Once ears stop ringing from the thunderclap, the end of Robin's exultant "WooooHoooo!" is somewhat dampened by well, the damp. Splashing mightily, the girl hauls herself within range of the mounted knight and begins her own soggy Patternwork. Gently, gently so as to not conflict with Vere's path, Robin uses the splash of the waves hitting her face as a visual break to hopefully stutter-step them all out of there and to calmer seas.
OOC: In Range, since there’s no ship with you, basically means “holding on to Eckford’s haunches” or “mounting up behind Ophiuchus".
Robin drapes herself behind Ophiuchus; mounting may be too elegant a description for her sodden flop across Eckford’s haunches.
The flashes of lightning and the tremendous booming are enough to give Robin the visual breaks she needs, or they do as long as she doesn't edit the storm out. There's no sign of The Psyche.
Awwww.... Vere.... Robin has a moment of regret as she desperately misses Her Man. And dreads the apology coming. Even though she knows Vere understands her nature implicitly, she wanted to ride the storm with him so very much. Dung!
Then she turns to the business at hand. Yes, editing the storm out is definitely the first thing on her list. Poor Eckford!
Waves become smaller and bluer, less churny. The booming rolls further and further away. The lightning is fun though. Robin keeps the dark skies but the strikes become more and more diffuse and spidery, eventually fading to brilliant webs of cloud to cloud displays.
And Xanadu-ward? Easy enough for the thunder to start echoing the King's drumming. After all, all roads lead to Xanadu these days.
Before Robin can make this change, but after the storm calms enough for communication, Ophiuchus turns back to Robin and shouts "I have to take us under! Eckford is too tired to swim above the water any longer! Hold your breath, in case it's not breathable!"
Robin gulps in awkwardly. One would think she'd be better at this by now.
With that, Eckford noses down into the water, and Robin quickly finds herself submerged in a peaceful, quiet sea. The water above her and the light are still flashing irregularly, but the sounds are different—more muted.
This would almost be pretty, Robin thinks, if she wasn't underwater! The Ranger forces herself to be still and good luggage for the struggling seahorse and knight. But she's still too charged to be "peaceful."
Ophiuchus turns around. "Breathable!" he says. It sounds bizarrely loud, after the sudden submergence. He is clearly guiding Eckford to alight on a strangely regular column that juts up from the sea floor.
Robin nods her understanding. As quietly and with as much control as she can manage, the girl goes into her routine of gasping, hacking, wheezing and not-drowing! spasms as she convinces her reluctant mind and instinctive body to adapt to the new situation. By the time Eckford's circling in for his landing, Robin's got it under control enough to be a snotty, mortified mess. She really prefers to do that when people aren't watching. Bleah.
She distracts herself by checking out the... landing platform?
It's flat. In the dim reflecting light, it somehow glows or glints. It's hard to tell, but it might be some sort of metal. Robin can see, crusted over with growth, that there's something that might've been a hatchway at the top. As she looks at it, the spire looks like it might be artificial.
Eckford reaches the top and Ophiuchus hops off. "He's going to need to rest. And ideally, eat, if we can find him some food." From the muted sounds his boots make, the floor is definitely metal. In the dimness of the landing platform, Robin sees several others, some distance away.
Robin nods as she slings herself off as well, giving Eckford a grateful pat once she's found her feet.
Remembering what Eckford and Abford (poor Abford) ate when she and Ophiuchus returned from their hunt, Robin gestures down the far side of the column, tweaking things to her desire. "I think there's something growing wild over there. I can get it while you see to the tack?"
Ophiuchus nods. "Very well." From where Robin looks, she can see that this column is joined to another by a bridge. It's probably 30 feet further down.
Assuming this is agreeable, Robin bobbles over in that direction. She keeps an eye and ear out as she goes, hoping the underwater... city? is abandoned, not just unkempt.
Robin finds what she is looking for and, with her bare hands, rips it from the side of the tower. Beneath the plant the metal is shiny, even in the gloom.
Hunh. Robin experiences a moment of water-air confusion as she does not successfully blow a fluff of air at her bangs. Verde... bleah.
A stream of water is what she blows, and it hits the bangs, but it's not air.
Robin snorts and rolls her head in irritation, a gesture she obviously learned from her Uncle Morgenstern.
Robin makes her way back to Ophiuchus and Eckford bearing sea-horse food.
"Looks like we're on some kind of overgrown city. Do you have any knowings, ideas or just plain legends about a metal city underwater?" She ask the knight as she slowly and carefully feeds the steed. (No foundering.)
He thinks. "When we had visitors, we often entertained bards and wandering minstrels. I can tell you a dozen tales of metal cities populated by fiery demons, or underwater cities whose people interbreed with fish, or cities that have been destroyed. I only recall one song with all those things at once.
