| Ora Mae Cox pulled aside the giant stone slab which formed the door to one of the many exits of Era’s catacombs, carefully resting against the edge of the walkway as she stepped outside the surprisingly dry labyrinth which quickly contrasted with the roaring rain still coming down upon the city. She paid the weather no mind, however, as she investigated her surroundings like a someone returning to their childhood home. Based on her memory of the area, the lich had expected to find herself in a cemetery at the back of the academy but she found no tombstones in sight. Instead, it seemed as though someone had turned the graveyard into a garden. ”A pity,” she thought to herself as she believed she could have made use of the graves. Then again, the corpses of the long deceased might still inhabit the dirt for all she knew. Her pale, cold lips curled into an awful smile as she pondered whether today’s inhabitants even knew the nature of the garden’s past. Looking beyond the garden, Ora made note of the academy’s pristine outer walls, indicating that people had indeed been caring for the building in her absence. She devoted a good deal of political capital in her lifetime toward ensuring funds for the university, both for upkeep and improvements, and it seemed as though someone had taken that mantle from her. Despite rain pouring down on her—dripping down into her unblinking eyes which could have cared less—she produced a strangely warm smile at the view of her favorite institution still standing strong. Many of her favorite memories originated here and she knew the same applied to many others who attended and worked at the academy. She wondered whimsically what kind of curriculum the students of today might go through before reeling her mind back inward. She had a job to do. Ora approached one of the back windows facing her and peeked inside. She recognized this particular lecture hall; it hadn’t changed much at all but as expected, she saw no one inside at this hour. The moonlight slipped through the window, but it mattered little when her eyes could apparently pierce the dark greater than any light source. A single boney finger tapped against the clear glass as it brushed down the window. With a careful but determined yank, her finger pulled the window ajar. It produced a minor creak but the terrible rain would surely have muffled it, preventing even one standing outside the lecture hall from hearing the undead intruder. She paused, however, just to make extra sure no one heard her before finally ducking down to peak her head into the opening. With a careful hoist of her thin frame, she silently fell into the lecture hall itself. Ora quickly closed the window behind her but to her dismay, she left a puddle beneath her. Water dripped from her tattered robes, her hair, and her fingertips. Although her undead affliction had removed the uncomfortable sensation of soaking wetness, the lich still didn’t enjoy the sight of such a mess when it concerned her stealthy endeavor. She looked around and upon seeing a cloth-like academy banner draped upon the wall, she reached out and attempted to at least dry her hair with it before giving up altogether on the notion of getting dry. Oh, how she wished she could cast some sort of fire spell right about now. Nonetheless, the lich took the opportunity to observe her surroundings. Again, it had hardly changed from how it appeared in Ora’s time, making it easy for her to identify the room as well as its relation to the rest of the building’s layout. The lich carefully placed her hand around the doorknob and with the utmost patience, she turned knob as slowly as her body would allow before pulling it open with a slow-yet-muffled creak. Her cold, glowing eyes peeked through the crack of the door and as she expected, she found no light source. She had begun to believe that indeed no one walked the halls of this part of the building this late at night. Nonetheless, she acted with caution and took her time opening the door until it hung ajar enough for her to peek her head out. Again, no one around. Once the door finally hung open enough for her thin body, Ora dipped herself through the crack and hurriedly shuffled down the hall. She would have loved to check out the rest of the classrooms or read the bulletins in the hallway but she would not let the minor things distract her, with the exception of a certain clock. “Ms. Cox?” called out a voice from a seemingly simple grandfather clock sitting in the hallway. The lich froze up as soon as she heard a voice call out her name. Large amounts of adrenaline pumped through her body, prodding her to either fight or run until she cautiously turned her head toward the source like a guilty teenager caught where they ought not trespass. “Oh, Ms. Cox, what a pleasant surprise! I haven’t seen you in so long,” the magical clock laughed, a strange face formed near its dials. Ora might have sighed with relief if she breathed at all; this talking clock, she recalled, had been with the school since its creation and must have been many centuries old, and yet here it was, about to get her in trouble. With only mild hesitation, Ora opened the clock’s glass panel and reached inside. “Ms. Cox? What on earthland are you doing? Ms-wait!” “You’re too loud,” Ora whispered as she reached into the clock’s inside to yank out a rather important gear. As soon as she did so, the clock’s face disappeared, and its voice died down. The lich placed the gear into the pocket of her robe to ensure the clock never awoke, less it divulges what happened and who did it. This would likely irreversibly destroy an important piece of history for good, but she had to place her survival and success first. Perhaps she could recreate the clock herself someday anyway