Loreli was in the library .. her haunt now. Haunt .. lordy .. ghosts, demons of chaos and a pissed off queen, oh my. She sat at on of the tables, books spread around her. She was dressed in something less grand than her usual wardrobe. A white blouse and dark skirt, her hair in a tight bun on the back of her head.
Nanette Vallen had a remarkable likeness to a bird. From the sharp point to her nose, to her thin frame, to the way she could click her tongue when she read something that she disapproved of. The young woman had sharp blue eyes like her older aunt, the Countess, they rarely missed anything... on a page. She absently straightened the thin spectacles on her nose as she narrowed her eyes and twisted her head to peer at the bindings of books. She was making her slow way down one of the aisles with her thin arms already cradling two large tomes. Nanette's hair was strawberry blonde. Odd for all of the dark-haired members of her family. It was drawn into her typical bun though strands had carelessly fallen free about her slender neck and brow. She was as much a fixture in the Library as the sconces were, so it didn't surprise her that Miss Loreli likely hadn't noticed her. Truth was, Nan only knew she was there because she was in her usual seat. Loreli was pretty distracted period at the moment. This was a mess she'd helped create .. so she had to do -something- to help. She'd yet to run into Corv's attacker, and wasn't sure she wanted to at all. She was much better doing the boring research.. She had vaguely noticed Nanette earlier, but then had been sucked under as she cross referenced names and words. The rotund Royal Scribe pushes the door to the library open with one foot and hops awkwardly into the room, trying to inch forward into the room without the door swinging back and hitting him square in the face. In his arms he had a box containing his scrivner's supplies: quills, nibs, bottles of ink, sheets of parchment, blotting paper, and so on. Loreli had asked him to transcribe a copy of the journal she had found for her own personal use, and who else to do that but the resident scribe? He finally gets clear of the door and slides his foot off of it, and it slams shut with a resounding bang without a moment's delay. He winces, his bushy eyebrows knitting together as his eyes closed. Nanette had been obsessed with Alesia for a time. Ever since they had first arrived last year, and one Larold Vertonthen had seemed to take a brief interest in her Countess aunt. But it had ebbed as everything that was possible to read in the library had been read. Since then she'd found a spark of interest in the history of their very own Isle's. She bit upon her lip, and straightened as what she had wanted wasn't quite what was there. Turning about in a circle, her sharp blue eyes settled on Loreli. "Lady Loreli..." Nan started as she stepped on slippered feet towards the other woman, "Would you need some he--" she cut herself short with a visible wince as the Scribe all but crashes his way into the room. "Sorry." He mumbles apologetically as the pudgy scribe waddles over to the table where Loreli is sitting. Setting the box of supplies down on top of one of the piles Loreli had made on the table, he adjusts his spectacles and tries to smooth down the wisps of hair on top of his sparsely-covered head. Loreli looked up from her work, at the slam and then blinked at nanette. "Hmm?" She asked absently and smiled as she saw Antoninus. "Careful!" Nan reprimanded immediately in a hissed whisper as she shuddered at the echoes left from such carelessness around such priceless knowledge. Loreli raised her brows. "We're the only ones in here nanette." She smiled. "Besides, it wasn't on purpose." Nanette was known for being uptight... but really.. She turned red as soon as she spoke, and quietly coughed to clear her throat. She was a strange bird, that was for sure. Shifting her feet, she looked away momentarily towards the tall, arched, gilded windows that looked out on the flowering garden before her eyes slid back to Loreli. The corner of her lips lifted in a faint smile that might be an apology as her eyes shifted then to Antoninus. "I'm sorry!" Antoninus replied to Nanette's reprimand, and busied himself unpacking his box of supplies, which further added to the clutter on the table. "All right, so where's the journal you need me to copy?" He asked as he fit a metal nib to a goose quill, bending the prongs to wrap around the shaft of the feather. "Uh ... right here." Loreli started digging and came up with the journal, holding it high. "Be very careful .. it's very old and falling apart." She looked at Nan and