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Backdated to Feb. 7-8, 2015

He didn’t know how long passed in despair at the foot of the empty chair. As with greater men and women, so it was that oblivion unquenched by following death lost hold with the passage of time. Eyes forced dry with the dust of the place, the black grim of ruin, and exertion helped to make tearless crying all the more futile. The job got no closer to being complete where he lay. His promises to Hvergelmir, Kairatos, Ida and Chariklo to find the man they hoped for were no closer fulfilled by his own dallying there in the dark. He’d found the proof he claimed to need. He hadn’t searched the gallery yet for whatever it could offer. There was still much to do, much more with the looming scales of the wyrm and the echo of distant waters between cliffs calling.

Titan rose and took the one of the four stairs up to equally enigmatic seats as lined the floor. These were also dark, also tiled in plates on the chairbacks in places and numbers that had no particular discernible coordination. What’s more, as he swiped away at some of the grime on the first of these backs, the plates were no longer matching chair to itself. Each chair, he discovered, had crests on it that could differ wildly from every other. He stared hard at a plate with crest dark in color, primarily brown with gold, rose, and green trim. Behind the kite shaped shield was an eagle with its wings outstretched. The elongated shield boasted an intricate compass rose. A sword and key thereon. Below that, above it, left and right were crests with wholly alien colors, no sword or key anywhere. The same families did not sit these...instead...what? What is the difference between the seats on the floor and these? It will be slower going if I am looking at every plate in complete. I don’t think I can manage that. Instead of cleaning first, then, I could check for loose plates? Clean and take only those that are able to be removed without damage to the chairs as below, but the rest up here that aren’t coming will have to stay dimmed. I am sorry, houses of old. You deserve a better, more prepared discoverer. A scholar. Instead the Norns have sent you a second rate murderer to disturb your ashes.

But there were no mouths there to complain, save his own. There were no ghosts to make accusations or appraisals.
Nothing but shadows and dweomer.

The captain had patience in good supply, and made round both sides of the gallery in count of hours again. From the left series of plates won back - Near to the first he’d picked out was another of Brown, gold, rose, and green colors. Oak leaves and wolves ran its symbols. Another was a kite shield, blue. On the shield was a silver well, with an open book above. Beneath there was a banner he couldn’t read. Another was a dark blue targe bearing a silver radiant sun with a bright blue star in the center. It was framed by blue hyacinths. Third, a crest in gold and red of a Roman helmet topping a crooked shield featuring a rampant lion and a sword. A gold chain curled among the mantle on either side. Fourth was a dark red oval shield, with a black cross set within it. In gold, it bore an eye, and was draped in white and gold. The mantle gathered together beneath the shield and tied behind the base of a sword. Fifth, A Roman parma shield, with a silver field with a chain border. At the center, large, a red silhouette of a city and prisons beneath. Rampant black horses, with red flaming manes and tails, flanked in support of the shield. Across the center circles of the domed shield, the symbol of Mars was plain with a second, smaller circle of chains bordering it. It begged wonder then, at last, if the difference was the place of power origin. The colors of the floor and the seats there are those of Earth. These…that is for Mars. And this one from the right is marked with Venus.

Finished with the work altogether, he held the small plate of a dark pink field divided by a rose-gold cross; in each quadrant are four silver symbols: a rose, a stylized treble clef, a feather, and a stylized Venus symbol, against that with the Parma and Mars. This was for those not of the Earth’s court? So ...visitors? ambassadors? students from the Academy? The Academy…I have not found it yet. Are there rooms beyond? I have not checked the wall behind the Monarch’s seat. And the flanking chairs there, whoever they belonged to. These should be wrapped in cotton and all set safely in the bag first.

