Chapter II - Taint of Chaos

"Silverstrom?", the young girl with raven-black hair lightly tugged the hem of the aged seeress' grey robes.
The frail and wise seeress who's true name had been lost to the Sisterhood for almost a century, regarded the inquisitive Rogueling with amber eyes of wisdom and patience. "Yes little one, what has caught your curiousity now?"
The tiny girl pressed closer to the motherly figure as the procession slowly filed across the threshold into the chilly Mausoleum. "Why do the doors open for Avariel but they didn't for mommy?" Her wandering gaze now scoured the torch-lit walls and ceiling of the ancient tomb, searching for a mechanism which might operate the Mausoleum's gates.
"Well dear...some things are better left unknown, and some things people are just never supposed to know. Do you know why your hair is as thick and black as the night, and mine has become silvery-white through all the years?"
The Rogueling walked silent and pondering for a moment, before replying. "No, I don't know."
"Exactly. Why do the doors only open for some? I've heard legends about this place...it is said that it is a final resting place for heroes. But a legend is all it can be...it is always your choice in what to believe."
"So...mommy wasn't a hero then?" she pouted her cute rosy lips and was clearly disturbed by the thought.
"My little Raven, she is one of the bravest of the Sisters I have known, and the essence of a heroine. Of course she was dear, of course she was..." the seeress' reassuring and gentle voice echoed through the chamber as the procession led by bearers of their deceased Sister's casket continued its descent into the gloom of the Mausoleum.

Bearing Cheyianne's body in her arms, Blood Raven grimly crossed the burial grounds towards the moon-lit Mausoleum.
"Will the gates open for you Chei? We have fought side-by-side in almost every battle and your bravery, ferocity and service to the Cause has been nothing but heroic."

Behind her still lay the unconscious imp, and the fallen knight whom Blood Raven had construed to be her liberator from the demonic grasp of her possessors. The unnamed knight's battered and bloodied body reflected his fortitude against the hardships he must have faced to achieve his noble quest. With deepening remorse, she glanced back to the armour-clad form whom she was certain would have made a gallant and capable companion. At this vulnerable time in which she needed the most assistance, oblivious to what had befallen the Sisterhood, she was alone and without guidance.
"First I will see to the peaceful rest of my Sister, then I will see that you too Sir Knight will also be honoured with a proper burial."

The archaic granite structure of the Mausoleum loomed before her, its moss-covered pillars standing impassively tall to meet in a high archway engraved with images of entwining vines, blossoms and nature's fertility. At the front of the Mausoleum, its smooth walls curved inwards to line the flight of chiselled stone stairs which ran up to the entry antechamber. Blood Raven strained her eyes but was unable to perceive anything within the antechamber's murky darkness which was dimly lit by the two oil-soaked torches aside the foot of the stairs.

Bearing one of the flaming torches and cradling her Sister in her arms, Blood Raven ascended the stairs, marvelling at the monumental size of the structure which had resolutely weathered the elements, war and the centuries. As she reached the top of the stairs, her torchlight flooded into the Mausoleum's vestibule and several rodent-sized forms scurried to escape back into the gloom. The antechamber more clearly evinced the antiquity of the structure. A thick layer of dust and cobwebs lined its walls, and a large portion of the ceiling had long collapsed to fragment into a mosaic of granite pieces upon the floor.

She almost dropped Cheyianne upon the debris littered floor as she stepped into the antechamber, in awe of the destruction of the Mausoleum's entrance. In her visit to this mournful place as a young Rogue, the gates of the Mausoleum had seemed unassailable, its thickness of solid granite spanning at least four hand-breadths. Even the weight of a single slab of the gate would undoubtedly pulverise any of the Gargantuan Beasts which peacefully co-existed in the woods with the Sisterhood. The lower half of the granite gates still bore countless marks of scratches and chiselled notches inflicted by tomb robbers who had miserably failed in their forcible entry under the cold, watchful stare of the figurines carved into the stone. But from an unprecedented force, the height of the gates had been decimated, and angry fractures now veined throughout the stone where it had been shattered. Blood Raven inferred from her examination of the gates that a titanic impact had been exerted upon the gates from the exterior.

"What in the will of the Cause could have done this?" her question remained unanswered by her stare over the remnants of the gate into the yawning lightless portal of the Mausoleum. Enormous chunks of granite remained strewed upon the steep, narrow stairs descending within, escalating the precariousness of her journey onwards.

"AAAAARRRRHHH!" a horrific scream echoed up from the depths of the resting place for the dead.

Blood Raven was startled, her skin crawling from the livid, inhuman scream. She was reminded of the burial ground's vacant graves, their former occupants now possibly shambling mindlessly in slow, animated decomposition. "What has happened? Why are the dead no longer at rest?" she whispered to herself fearfully.

Placing her torch and her comrade's body upon the broken gate, Blood Raven agilely traversed the shattered stone into the Mausoleum. She pressed forward, descending into the shadowy depths, Cheyianne bundled in her arms, and lighting the way with her torch. The Rogue's face no longer held traces of fear, but only fierce determination to ascertain what had happened to her Sisters and to the sanctity of this hallow resting place.