There's no way I can have a constant schedule with this. Whenever....
I''ve decided to do a character profile so I don't have to take breaks in the middle of telling the story to describe the chracters.
Mica: Middle aged. He preferes axes, since he has lived most of his life in the wilderness. He is about 6', 200 pounds. He has lived in the wild since he was a teenager, by choice because he becamse sick of people in general. His parents died in his adolesence and he was adopted by his uncle, who cared mostly about money, a trait that made his descision to live mostly alone all the more firm. His fighting style is self-developed and well developed and, therefore, hard to fight. He wears no armor because he perfers quick movement. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
Mica is well known for exploration and is called upon quite frequently to explore dangerous new areas in the Northern Lands, which is vast.
Silas: In his mid twenties, 6' 160. He is a swordsman and uses the broadsword. He joined the elite guards of his country at 17 and flew through training, compared to most his age. He was top in his division, but not the favorite because of an annoying tendancy to doubt and make it known and because of another problem, he won't conform to their code of ethic. Hence why he is allowed to take this adventure. He wears no helmet. He does wear a silver breast plate with a running shadowy horse, the sign of his country. The sword he carries was a gift from his mentor, who took him in and taught him after he was orphaned due to a war between to counties. His doubts obviously come from a survival instinct developed from being an orphan and on his own untill he was about twelve or so. In battle, however, he has surprised quite a few people with a quick change of attitude.
Titus: He is older than Silas, but not by much. He fell into some trouble and was promised pardon if he accepted this assignment, the trouble indirectly steemed from a secret relationship between the prince's younger sister and Titus. The prince had him thrown in dungeons for life, but decided to use him for this mission. The deal was pardon and the oppertunity to persue the young princes. The Prince, of course, does not expect Titus to make it out alive, and has payed Mica quite hansomely to make sure of this. Mica does not plan to go through with this, but is always looking for some extra money to help his needs. Mica has informed Titus and they have agreed to hide Titus in a rural village after the adventure is over. Titus' armor is the same as Silas's except his horse is completely black with white eyes. The color of the eyes signified rank and Titus was a higher rank than Silas. Though not even close to Silas's swordsmanship, Titus has better people skills. He also carries a broadsword, but his was issued by the Elite.
The story continues...
The two young men fell asleep quickly despite their fears. Mica doused the fire and...watched. Most of his watch went peacfully. He thought of previous adventures and places that he had seen in his life and compaired them to the present. There was no comparison. What happened here was not natural, and he only had natural experiences to go from. He tried not to strain his eyes in the darkness, and eventually he just closed them completely and listened. He kept watch this way for about an hour untill he happened to open them for the sake of opening them. When he did he was looking straight at a pair of glowing eyes. He quickly looked around to see if there were any more. There was not and Mica and the eyes continued to stare at the other. The glowing eyes then began to pace back and forth as if trying to decide what to do. Mica did not wish to wake Silas or Titus for a pair of glowing eyes, though it did seem a good enough reason, so he just kept watching to see what the eyes would do.
"What is this thing doing," Mica thought to himself, "I wish I had eyes that glowed in the dark." The eyes continued to pace back and forth, and Mica continued to watch turning every few moments to make sure there was no ambush. Mica finally rose and drew his ax. "If you're gonna do something you better hury up and get the guts to do it."
The eyes stopped moving. Just then Titus stirred and awoke. When he saw the eyes he immediatly got out his sword, "What is that thing?"
"A pair of eyes. That's all I know. It doesn't seem to be a threat. Seems too scared. It's probably waiting for us to go to sleep."
"Well, I'm not going back to sleep, now, so it can go ahead and starve," Titus wispered back.
Titus picked up a piece of the fire that was half way in and threw it at the eyes. The coal landed near the pair of eyes and whatever it was fled immediatly. Silas woke up right then.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing thankfully," Mica said.
"What was going on?"
"Don't worry about it, man," Titus replied, "It's my watch I think, Mica."