but for now, she pressed onward down the hall. Before its shutdown, the clock’s hands showed Ora that it neared two-in-the-morning. Assuming the academy still followed the same schedule, the staff would show up in just a couple hours, maybe even sooner. Fortunately, she knew with near complete certainty the path she needed to follow to find her destination. She made multiple lefts and rights while also traversing what should have been an exhausting number of stairs, though, her undead status ensured she didn’t tire out from the walk. Finally, after a dramatic left turn, Ora found herself in front of a large and embellished door with a golden statue of a raven jutted out of it: the entrance to the library. The lich took one step forward and made sure she found no boobytraps. The school had gone to great efforts to keep out intruders during off-hours due to the wealth of magical knowledge stored inside. Even for students entering the library in the day might find it difficult checking out with a book since each checkout required sponsorship from a professor. Truly, only the faculty would find it easy to get the book of their desires, which is also why many of the teachers of old acted pragmatically as researchers as well. Believing not much had changed after an initial inspection, though, Ora reached out with a single finger to tackle the one security measure which might pose a serious threat. “Who goes there?” the petrified raven demanded with a tone of authority. Contrary to the raven’s question, Ora knew she could not simply answer with a name but would also need to produce a magical sign around the raven. Every member of the staff had their own sign—even Ora—but the academy had a policy of rendering each person’s sign powerless once they left the academy. However, Ora knew they did not bother to remove the signs of those who had simply passed away while still employed. No point in it after all. Fortunately, the lich knew the sign of one such staff member who had passed away while still under the employment of the academy. As if it were her own, the undead gracefully waved her hand in a distinct pattern in front of the raven before calling out a name. “Fausta,” she answered somberly, a frown forming at the corners of her lips as she thought about her dear mentor. The door opened wide at once with slow ceremony for Ora, or rather Fausta as far as the raven was concerned, who stepped into its midst. The sadden expression forming on her face seemingly reverted at the sight of her beloved library where she must have spent hours each night during her tenure; not just her but her elder, Delores, as well. When hey ran out of time, they would even scoop up bags of books to take with them to a place where they could study in peace. The library held a lot of information on various magical subjects, some taboo and some mundane. It had stood at a considerable size in Fausta’s day, but it had grown immensely larger in her absence. The lich knew exactly where to look despite the size change of the library, a but a magazine apparently left by the librarian at the checkout desk stopped Fausta in her tracks. She grabbed it from the desk but failed to recognize the magazine’s name: Sorcerer’s Magazine. She flipped through the pages, skimming through the articles of what seemed like an amalgamation of twisted truth and gossip before stopping at a certain page which marked the date of publish. Fausta produced a low hum as she pondered the date; a lot of time had passed but not as much as she expected. It seemed the lich had awoken around 120 years from the date of her death. She placed this information in the backseat of her mind, however, as she continued on with her mission. She nonetheless had the foresight to place the magazine in her robe as it would undoubtedly provide a glimpse to how much the culture of Fiore had changed in the last century. Fausta knew any dark or illegal books would likely be hoarded in the library’s back room which had a security measure similar to the golden raven which protected the library’s front door. Instead of a door, however, a hanging cloth protected this room. Fausta knew the magical origins of this cloth and although it did not prompt her, the lich waved the reverse of the sign she made earlier with her hand before giving it the same name. The curtain showed its approval by promptly rolling upward into itself, allowing Fausta entry into this forbidden room which must have looked innocent if not similar humbly similar to the rest of the library. It had only a few rows of bookcases, simplifying Fausta’s task in finding what she wanted. However, upon reaching out for one of the books, it donned on her that she wouldn’t be able to or even want to stash all the books she wanted into her robe. This oversight corrected itself by good fortune, however; Fausta spotted a black leather bag with an innocuous emblem on it. It had no doubt been left by accident and although the lich thought to empty the bag’s contents to fill it with books, she reconsidered that it might look suspicious if a bunch of random objects were strewn about in the forbidden section of the library. Instead, she resigned to just filling up the bag with books regardless of what other objects might fill the bag. It was of considerable size as well, undoubtedly big enough to carry all the books she wanted as well as other supplies she hoped to steal from the academy before the night came to a close. The bookish lich traced her finger against every tome, reading each title with the aid of her undead eyes. The room lacked even a window for the utmost security after all but by the she left the room, Fausta would have considered herself as making off like a bandit. She hated thieves but she did not feel the administration