smiled. "Now what were you saying?" Now, while Antoninus was a talented enough scribe to gain employment in the Royal Household, he really wanted to be a wizard ever since he was a small child. He loved books, but a scribe's work was often tedious, and he had plenty of time to let his imagination run wild and daydream about being an archmage. Nanette 's eyes were on the old journal that Loreli was pulling out. Who would be so careless? And what could be found in there? The woman looked like a child who just spotted a cookie. Absently moistening her lips, she replied, "I ah.. was wondering if you needed any help," she managed to tear her eyes away and look towards Loreli and the mess of books in front of her. "I'm wonderful with research." Loreli smiled. "I'd love some help. You as well Antoninus. This sort of .. affects us all." The fact of the matter was, though, that while Antoninus was an excellent scribe, he was a truly horrible mage. His spells never seemed to work right, and were often a hazard to himself or others around him. It was incredibly disappointing that he always managed to screw things up somehow, but he'd never been disheartened enough to quit. Even if he couldn't do it right, at least he *could* use magic, which meant that his cause wasn't completely hopeless. "Well then," Nan set the two large tomes she was toting onto the long table and pushed them to one side before dropping into a chair across from Loreli, "What do you need done?" Antoninus reached out for the journal with both hands, holding them out for Loreli to place the book in his hands, rather than try to take it from her and risk accidentally damaging it. The journal settles gently into his hands and she glances at him. "Well .. many things, and i'm not sure where to begin .." Antoninus sets the journal down in front of him carefully, then looked up at Loreli and adjusted his spectacles again. "My help? What can I do? Aside from copy this book, that is." Nanette would wait patiently for Loreli to describe what she was trying to do, but it would seem she wasn't so patient by the way she leaned over the table. Her small glasses slid down her sharp nose and she peered at the books and papers scattered about. "Well .. you might be able to remember reading about it, or remember hearing about something that might help." She cleared her throat. "The queen and her soon to be husband, stumbled upon .. a ghost. A tomb of a kind beneath the castle itself.. Jan and .. corv managed to find some other reference. That part is fairly muddy. But .. this ghost isn't exactly benevolent. She staged that whole scene in the garden. And we have a journal. That journal," She pointed to the one Antoninus held, "answers some questions about the woman and her family .. it says nothing about this Lord of chaos. ." Nanette 's lips slowly pursed into a quiet 'oh'. Her sharp blue eyes blinked owlishly behind her spectacles as she looked back towards Loreli. "A ghost? ...That scene in the garden?" obviously the girl didn't run in the same circles as all of those spreading rumors. Did she ever leave the library? [ And the scribe's mouth opens into a large O, fleshy jowls jiggling a bit. "A ghost...you mean...all that...I mean...I heard..." He'd heard a lot of rumors, most of which contradicted each other to some degree or another. Some of them had even included the future king shagging Loreli like there was no tomorrow out in the garden. The one constant was that he'd been caught with a woman, and nearly every female in the castle except Janessa was his supposed secret mistress. He covered his open mouth with his hand, and blinked, which looks rather owlish behind his spectacles. "I wouldn't want to be near either Her Majesty or her intended right now. They're both in powerfully foul humors, and I'd rather not cross them. Did you hear what he did to one of Her Majesty's Ladies in Waiting this morning? That rumor about him being a wizard is true, it seems." "No .." Loreli shook her head slowly, "and yes, a ghost. demon spirit ... i'm not sure which, but she lives to do nothing but spread chaos and death." "Ohhhh..." Nan breathed quietly, her hand falling onto the edge of the table as she slowly leaned back in her chair. Her eyes darted back and forth from Loreli to Antoninus. Obviously she's been missing a lot. "Seems he overheard a couple of them gossiping in the sitting room, and he struck one of them dumb in a fit of pique." Antoninus said with a sigh. "The poor girl hasn't been able to make a sound since. But that's Alesians for you, I guess. Anyone who shows up here wearing a helmet with a skull face mask on it isn't going to be the nicest