"The silver towers have drowned, under a sea of blood. How many miles to Abbeylon? None, I say, and all. The silver towers have drowned."
Ophiuchus has an excellent tenor/baritone voice and could make a living as a singer, if he were not a knight.
"But this is no sea of blood, so I don't know if it's the same, or just a reflection of that place."
"Ahhhhh," Robin says, repressing a sudden urge to jump out of contact with the tower, "I know... similar tales. Great, just great."
"Sir Ophiuchus, may I ask a boon of you?" Robin says formally. "The tales of silver towers, whether pure or reflections, are the stories of my Uncle Corwin. I am... unfortunately biased with regards to my Uncle." Her tone of voice clearly says 'I hate his guts.' "However, in these latter days, we are necessarily allies and it would be... less than optimal if I were to allow my bias to blind me to opportunities to... heal divides or... make a clear assessment of our situation." She fights the words out through both gritted teeth and a strong desire to mantle. Not at Ophiuchus but at the situation.
"I have a great respect for your wisdom and acuity. Would you be able to lend those to our cause in the immediate future?" 'Since Vere isn't here to help me think,' she adds sadly in her own mind.
"I owe you a debt beyond repaying, Sir Robin. We all do. Any service I can do you, I will do gladly." He bows slightly from the neck, in a gesture that would look to more courtly Amberites a bit old-fashioned.
"And we will need to rest here for a bit in any case, so I would hear of your Uncle Corum. His name reminds me of a long-ago King..."
"I and my Family know him as 'Corwin,' she pronounces carefully, "but he has gone by many names and his... Influence stretches far into all the Realms."
Sighing, Robin settles herself. "I truly do not know him well, or at all," she concedes. "I have only lived with the stories, the warnings and the... consequences of his actions."
Taking a deep breath, she starts. "Save one, Corwin is the oldest known surviving son of The First King, Oberon. And like his father he is a being of great passions -- he fights mightily, roisters mightily, lives and sings mightily and is under no illusions regarding his own humility whatsoever." Robin lips curl in an ironic twitch. "While the Uncle I know has never shown any desire or talent in the sorcerous arts -- preferring steel, guile and stubbornness to solve his quandaries -- I know that some notable reflections of him do. I believe the term 'Sorcerous King' has been bandied about in his wake.
Corwin has lived many adventurous -- and fractious -- centuries doing both great good and great evil as is his (and indeed, all of our's) way. It is from these centuries that the tales of Silver Towers arose. My Uncle's music from that time is full of sad longing and musings upon Lost Avalon. It was also during these centuries that the enmity between my Uncle and my Father crystalized. My Father is... much younger than Corwin. And of an entirely different mindset than my Uncle, preferring to build and defend than to..." Robin's lips press sharply together. And she shakes herself back to her story.
"Yeah, anyway. I don't remember what the triggering incident was, but Corwin came under censure from King Oberon and The King removed his Wardenship of Arden, the great Green bastion of Eternal Forest that surrounds Amber... which Corwin loved dearly. And awarded it to my Father. The transition was... ugly, and fraught with peril for my Father. I... we still find occasional scars from Prince Corwin's," Robin twists the words angrily, "'little surprises for those ‘trespassed' in his rightful realm."
The Ranger takes a moment to gather herself and continues,
"Regardless, a few centuries ago, a blow from one of his rival brothers struck him down, causing Corwin to lose all sense of himself. During that time... perhaps... he wizened. And came to see the world beyond his own desires. At the very least, he was, at length, able to put aside his..." Robin spits it out, "ambition to come to the greater aid of Amber." Despite her attempts to distance herself from those events with a telltaler's voice, Robin's eyes narrow and she mantles slightly. Her eyes dart over to Ophiuchus, "But not before," she grits out, "he attacked us.
"My Father was triumphant in that attack, but... the unpleasantness between them continued and Prince Corwin cursed my Father with all the power of an enraged Lord of Order. Not that my Father needed any more of Corwin's curses to... Well, anyway..." Robin waves that away.
"Not only did my Uncle's curses hamper one of Amber's most stalwart defenders, they also opened the pathway for our enemies to breach us. And as we were fighting our last most desperate battle, He returned to turn the tides. With the army and weapons that he had brought to, yes -- attack us again... Damn him."
Robin stops there as she's getting more worked up than she wants to be while sitting on a... Silver Tower.
He nods and looks glum. "All too familiar, Sir Robin, to tales from my day. The wars and murders over similar matters were what led my wife and her cousins to separate the lands.
"Would you kill him, if you could do so without being found out?"
"No.” Robin response is immediate, definite and melancholy.
"Though I hate his guts, my Uncle is a firmament of the Realms. His death and his loss would do unimaginable damage to all that is Real. Furthermore, he is the King of Paris. And though I am... skittish about Paris, I would never do to that Realm what was done to Amber. So no, no I wouldn't kill him. In fact, I would guard his life with my own. But... bleah." Robin rolls her eyes and manages to not stick out her tongue.
