Tarnished Silver

20th of Anvrok’s Waxing, Year of the Clockwork Mantis

It’s finally happened! There were times I thought the long years of study at Vindicarum’s College of the Gilded Saint would never pay off, but at last, I’ve secured a commission in the archaeological caravan of Basthamus Galan. It’s not exactly a name that echoes through the annals of scholarly history, true, but it’s a start.

Mother has never approved of my passion for history. She thinks ‘grubbing around in the dirt’ is beneath me, and she says that it isn’t safe. Where’s safe, nowadays? Here in the city, with the Lightning Men prowling through every shadow hunting for sinners?

Besides, Galan’s got plans. There’s all sorts of talk of vaults opening across Sigmar’s great empire, filled to the brim with treasure. Galan says that he’s got contacts who’ve been involved in the fighting in Elixia, and they say that there’s a tower on the city outskirts that has all kinds of records about these vaults. I don’t know if I believe that, but just the chance to step foot in Elixia will be worth it. We set out on the morrow. Let us hope my excitement will permit me to sleep.

29th of Anvrok’s Waxing, Year of the Clockwork Mantis

We’ve been travelling for several days now, since passing through the Silversmith’s Gate. I knew Galan was cautious, but ‘paranoid’ might be a more fitting descriptor. It’s not uncommon for expeditions like ours to hire sell-swords, but he’s employed a small army. They don’t act like any sort of mercenaries I, or any of my fellow historians and archaeologists who’ve joined the caravan, are familiar with. They wear thick cloaks, they’re not trying to weasel out more money with each new dawn, and the bawdy songs they sing around the campfires always feel a little forced.

With all that said, I am glad they are here. Crossing the Ferric Wastes, we’ve had to fend off multiple raids by armoured orruks and marauder tribes; the mercenaries can fight, I will give them that. I take shelter when battle’s joined, but sometimes it sounds like they are more beasts than men.

God-King preserve us, but that is not the only thing to give me pause. With each new horizon we cross, strange sights await. Shadows move in looming cave-mouths before dipping out of sight. I have dreams of a great vulture circling us, its eyes leaking smoke the colour of topaz and bronze. Galan and his inner circle disappear for hours during the night, only to reappear by dawn.

The worst was the trader caravan. What remained of it, at least. I cannot say precisely what befell them, but it was violent. The wagons were looted, though it seemed to me that the attackers had curious priorities – wheels, bottles, and scrap such as arrowheads seem to have been their main desire. Most of the wagons – and the bodies, with signs that others had been dragged away to the caverns nearby – were already covered with a thin film of settling irondust. I swear that fungal growths were sprouting amidst the seams of the wagons’ construction and across the corpses.

We moved on quickly. Galan told me not to worry about it. But I can’t stop thinking about the bodies, and the lunatic expressions frozen on their dead faces.

They weren’t screaming

They were laughing.

11th of Alchemist’s Folly, Year of the Clockwork Mantis

Elixia is a dead city. Or perhaps a city of the dead – the former is my passion, the latter an occupational hazard. Fighting rages amidst its shattered streets over treasures and secrets. We thought that keeping to the outer districts of the city would preserve us. Perhaps that was always over-optimistic.

My hands shake. I make light only because the alternative is to scream. Even now, that is better than accepting what I saw. Night had fallen, though it wasn’t a pure dark. It was green-tinged, almost sickly. I wandered a short distance from the expedition. After all the travelling I simply wished to do my job. And there was so much to explore – silent foundries, fallen statues, and enough discarded trinkets to satisfy even the most avaricious of treasure-hunters.

I think I felt the air turn chill before my mind caught up. To my credit, the delay was due to focus, not ignorance. I had stopped to make a rubbing of the carvings upon a derelict fountain when it happened. First the cold, then the whispers. I thought it was merely the wind to begin with. But gradually they rose, and I could not tell whether they were mournful or angry – or both.

The first gheist came shrieking through a tumbledown wall. It was a nightmare vision, molten bronze running in rivulets from its empty eye-sockets, argent light glinting from the cutting blades that substituted for its hands. It wailed as it barrelled through the air, lashing out with those talons, striking nothing. I don’t think it could help itself. More of them were emerging. Some were the spectres of chained foundry-workers. Others bore blades so beautiful it hurt. And I saw her, too, Her phantom form glowed with a pale light, as if dipped in silver, and her mouth was locked ajar in agony and rage.