"Yea, about. I can take it for another hour."
"No, I'll take it."
Mica made a place for himself in the dark looked around and then lay down quickly falling asleep. Silas got up and took a seat next to Titus facing the opposite way.
"I can't go back to sleep," Silas said.
"I wouldn't be able to either," Titus said,"I think this place is going to require my full attention."
Silas nodded. After a few minutes of silence Silas had to make the comment, "That Valor girl was really pretty."
"No kidding, it's a shame she had to go into hiding," Titus replied.
"How old did she look to you?"
"I don't know, about 17."
"Hmmmm. Surel did a good job swipping the kingdom from them."
"Yea, I felt bad for the young man he killed. Just three more days and she would have been married to him and the Kingdom would have stayed in Valor hands to an extent."
"I hear she didn't care for him. I didn't care for what I heard about him. I think Surel had more reasons for killing him than just securing his power. Anyway, The law about having a male to run the country is stupid if it can allow people like the Vakent family to come to power. Except for your girl. All of Surel's dealings with the other kingdoms have been shady from the start. And they sure don't seem to be caring about ending their war with Coastsheir anytime soon."
"I don't know. I hate thinking about that war. That's another reason I took this adventure," Titus sighed,"Now I don't know which is worse."
"Hmmph."
"This group of missions was good at the beginning, but now everything is creepy."
"Yea, I can't shake the feeling at the pit of my stomache."
"Listen!" Titus wispered.
The two listened in the dead silence.
"What are we listening for?" Silas wispered. The forest made no sound. After waiting for a few minutes, they finally calmed down enough to continue in wispers, and so passed the night, speaking of people back home and possible treasure ahead. The eyes that had caught Mica's attention returned. Titus and Silas were slightly alarmed, and watched them as they continued their talk, untill dawn. When the sun rose the coming light drove the eyes and some of the fear away.
Titus woke Mica to prepare for the journey ahead.
"We're continuing aren't we," Silas asked.
Mica nodded, "It would be just as bad to return to the Prince as to stay here."
"So what is our next move?"
"The tower," Titus replied. He walked over to take a look. Everything was green again, but misty and surreal, like the life was alive but seemed ready to fall into a different and darker reality at any moment.
"This is truely a cursed land," Titus commented to himself.
"We're going down the cliff," Mica said, "It looks climbable. It's not completely straight down anway. Put loops in your ropes and use them to hang on to the rocks and limbs. We're going to take it very slow."
"Oh boy," Titus said.
After making the adjustments in their long ropes they immediatly began the long journey down. Using the rope like a giant conveyor-belt they hooked loops to different out-jetting objects. They made their way slowly, just as Mica had said, being very careful to hook a loop in the rope to something very stable. Silas was at the top; it was his job to undo the last loop. Mica was in the middle in case anything happened he could get to either one. It was Titus's job to make sure the loops were put on a secure hole. They made their way down, down and down some more; the view was incredible. They could not help but stop to look at the vast delicate misty green vally with the tower almost right in the middle. The bare rocks that jetted our from the side of the green cliff had little black swirls that made them visible from anywhere. Out across the valley they could see where black faces of the cliff revealed themselved from behind the forestry growing on the side. The swirls were so many that from a distance the rocks looked solid black. There was much shrubery on the cliff edges, so the men had plenty to hang their rope on besides rocks. After a half day of climbing the adveturers ran into their biggest difficulty. They reached a place where the cliff over hung.
"Mica, we have a situation," Titus called. He had been placed at the bottom because he was the least agile, so to speak, since all three were in excellent shape.
"Hang tight," Mica called back, "Let us catch up so we can use the whole rope."
Mica came down right above Titus and Silas came right above Mica, of course.
"It drops down the rest of the way doesn't it," Mica said to Titus.
"Yea, there is no where to hang our ropes that I can see."
"Ahhhg." Titus sighed. They were only a hundred or so feet from the bottom.
Silas sighed, "There's got to be someway to finish this out. How much rope do we have?"