Time was limited by supply, but he wasn’t going to rush and risk breaking, bending or harm to the artifacts. The Right plates of the Gallery joined the Left- A crest in silver, purple and blue with a grinning venetian mask above a shield, ribbons draped to either side while roses backed the mask. A black peacock stood support for the shield and in the center was a white castle on a rippling field of blue and purple. Another plain sable, the shield edged in white. A simple spiked coronet rested atop it. Then a plate with a round shield, sandy beige with gray borders and crumbling edges. At the center was a fancy symbol with a second shield and bo staff, behind that a faded silhouette some strange marking. Nine-tailed foxes supported; the helm was a fancy Uranus symbol. Further was a plate crested with a shield diamond-shaped, split in two by a blue above gold.. A white-gold bird in flight centered, a sprig of blue plant in its talons. White ribbon coiled around the bottom edge. It had been followed a few seats over by a plate that came free of a crest in light blue with a single rose at the top, the stem evolved into a thick root of thorns that consumed the bottom of the crest in darkness. Already fallen tens of chairs down from that, face down on the seat was a plates whose crest was a round shield of sable under crackling azures, a disquieting glyph resembling a yellow triskelion, only like an eye, that reached and grew out. It even seemed as though it might move there, on the plate itself, though surely the thing could neither move nor have life. That one was hastily stowed, moving on to cotton a plate with a dark green crest, with white tips on the upper sides. Engraved on the front was a spiral bridge that started and completed itself at the same point. It was dizzying, and not helped by all corners having clock faces. Next of the winnings was a plate with a Triangular shield, a long-hilted chalice engraved on the front and flames spurting from the cup. Ripples came out from its base on the bottom. Then came a crest that felt and looked familiar next to one that wasn’t, both in similar place on the backs of the chairs. It was lucky that both were loose, possibly a failing of whoever fixed them then with glue or magic. The first was a plate with shield in the Renaissance shape, a white field edged with a gold filigree border. At the center of the shield rested the brick-cut silhouette of a gold well, out of which rose a six-pointed star in pale blue. Behind it in palest rainbow color were two interlocked circles, embellished with decorative whorls. Fancy squiggles of gold dizzied all the space behind the shield, and to either side of the shield stood a pale blue rampant deer-thing, crowned with golden antlers and marked on each hide with small white stars. The shield was crowned above with a spinning wheel, worked in gold, behind which rose an impressive rack of golden antlers. He had seen a much less dizzying, less whorly-curly version of similar symbols on Hvergelmir’s arm. He had seen, in herald from dream, Eikþyrnir, in majesty and at her call. The companion stall plate, the unknown that went beside what had to be some piece belonging to his friend, bore a shield is cut in the English shape, white at the top which faded to pale grape green. A gold star pinned each corner, and at the center of the shield rested the silhouette of an island in deep wine. Grape vines and sheaves of wheat in gold flourished behind the shield, and the top of a gold Maypole crested behind it, ribbons trailing. To one side, a satyr stood, to the other, a woman of sorts. He couldn’t guess who or what the thing could belong to, certainly not Kairatos? Nothing about the Mars Knight matched maypoles and stars.

There is no choice in having to double back. If I find other rooms and halls, and other exits, I know they are blocked from the outside. Even if this is all…..far too big inside. Maybe there are magic doors that could go out, but they’re beyond me. I will have to use the way I made to leave, and can get the packs and water then. He went down to the floor and throne, to the wall behind and knocked with tired knuckles along the stone and wooden panels until one sounded hollow. His suspicions confirmed about the wants of privacy and privilege of the highest classes, he traced the seams first with eyes then removed a glove to use fingers. It took some doing to find which small, square section of border depressed to unlatch the door. It was big enough for someone wearing regalia, but not for him just standing and walking. Even sideways didn’t work, so Titan played the crouching, crawling game children played when crawling through playground plastic tunnels to reach ball pits or cargo nets. The whole walk was narrow, branching a few ways to smaller rooms that predictably served function in privacy - a wash closet long devoid of water, a linen closet, a sitting chamber, a dressing chamber and an infuriating stair that he scraped through sideways on hand and angled knee to a solar. There was a fireplace there, devoid of ashes, decorative woodwork of more subtlety and less pomp, and more blackened tapestries to warm the walls. It felt good to have space to stand and breath, even after so short a trial. Pewter and clay tableware spoke of greater leisure form a shelf, below them piled dust of more scrolls, some books. Titan crossed to table, an assortment of little figures hither and thither across the surface of some large, flat page. Proximity read it part-plain, a map with the pieces meaning tactics. A map? A map! To where? For what?