I knew her name. We all knew her name, had all been told her sad tale by our parents or heard the terrified whispers of the tavern drunks. Celemnis, the Silver Maiden of Elixia.

How I escaped, I don’t know. I’d like to think that the strength of my faith held them back, but maybe they just wanted me to lead them to other intruders. More gheists were slipping out of the dark to assail the caravan. Several of my friends were already dead, but without any visible wounds – as if their hearts had merely stopped. Some of the mercenaries were down, too. I caught a glimpse as one had their cloak torn open by an ancient blade; across his flesh were painted strange spiral tattoos that sent my guts roiling.

The air smelt of rust – and, strangely, of mildew – as I dived under one of the caravans. The battle passed me by in fragments. The mercenaries unleashed curious spellcraft that I’ve never seen before, cyclones of multihued flames that tore down the narrow streets. Their short blades seemed able to carve into the spirits. I don’t know why I remember this, but as I hid beneath the wagon, I noticed more mushrooms were sprouting through the cracked flagstones.

One of the spectres found me. Its upper half ghosted through the carriage I hid under. Its empty eyes stared right into me. It wailed, and I screamed, lashing out. As my leg passed through it I would have sworn my blood had frozen. Galan saved me; he had been voicing some sort of chant, and as it finished a firestorm ripped through the gheists, my aggressor included. Gradually, its kin started to disappear. I think Celemnis wanted to vent her rage on softer prey.

I hadn’t known Galan was a wizard. He said he’d studied in the Collegiate, but found their regulations too restrictive. That makes sense, I suppose; I know I crept into the restricted section of the Hall of Certainty more than once.

Galan’s mercenaries make up most of our numbers, now. I thought he’d call the whole thing off, but he says we’ve come too far. The cloaked sell-swords are watching me closely. It’s as if they think I know something. I just want to find what we came for. Surely, we can still salvage something?

This’ll be my last entry.

I think I’m going to die. I’ve run as far as I can and found an alleyway to curl up in. In the distance, I can still hear the fighting. It’s not that that’s killing me, though – I think my soul is turning inwards, that the green light bathing Elixia has seeped into me.

I hope I die. Better that than live with what I saw.

We reached the tower of records two days after our encounter with the gheists. It didn’t look like much, considering the great forges dominating the shattered skyline. In fact, it didn’t even look like any library I’d ever seen. It was more like a pylon, the centre of some arcane matrix, the surrounding buildings just another aspect of the equation.

I was preparing to enter the structure when the light changed. It was as if day turned to half-night, or at least a madman’s lurid rendition of it. The stars winked, and flared. I think at one point, they may have twisted into grinning, hook-nosed faces.

Fungal growths were appearing all around me – one of the sell-swords had the damn things sprouting from her eyes. That’s when the creatures came into view. Cackling things from a children’s fable gone wrong. Skittering things. Bounding things. Grunting things. They cavorted and smashed into one another, blowing weird bagpipes and crashing cymbals together. I’m not sure if they’d followed us, were after the same prize, or we were simply in their way.

Horror mounted on horror as I looked to the sell-swords, our protectors. At first I thought they were shepherding the other surviving academics to safety. That’s when I saw their knives come out and draw across the throats of my friends. Their blood splattered to the ground in crimson rivers.

One of the mercenaries grabbed for me; I got lucky, managed to duck under the grasp and knee him in the stomach. I was already running by the time his fellows turned towards the approaching monsters. Some of the sell-swords were clad in illusions that, when dispelled, revealed them as hideous bird-faced monsters. I saw Galan’s own mirage break. I can’t even say what he was – only that if it was ever human, it hadn’t been in some time.

Other shapes were wriggling out of my friends’ pooling blood. Pink shapes, blue ones, colours I can’t recall. They unleashed crackling flames into the oncoming foe. I didn’t get a good look, but some of the fires seemed to move of their own accord, delighting in warping what they touched. It didn’t stop the lunatic horde. The first rank, parodies of noble knights mounted on strange red creatures that were as much gaping maw as anything else, crashed into a group – a coven? – of the mercenaries. Most were crushed flat even before the creatures ripped them apart.

I just ran. None of them seemed to notice me. I picked an alleyway, and I ran. How long I can’t say, but I have to stop now. There’s no point going further. If Galan doesn’t get me then the creatures will, or the spectres. Any of those I would welcome, because none of them are the worst of it. No, the true horror unveils itself as I slump here against the ruins, staring up at the sky.

It’s the moon, you see.

The moon’s gone bad.

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