Role-Playing - "Sometimes there's worse things than dying."

The voices in the main hall were getting louder, and Lon new the short temper of the immortals would not last long. He just couldn't wait any longer, mortality or no mortality. Lady Maeve was in danger. Lon opened the door slowly, then slipped out into the shadow of a balcony above. He could see Lady Maeve sitting on the steps off to one side. Her eyes were red from sobbing, but her face was resolute as she comforted her daughter. Lon kept his back to the wall as he moved quietly up the side of the main hall, careful to keep in the shadows. Jimmy and Pop followed, and Lon was almost surprised to find that the older man's bones didn't creak.
"They thought they could beat me!" Louis was shouting at his aide. "Me!" he laughed. "As if they had a chance in ten thousand years!" In his hand he held a long, black sword. He walked over to Lady Maeve, resting the blade on her shoulder. "Thank you, my dear," he said softly. "I couldn't have done it without you. The knife your husband will now bring will set me free of this fetid curse."
Lady Maeve jerked away, standing up and straightening. She looked at Louis imperiously, as if she were a full twelve feet taller than he, instead of two inches shorter. "The only fetid thing in this place is you," she said.
Louis' anger was not visible, but it was palpable. "I had thought to give you the honor of being our first sacrifice," he said, running a finger along the razor sharp edge of his blade. He extended his arm, ready to strike off Lady Maeve's head with a one-handed blow. Ren screamed.
"Louis!" Lon shouted. Louis spun around, after a seconds hesitation he bowed theatrically. "Ah!" he said, "I see someone in the dungeon is about to be demoted," he said.
"That's quite a legacy you're leaving, Louis," Lon said, stepping into the light. "The only immortal so cowardly as to kill a defenseless woman."
Louis' face twisted in anger. He glanced at his aide and then back at Lon.
"Perhaps you'd like a chance for some real honor," Lon said approaching the dais. "If the word isn't poison in your ears."
Louis nodded at his aide. The aide drew his sword and threw it to--or at, Lon. It clattered to the floor and Lon stooped to pick it up. He moved out into the middle of the wide open hall as Louis stepped down to meet him. They circled once, then Louis stepped forward and struck. For an immortal, Lon thought, he doesn't have much patience. Lon easily blocked the upward strike, then spun into a side strike that should have cut Louis in half. The blade of Lon's sword passed through Louis' form without even slowing down. Lon had to skip quickly to the side and nearly lost his balance dodging Louis' thrust. This, he decided, was going to be tricky.

Skye stepped first into the bright room and gasped. The whole room was filled with glowing veins of Argentum!
She heard her companions come in behind her and heard a collective of gasps as they gazed about in wonder. The door behind them creaked shut. Skye looked back. The Benevolent had not followed.
As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, Skye noticed that the Argentum in the room was not all inside the wall. She noticed a large clump of extravagantly carved weapons. Swords, crossbows, spears, deadly javelins, daggers like Skye's own, except longer.
Dar placed his hand of Skye's shoulder. "We've done it. These weapons could take down the whole castle of Reapers!"
"Well, what do we do with them? How can we get these to the rest of the villagers held captive here?" Cyrus asked.
Skye's eyes lit up as a thought entered her head. "Where'd that Benevolent go?"
She threw open the door and peered outside. The Benevolent was just outside. the ghost started when it saw her. Skye smiled at him, a long and knowing smile. "How'd you like to help take down the Reapers? Get as many Benevolents as you can and bring them down here. We'll need them."

Ruthie wrote:I know this isn't much, but maybe it can be a good start...

The weapon's room was truly amazing... it was filled with a soft glow that seemed to increase every so often, Or maybe, Eva realized, my eyes are just getting used to the surroundings. She went over to the center of the room where the majority of the Argentum weapons were stockpiled and picked up a very effective looking sword, which was surprisingly light.
"Well, what do we do with them? How can we get these to the rest of the villagers held captive here?" Cyrus asked.
Skye's eyes lit up as a thought entered her head. "Where'd that Benevolent go?" Skye poked her head out of the door for a minute, and when she came back, she was grinning. "I think we have a plan... if that Benevolent can find any of the prisoners, he's bringing them here. We'll gather our forces!"
Beverly cut in. "But Skye, dear, this isn't a story book... there's is a very good chance that some of us will die." Her usually alert face was completely serious, and there were lines of worry and care around her face. The rest of the group nodded, letting that sink in. Dar and Hala moved closer to their daughter and Eva gripped the sword a little tighter. "But that shouldn't stop us!" she continued, her eyes flashing, and mouth setting into a firm line. "Let's get going."