Titan stood motionless a long while, terrified that touching anything would break whatever chance he had of comprehending the strange letter-forms that had been written in by one or many hands centuries ago. Painfully the still legible bits of black, older, more geometric marks resolve into patterns he knew from very recent experience. They were some of the roads he’d walked and marked with crayon, buildings he’d looked at, vendor carts and probably names that he’d suspected and imagined should be here and there. The little figures were forces of some sort- maneuvers? No. Enemies once of allies. And some, that other kind, those are allies. These are positions of a city under attack. Someone stood here, once, speaking of the Usurpers and Traitors. That is this building, there. There the castle, with Zinkenite’s War Room, and there is the Colosseum training grounds. The large structures I can understand and see. But there are whole parts of this that no longer mean anything, drowned in rock-ruin or crystal growth. What did Hvergelmir say….if I were to look for the Academy. I asked her how she would build...

From its place in his belt, he pulled his little journal to look at the notes scrawled there after having spoken with anyone regarding things important. Or that seemed important. ‘Along Water, a cliff or high something to make hard to get to, farms, servants.’ He followed it with ‘Olympus on Mars, Academy not large for all knights’ Well, she didn’t know about the magic like in this place, I guess. It is plenty large for far too many knights than the outside looks.

He studied the colors of the map, and couldn’t make any sense of whether it showed elevations or not. The liquidways, such as they were in the Rift, were partially accurate. Places where the not safe stuff that passed for water flowed or dropped was changed in many places by damage and crystal. But the waterways are the best clue I have. There are a few possibilities here of large buildings surrounded by groups of smaller and block of squiggles...notes. She said it was mostly children. That they were probably all killed.

It came clear that it had been good he’d not moved the pieces of strategy. There plain to see, with history in mind, were flanks and forces of the tarnish-blacked silver pieces in one section of the map all around and coming toward the greater confluence of the Castle and City from a complex of small buildings and a handful of seated larger. It wasn’t the whole that the map showed, not by far, but it was what he needed. The captain let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. That will be the Academy. It must be. I’ve found it. I can’t leave this to be found. Not if any other comes here while it still is fallen.

It felt wrong to despoil what amounted to property of what had to be the ruler or the time, or their direct war council. This wasn’t pieces that could be argued to be owned by the community of the knights. The knighthood, the Earth, and the aim of Nærøyfjord’s service could be harmed if it were claimed instead by the Negaverse, maybe. He didn’t know how. The whole of the forces already only barely knew or understood what the Rift was, but it was all already belonging to Metallia. What she didn’t share with her slaves, she could still use herself, like any queen.

He gently scooped the little figures, though, setting them into cottons in the bag on his hip, then studied hard the waterway and distance, the turnings and shape of the blocks that would act as landmarks to try to find his goal. Then Titanlåvenite gingerly, breathlessly started to roll what was not paper, but skin parchment. It crackled a little at the edges, but it rolled, neither dry rotted nor reduced to rawhide by overabundance of moisture. Titan scanned the rest of the room then, brushing over scrolls got to dust, the goblets, the furniture, whatever might have chance of information or danger. It was empty but for living, whoever had gone out to order others had taken the rest of pertinent life with them. Maybe maps had grown useless later on. Maybe there’d been no hours to plan strategy after, with maneuvers and commanders making decisions in the heat of minutes between volleys of magic and blood. Or it could be that whatever came after that map, no one had come back to the room there, or the building, at all. The people may have fled, and the city fell to nothing but Youma and aftershocks.

Titan took the cramped passage out again in more of a hurry, eager for packs now that he had a direction.