you're missing what im tryna say, there's nothing getting in my way

Their visit to the guildhall was brief, Killian only had until Jigano had grabbed the lantern and rope to look around. Though his adventurous eyes noted many things, taking in and memorizing whatever he could. And then they were out again, on their way back to the alcove they had found. As they walked they continued to converse, this visit to the library had been very educational, and he hadn't read a word.

Vampires? They had only been fantasy back in his world, blood sucking myths. It seemed many of the myths that were simply that back on his world, were coming to life here. He really had to keep an open mind, and consider anything possible because frankly, it was. He didn't ask anymore questions about that, vampires seemed like enough to reflect on for now.

Killian nodded to Jigano's remark on the sun goddess, "She is, and kind too," I miss her he thought. Sure he scorned most of the gods antics, but he'd had a special bond with the goddess Soleil, her magic had once flooded his veins. Without her he felt just a tinge emptier. "Umm, Soleil and Lune really flip flop around a lot. They are supposed to be kept apart by the two gods Aube and Soir and when they are things go pretty smoothly, but a couple times a year they are allowed to meet. Those are the times that can be either great, or cause a rift and start a war."

The lantern brightened the dusty tunnel up quite a bit - instead of a candle inside it was a feather made of fire and sparks, throwing off light and heat through the black iron and glass of its cage - and Jigano crouched at the end of it with an air of competent experience in such things as he tied the lantern to the rope and began to lower it, peering into the darkness as it was illuminated below.

"Kind? It sounds like you know her well," the bard murmured, hiding a sad smile at Killian's almost wistful tone. It was always harder on those who had something worth going back to, when they found out that the portals were a one-way trip.

"How many times did war break out in your lifetime?" he asked curiously as he leaned forward to peer into the hole. The lantern clinked gently as it came to rest on the floor, but its flickering light showed mostly empty space and dancing shadows around it. Frowning slightly, Jigano looked around for a sturdy piece of the fallen masonry to tie the rope off to, making sure it was secure and not likely to budge and bury them before he gestured to the little hole with a wry smile.

"Do you want me to go first? Or do you want to lead the way?" Nothing was making any noise down there even with the lantern flinging light around. Hopefully that meant it was safe enough for them... probably.

They reached the end of the tunnel again, and crouched in front of it. Killian watched curiously as Jigano tied the feather lit lantern to a rope and lowered it down into the dark hole. He gave the more experienced of them plenty of room, but lifted his chin to look up and over, eyes following the lantern as it descended.

Killian smiled a little at Jigano's comment. He didn't really know her, he didn't get to speak with her often, and maybe only a few times in his life. However she'd always been there, with him, flowing through him with a vibrant warmth. And she'd always been good to the nation, whether or not Killian had done something that the reign had deemed disrespectful to the gods. He'd always felt she was one of his allies, in a position where everyone seemed to want too much and have no faith in him. Yes, she was definitely one of the things he missed the most about Regne du Jour. "Not really, but she always seemed good to our nation," he said, a truth just not all of it.

"Luckily not many, once when I was young, so I wasn't expected to participate or anything. Other than that just this last time. And since I'm not big on fighting," yet another reason he'd always felt wrong for the role of heir, as he was expected to be a great warrior by the reign, "I really did get lucky with the timing," he said with a small shrug.

As he finished his sentence he noted a click from the bottom of the hole, the lantern having reached it's stop. When Jigano backed away from the hole to tie the rope, Killian leaned forwards, staring down into the hole. He really wanted to go down there, oh man. Jigano asked if he wanted to go first, and he shrugged as though it wasn't a big deal, though his eagerness was clear in his response, "I can go first, I've got good dark vision," he said in a sort of joking tone, already shifting to grab the rope. He paused, thinking it over, then turned back once more, "This is safe right?" he asked, figuring it was but having to ask.