Rita rested in the comfort of a shadow near the entrance of Cair's Hall. Just a few hours before, Cyn had followed her to a dank cell where she lay helpless. Thankfully, the grandmotherly ghost had remembered an uncanny skill that Fiona had taught her about covering up her shademark, leaving her invincible. It turned out the lock to Rita's cage was so rusted that it came right off after a few tugs, and the two slipped out unseen. A long series of unfortunate events ocurred as they were trying to figure out where everyone was placed and what the heck they were doing. First, they found Fiona had been captured. Try as they might, it was not meant to save her at the moment because her cell was wired up so that nothing, not even a ghost could come out. In the pressed time they had, Fiona caught them up to date on the groups. One was at Cair's Hall. Fiona understood the terrified look Cyn gave her. Humpf. That exchange was probably because of the "almighty secret" Rita thought sarcastically to herself. The other group, they learned, was supposed to be heading back to town under Fiona's care. Fiona gave Cyn a hint, and with that she hastily volunteered to guide that lost group back to the safety of the town. Fiona nodded appreciatively towards Cyn, and Rita couldn't quite figure out why they were both so worried about the villagers. They can make it back themselves! Why do you feel obligated towards them Cyn? Oh right... more unduly secrets from us I suppose. Rita laughed at the irony of her thanking Cyn and Fiona one day for shrouding her from the "Secret". She shrugged and decided where to go. "That leaves the former group at the hall left alone. I'll go scope that out and see what I can do there. Got nothing else better to do anyways." Actually she was thrilled although she sounded melancholic. She had a feeling something very special was going to happen there.

And she was right. Rita watched closely from her sequestered area with amusement. There was a plank missing- rotted away most likely- and the perfect spy hole was there in place. Rita used it to her advantage to watch the inevitable fight between lifer and Reaper. She heard screams and shouts, but couldn't identify whose they belonged to for her spying was very limited. It's about high time I made my entrance if I should say so myself But before she could finish that thought she heard people whispering and scrambling down the trail on the far end of the anteroom followed by a Benevolent. Her curiosity now split between the two scenes before her, she ditched her old idea and followed the lifers from shadow to shadow all the way down to what seemed to be a mine. Rita gasped as an unearthly glow played with her eyes. The mine.

This looked hopeless. How can you fight something you can't touch? Jimmy thought, watching helplessly as Lon fought Louis, and noticed him becoming short of breath and not as quick. He was getting tired, and he had yet to even nick Louis. That was the problem with ghosts. Then something caught Jimmy's mind and nagged him as he watched Louis' blade slash through the air, almost striking Lon time and time again, but he managed to dodge it. The way the blade glinted was strange, as though it was dimly illuminated from the inside. But the light wasn't solid; it was more like a thin vein of the light was threaded through the blade.
Jimmy made his way to Lady Maeve, who was being helped by Pop.
"Lady Maeve," he said, glancing from her face to the battle and back again. "Do you know what Louis' blade is made of?" Jimmy had a feeling he already knew, but something like argentum couldn't be real, surely? Wasn't it just something people talked about in stories?
Lady Maeve nodded, looked worn and distraught. "Yes," she answered, whispering. "I had a bracelet, made from Argentum. My father gave it to me; it's been in my family for years. But when they brought me here, they took it and melted it down. Louis made a new blade, but there wasn't enough, so he blended it with another metal. It makes his blade unbreakable, and as fast as a viper. There's no way to stop him, now that he has it."
"Maybe there is," Jimmy remarked, and he looked around the room, a plan forming in his mind. Louis himself may be intangible, but his blade wasn't.