He nods. "A dilemma. He sounds thoroughly unworthy, and yet you are his ally. You do not even seem to be able to avoid him. I do not know how best to advise you," he adds. "I can say that I am glad your times are not so inclined to war and murder as our time was." If Ophiuchus recalls that Robin didn't actually ask for advice, he's ignoring that detail.
"I can see that you are not completely satisfied with the old saw about 'what cannot be cured must be endured.' You are more proactive than that counsel allows one to be."
Robin snorts softly at that. Genteelly spoken.
"So, to turn the question back on you, how would you like you relations with your perfidious Uncle to be?"
Robin looks at Ophiuchus with blank eyes and an even more blank mind, before she bursts into amazed laughter. "Ahhhhh, one would think I'd get used to that." She chuckles a little more before settling down.
"Pray forgive me, Sir Ophiuchus. This is not the first time I have received such advice for similar difficulties. There is something in my nature that blinds itself to the future. I... hunh..." With some difficulty, Robin pulls her thoughts away from analyzing her own behavior and to the actual question.
"What would I like relations with my Uncle to be?" She wonders.
"Cordial and distant, I guess...." Is the best she can come up with.
Ophiuchus says, "It's probably a city-dweller's trait, which is why it seems so odd to you. In a city, one looks at what one has, what one wants, and plans a path between the two. When one lives in the wild, one takes advantage of what one finds. If the current space isn't adequate, one moves on." He looks over at her.
Robin nods thoughtfully.
"Another way to think of it is tactical versus strategic thinking. As a knight, this should have been drilled into you. You can be a peerless peer on the battlefield, but if you are not choosing how to get to the right battlefield, the war may not be winnable."
Robin blushes and drops her gaze. Yes, she remembers her Father's lessons on logistics and choosing one’s field. She just wasn't very good at it.
He strokes Eckford's flank. "It's easy to be cordial and distant, if you are a forest nomad. You just move on if the current place isn't adequate. As vassals to the King, you and your Uncle are likely to be in contact, and he would, in most circumstances, be senior. Those are the encounters you should prepare for, work out tactics for."
He smiles. "And if he is the King of Paris, plan for very low-key, invisible-to-others victories, like 'I didn't even want to tell him off'."
"My consort and her cousin were once at odds, but time has erased all that."
"Hmmmm,” Robin is quiet for a while.
"Thank you -- very much, Sir. You have given me much to think on. It is true that I have felt myself... trapped by these new times. Facing situations I have no understanding of."
She chuckles grimly. "And this is not the first time my lack of strategic vision has been noted. It's just that planning life like a battle seems so... wrong. And sad..."
"But you are also right. Time -- and familiarity -- does seem to be easing my ire." This time her chuckle is real. "I have another Uncle whom I despise. And quite by accident, I found myself rifling through his bedroom drawers. He certainly seemed more... of a person and less of an overwhelming monster after that!" She grins.
"Soooo," Robin brushes her trousers off and changing the subject, "strategically speaking, should we explore our surroundings or wait for the trouble to come to us?" She says with a sparkle in her eye.
The knight smiles at her. "Strategically speaking, I have no idea. But my personal preference is to go looking for trouble, Sir Robin. I pray you, lead on."
"Ah, a man after my own heart." Robin grins.
After taking a moment to determine the best course of action for Eckford, either taking the seahorse with or leaving him here, Robin leads Ophiuchus in a search for a way into the architecture on which they stand.
Ophiuchus pulls a lantern from the saddlebags of Eckford. It's a collapsible one and apparently it’s powered by some sort of bioluminescence. It's very bright and directional. "Only the one of these, I'm afraid," he says.
Robin shrugs and lets Ophiuchus carry the lantern. After all he knows how to use it and take care of it.
They swim down in the lantern's beam, a tight spiral towards the base of the bunched towers they landed upon. As they go down, the coral growths become smaller, then intermittent, then gone. The tower is, true to its historic name, silver, and it gleams as if it were freshly polished. It reflects the light all around, and Robin can see that this underwater ruin was once the highest point of the region. There are other buildings, in worse shape than the towers, but none are actually reachable without considerable digging.
At base of the tower, aside what may well have been a giant parade ground for troops, there is a great silver double door. It stands partially ajar, as if something or someone dragged it open recently. Dragged, or perhaps, pushed.
Robin chuckles. "Well, that looks like trouble." She whispers gleefully.
"Okay, me first then you with the lantern."
Robin looks away from the light for a few moments, letting her eyes adjust and taking in how sounds and currents bring sense of surroundings. She then draws her sword and goes in the door low and fast. (Investigation, hah! That's for... smarter folks.)
