eswareinmal | Open Exploration: The Old Capital.

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Open Exploration: The Old Capital.

Where: The Old Capital
When: RD6, all day
What: The Hero of the Mountains has come and gone from the Old Capital, just passing our heroes on the way. Time to explore the city in her aftermath?

On the surface, the Old Capital looks much like Schwanheim, only without the two rivers flanking the castle. It's much smaller, the houses father apart and older looking that the more crowded capital, and far more ordered. It has the feel of a city that was planned out. The castle stands in the center, simple, yet impressive, navy blue banners flapping from the the towers that grace each corner, acting as gateway to the 4 wide streets that slice through the circular town like the spokes of a wheel, dividing it into sections. One quarter is the market and craftsman district, the road leading to the castle lined with stalls and merchants with goods on blankets, side streets winding down towards the less sightly businesses. Flanking it on both ends are two housing districts, the smaller homes closer to the market, getting larger as they head for the 4th district, full of large mansions and an impressive church.

There's a large clock tower in the market district that matches the one back in Schwanheim, and a bulletin board much the same.

The clock is stopped, the board blank, and there is an eerie feeling as if something is just... missing. A lack of bird song. A lack of breeze. An odd feeling of stillness, almost as if one were walking through a ghost town even though there are still people about their daily chores as if nothing's wrong.

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She holds the banner out, to take when the ball is fully formed.

“The more power put into it, the better.”

She speaks to both mages present.

Alanna channeled her power into Loki, perhaps a little more forcefully than was really necessary, for him to use however he needed. She still wasn't happy about any of this.

Aralu watched, nodding satisfaction at the preparations. "Straight at the wall. I think. And then we hope they explode."

A twitch; he absorbed the power, but the force of it actually hurt a bit. Another reason for Loki to detest this pathetic mortal form he's been stuck in, since he got here.

Then the ball is loaded into the banner, and Loki holds up a hand, ready to propel it as fast as possible. He's hoping this barrier is something like a bubble, with surface tension that holds obstacles fast until it is punctured.

As with the knife and magic before, the ball begins to slow as it hits the barrier, but with all the magic wrapped around it, it continues on much farther, much faster, though no where near as fast as it had been when thrown.

It's been reduced to a crawl when it finally hits the castle wall, ice splinters shattering out in poetically slow motion as the magic wrapped around it begins to spider up the walls like lightening, moving ever so slowly, but surely causing cracks in the stone and mortar even as the splinters of ice are still falling.

With every crack, the energy seems to move just a fraction faster, the wall where the ball had hit starting to crumble in slow, but increasingly faster motion. A stone starts to tumble out, it's mortar crumbled to dust. Then another. Then another until the entire section begins to fold in on itself, a cloud of dust starting to billow out, meeting the knife as it finishes it's journey, only to be knocked from the air by yet another falling stone.

Faster and faster now, almost too fast, the ground shaking as the outer wall continues to fall until it's all just a pile of crumbled rock and dust.

Behind the gathered heroes, there is the deep bong of the clock tower bells as they begin to chime the hour.

Alanna spun towards the clock and swayed a little. Her Gift wasn't what it once was.

"What now?"

"I suppose we had better look at that clock."

Sif abstractly wondered if anyone would be sending them a bill for the castle.

"I'd like to look at the castle."

Excuse him, he'll just be heading in, past the crumbled wall.

Much of the outer wall of the castle seems to have knocked into the inner wall, leaving large gaping holes that allowed for easy access into the castle proper. Inside, all furniture and anything of value looked to have been long removed, leaving large stone rooms with little illumination and a coating of dust that had been disturbed multiple times by many footprints.

Will you follow them in to the heart of the castle?

Of course he will; he couldn't stay away, not even if he tried. He calls light to his hand, when necessary. He keeps moving, but never goes so fast that he can't carefully observe the footprints, the rooms, any evidence that he can.

If anyone follows, he has them stay behind him. He wants to be the first to discover this. Let them think it is some generosity, some protectiveness in him.

The trails of foot prints through the dust are like paths, wide and varied, reaching through the entirety of the castle. Despite it being clearly abandoned and crumbling, it looked as if as many people walked through the ruins as had when it was still inhabited. The doors are all open, some propped with bits of crumbled masonry....

With the exception of one set. The large double doors leading to the throne room. The hinges look in better repair than most anything else in the castle, and there's no dust where the doors would open, making it clear that the doors have been opened recently.

Aralu followed along after, eyes darting around to look for any information, any explanation she could find. The dust seemed to not come from the same castle they had just shot at. That one had been beautiful and perfect. This one had been abandoned at least 100 years.

And now, of course, the moment of truth. Something was behind these doors.

She glanced a question up at Loki as she grasped the handles. "Ready?"

He stands ready to cast magic, a dagger in his hand.

"Would you rather me turn us invisible?" he asks. A power within his grasp.

She considered. It would be patently obvious where they were coming from when she opened the door. On the other hand, being invisible could cause confusion, and confusion was always in her best interest.

"That would probably be for the best," she answered, not adding to be prepared for a fight. Because if he wasn't, then telling him to be wouldn't actually help when it came down to it.

A wave of his hand; he casts the room to appear empty, as though the two of them were never there. And he nods at her, to open the door.

He wishes, for a moment, that Sif had come with them. She would be very useful in a fight. And he does not know this woman's capabilities. He does not know how to fight around her.

But, in this, they are more explorers than fighters anyhow.

She debated a moment, between flinging the doors open and cracking them slowly, and decided on the first. The doors were flung open, and she darted to the side.

The creek of the hinges echoed loudly through the mostly empty throne room, a thin layer of dust wafting up from the sudden motion, a solitary bird screeching as it flew away.

The throne room had once been a grand hall, tall ceilings held up by ornately carved pillars that still were hung with tattered and faded banners, once polished stone floor smoothed out a path towards the throne that had been left behind. Looking as if it had grown up out of the floor, it must have been too heavy and large to move, so had been left as it was, plush cushions faded, yet clean, and the entire ornate sculpture dust free, as if tended by the swarms of foot prints that paraded paths through the room.

In the center, not far from the throne itself, lay a prone figure, hidden in grey robes.

Loki approaches carefully, obliquely, stepping around the figure rather than approaching direct. Sends a glance to his companion, to see if she has any knowledge of this.

Perhaps it's that hero that the rumors spoke of?

If the figure makes no move, Loki will kneel by him and brush the robes away, as soft as a puff of breeze.

Aralu moved closer to the figure as well, as curious as Loki to know who it was.

She gasped. "Shin?" she whispered, dropping to his side and feeling for a pulse.

It was a young face, male, with dark straight hair that spilled over his face. There was a pulse, and very slow breath, but no other signs from the unconscious young man.

Loki touches the pulse. His eyes flick suspiciously to his companion.

"And who," he says, "is Shin?"

"Shin is...." How to put this. "Something like a little brother. From home." How the hell had he gotten there? She mussed his hair. "Wake up, dream king."

There was no answer or motion from the young man, but to anyone sensitive to it, a sudden presence that hadn't been there before seemed to emerge from the prone form before a heavy, tired feeling reached out to the pair, inviting them into sleep.

A sleep spell? Really?

Likely it was a trap, like the last one. Loki considers succumbing, anyhow, just because he might learn something interesting.

"Is there any reason he would be an enemy?" he asks.

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