The cage hurt. If she had been a normal, live human, simple iron bars would have been enough to keep Fiona imprisoned. But since she could ghost through any solid object, minus Argentum, something else was needed. And Louis' cronies had had plenty of time to come up with something that would hold those stopping them from reaching the precious metal. They had studied many of the books Cair had left around, testing spells and altering them to work on ghosts. Most spells didn't carry over the life/death border, but some did; enough for Louis to keep Benevolents when he felt necessary.
The cage was made by the ghostmage's emotions. It was the only source of power that an unarmed ghost had; when you no longer had physical force, you had to rely on others. All the ghosts had to be careful to control themselves, because their emotions often had... side effects. Several haunted houses and cursed places in Goscite were the result of someone losing their temper, usually a Reaper, but there were several unexplainably peaceful spots too, where some very content ghost had rested.
And so the cage was crafted of several parts. Hate, mostly, for Benevolents in general, but also some for her in particular. Some of the Reapers were friends or relations, and they had added in a few barbs that made the cage more painful. One of the ghostmage's had noticed Fiona's feelings towards the Reapers, and had used it to strengthen the bars by layering them with her own aversion and fear. Nothing could keep you as well imprisoned as your own emotions. Fiona knew it, and her fear and uncertainty grew deeper, strengthening the prison.
"Stop it, stop it!" she whispered to herself. "You're only making this worse." Fiona could feel the hate coming off the bars like she was standing too close to a fire and was slowly burning. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. Concentrate. Push away the fear. But it was like trying to not get wet while standing under a waterfall. Fiona sank to the ground without hope. None of the Benevolents would look for her here.
"Well, hello there!"
The friendly voice surprised Fiona so much that she jerked her head up to make sure it was real.
Cyn was standing outside the bars.
"Cyn! I'm so glad to see you!" she called.
"What's going on?" asked the elderly ghost, and then she turned and motioned towards the shadows. Rita drifted out of the shadows, looking cautiously around to make sure there were no Reapers nearby.
"It's a long story," Fiona began. "The Reapers caught Lady Maeve, and then some lifers that went after her. I helped some of them got out, but I had to get these tattoos to do it. I was helping some return to town, but I got caught. Lon was in charge of another group, and he was going to keep looking for Lady Maeve, somewhere down near Cair's Hall. I don't know what happened to the rest of my group."
"Don't worry about that, honey, I'll find them. You need to concentrate on getting out of there."
Fiona felt the spear of hope she had felt when Cyn appeared evaporate, and her fear came back. "I can't," she said, biting her lip. "It's too strong. I don't know any magic like they do. I need your help."
Cyn shook her head. "I've seen things like this before. You're the only one who can break out of there because you are the only thing standing in your way. I have to hurry; the Reapers are everywhere and they'll catch your group in no time."
Fiona shook her head. She could feel the heaviness of the prison weighing on her like a milestone. Cyn walked as close as possible to the bars and stared her straight in the face.
"You can do it, Fiona of Goscite," she said firmly. "You just have to believe you can. Your friends are in danger, and not enough of the Benevolents know. We need all the help we can get. They need it. We're all they have on their side."
After Cyn and Rita had left, Fiona closed her eyes again. She could do this. She would do it. Jimmy and hte others needed her. She felt her strength and determination returning inside her, fighting the cage. She molded it, shaping it into a sharp spear in her mind. She stepped back, here eyes still closed, and thrust it at the bars.
They shook, and Fiona felt a few crack under the impact.
Fiona smiled and began forming another spear. Maybe this would be easier than she thought.

Skye felt something; it was cold and foreboding. Someone or something, she corrected herself, after all they were in a ghost castle, was in trouble. She furrowed her brow, temporarily oblivious to her companions and parents as they picked out choice weapons. Eva had even made a discovery of Argentum armor, but Skye paid no attention to that now. Her forehead darkened and she slunk to a quiet corner where she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Who are you? What is the matter? she asked in her mind. A reply popped into her head almost immediately. Great Hall, Louis has Lady Maeve, help, please.
Skye's blue eyes shot open and she turned to her companions. She was surprised to see them all suited up. Dar, closest to her, handed her a pikestaff that was tipped with Argentum. "You need that as well," he smiled.
Skye surprised them all when she blurted, "Something is going on in the Great Hall, Lady Maeve is in trouble!"
Beverly raised an eyebrow. "Of course she's in trouble, we're all in trouble,"
"No!" Skye sounded desperate, "I just heard someone speaking to me in my head. They need help!"
She frowned at the disbelieving faces of Beverly, Cyrus and Eva around her. Dar and Hala seemed to understand.
"You heard someone?" Hala asked quietly. She didn't sound like she doubted her daughter.
Skye bobbed her head. "Yes, they're in the Great Hall, we have to go now!"
"What about the Benevolents?" Cyrus asked.
At that moment, a quiet voice at the door asked, "What about the Benevolents?"