of the academy deserved those books anyhow. Had she held the highest office, she would have banned the concept of forbidden books and made it easier to access the works of the library. The wonders her work might produce far outweighed the ethics of theft anyway, which she was preparing to do once again. The lich left the library with the heavy sack of books and other knick-knacks which must have belonged to the bags owner before casually closing the massive doors with the raven statute. A magical ripple in the air indicated the door had locked itself after closing. Fausta knew she had to visit one last area of the school but considered whether she should risk taking the time to go now or wait another night. Although the latter option sounded safer, the lich feared the faculty might notice the initial intrusion somehow and lock up the school with even tighter security. Therefore, she decided to commit to staying until she found the rest of what she needed. She navigated down the stairs—proving far easier than going up them—and through another maze of corridors and hallways before coming upon one of the academy’s well-renowned lab rooms. Unlike with the library, nothing seemed to stop Fausta from entering aside from a simple wooden door, though, she decided to enter with the utmost caution that her limited time would allow her anyway. Indeed, she found out, no measures to stop her. Although Fausta never enjoyed the smell of the lab room, she enjoyed the nostalgic sense of seeing it once more. What’s more, the scent of the place didn’t really seem to affect her as it once had. Sure, the odor still permeated the atmosphere, but it acted so impotently against her undead nostrils that it might as well have come from lilacs. This room had changed quite a bit over the last century, though. New tables and desks filled the room while an assortment of modern tools and devices that Fausta could not recognize littered the surface tops. She looked forward to learning just what some of these objects could do and made little hesitation in sliding whatever she could into the book with her books with the exception of a pair of tiny yet bedazzling glasses that stood at the front desk. It seemed so peculiar and out of place that Fausta assumed it must originate from magical origins and out of curiosity, she placed it carefully into her robes. When she finally had everything she thought she needed, Fausta gave one last glance at the rom before something caught her eye: a large painting depicting a powerful wizard of Fausta’s time. The lich had the ill fortune to know the wizard in her lifetime which is why she took the time to cock her head forward and spit on the painting’s name plaque: Martin Scan. As the lich prepared to open the cracked door, Fausta heard a noise which alerted her to the presence of others in the building; that of idle chitchat. Her eyes peeked out of the crack of the door before she darted away from the door at the realization of a pair of men approaching the door she had just prepared to exit through. In her current state, Fausta would undoubtedly prove incapable of dealing with any staff member of the academy as easily as she did the clock. Like a cornered animal, the lich merely backed away as she searched the room in a panic for a way out, which naturally brought her to the windows. She looked outside where she realized the lab room sat two stories up. Obviously, she couldn’t just jump out; that’s what she assumed at first anyway before remember she’s an undead lich. Still, she didn’t enjoy the prospect of jumping from such a height the growing loudness of the men outside the room left her with little other option. Fausta forced the window open—again relying on the rain to muffle out any noise—before peaking her head. She hesitated at first but thought nothing about throwing her entire body out as soon as she saw the door move. Within an instant, the lich found herself face down in the academy’s garden where she had originally started. The lich would have laughed in triumph had she not felt concern over making anymore noise than necessary. Instead, she grabbed the bag that had fallen with her before… stopping once more when she noticed something missing: one of her fingers! The lich looked around in a quick panic, stuck between a state of mind that wanted to leave the area as soon as possible and one which desired to find her missing appendage. The appendage won out but her finger proved a simple thing to find despite the torrent of rain as it stuck out of the mud near where she landed. She plucked the finger up and hurriedly placed it in one of her robes’ pockets before rushing for the catacombs entrance where, thankfully, she left the stone slab off for an easy getaway, though, she made sure to seal it back shut on her way inside. Before delving back deeper into the catacombs, however, the lich dropped the bag and fell on her rear. Although her body could continue on, she felt mentally exhausted from the night. Not only had she arisen from the dead but she raided her old academy, hopped out a window, and lost a finger; not to mention, she was still comprehending her new form along with the consequences and boons that came along with it. For now, though, she could rest for at least a little while at the start of her eternity. Free-Form Job WC: 500/500 Free-Form Job WC: 500/500 Free-Form Job WC: 500/500 Free-Form Job WC: 500/500 Free-Form Job WC: 500/500 Free-Form Job WC: 506/500 Total WC: 3,006/3,000 |
After Class
Fausta
Lineage : Master of the Other World
Position : None
Posts : 23
Guild : Elysium
Cosmic Coins : 0
Dungeon Tokens : 0
Experience : 900
Character Sheet
First Skill: Necromancy
Second Skill: N/A
Third Skill: N/A
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