…TALLBOREIGN. The red cataclysm. Relentlessly, it echoes between golden pages. All of recorded history has survived due to the diligent actions of my fellow Whisperers, but this is the end. Bear witness, to utter the name of Tallboreign is forbidden. Mentioning the events or any information regarding Tallboreign is forbidden. Let this document be the final written evidence of this cursed omen. Let us die peacefully in the eternal flame. May the whispers guide you…
Hastily scribbled writing recovered from the Cindered Archives by Whisperer Kindread.
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An engulfing red mist. Every breath, every step, every thought. Red.
To this Orate, it smelled as though he was on an animal farm, but he was nowhere near one.
The pungent stench of dried hay, excrement, and unbathed animals wafted an intense sensation to his nose. He would never get used to this feeling. However, he was nowhere near his home that many have forgotten. He was within the Silvertear Archives, a location equally faded from memory.
With each shallow breath, thousands of tiny needles pierced his lungs. The pressure was that of being hundreds of leagues under the ocean. The air tasted foul, and he nearly gagged with each rising of his chest, holding in each breath for as long as possible.
His feet finally reached the gem. Both knees buckled as his hands struggled to maintain a grasp on the documents he had come for.
Auburn tendrils surrounded him, choking him and forcing him to be stationary. They gripped him tighter and tighter until he was somewhere else.
He collapsed forward and coughed until the clean air filled his lungs again, but only after a few short, shallow breaths.
"Ren!"
A voice the Orate was all too familiar with filled his ears. Heat blasted through the hallways like a summer gust of wind. The air was scalding hot hundreds of feet from where the voice originated.
"C-coming Firedeath!"
He trembled and hastily picked up the papers he had dropped upon his teleportation.
The voice echoed, threatening and urgent.
"You have until the count of ten!"
He continuously dropped the papers.
"Shit. Shit. Shit."
"Ten…"
He sprinted, leaving some papers behind, hoping their content wasn't important.
"Nine... eight…"
"I'm almost there!"
A lie. A bad one at that. He was nowhere near his master.
"Seven... six... five..."
He tripped and dropped some papers without looking back.
"Four... three... two..."
He saw the doors depicting the firestorms, but they were still so far away. He knew the final number was coming. His punishment was surely imminent.
Yet, an unnatural pause filled the air.
"One and a half…"
A reprieve! Mercy!
He closed the gap between the doors and himself.
Another unnatural pause.
"One and three-quarters..."
He entered the Great Library, panting, holding his chest, then collapsing to the floor.
"Ah, Ren!"
The voice of his master, Firedeath. Notably much sweeter than when she was counting.
"Did you retrieve what I asked for?"
"Yes... I... did..."
"Good!" She hurriedly clapped her hands. "Come. You mustn't keep me waiting."
Ren wordlessly stood and grabbed the papers without complaint. He stumbled up the stairs until he reached the top.
"You brought all the papers, yes?"
A hint of skepticism in her words. Her tone was sweet, but she knew better.
He resisted the urge to look behind him.
"Yep! That's all of them."
"Good! You wouldn't lie to me. Right, Ren?"
She eyed him dubiously.
He hid an air of casualness.
"When have I ever lied to you?"
"Well… there was that one time you said you hadn't pissed yourself when you had quite clearly—"
He held up a hand.
"That's quite enough, I—"
She continued anyway.
"Ooo! Once, when you were young, you had assured me you had mastered a fire spell." The memory made her smile. "Which I knew to be faaaaaaar too advanced for your age."
"Firedeath..."
"But when you cast it." She tussled his hair. "Poof, all gone. Bald as a baby."
His cheeks flushed.
"Firedeath… aren't we—"
"That's Master to you."
He bowed his head.
"Master..."
"So... to conclude, Ren. My lovable, worthless student. You lie. Quite a lot, actually," she said with surprise in her voice. "I don't know if that's concerning or not."
He said nothing. He didn't know whether to feel ashamed or embarrassed.
He settled somewhere in between.
"Tethercat got your tongue?" She chuckled softly. "Oh, I know you dropped some documents. I'm waiting until I read these to decide if you deserve to be punished."
Ren started to sweat as she conjured several muscular arms from her back. They were veiny and intimidating, yet still somehow fit her aesthetic, making her all the more imposing. Despite her advancing age, Firedeath was still top of the mountain, in multiple facets, as far as Ren was concerned.
Each arm she conjured grabbed a document and organized them neatly in a pile. Firedeath held the documentation she was reading in her real arms, while one of her conjured arms curled a fist to her chin, giving her a pensive appearance.
Ren found the courage to speak again after some time.
"Sorry if the papers are difficult to read… the Red Death turns everything it touches to crimson."
Firedeath allowed herself to glance at him.
"Yes… It looks like you've been bathing in a river of blood. Are you hurt?"
"Just a—"
An arm from her back extended and grabbed him. He winced. Red scars twisted like vines around his forearm.
She sighed and put down the paper she was reading.
"You have to be careful; that's why I told you to hurry. That spell doesn't protect you forever."
She lightly touched the wound, and a faint glow emanated from her hand; the wound vanished as if it had never existed.
"T-thanks."
His face was crimson, but with the stains from the Red Death painting his body, no one could tell.
"Don't mention it. Can't have you dying on me, or I'll have to go out there myself, and that's the last thing I want to do."
She laughed to herself and continued reading.
"Can I help?"
Ren tried not to sound too eager.
"Yes."
One of the arms she conjured grabbed a document and handed it to him gingerly.
He glanced at its contents, but then frowned.
"I can't read this."
"Hmm?" She lowered her paper. "Can't read what?"