"I'm glad it wasn't too terribly often," Jigano offered as he checked the hole below, frowning a little when he didn't see any walls in the dance of light and shadow. The stark difference between the fiery feather and the darkness around it made it difficult to see much in the way of details from that angle, though, and until they were down there it would be difficult to determine the size of the chamber, aside from 'not small.' "Most people here can defend themselves to some extent, but it's mostly the Outlanders who have had the opportunity to hone their more combative skills... in wars or battles, like the one you were almost forced into." He glanced to Killian with a raised brow and a quirk of a smile. "Though... mutated wolves, banshees, stone golems, boggarts... there's more than enough trouble to stumble into, even if you don't go looking for it here!"

Trouble had a way of finding people on Caido. Long Night was the most dangerous time, but just because other times of the year were less dangerous, it didn't make them safe.

He had judged the young man right, Jigano thought to himself, amused at Killian's eagerness and not fooled at all by his attempt to play it off. "As do I," he murmured wryly, considering that with his fox's eyes, his darkvision was finally as good as it had been back on his own world again. Did Killian have a similar skill? Or was he just joking? Either way, his question surprised a laugh from the bard. "Safe? Killian, we're about to drop down into a hole that's a dozen feet deep and that's been buried under this rubble for three hundred years. Chances are good we'll be the first ones down there in all that time. There could be ROUSes down there, or ghosts, or booby traps, or just an unstable floor that could collapse beneath us once we put our full weight on it. If you want 'safe' we can go back to the Guildhall for tea and pastries," he finished with a slight chuckle. "Exploring on Caido is rarely a 'safe' undertaking, though we can do our best to try and mitigate the dangers. I don't think there's anything too terrible down there, or it would have attacked the lantern... but I can't guarantee it until we're down and have a chance to look around."

Killian nodded in agreement to Jigano, he was definitely glad for that too. He knew some of the other gods were far more petty than the sun goddess, and those nations would be locked in wars for years on end. He chuckled when Jigano mentioned all the dangers here. Wars really didn't seem to be the main issue here at all, they had plenty more to deal with though. Most of his skill lay in his dexterity and charm, but if worse came to worse he had been trained in sword play and was mediocre in it.

The response to his inquiry about the safety of their task was met with a laugh, and quickly a smile tugged at his lips. He shook his head as he listened, yeah Jigano was right. Nothing was certain when it came to exploring. It was all about whether or not the danger was worth it, and to Kiki, it most definitely was. And all the talk about how they were to be the first ones down there in a long time, that only cemented the fact that he wanted to go.

"Valid point," he replied, then with a grin, "Let's go then." He grabbed onto the rope, giving it a quick tug just to be safe, then hopped over and slowly began to repel down into the hole. He felt a shiver crawl down his spine as he went further down, not so much fear as anticipation. The light from the lantern grew brighter the deeper he went, until finally he'd reached the bottom. His feet landed on dusty ground, the impact sending particles swirling into the air around him. After waving some of the dust out of his face he looked up to Jigano and gave him a thumbs up.

The young man wasn't going to let something silly, like a little common sense caution, deter him from an adventure, and Jigano smiled ruefully in memory of his own younger days. He had absolutely been that foolishly brave and curious once... still was, though he liked to think that his curiosity was leavened by experience and a hard-earned wariness now. "If anything seems amiss, just give a shout and I'll help pull you up," he cautioned anyways as Killian started to descend. It was, thankfully, an unnecessary warning, as the new outlander touched down and nothing rumbled or shifted or tried to attack him. Breathing a faint sigh of gratitude, the bard eeled his way down into the hole and gripped the rope tight, swinging his legs underneath him and then shimmying down after his companion in short order.

The space they found themselves in was not quite as deep as the Guildhall, but it was wide and long. The shadows had hidden the piles of rotting wood where bookcases had once stood, their contents long since disintegrated in the rain and snowmelt that had seeped down from the rubble above over the centuries and eaten away everything from the ground up. Even now there were standing puddles reflecting back the lantern's light from the recent Flowerbirth showers.

