Chapter 5 – Secrets in Proudspire
Cassius and Vallarus stood examining the entry room in Proudspire. It wasn't much to look at: cobwebs, broken furniture and old paintings. The wooden beams between the stone bricks creaked as they made their way around, and a howl billowed through when Vallarus peaked out a window. There seemed to be nothing here, and then Cassius walked towards the stairs examining the side for cracks and distortions. With his counterpart occupied, Vallarus went upstairs to look for more clues for something he was unsure of.
He quickly came back, running down the stairs in excitement, in his hand a pink jewel finely cut so that the failing light gleamed off of it in perfection. Cassius quickly glanced at his smiling face before shrugging it off and returning to the stonework. The wood elf shook in annoyance of the lack of attention and proudly announced, "Look what I found." Cassius' eyes looked up at the jewel, his head however stayed perfectly still. His wide expression questioned what he saw, before he sighed.
"Where did you get that? Hmm?"
Vallarus giggled to himself, and remained adamant in his actions. "Upstairs; in a golden case. It's really nice." Cassius retorted for him to put it back where he found it, to which the wood elf replied negatively. Cassius stopped and stood up. He closed his eyes for a moment and then reopened them, snarling ferociously. Vallarus rushed back upstairs and Cassius shock off his encounter.
Cassius' hands had finally trailed along the stones long enough to find a find a significant crack. The vampire unsheathed his dagger and forced it into the gap, triggering something which let out a loud rumble, and unearthed a passage on the other side of the area next to the stairs. Vallarus lit and throw over a torch he had found, which Cassius caught and, in one smooth action, placed in front of the entrance. He turned and gestured for Vallarus to follow, which he did, as Cassius made his way down into the decrepit depths of the hallway.
After several minutes of walking, the pair had reached a large room, ordained with statues, and blossoming fires creeping along the walls. Several collapsed skeletons and weapons dotted around the room. They stopped to hear the echoes of a distance mumbling. Neither could make out the words exactly, but some sort of snivelling creatures were cursing at each other and pushing something heavy about. Cassius passed the torch to Vallarus, and gestured for him to go behind the wall next to the archway leading into the next room on one side, while Cassius made his way to the other.
With his companion safely behind the wall, the wood elf strolled confidently passed him, much to Cassius' surprise, and into the next room, where too figures pushed each other, bickered and grappled with a stone statue of a man holding the sun. Vallarus continued inside and chirpily asked, "Excuse me, gentlemen." The two figures jumped in surprise and turned to him. "You wouldn't happen to have seen any vampires by any chance. You see we're hunting them." The pairs' yellow eyes quizzed him, to which the wood elf happily waved to the empty space next to him, never taking a moment to think about it.
He held onto the sides of his coat with both hands and smiled at the two facing him. One grabbed his sword stood up next to the statue and swung at Vallarus, missing him by at least a foot. The wood elf calmly pushed a hand into his coat, and drew out a crudely made axe, clearly meant to cut wood, and swung violently at the two vampires. The first, who had attacked him with a sword, lost his head instantly, while the other jumped back and only suffered a graze, falling to the floor. Vallarus threw the axe behind him, and then plunged it into the man's back splitting his spine in half, and causing a lot of blood to pour out, some of it trickling beneath the statue.
Cassius ran forward to meet his friend and looked over the dead bodies. The wood elf dropped his axe and moved next to the statue, pushing as hard as he could to move it, but it did not budge. Vallarus kept pushing until he was exhausted, and sat on the floor panting, "It's no use".
Cassius walked past him and to the back wall. His hands grasped a chain and he yanked it down hard. A rumbling awoke and Vallarus felt back as the statue moved revealing a crypt underneath. The wood elf jumped up and stared down it, while Cassius made his way down the blood-splodged stairs and to the sarcophagus. He pushed aside the lid to show an empty stone box, with a few tattered pieces of material that seemed stuck in the stone work. He pushed the lid, forming a crack.
Whatever was in there had gone.