Ophiuchus follows with the lantern, sending the beam ahead of him as he comes in. Most of the surfaces are silver and highly reflective. The light hits a crystal structure and spreads through the wide entrance hall, giving a slight hint of the opulence and riches of the lords of these towers, whose mighty constructions are now buried on the sea floor and invisible to most eyes.
Robin sees signs of some sort of catastrophe here. Not only are the furnishings in disarray, there are what look to be signs of battle: broken weapons, slashes and dings in the walls, arrows-- arrows that wouldn't have flown underwater.
Hmmmmm, Robin's brows furrow as she takes in the arrows...
More careful examination reveals that the art of the place, or such of it as survived, was bas relief in hammered silver, and that some of it has been obliterated in place, as if someone wanted to erase the history of the tower. This is most pronounced on the door at the far end of the entrance hall.
The door is 10 feet tall and bound in silver, and that silver is hammered nearly flat, but traces of older scenes remain.
The door is ever so slightly ajar.
Well, lighting the place up has probably significantly lessened any chance of surprise -- if there is even anyone still here.
Robin strides toward the door, careful of ambushes from the dark corners or jumbled furnishings.
Once there, the Ranger slowly pushes the door open with her sword tip, trusting that Ophiuchus has her back.
He's behind her, and the light is sent around the room beyond the door. It's huge-- hundreds of yards long and scores wide. The ceiling is out of sight above. The first thing Robin notices is that there seems to be some sort of dais on the far side of the room, with what might be a throne upon it.
The second thing Robin notices is the the dias has a half-dozen skeletons arrayed around it, their bones picked clean and glistening white in the reflected silvery light.
"Oooooo," Robin's delighted grin is white in the darkness. "A classic!
"Hmmmm... given my Uncle's propensities, I think we're probably looking more at an Undead King thing than Giant Lurker thing. But let's not overlook stooping potential regardless." She points up at the darkness overhead. Besides," she says stepping slowly into the room, "Giant Lurkers tend to prefer messy nests to tableaus."
"Hmm. No chance it's just long-dead bodies then? Because that sounds better than either of the things you mention."
"My..." what's the leadershiply word for 'best guess' again? "...ah, operating hypothesis is that we're looking at the former owners of those arrows back there. Guess they found what they were looking for." She says with grim cheer. "So where is it? Where is it?"
"It's a long, difficult way to come to rob a sunken castle. They had to come searching for something..." He pauses and looks at the coffin lid. "Or someone."
He follows her and shines his light around, including up. The ceiling seems distant, but there does seem to be stairs up on either side of the tower, leading towards it. On the dias is a seat, or perhaps a throne. In front of it, there is a coffin, with a coffin lid beside it.
As Robin and Ophiuchus move into the room, Robin notices that where their movement has stirred up the sea-floor reveals a huge delicate tracery on the floor of the giant ballroom.
Robin gestures for Ophiuchus to hold up a bit and cover her, while she crouches to the floor and wipes away more of the sediment. Is the tracery inlaid therein partciularly... Patterny?
It has all the signs of being patterny except there's no red lightning zapping down to kill you all. And the glowing. It doesn't have the glowing.
Robin stands, shakes the sediment from her hand, then wipes her (wet) hand on her (wet) pants unconsciously. "Yep, yep, yep. Definitely traces of Family here.
"Sooooo, I'm thinking probably yeah, 'someone'; given that my Uncle has returned after a very long absence and been... incredibly active since then.
"Therefore who were the searchers and what were they looking for - other than an unfortunate end. Guess it's time to play with coffins and bones." Robin gives Ophiuchus a fey little grin and strides toward the tableau on the dais to investigate. Again, she assumes that the Knight will take the boring guarding-of-the-back bits while she gets the fun playing-with-the-dead bits.
Robin approaches the dias and sees that there is a hole in front of the throne where the coffin or sarcophagus should fit. She notes the bodies are all ancient, with tattered remains of cloth and the odd flash of metal near them. It's unclear what killed them, but it looks like at least some of them have had their ribcages broken open. Nothing looks gnawed on, which Robin would expect.
The sarcophagus is larger than necessary, and seems to be made of a thick black stone. As Robin approaches she sees three large runes on the lid.
Robin tilts her head at the runes, and wrinkles her nose. Writing? Dung, she'd sooooo much rather have a monster.
A sigh ripples through the Ranger as she suddenly and desperately misses Vere. Drowned ruins, ancient writing to puzzle over, dead to talk to, a Trump of her rat-bas... relevant Uncle. He would have such a good time here. And he's warm and cute too! Dung.
Ophiuchus stops a bit behind her. He gasps. The runes read "laguz - isa - raido".