Jigano let out a slow breath as he untied the lantern and lifted it to look around them, his shoulders sagging a little at the decay of what had once been a safe storage area, it looked like, tucked away from the main stacks. "So much lost," he murmured to himself, mournfully. The northern wall, which they were nearest to, was blank stone, covered in moss from the dripping water above. That left three other directions that the light did not reach, though: east, west, and south. "There must have been a way to get down here... a stair, or at least a ladder," the lorekeeper said as he continued to look around from where they had landed beside the rope. "Which direction do you want to try first?"

Killian didn't wait for Jigano to finish making his way down into the room to untie the smack his hands free of the dust and start looking around. The room was long and dark, piles of damp and chipped wood lay where great book cases might of once been. He was near a wall, which oozed with the various goos and squishes of an eternity of darkness. He moved towards it, leaning forwards to sniff at it. It wasn't the sewage odor he'd expected, but more of a musty dampness that caused his nose to twitch.

He turned around to face Jigano as the silver haired man reached the ground and untied the lantern, and jogged to his side. The other man gave a mournful look to the rubble around them, but Killian was too caught up in the excitement to feel regret. He followed Jigano's gaze back up the hole they'd come from, then looked back to the dark space before him and all it's possibilities.

"We can circle the perimeter, so starting east and ending up back here," he said, looking to Jigano for approval of the plan.

"East it is," Jigano agreed easily. East was as good a direction as any, and he began walking with the lantern held low so it wouldn't block their vision. The puddles receded behind them fairly quickly, though a sense of dampness remained in the air. They didn't get far, however, before cobwebs began to trail from the ceiling in clinging wisps of sticky threads. A skittering sound rustled through the debris to their right, and the bard glanced inquiringly at his companion.

"Rats?" he suggested as they walked along, but his question was answered a moment later as the lantern light caught a silvery mass of webbing down near the floor, and a dead rodent caught in the surprisingly strong strands. Jigano knelt to examine it, and it looked desiccated rather than fresh. He stood with an uneasy glance around them and continued a little further before the cobwebs became thicker, more like proper webbing, and harder to avoid. Lifting the lantern cautiously he saw the light reflect for a moment off of what looked to be a hundred tiny mirrors ahead of them, spangled about the webbing like red raindrops or bloody jewels. For a moment they held still, then they winked in unison and the webbing shook as the owners of those eyes fled deeper into the shadows.

Suppressing an atavistic shiver, Jigano slanted a wry glance at Killian. "Do you want to keep going this way? I think the far wall isn't too far back from here, based on the size of the building above us. We can try going south from here, or back a little ways to make sure we're clear of the webbing?" He left it up to his companion to decide, though he had no real desire to go any further into the spider's nest ahead of them.

The path to the eastern wall was... dusty. Very much so, cobwebs piled upon cobwebs the further they went, and things began to skitter along the floor. Rats? could be rats, could be anything. A few seconds after the question was posed the lantern light illuminated a thick patch of web, inside was an unfortunate and rather draugr-like corpse. Killian's face screwed up at it, a chill rising up in bumps on his arms.

Of course it didn't deter them though, they quested on further into the eastern area, only to find more compact and fresh spider webs than before. Jigano help the lantern up to a large covering of silver web, and for a moment it seemed a thousand red diamonds had become caught in the mess. The lost treasure of this forgotten passageway. But then the diamonds blinked and skittered away, spine-tinglingly fast, back further into their webbing.

Killian shuddered, feeling a sudden itch all over as he imagine those tiny spindly legs crawling all over his body. Jigano suggested they take a different path, asking if he wanted to. He squinted at the eastern path, thinking it over, then decided, "South, south sounds fine, and hopefully less infested.