of sorts..." "....." Lords above. He couldn't run around striking people dumb! Loreli sighed. This was not helping his case. "Yes well, after everything that's happened in the past few days .. do you blame him?" "Well, this journal you found doesn't say anything about how to banish her, does it?" He asked as he opened said journal and flipped through it carefully. "Ghosts can be tricky to get rid of if they're bound to a place. It's not like sticking a stake in a vampire or smashing a skeleton's head with a mace. If a ghost is tied to a place, like this castle, you can't just blast it with spells or try to stab it with magical weapons. It'll just reform after a while, most likely." "Wow.." Nan spoke softly. If Cael still had a backbone, she might have a word or two to say about that. She idly wondered who it was, and hoped it could be reversed. And if not.. hopefully it was one of those girls who rightly deserved it. "I know this." She said with a scowl. "Which is why I was looking for references to Lord Calatine." In Corv's way of thinking, he'd acted with remarkable restraint in this matter. In Charnath, he would have had her tongue cut out and the wound seared shut with a red-hot iron. The curse didn't cause any physical pain or permanent damage, so he thought it an appropriate lesson to deal with a gossip, and an example for the castle's other rumormongers. Even if he was a civilized and polite Alesian, he was still an Alesian. Antoninus throws up his hands with Lor shoots him a dirty look. "I'm sorry." "What does she want? If she can rest..." Nan trailed off to a quiet frown. She never liked feeling helpless, and she hated even worse feeling at a loss of answers. "When did this Lord live? I could help you research him. Perhaps other family members? And other people of note at that time that might have a connection?" "Well, Lor just said that she's a demon spirit who lives to cause chaos. I don't think she'll be laid to rest voluntarily." Opening the journal, he stared at the date at the top of the first page. He blinked, adjusted his spectacles and looked again to confirm what it said. "This entry's dated for the year 212. That's almost a hundred years before the first known human settlement on this island." Antoninus looks across the table at Loreli. "Where did this book come from?" "We found it hidden in another book. One called The Dark of Ages." She glanced at Nan. "That would be excellent. As for lord Calatine ... he's some -god- of chaos, or demon .. it's hard to tell at this point." Nanette's brows furrowed as she frowned. The one thing she didn't read up on were the dark arts, or magic and things. She wondered where she could find more information on this man. Given the date on the journal... there wasn't bound to be any records. Antoninus started leafing through the journal, reading through entries here and there, stopping wherever something caught his eyes on the page. "Hmm...Well, it seems that this journal belongs to the ghost's father, and he doesn't seem to know much about the entity his daughter is worshipping. Says that she'd constructed an altar to him and was burning candles made from human fat...Gah, how revolting." He licked his lips absently as he continued paging through. "Seems like he was under attack from the elves, too. Maybe the elves would know something about this creature, too. The new Lord Marshall is an elf, isn't she? Maybe she's heard of this entity." "I've sent word to my mother. She may be able to find some type of reference to him in her people's records. Loreli shrugged and then shivered. "Yes, I know. I read of it. Puts something of a morbid spin on young love .." "I'm getting the sense from reading this that the settlement was small. It only mentions one village. I'm also getting the sense that this guy had set up his own personal fief on this part of the Isles, and the elves took exception to it... Sort of like what happened with Her Majesty's ancestors, only they fared better, obviously." "Yes .. indeed it does. He mentions them often. The 'pointy eared devils'. The foundation of this castle must rest on the foundation of the old." Loreli mused. "If this is even a new castle. What if Nypin just repaired this place, instead of building a brand new castle instead? Can you tell the difference between a castle that's a hundred and fifty years old, and one that's two hundred and fifty years old with a casual glance?" Antoninus asked. "I mean, how did this book survive to end up in our library if the original castle was destroyed?" "There should be some old plans on the castle in here somewhere, right? There would have to be some sort of documentation