Robin rolls her eyes over to Ophiuchus. "Pllllleeeeassse tell me it's a clue to something I can kill." She shakes her head as she hears her tone of voice sliding dangerously close to a whine. Clearing her throat, Robin continues, "What do these hint to you, Sir?" She waves a hand toward the writin'.
"They tell me that my liege lord, Prince Lir of Tir fo Thuinn, lies dead and was buried in this castle." He looks at the bodies around the sarcophagus. "They tell me that someone has opened his grave."
Ophiuchus' voice is short and clipped, as if he is restraining some emotion. He looks as if he'd welcome all the skeletons rising up, for the relief of a straight-up fight.
"Ah," Robin's fey mood slides away like the sun behind a cloud and she puts a comraderly hand on Ophiuchus' shoulder. "It's a hard thing to lose a liege. You have my deepest sympathies, Sir." She nods, Knight to Knight, with sorrow and sympathy in her eyes.
Thinking that action is just the remedy for this, Robin continues. "Well, we shall revise our operating theory from the delightful prospect of butchering an undead Shadow of my favorite Uncle to the tracking down of and reeking bloody vengeance upon those who would dare such a thing."
And though she is unfamiliar with the nature of this place, Robin is still a tracker non-parallel and she starts to cast around for tracks and clues in the silt and debris around the open tomb.
Ophiuchus sighs. "I had assumed he was gone. You did not mention him, and you would have. He did not stride lightly on the earth."
As she looks at the skeletons, Robin thinks there was only one group of robbers: they have similar gear and are equally blasted. Nearby is something odd. It's what looks like a magical circle of some kind grown from coral on the dais itself. The silt here is especially disturbed.
Ophiuchus looks in the sarcophagus. "Belagamon is not here."
Robin looks up from the circle. "My cousin, Conner, currently bears a named blade for Rebma, though I'mmmm...afraid I don't remember the sword's name. But I was under the impression that its former wielder was named... Cneve, I think. Could that be Belagamon?"
Ophiuchus looks puzzled. "Such a blade, it can only be borne by one blood-bound to the city and the Queen. Who was this Cneve? Would he open the tomb of the Grand Prince of Tir fo Thuinn? He always wore it, and it reflected the stars of his father's kingdom, even in the deepest parts of the great city.
"Could Cneve be a false name, or a title?"
"I believe there was some talk of blood-binding and both Conner and Celina being kind of young for it. But you know," Robin shrugs, "they were committed and no one could gainsay that it wasn't needed. Though.... I don't know, I suppose I am too much of the open sky to really understand what they are up to.
"As who or what Cneve was, I don't know. But I think I remember some talk of Conner taking the sword from a tomb himself.... but I'm not sure." Robin shakes her head in uncertainty.
Robin knows the look on Ophiuchus's face. In a Ranger, it would mean, 'I think I need to look up that man and have a go at him'. Rangers aren't subtle.
"Ahhh, I mean that I think Conner took it from Cneve's tomb. Which is a name, I believe." Robin clarifies; just so Ophiuchus is pointed in the right direction. While she thinks Ophiuchus' sword work is fine, Conner. Smiles, cousin, knives. Best that the Knight doesn't get himself too set on tangling with Family in that way.
Ophiuchus nods, absently.
"And what do you make of this?" Robin gestures to the coral circle and the disturbed silt around it.
Ophiuchus looks at the coral circle. "Something was buried here. Can you tell if it has magics about it?"
"Well, I've never been the most sorcerously sensitive of my kin, but I can try."
Robin raises a finger to her lips in a shh gesture, tips her head to the side and Listens. Her eyes wander blindly as she focus on the chords and rhythms, background noise and rustling of life, sifting through all of it to see if there is something added or wrong around the throne room and the circle in particular.
Robin isn't sure if it's training, talent, or just plain luck, but she feels she can tell a little bit about the cairn. The best Robin can tell, someone made a stone cairn by knocking stones off the walls. It would've been just about big enough for a body. None of the damage done to make the cairn has been repaired, but the stones are worn enough that it wasn't a recent making. It might have been a long time ago, depending on how many times this crypt has been disturbed.
She doesn't detect any magic, but the magics that she can detect with The Pattern are not subtle.
Her eyes focus and she straightens. "Well, there's nothing big and explosive on it. And I think this one is a 'someone' too. Otherwise..." she shakes her head, "I can't tell. Wanna dig it up?" Robin finishes with more enthusiasm than manners.
Ophiuchus looks at the mound of stones on the floor. "We can move the stones, but it looks like it collapsed. Maybe someone pulled the body from it." He begins moving rocks from the wide end.
Robin pitches in with a will, but keeps her ears and her senses open for surprises.
After a few moments, he finds the edge of a wide sheet of fabric. It's well-made, but faded. There's a design around the edge of it, some sort of geometric border.