The duo back tracked a bit to clear the webs, and started going south now. The further they went down this path way, the less damp the air felt. The mossy walls didn' have the same moist glint as the ones near the hole, and the fallen shelves looked a bit fresher. Dustier albeit, the drier air and staler air stung his nose a bit. He paused the walk forward to go look at a collapsed stack of wood. Lifting into the air and flipping it over, he brushed it off to reveal what might've once been a very nice varnish, and even the remains of an engraving.

"Hey, this stack over here isn't too bad," he said, and beckoned Jigano and the light nearer. He dropped the wood he was holding and began to sift through the pile. Most of it was just splintered wood, but as he lifted one particularly thick piece, he saw something of color underneath. Just a splash of red in a sea of dull browns and greys.

The boy pushed away the rubble surrounding it, and delicately reached for a small book, bound with a faint red cloth. A smile spread across his face as he carefully flipped it over to the front, and found symbols, age beaten and paled but symbols all the same. "I found something!" he said, turning to face Jigano and hand him the book. "Can you read it?" he asked.

Jigano didn't bother hiding his relief when Killian chose not to go forward. Spiders weren't the worst things he'd faced, but that still didn't make them pleasant, especially when he had no idea how venomous these were. He walked a little behind the younger man as they made their next foray, so that Killian wouldn't be blinded by the light of the burning feather inside the lantern, and was relieved when the webs grew sparser and then fell away behind them. The chamber was larger than he had expected, with occasional pillars of stone interspersed and holding up the floor above, and he was tentatively excited to see the dampness being left behind them and drier conditions prevailing as they walked further from their entry point. It was an eerie space, though, the lantern light only illuminating a circle of yellowish-orange around them, while beyond their surroundings receded into impenetrable blackness. Once there must have been lighting down here, magical or some sort of system of lanterns and mirrors such as the Guildhall sported, but for the moment all that was visible was the area immediately around them.

The lorekeeper paused when his companion did, keeping his ears tuned to the faint sounds around them - distant dripping from the hole they had crawled through, tiny skitterings of mice or bugs in the darkness beyond their light, their own breathing in the near-silence - but following Killian from a little ways back as the younger man began to dig at a pile of wooden rubble. Most things might have disintegrated, but perhaps there were still a few treasures to be unearthed down here? The red book that was held up seemed to be proof of that, and Jigano looked at it eagerly, trading the lantern for the relic and running his fingers lightly over the symbols on the cover.

"As a matter of fact... I think I can," he admitted, bemused and excited. "This is one of the languages I spent the winter translating. I don't have my key with me, but let's see how much I can remember of the structure..." He hummed softly to himself as he opened the ancient tome with gentle, reverent fingers. The paper was yellowed with age and neglect, dangerously ready to crumble at the edges, but the lorekeeper's touch was sure and gentle. "Ahhhh..." he breathed as he scanned what appeared to be a table of contents. "It's an account of the early attempts against the Spire Demon, and what they learned of it... Damn, but this would have been useful a month ago!" He grimaced but closed the book carefully and tucked it into a large pouch at his side that held a grey-bound journal.

"You're lucky you missed that chapter," he told Killian with a wry smile as he took the lantern back and began to amble their way south and west, the farthest reaches of their light bouncing off the far wall at last.

Of course Jigano had spent the winter translating languages - Killian hadn't known him for very long but somehow this seemed very character and Kiki's mouth quirked up at the corners. He leaned in further when the silver haired man opened up the book with gentle hands. Pages stained with age, the writing itself was scratchy and faded. Delicate though was the touch that handled them, and where Killian might've accidentally torn an edge, Jigano was mindful and cautious.

Ahh, to this Killian's eyebrows raised, his expression growing more inquisitive and interested. An account on quests to vanquish the spire demon, sounded pretty damn important. Killian wanted to reach for the book, to scan it and feel it himself (not that he would understand any of it but he was a very tactile person), but the lore seeker quickly tucked it away in his pouch. Probably for the best.