By now, Lon could barely see through the sweat dripping into his eyes. He had a feeling that Louis was just toying with him at this point. Lon was staggering a bit as he deflected the blows that Louis rained down on him. He wondered what he had been thinking challenging an immortal to a duel. There was no way he could win this. The best he could do was to knock Louis' sword out of his hand, but he had little hope that would happen.
Lon ducked to one side and spun away, buying himself precious seconds to wipe his face and regain his balance. When he could see Louis' face clearly again, he was surprised to find it in an expression of anger and frustration. That was heartening, to say the least. Lon was at least keeping the ghost at bay, and perhaps buying his friends time to escape. Or not, he thought as he glanced toward the dais. Jimmy was the only one moving, but Lon couldn't figure out where he was heading.
Block. Swing. Block. Swing. A rhythm Lon had been raised dancing to. Louis favored downward strokes, which meant Lon was keeping low and moving side to side a lot.
Lon moved around to put himself between Louis and the dais, then began to strike faster and with more vigor. He had a plan now. Louis began to give ground, step by step. Now there was surprise on his face, but there wasn't yet any fear. Lon struck first on one side, then on the other, making sure Louis had no time to ready a blow of his own. Soon they were within two feet of the wall. Louis smirked and backed a step into the wall, putting his back foot and his back into the wall. He continued to smirk until he drew his sword back and the tip of it clanged into the stones. Now there was fear in Louis face and it was Lon's turn to smirk.
"Run out of room did you?" Lon said.

What about the Benevolents?
Every person in the room spun around to the door, and not one of them looked indifferent towards the scene. Eva realized her mouth was hanging open. About one hundred Benevolents could be seen crowding and hovering behind the first, a surprisingly solid looking ghost who appeared to be their leader. He stood confidently in the doorway, a broad smile on his short-bearded face, his hand resting a vein of Argentum. After a few moments silence he gestured to go on, and repeated "Well? What about the Benevolents?"
Skye was the first to speak. She blurted out. "We all need to get to the Great Hall, can you take us there?" The leader held up a ghostly hand.
"All in good time. If we made our grand entrance right now, the confusion could end up more fatal than the waiting, especially if the Reapers emotions turn angry." No one seemed to understand this, but he was referring to the emotion prisons. "It would be a great help if we could contact them." Skye wasn't positive but she could have sworn he gave her a special glance here. "So I suggest we prepare."
Eva piped up. "So how do we go about doing that?"
"Arm yourselves." A second, clear Benevolent voice was heard, and a young-looking ghost materialized in the room, and ran his fingers down the hilt of a large sword.
Everyone moved towards the piles of weapons. In a very short amount of time, the anxious group was outfitted with Argentum chain mail (though Eva secretly thought it looked quite silly) and either a sword, dagger, or other kind of blade. Only Hala had a quiver of silver-tipped arrows and a bow, with which she looked very content. Eva was just wondering when they were going to get moving, when the peg-legged Benevolent brought them some news. He came into the room and let his eyes rove in careless way. "From our large connection of Benevolents," Here he gestured widely. "We know that there are about three more humans wandering the Castle, attempting to find a way out. As all the accessible entrances and exits, as well as the halls and chambers, are guarded by Reapers, there is no way that the humans will get out alive." Again his eyes roved, as if he had trouble controlling their muscles. "They need Argentum just as desperately as the ones in the Great Hall; without it, they are just living sacrifices. So how will you solve this one?" Now his eyes were steady while he surveyed each member, as if searching their souls for what courage they had.