Ophiuchus looks at the cloth. "It's a shroud. This was a burial. I don't get understand, Sir Robin. This is clearly a throne room for some great civilization. But my Lord’s outer sepulcher is here and open, and someone else was buried and then that body is now gone. I feel as if something wrong had happened here, but I can't tell what."
"Hunh." Robin misfluffs her bangs with an underwater breath and shakes her head. "I... see too many paths here to even make an 'operating hypothesis.'" She shrugs.
"Okay, several very wise people have mentioned that strategically when I'm in this situation I should gather information and then collaborate with more informed individuals. Which means, bleah, talking to folk." Robin smiles wryly to Ophiuchus.
"Soooo, I suggest we take a quick look round here," Robin gestures to the whole room including the dark vaulted ceiling above, "for relevant intel. Scan the rest of the city for anything that jumps out. Get back to Eckford and I'll see about shortcuts to experts. How does that sound?"
Ophiuchus nods. "Aye, I'll see to Eckford. I'll bring him down here, so we're not so far split up. If you hear my screaming my fool head off, come running." He grins as he says the last.
Ophiuchus takes a few steps towards the door, leaving Robin in the darkness by the sarcophagus. He stops short and looks at the light. "Can't very well leave you without this. Let me try something..."
Robin wasn't panicking, no sir, she was cool. Fiona and Vere would be proud. But she does breathe a little easier when the light walks back over.
He comes back and sets the lantern on the dias, pointed back towards the door. "I can get out with that rigged like that. Bring the lantern out when you're done, we'll be outside."
"That'll work," Robin nods.
Unless Robin has objections, Ophiuchus departs.
After waiting a suitable time for any fool head screaming [and assuming she doesn't hear any], Robin turns back to the cairn to retrieve as large a sample of the burial cloth as she can. Experts might be able to tell something about it from composition, the border pattern, decay rates, sympathetic resonance, whatever -- all that stuff she tends to rush through.
Once she's got that bundled away, Robin picks up the lamp and makes a search of the entire throne room including climbing one of the upward winding staircases. While the Ranger's search pattern isn't exactly cursory, she is relying more on her intuition than on a detailed examination of the area.
The cloth is old and fragile. It will need to be treated carefully or it will disintegrate.
Robin climbs the stair, noting the delicate silver and black arches and filigree everywhere. This was a rich land, and this tower was raised with great skill. The stair winds upward, eventually leading to a wide balcony far above the dias below. It may be fifty or sixty feet down, and her lantern doesn't reach it. It doesn't reach the ceiling either.
Silver and black, Robin thinks, silver and black. Echoes of her Uncle are everywhere. And yet she doesn't understand how Lir's body fits into it. Robin snorts to herself, this is what she gets for skipping Family conferences...
In the darkness below, Robin thinks she hears something. Footsteps, perhaps. Maybe the sound of steel against leather.
For a moment Robin's heart races and a grin splits her face in anticpation - undead Uncle time? But then, she remembers - she's all the way up here, with the only light source in the room. There will be no sudden, sneaky stooping from her, darn it.
Instead, Robin sets the lantern down on the balcony floor and quietly steps a short way away from it. (Hopefully to somewhere the nearby architecture - balustrade or arches - obscures her figure.) Then she calls down, "Hello?"
No one replies, but as Robin stares into the darkness, she thinks she sees a source of light. Someone is walking on the great room's floor, and their every step raises sparks. She finds herself, for a brief instant, unable to move.
Robin can see him clearly, them, although the distance seems immense. Merlin! Her cousin walks the path of the Great Pattern. Robin feels her blood answering and the resistance is... if not real, at least sympathetic. He fights his way through the first veil and Robin can see that he stopped.
"What?", he says his voice both the merest whisper and completely clear. "You cannot be real, ghost of the pattern, I cannot stop!"
"Merlin, I am sorry you chose to disobey my wishes." The other man is easier to see, now. Tall, gaunt, and armed. Literally and figuratively armed. Robin has never seen Benedict with two arms, but she does now.
Merlin stares at Benedict's blade and licks his lips. He draws his sword without stepping forward. Benedict takes 3 steps back. He doesn't seem to be paying attention to the lines of the pattern at all.
Suddenly Merlin cries out. "Father! Help Me!"
Robin's instant paralysis fades and she can move again. The confrontation is fifty or sixty feet below her.
Robin's mind jitters in several directions at once, though her body only moves in one -- down. The call for help from a cousin -- any cousin -- pulls her into action. Grabbing up the lantern, over the balcony rail she goes, swimming/falling as quickly as she can.
Despite that, in the dark, watery, eerie chamber Robin's thoughts float behind her darting form like a fall of drifting feathers.
"Oh, so that's what a hard point in the universe feels like."
"You know, when Brita tried this she got stuck in a place that only Trump could get her out of. Hope that don't happen here."