"What uhh, happened exactly. With the spire demon?" he asked as the lantern was lifted back up for the exploration to continue.

Killian was a bright, eager young man, and they were having such a lovely time... it seemed a shame to ruin it with talk of politics, but the worst of the fires had died down once the barrier had fallen and the gods hadn't immediately smited them all for their temerity. "That's a bit of a tale," Jigano admitted wryly, "and one that hasn't fully ended yet, though we're shifting into the epilogue, I hope." He turned his head to keep an eye on the wall they now walked parallel to, heading west. "It was a monster out of fairy tales - or nightmares - by the time we Outlanders began arriving in such numbers. Only barely alive, but unable to die, whatever strange power drove it allowed it neither rest nor retreat. Any who came within its territory of the Spire were torn to shreds, but it never left that patch of ground, not in three hundred years."

Jigano took a moment to pause near another collapsed bookshelf, grinning wryly at his companion. "It was related to the Ascended, those not-exactly-vampires who follow the Voice. A guardian, an experiment... those who knew what it was for certain mostly perished in the unlocking of the Spire. Either way, it had venomous fangs and claws and a body like a whip, faster than anything mortal. Some tried to kill it for glory, and died. Some tried to kill it in order to reach the Spire, in hopes of bringing down the barrier. They died too. Some attacked it in grief for those who had been lost before... Others simply grew tired of living in a cage and walked empty-handed into its claws. For three hundred years, any and all who went against it were killed. Generations of those whose home this was lived and died with the bogey monster living right beside them... Until the Outlanders came."

Unfortunately this broken shelf hid no preserved treasures, and the bard stood with a sigh as he continued his tale. "We came with skills the Naturals did not have - experiences in war, in slaying monsters, in dealing with gods. We came with fire in our souls and a restless, reckless energy that defied being caged by the barrier. We came with arrogance and impatience and a blithe, willful ignorance of why there was a barrier and what a hundred generations of local people knew and desired." He fell into the storytelling cadences easily, his feet slowing in his stride as they had to pick their way across more fallen shelves and tables in the flickering dark. "One group of Outlanders arrived all together, from a place called 'Northhaven.' They had a charismatic leader and several powerful warriors - fighters and mages both, wielding spells and weapons with equal ease - among their number, and they had weapons imbued with magic and favors that they had earned from the local gods."

"And they cared not for the wishes of those who had lived here all their lives," he said grimly, an abrupt shift in the almost musical recitation. It was a jarring transition, and meant to be, to regain the audience's attention. "Even with hints surfacing that there was a reason the barrier existed, that there could be terrible consequences for it coming down, all they saw was a challenge to be overcome, a dangerous beast that had bested them once, and a high-handed chance to play saviors to a people who did not want saving. Or at least, who wanted to be involved with their own salvation. But this band of would-be heroes from another world took that out of their hands. Instead of working with them, they brushed the native people aside and fought without them. Fought...

And won." Jigano shook his head as the western wall came in view at the very edge of their lantern light. "At a cost. A personal cost, for them: their captain was killed in the beast's final vengeance. As it died it took him with it. But there was a cost for the rest of us as well... many Naturals were angered that their wishes, their traditions, their beliefs, their pride had been trampled on and cast aside. They turned not just against the four who had faced the Demon, and not just upon the Northhaveners who were the friends and family and supporters of that band, but upon all Outlanders. Or at least... most of us," he corrected himself wryly, walking up to lay his hand against the cool stonework of the wall. "Not all of them, but many. As you might imagine, it tested bonds of friendship and trust quite sorely. They felt betrayed. Some of us, myself included, who aren't from Northhaven felt quite frustrated and further alienated by that group's actions, which caused trouble for the rest of us. It all came to a head a few days later when the survivors of the assault on the demon threatened to breach the spire itself and the naturals banded together against them... but I'm probably boring you to tears, aren't I?" he asked wryly, turning to face his new friend but keeping the lantern held low so as not to blind Killian.