"I can't read the paper you handed me."
The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he'd made a mistake.
"Oh, is that so?"
She shrugged, reading once more.
"You're not… going to make a big deal about it?"
He sounded overly surprised. A fatal misplay.
"Why would I do that?"
"Well, because usually…"
"I usually what?"
She lowered the paper again.
Ren fumbled the escape she had allowed him.
"I'm sorry, what I meant was…"
"Oh!" She cackled. "What you meant is I overexaggerate, and I make big deals about little deals. Something like that, correct?"
"I wouldn't say that…"
"Oh, well, if I overexaggerate, Ren, let me calm down and be reasonable for once, shall I?"
She set the paper on the desk.
Ren knew he was in for it now.
"You. Ren Everroote—wishes to be a Dyad, correct?"
"That's right…"
"And you just told me, Firedeath—Head Whisperer—most powerful mage in all of Keceo—that you cannot read the document I just handed to you. Does that sound about right?"
"It does…"
Sprinting into the Red Death without a protection spell seemed preferable to Ren at this moment.
"So let me ask you, Ren. My loveable, truth-telling, punctual, coordinated student. Why can you not read the dead languages?"
"I'm sorry?"
She stood, her red hair illuminating slightly.
"I said, 'Why can't you read the dead languages?' What do you do all day? Picking your ass? Are you stupid? What Dyad have you known that can't read at least one dead language?"
"I…"
Ren didn't know many Dyads. Well, anyone who was alive.
She shoved another paper in his hand.
"What about this one?"
"Um…"
Why did she hand me a page of garbled symbols?
"This one?"
Her face was a mixture of concern and anger.
"It looks familiar."
It did not look familiar.
"Ren, Gods help you. You can't soulbind yourself to this knowledge; too few know these languages. You have to learn them."
She leaned in close to him. He could feel her breath.
"Ma'am…"
Her tone was low and serious.
"Unless you wish to soulbind me…"
An almost seductive quality to her words, yet, Ren knew, there was no lust within her.
He frantically backed away.
"N-n-n-no! No one could soulbind with you, Firedeath!"
"Exactly, and that's why I am the greatest."
She playfully bobbed her head. Struck with a realization, she looked towards the towering bookshelves and used a simple spell to dislodge a tome. She then hurled it at Ren like a baseball.
It conked Ren in the head. He rubbed his bruised skull and read the title of the book—Forgotten andDead Languages of Elven Past.
"Start with that. Once you finish, I'll give you some other tomes to study."
Her red hair returned to normal, and she continued skimming the documents he had retrieved for her.
"Right away, Head Whisperer."
He turned to grab a chair to make himself comfortable.
She turned away from him, the creases by her eyes never wavering.
Hours later, Ren was fighting sleep as he read this torturously boring tome. Read might not be the correct word. Pretended to read? No, that would require looking at the book. He held the book to his face and occasionally made noises like "Hmmm" or even being so bold as to say, "That's interesting."
After he made these noises, he would eye his master, who was always intensely focused on the documents. He could hear the papers shuffling around. Eventually, this ploy was unfruitful, and sleep overtook him.
After an unknown amount of time, an explosion sent him into a panic.
"I wasn't sleeping!" He used the book to shield himself. "Am I dead?"
Firedeath was laughing maniacally. She shot balls of concentrated magic into the air; they popped like balloons in a menagerie of colors.
"Ren! Ren! Look!"
She hopped off the divine desk and shoved a paper in his face.
He grabbed the paper, glancing over its contents, but it was in another dead language.
"I can't read it…"
One would not fault Firedeath if she thought a mouse was speaking, with how low his voice became.
"Go on," Firedeath insisted. "Oh… wait… You weren't sleeping, were you?"
"M-m-me? No… I uh… I never sleep."
He held the paper to his face. It was all nonsense to him. He carefully tried to pronounce the words phonetically.
Firedeath let him play out his charade, then snatched the paper from him.
"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot, only my good students learned to read the dead languages."
"But I'm your only student…"
His face full of confusion.
"Oh? That's a good joke then." She smiled. "You ever wonder why you were my only student?" She asked, cocking her head at him.
"Well…"
He had no idea.
"Never mind." She shook her head and read the paper aloud. "The Vecronomicon. A tome with the first Whisperer's face sewn into it."
She paused, giving a slight laugh.
"Cool. Scholars debate whether it's his actual face or not. An all-powerful magical item that is said to be able to transcend this dimension and restore power to the elven people to their former glory. Before Tallbo—"
She paused at the sight of the forbidden word, Tallboreign. Her mind's invaded by the thought of a deep red and unnatural fire consuming her whole. She dared not utter that word.
Ren shook in place.
"Ma'am… that's..."
She didn't finish the rest of the passage.
"Pop quiz, Ren."
He stood up straight.
"Yes?"
"Where are Whispers never heard nor spoken?"
"Where are Whispers never heard nor spoken?"
Ren repeated, thinking to himself.
"Oh, come on. This is basic stuff!"
He mumbled under his breath.
"Doesn't feel basic…"
"What was that?" She put her hand behind her ear. "I didn't catch that."
Ren swallowed hard and proceeded to guess.
"Um… Sola… Solace? Sinner? Shit… It's something with an S."
"It's not shit, I assure you that," She chuckled. "You should know this, Ren." Firedeath looked at Ren expectantly. When he didn't answer, she just sighed. "Where screams swallow Whispers? Does any of this ring a bell?"
Ren gazed at her stupidly.
"Gods help us… Silence, the tome is in Silence."
She paused and gazed at the paper one last time. The scribbling of Tallboreign branded her every thought.
"Where Whisperers arose."