"Kinda like the little weirdo, even if he squicks at me and Vere. Wow, did he totally win the 'worst parents' contest. Poor bastard."
"Yeah, falling slowly through water toward Benedict. Great idea, Robin."
"Goddamn that arrows won't work here..."
"Heh. Don't think Merlin could get a more not-Father helper than me."
"Visions. Bleah"
"Are we THERE yet? Stupid slow world..."
Robin lands, tucks and rolls to her feet, and is between Merlin and Benedict all in one smooth move. The blade in her hand is covered in elaborate tracery and feels more natural in her hand than any sword ever has, as if it is an extension not of her arm but of her will.
Merlin’s voice comes from behind her. "I can't stop, Father! I must press on. Stay between us, I beg of you!"
Benedict raises his sword in salute. "Is this your choice Corwin, or is this still Carol? You don't have to act out his impulses. I will fight you, whichever one you are."
Another cloud of thoughts fluffs through Robin's mind at Benedict's (?) words: memories of Uncle Ugly, worry that she saw 'Merlin' stop in his walk, 'Carol'?, the thrill of the Sword at her will, the fear of facing Benedict over crossed blades and more and more and more. But Robin's words are still drifting behind her and she's already chosen.
With a wry tick to her lips and a shrug of one shoulder, Robin raises her own blade in salute.
Merlin is moving again, and suddenly so is Benedict. Robin is good at swordplay, maybe great. Certainly her only competition is from family members, but Benedict is the best swordsman anywhere. Robin watches him and spends far too long figuring out where he’s going and what he's doing and when her brain finally locks in, it's too late, she needed to start responding with her blade a full second ago.
And she looks down and her sword has been moving into position without her thought, blocking and deflecting the blow in a way that reminds her of nothing so much as Uncle Corwin, or Eric, or even Caine fighting, but at full-speed, not the way they'd slow down if they were fighting someone not of their class.
It's amazing, and exhilarating, and she feels the pattern inside her reacting to the pattern in the sword. She must protect the pattern and the walker. Her steps and her rhythm and even her footwork are a merger of her desires and will and the pattern written in her bones. Benedict makes several more passes, and her feet and the blade move faster than she can think, but always to the right place. It's as if she is dancing with her oldest Uncle, across the pattern. She doesn't stop to think about the pattern she's walking across, but it can't be beneath them, or they'd both have been destroyed by now.
The fight is like a pattern-walk itself. There is nothing but the relentless beating of the attack, the defense, and the dance around the man inside the red sparks. It's physical agony and a stretch of her skills and abilities, but an amazing fight in any case. Robin feels as if she's been given the best lesson Swordmaster Benedict has ever given anyone, and also feels a certain regret that she's not sure how much of what she's seen she can retain without the pattern-blade. Indeed, the thought of relinquishing the blade and its duty to protect the pattern seems wrong to her. She should keep it, and protect the pattern. Her blood calls her to do so.
Robin feels... something. As if her fire-lizards had been worried about something, and then ceased to be. Someone else's emotion. She hears a voice, not hers, exactly, but not not-hers. "He's at the Final Veil, you can stop any time."
Benedict comes to an abrupt stop, his sword returning to the salute position. "Agreed." He transfers his sword to his left hand and his right arm somehow retracts or collapses upon itself as, if his arm stump is drawing it back in. Shortly he is back to his single-armed self.
Benedict steps forward and disappears as if he had never been in the room at all. The red sparks disappear and Robin collapses to her hands and knees, as worn and tired as if she'd just passed the Final Veil herself. The lantern, unheeded since Robin jumped down, lies beside her.
From the doorway, Robin hears a voice. "Sir Robin? Are you alright in here?"
A dry cough is Robin's first answer. Then she wets her lips and croaks out "Yep."
With a happy sigh, Robin rolls over from her hands and knees to lie flat on her back, breathing heavily. She doesn't have her Uncle's (or even Vere's) stamina and she is just plain tuckered out.
As she lies there breathing and not-sweating in the watery room, she prays mightily that her muscles will remember something - anything! - of that! And the Pattern! Oooo, the connections, the will, the... dance! Robin struggles to integrate it all as quickly as she can before she loses it. But she suspects that mostly what she's doing is lying on the floor staring up into the darkness with a big goofy grin on her face.
It's hard to say what she will retain. If it was a vision, it was a vision that exercised her full body. Her wrist aches where she held the blade against Benedict's attacks. Her heart is still slowing to its normal pulse, and the room is still huge and mostly dark.
Ophiuchus comes over to where Robin lies. "You didn't answer my calls, and then the light started swinging crazily. I assumed either you'd fallen or you'd triggered a magical trap..."
"Heh." Robin laughs dryly. "Yes to both. (pant) But it's okay. (pant) This sort of thing happens to me. (pant) And I am well." There's an unfortunate amount of croon in the last word.