Jigano began into a long tale about the spire demon, what it was and why. It was described in a way that made it seem horrifying, and as though not many had lived to tell about it. And yet he found himself wanting to know what it looked like, and wishing he had seen it. As was the way of the curious boy.

They paused at a bookshelf, Kiki waited and listened as Jigano continued the story. He explained how the outlanders had changed the game, coming with their magic and weapons and experience, and specific band from Northaven. He'd heard this name before, Phoebe was from there he thought, and maybe a few other's he'd befriended. The Northavener's were spoken of in a tone of faint disfavor, Jigano stressed the arrogance of their actions and Killian wondered if that earlier expression at the mention of Phoebe had anything to do with this.

The story ended bittersweet, with the spire demon being vanquished (something Killian felt was a victory), but the tensions between the Outlanders and the Naturals coming to a head. Come to think of it, Killian didn't think he'd been acquainted with many Naturals, and this might be the reason. It was frustrating actually, to know that this rift could affect his path in this world. He hoped it wouldn't though.

They reached the far wall, Jigano held his hand to the chipping stone and turned to face Killian. A soft smile pulled at his lips, "No! Not boring, just kind of sucks huh?" He replied with a shrug. Now that the west wall was reached, they had walked the perimeter and explored most of the chamber, which was much longer than expected. The area around them was illuminated with a pale yellow light, and while there was nothing completely in range he could see a vague outline of something more towards the corner of the room.

He started towards it, turning over his shoulder to beckon Jigano. The light soon shone upon a collapsed shelf, but shrouded in the rubble was a small broken chest. Where time and perhaps falling debris had struck it, half the lid and adjacent side was a splintered hole, whatever was inside could still be intact but was unfortunately exposed to the effects.

"Immensely," Jigano said dryly, interpreting the slang 'sucks' to mean... something bad? In context it seemed likely. "Especially when two of the remaining band compounded the issue by proclaiming that they would enter the Spire and take down the barrier - and to hell with what the Naturals wanted. More than a hundred locals came together to protect the Spire from the Northhaven aggressors at that point, and the Northhaveners made some very pointed physical threats towards the one who was leading the Naturals. They were outnumbered and were forced to back down, though, and we thought we had bought ourselves some time... we had just learned that the old gods very much did not want the barrier to come down, that they were trying to protect the world from the Voice. I'm assuming that, despite their disdain of her, that she truly has ascended to godhood and that is why they can't kill her, and so they opted for imprisonment instead. But the Voice had her own pawns in play - the Ascended. Not all of them worship her or follow her commands to the letter, but enough do..."

Jigano trailed off as he joined Killian in the corner, looking down at the chest curiously. He brought the lantern closer, attempting to see inside without reaching in - and possibly getting bit by something that nested there. "That night, the Voice used her power to cast a spell of sleep over the people guarding the Spire. Her Ascended worshipers slipped past and managed to enter it. Some went upstairs, some went down... some went in to rescue the daft fools who had charged ahead without thinking," he added with a grimace that made it clear which group he had been in. "But the ones who went upstairs reached... well. I'm not sure how to describe it, in truth. The prison, the power center of the barrier, the body of something that had once been human but no longer was... And so the barrier was brought down and the Gods of the Ascended were freed." He glanced up at his companion with an arched brow and a wry smile.

"The wounds of the liberties taken by the Northhaveners are fading. Luckily most people here have a 'what's done is done' philosophy, but the scars still linger, and some rifts may never close completely after being torn open so violently. Words were said that cannot be unsaid, and forgiveness doesn't mean that people will forget how a few outsiders trampled over the beliefs and desires of the many. And there may well be consequences still to come that we have not yet seen. So. An exciting time, as I said," he finished the history lesson with a chuckle, reaching for a splintered piece of wood to carefully poke into the hole in the chest and fish out whatever was inside.