at least on how the land was here when it was found." Nan said absently as she turned away from the table. "I know ... i've only just started to get the library straightened up so I have an idea of where everything is." Loreli said, looking up towards the other woman. "Actually..." Nanette could feel proud for a moment at least, and she sat a little bit straighter. "I was just looking into a little light reading on the history of the Isles... I think I know where I could find that information." She did spend all of her time here in the Library anyhow. "Well, I suppose there could be, somewhere. Everything's so horribly out of order, though. It doesn't seem that there was anybody tending to the library regularly before Loreli was hired, so everything's all jumbled up. Tax records mixed up with grants of land and title, mixed with records of letters of marquee, mixed with inventories of the royal larder... It could take years to organize everything." Antoninus looked up from the journal at nan's words. "You do? Where?" "Tell me about it. Loreli said with a long suffering sigh. "You do?" She asked eagerly. Tucked within the corner stood a pale figure, unseen as of yet by the others. With her golden head tilted to the side as she listened, Charlena look more like a very faded and forgotten girl than she did a wicked, crazy ghost. It sounded like the little group was fairly on target with most of their meanderings, and a faint smile curved her sweetly rounded lips. Still she bided her time, keeping from sight and true form. Nanette nodded, "I do. I just happened upon a stack of books this afternoon. I was more looking for some old fables..." the legs of her chair scratched the floor as she stood. "It was at the end of the aisle over here..." She began to move away, "Just a minute." "Still, though, I've got to wonder how this all came about in the first place. It's not normal for a young girl to just suddenly build an altar and start worshipping a demon god her family has never heard of before, especially if she's the sort that led a sheltered life." "I know, I know .. but this is all we have. From what Corv said, she acted very nice and sweet when he and Jan released her .. or something like that. Loreli glanced over to the hurrying nan. "Well, if you'd been imprisoned for two and a half centuries, would you tell your potential rescuers that you were a dangerous, malevolent creature who intended to sow misery and destruction?" Antoninus asked. Loreli snorts quietly. "No, I suppose I wouldn't." She rubbed at her forehead. "I feel at fault partially .. since I helped spread the chaos .." "Yes, but you're also helping to fix it, right?" Antoninus closed the journal carefully. "I suppose .." Loreli said with a nod and a sigh. "I just wish Jan hadn't left in such a hurry." He wasn't a demon god. Really. He was just...misunderstood. Laughing silently to herself, Charlena raised both hands to brush her long golden curls back from her face. Her faded pigment and form began to fade until she was gone. At least from sight. Invisible, she silently glided to stand behind Nan, watching her as she bemusedly searched through the shelves. It was an easy matter for Charlena to step up behind her, place her icy hands upon the girl's back - and shove HARD, hoping the bookcase would topple onto the unfortunate lady and crush her to the floor, or at the very least - give her a broken nose on the shelving. Nosy, nosy nosy. They were all far too nosy! "Yeah, but at least we know how to find her. The Elites have an enchantment on them that lets them track her at all times, right? Just send a couple of them to find her, or maybe go with them to talk to her, since she might order them to return home without her." Antoninus said eagerly. "I can try .." Loreli chewed on her lower lip. "I need to. Perhaps i'll find one to trail her with me tagging along." She smiled faintly. --------- (more to come) Jax -- #Dragonmyst*inn and #RPGWorks channel operator. Typo demon extrodinaire We all think we're ordinary, it's others that think we're extraordinary. - Me (On going to war over religion) "You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend." -Yasir Arrafat (PLO leader) (On cost overuns) "One way to ensure that it is not a major achievement for mankind" was to pass the budget limit. Rep. (Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican) <Kylus> What was that really bad vamp movie you saw over the summer? <Kaejo> Dracula: Lord of the Dance The only disability in life is a bad attitude. - Scott Hamilton -- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives & Other DMI Lists: http://islesofmyst.com/lists.php3