"Ah, well. Back to work." Robin sits up with a muffled groan. “Is Eckford nearby?"
[OOC - Assuming he is and the firelizards can be recalled from their fishing expeditions]
Robin takes a few moments to snuggle and stroke her fabulous underwater-flying-firebreathing friends -- oh, they are such good learners!
They are quite happy that you've returned, and do not want you to go away again. Also, the shrimp here are tasty, but their shells are hard.
Then, she mentally reviews the Trumps in her case. Everything is going to get wet anyway, but she wants to limit the time the case is open to as little as possible.
She hums as she thinks: Father? Nope, busy and in a non-flexible environment. Benedict? Hah! Though he might be tangentially interested, this is not a life or death situation. Fionnnnnaaa -- possibly, probably very interested and helpful, but her environment doesn't strike Robin as a good match for Eckford. Bleys? Ewwww, but given that Robin has no idea what he's up to, he might have the most flexibility of environment. And he might be more central to communication hubs....
Awwww, yuck. With a grumpy sigh, Robin realizes that she's more inclined to go with the unknown potential than the surer sub-optimal. 'That explains a lot', she thinks to herself as she draws out the beaded pouch that holds her Trump case.
"I'm going to contact one of my Uncles via a Family magic and see if he can transport us somewhere closer to Xanadu or others who bear knowledge regarding this..." she waves a hand at the room, tomb, etc. As she opens the case, she mutters, "'Cause I'm pretty sure this place has just done what it wanted to with us..."
Robin opens the case, withdraws Bleys' Trump and closes the case as quickly as she can. Probably won't make a difference to the overall wetness issue but every little bit helps.
Looking at the laughing red and orange figure on the card, Robin quickly wipes away her grimace and concentrates on the man whose underwear drawer she riffled and who spoke to her on the balcony over wine.
"Sir?" she thinks, loudly and unhandily.
Bleys appears smoothly and quickly, and he appears to be in bright sunlight. "Robin!" he says, seeming genuinely happy to hear from her. "Please, Uncle or even just Bleys. Immortals can't stand on formalities forever. Is this a social call, or may I help you in some way?" Unless Robin is wrong, he's near to or on the water. She can practically smell the salt spray.
Robin's lips tick in a not-quite-smile at the thought of a social call. Yeah, that's gonna happen. Well, maybe someday. Immortals right?
"Hello, Uncle. I have two things on my mind actually. One, I am in the company of a certain Sir Ophiuchus and his aquatic mount and have promised them passage to Rebma. However, our party became separated during a recent... Shadowclasm. And I'm to rendezvous with Vere and the rest of our group in Xanadu. Would you happen to be near the waters of Xanadu?" Her mind adds, 'because Eckford, the most awesome seahorse in the universe, isn't good for a land-based stable.'
"Secondly, I'mmmm standing on top of something that's probably of interest to the Family. It's a drowned city of silver towers with a Very Interesting Tracerie on the floor of the throne room. In addition, Ophiuchus says that the opened tomb in the same throne room probably once contained the body of his liege, Lir." Robin shrugs one shoulder; it's all fun and games to her but seems like the kind of stuff she should be reporting.
He grins. "That's a truly remarkable report, Robin. I'm far from the center, myself, investigating how Yg manifests in a world that has no surface, but a report of Shadowclasms, drowned towers of Silver, Knights old enough to be an affine of Lir, and a tomb in a dead pattern chamber are all good reasons to delay that investigation.
"If I come to you, we can investigate further, and if you and your knight need to take Eckford to Xanadu or even Rebma, we can arrange it."
Investigate further? Robin's nose wrinkles. Ah, well.
"Sir Ophiuchus and his companions are under my personal protection and I should connect with Vere as soon as possible. We were separated under... trying circumstances. If those caveats are acceptable to you than yes, I can bring you here." Robin's not overjoyed but she understands the necessity of it. Maybe she can shell some shrimp for the firelizards while answering questions and watching investigation. Bleah.
Bleys nods. "Of course. I am coming to help you, not interfere with your mission or investigations. If I can lend you my expertise for the good of the family, then so be it." He smiles. "And I am pleased that you called upon me. I was fond of your Mother."
Bleys reaches out his hand for Robin to pull him though.
Robin's lips tick at that last. He's doing that snake thing again; pokey, poke, poke. Ah well... what did Jerod call it? Sparring. Or perhaps, if Robin wasn't so private and prickly, she might even see it as an invitation to learn more about her mother from someone who doesn't disapprove of her as much as her Father does. Either way, Robin could stand to learn more: both about sparring and about her mother. The bait is effective. And the reassurance valid, so...
"Very well." Robin extends her hand and brings Bleys through to the sunken city of silver.
Last modified: 16 March 2016