Cyrus' spine tingled as she surveyed the army of Benevolents at the door to the Argentum mine. Maybe we can actually win this.
In her right hand was one of the smallest daggers she could find. She curiously tapped the point of the blade, and it felt unusually cold.
I don't want to use this for too long. Actually, I hope I end up watching everyone else fight. Beverly appeared by her granddaughter's side with one of the largest swords in the mine strapped to her side, sheath and all.
"Grandma, are you sure you can carry that?" Cyrus asked.
Beverly laughed, "Of course I can! You keep doubting and doubting and doubting and sooner or later you will doubt yourself to death. Have some faith, kid."
Cyrus rolled her eyes. "But didn't you say we could die? What about that?"
Her grandmother's face grew darker. "Yes, that is true. We have to be careful. Very careful. We have to look out for each other, but we have to have faith in each other as well. I love adventures, don't you?"
Cyrus looked away from her grandmother's shining eyes. The rest of the party was leaving the mine in search for the rest of the villagers who desperately needed their assistance.
"Let's go," Cyrus murmured to Beverly. And get this over with.
As Cyrus trailed the group, she noticed something else sticking out of Beverly's sheath. It was the ratty old wood dagger that Bev had with her since the beginning of the adventure. Cyrus's heart lightened. I thought she got rid of that thing long ago. Why would she want to keep that? It won't help us.
Before she could question her grandmother, something on the dagger grabbed her eye. The initials of her grandmother and grandfather were scratched into the side of the weapon, small and compact. It must be something she cares about. Cyrus smiled and picked up her pace to walk beside Beverly. Now it's my turn to find something that I care about.

--Argh!! I got bit by a stupid macaw at my volunteering job it makes it hard to type w/ my right index digit, where he bit.

Right, left, up the stairs, down the hall, right again. Fiona hurried through the passages of the castle, not daring to just ghost through walls and lose her sense of direction. She had to get to the Great Hall. That was where this had all started; that was where Louis would want to finish it. She knew him well enough to know that. He was quite a person for dramatic irony. Using Cair's own castle against the townspeople had been a start to that; trying to use them to break the Argentum Curse was just more. But his plan had gone awry, unless he had planned for some of the lifers to escape. The thought made Fiona mentally pause for a second, but then she shook it away. No, he couldn't possibly have planned that.
There! Fiona took a few last steps and opened a creaky wooden door, passing into the room beyond. It was tiny, meant for storing small decorations for the hall. The walls were thick, and several empty barrels stood to one side, smelling faintly of wine. This was also a storing place for spare wine, Fiona remembered, so that the servants could more easily serve the guests.
With the lifers running around, Fiona figured Louis would have the doors being watched. But the walls...
Fiona ghosted through the wall, missing something very important as she did. As she entered the wall, a foot, and then the back of its leg appeared, as though someone was walking backwards through the wall.
Fiona had meant to peak cautiously into the room before entering, and get her bearings, but in the middle of the wall, something tripped her and she stepped unsteadily into the room, feeling a burn across her cheek as she did. She caught herself after a few steps and found herself facing Lon, who held a sword pointed at her. Or not quite. She followed the line of the blade and found herself standing next to Louis, who was mostly submerged in the wall. Both of them were staring at her, momentarily surprised out of action.
"Fiona," Lon said, sounding mystified. "You're bleeding."
Fiona reached up to where she had felt the burning, and felt a something wet on her cheek. She took her hand away, and the blood looked black on her hand. Something had cut her cheek. "What-" she began, then stopped. Argentum. She looked back to where she had come from, and saw Louis' hand in the wall, holding the Argentum sword she had knocked into.
She'd been cut by the Argentum.

The indomitable Lord Talbot, red beard and cape flying, Argentum sword held high, with his knights, was galloping on his white stallion, Seamus, at the head of the rag-tag group of villagers. He had come as quickly as he had been able.
When combing the countryside that morning for his kidnapped true love, he had allowed his horse to drop its head to drink from a still water pool. The horse had spooked and jumped. Lord Talbot had furrowed his still-handsome brow and squinted his emerald-green eyes searching for the cause. He had leaped from saddle and thrown himself on his knees, not as gracefully as he had when he was twenty, but fairly respectably for a middle-aged man. He saw Maeve's beloved face, as if in a mirror, in the pool. Beautiful, as always, but her face seemed drained of color, was smudged and her long brown hair was disheveled. She seemed to be speaking a bit unnaturally. Little did he know of the dagger point in her back, held by a filthy Reaper, also unseen, at her side. She had begged him to open her father's box, bring its contents and come to Cair Castle at once, to ransom her. As the group arrived at the edge of the clearing, a few hundred yards from the ancient drawbridge, he raised his hand to halt and summon the group closer to make a plan. Lord Talbot prayed with all his heart that they weren't too late. He had known when he pried open the ornately-carved box, he was holding no ordinary sword, and it's telltale glow confirmed his suspicions about the type of creature with which they almost certainly would soon be dealing...