"We may have enough to reach something," Mica replied, "Let's untie it."
Silas found something to hang onto and reached and untied the end next to him that was not holding Mica and Titus and let it drop so that only Mica's loop was holding them.
"The loops in the rope are costing us footage, " Silas said.
"Undo some more of the loops," Mica said.
They undid some more of the loops and let the rope down furthur. When Mica and Titus undid the loops between them, Titus slipped down the rope to the next loop and undid it. Their shoes had grippers on them, since Calton was a mountainous country, every one had climbing gear. He contiued this untill he came to the end of the line.
"Still about twenty feet short," he said to himself.
"How far?" Mica called.
"So close, yet so far," Silas called, "Strap!"
They all hung there for a few minutes untill Titus decided to just go for it. He swung a little to hit a pack of bushes and let go. He yelled and hit the bushes dead on and slid through falling into a river that ran along side the clif. He rose to find that not only the bushes and a river but another deformed deer had broken his fall.
"Glad I didn't land on those antlers." he said pulling himself out of the water.
Minutes later Mica came falling down, and then Silas splashed behind him.
"Maybe we should clean one of these and bring it back for a mount," Titus said.
"Nice," Silas said coming out of the water sopping wet. He stooped to look at the deer.
They were startled by growling directly behind them. They turned around to see a bear standing there. It was very large grey and ugly. Half of its face looked like it was decaying and the hair had patches missing.
"Watch out," Mica yelled. The bear charged the middle of the group, but everyone got out ot the way. Silas was the closest to the charge since he happened to be in the middle, so he quickly drew his sword and gashed the belly of the bear as he move out of the way. The bear stumbled and fell, but immediatly stood back up. The wound was deep and the blood looked infected and green. The bear gave roar and tried another charge, but it fell to the ground in convulsions. Then it expired. Mica walked up to the bear and stabbed it in the heart. The blood oozed out like slime. None of the group needed to say it, they all knew it was disgusting and they did not want to see it anymore.
"Let's keep going," Mica said.
They began cutting their way throught the forest slowly, always keeping a lookout for anymore hideous monsters that might try to harm them. The trek through the forest proved to be just as difficult as the climb down into it. The thickage was unyeilding as they hacked and slashed through the vines and bushes. Sometimes the trees would be so close that Mica would have to take time to cut down a tree in order for them to advance.
"How do we know we're going the right direction?" Silas asked.
"I remeber the angle of the sun to the path we need to walk," Mica replied.
"I can't even see the sun," Titus said.
"I can see it enough."
The two followed Mica, since it was obvious he knew what he was doing. They walked as quietly as they could in the lush forest, hoping not to attract any attention. But the forest always seemed quieter and more menacing. They made their trek without anymore incidents for that day. That night the forest turned into death just as it had done the night before. They got very little rest and continued their march the next day eating, with much concern, the familiar plants that they knew had nutrition.They saw new vegitation as well and they wondered at some of the birds they saw. They spent another day traveling. And on the day after that, at last, they came to the structure in late afternoon. It looked like a huge spike, bigger than any tower they had ever seen. The building they had seen, shot way above the forest and all of it was overgrown with vines and bush. The entrance, or what looked like the entrance was completely over grown.
"It's gigantic," Silas said.
"The trees won't go near it," Mica observed, "We couldn't see this clearing from up there because of the tall growth I guess."
"This place looks like bad news," Titus said, "It's big and abandonded, except by vines murderous plant."
"I agree," Silas replied.
"We camp here in the open tonight," Mica said, "We chop our way in tomorrow. I kind of want to know what's inside."
"Yea," the two elites agreed.
The huge structure inspired awe and some fear. This place that had not been visited for so long and was so abandoned was going to be breeched. The party began to think of things like treasure. They wondered if this place could be inhabitable again and if these relics could be revived. The death of the night could not stop them from romantisizing the ideas. And so they set up watch and spent the night eager for the next day.
