose as she was hit by the wave of his stench. The man looked not entirely right in the head, and she was no fool, the looks he was giving her were not by any means innocent. She cursed her luck, the room of course had only one entrance and she was forced to only back up farther as he approached her menacingly.

"No," she spoke calmly, forcing her voice not to tremble despite her fear that was gradually increasing, "I did not come here for you, I came here for...for knowledge of magic" Had she not had to climb under the gate to get into the school, she would have had her bow and arrow or at least her staff to defend herself. Alas, she was stuck with her magical cloths, and what little magic she was unable to guarantee that she'd be able to wield. As of now, she had been able to create a gust of wind twice, but she didn't feel confident enough to summon one again, neither did she think he would wait for her to gather the energy to do so. (She really did need to practice those training positions that she had taken from the book; that is, if she made it out alive.)

In a moment of panic, she scrabbled for something on the table and pointed it at him. It was one of the rings she had picked up earlier.

Erratus was busily examining the keyhole on the machine when the sound of conversation reached his ears. So, the thing he had seen was a person. Interesting. At any rate, it sounded as if he and Lucia were getting along splendidly. Since his comrade clearly had the situation under control, the thief returned his attention to the matter at hand. He would either need to find a key or some lock picking tools to get this thing open, a task that fortunately wasn't way above his head. Brandishing his lantern, Erratus began to comb the room for anything of interest or value.