Beneath the Floorboards

CW: severed limbs, body parts, necromancy, void magic, depictions of horror and gore

Steward Silverspark and Liege Cedar Alder had no idea what they had done by gifting Emrys their gift: a freshly severed arm, promptly preserved in a jar of preservation liquid. A formula of Silverspark's own design, the elf had said. Emrys had started to commit the recipe to memory, though, the elf had hidden most of the details.

The pair had met Emrys in his office and presented this severed left arm for reason even he was unaware of. The pair, to his knowledge, had no idea about his past. Cedar wanted nothing to do with their discarded arm, and Roz, supposedly, felt a sense of guilt for having led the mission that caused Cedar to lose their arm. And so, the arm was presented to Emrys as Cedar's lord, a last act before Cedar's own promotion for their service.

The Dollmaker.

The Necrolyte.

Perhaps one of the few people in all of Ebonfall who would've been excited by such a macabre gift. In his office, he could hardly contain his curiosity as he asked them both questions on its' preservation. He pressed his face to the glass like a child viewing a storefront candy.

And now...at the end of the day, he had the task of bringing that severed arm to his home.

Perhaps the guards had seen Roz'am and Cedar escorting it to Emrys' Office in the Keep. Perhaps they'd see him escorting it to his home. The home Adorlan had gifted him just outside of Ebonfall, in the forest near the lake. This would have been the home he had intended to share with Lady Sky, owned by him, regardless of the new Lordling's new titles.

The home was rather bare these days. After Emrys had been gifted his manor in the Rose District of Ebonfall, the manor in Ember's Gate was under construction; and he had resumed his position as Inquisitor and Lady Sky had left him; Emrys had little need for the personal home. The creature had started to view it in poor light without the comforts he so desired in a home. It had memories of love here, love that he had desperately wished to move on from.

There was, however, one advantage to it that his other places of rest did not have.

Emrys settled into the living room on the main floor. The preserved arm was hefty in its contents, and Emrys was careful to not shake the jar too much. He set the jar atop his mantle above the fireplace. A shift to one side, and then another, before the arm was settled directly front and center on the mantle. Though, he didn't intend for it to stay there.

He wasn't that macabre.

The tip-taps of canine paws over hardwood announced the arrival of Dog, Emrys' trained hound. Obedient, he was calm as his master arrived, and the animal sat at the base of the stairs.

Emrys went to massage his own arms, as he slid his palms from shoulder to wrist. A tug to the side, a tug to the other side. He looked about the room in thought. He dipped a hand above the mantle to retrieve the matches. Match to strike plate, Emrys made the decision to sleep here tonight as he tossed the match into the fireplace to ignite the home's heat source. Winter was near, and the mountain fall would prove chillier by the day.

After a few moments of warmth and warming his hands, Emrys reached for the jar again. He maneuvered his way into the kitchen and set it upon the counter. Another shift of the jar a little to the left, then the right. His sights set upon the kitchen table, which he pushed forward towards the wall, and then to the two chairs that outlined the perimeter. He knelt where the table used to be and searched for a specific wood grain.

Well, first, the table wasn't parallel with the wall just yet. And the chair's weren't perfectly perpendicular to the table. He rose, and straightened them to his preference. Then, fingers went behind his neck, beneath his ponytail, where he undid the catch of his necklace: a half cut symbol of the Holy Light, decorated with a garnet gem. He set the necklace on the table, laid it out flat and parallels to the edge of the table.

Back to the wood grain. Fingers brushed over dots and stripes in the floor, in a particular pattern, and an incantation was uttered. Mauve hued magic temporarily etched runes on the floor, and four lines outlined a square before him. A handle formed.

And then, a whisper, somewhere tugging at his mind's eye. *You're running out of time...*

Emrys lifted the handle to the newly formed trap door, stood straight to retrieve the jar with the severed arm, and started to step down a staircase into the hidden basement. It didn't appear that there were steps down here, the steps formed just before his foot touched where it needed to be. A tap, tap, tap of his dress shoes as sole touched faux, cloud-like wood.

Firm on the bottom ground, Emrys parted a hand and muttered another incantation. Fingers lit alight with the warm glow of Light, which he used as makeshift torch in the darkness. A few more steps forward, and he came to what appeared to be a stone wall. More muttered incantations, a mixture of the three magics that Emrys knew well. A holy rune, a shadow rune, and an arcane rune. A few more. A pattern.

Adorlan encouraging Emrys to learn minor arcane for a project only helped the prodigy's strategy grow. Thank you.

The sound of shifting blocks, of gravel, dirt, and bricked blocks filled the room as bricks moved on their own to clear a space for the languid man to enter in. Fingers went came to glow again with warm tones of Light, and the balls travelled to candles to illuminate the workshop he had hidden here.

The workshop mimicked much of what Emrys had used in Northrend, though, was less extensive. He really did miss that lab.

A bookcase of tomes, from Emrys' "special collection", on topics of religion: The Void, The Light and the cosmos. Tomes in Orcish, Thalassian, and Common all alike. Tomes of medicine and herbs, of anatomy. Less extensive than his collection at his office, and much more controversial. Work benches outlined the perimeter of the room. It had been some time since he had worked on anything. There was the stench of old blood and bleach in the air.

*"You're slacking..."*

Emrys faced his specimen cabinet. Soon, he'd need a new one, for the shelves already housed a collection of jarred eyes, jarred brains, bones, and limbs-- mostly from animals. *Mostly.* On a middle shelf were two skulls; orcish and human. Both skulls had been etched and engraved with runes and magic circles. Emrys arranged the skulls differently, and made space for the jar holding Cedar's severed arm. The humanoid shelf.

Hands free now, he collected the chair and sat down. He leaned his chest into the back of the chair and crossed his arms over the back of it to prop up his weight. The boy stared up with an awe, something doe-eyed and adorative as he admired the work. He saw where the flesh was crudely cut and severed; where the bone, muscle, and tendons peered out to the world where it normally wouldn't. Cedar's champagne skin now almost grey and tinged with the color of the preservative.

Gods, it was beautiful. It was intoxicating. It was a reminder of the beauty of death, and a reminder of the fear and disrespect he had for it.

Emrys set his elbow on the top of the chair's back. Lackadaisical fingers wove spell-work with more muttered incantations. A salacious, wicked, devious grin peeled at his lips Fingers alit again with mauve colored magic.

The arm in the jar began to move. it's fingers twitched and shifted, allowing digits to straighten and flex inward and outward. It rotated slowly in the liquid, allowing Emrys to see all sides at a whim. Impure thoughts of where he could attach this arm- to a golem, to a construct... how effective it could be on it's own flooded his mind. Was it his own creativity and desire to dreams of his research, or was it the Void sending what would have been horrific images to any other?

Any other than Emrys.

*"You're wasting time...", "Only eighty years to go...", "Are you certainly satisfied with mediocrity?", "You could be a hero."*  The whispers ramped up their frequency. They overlapped one another, repeated, and ruminated.

His stamina manipulating this magic was not like it used to be. His incantation slowed to a stop, positioning the arm just about how it had been gifted to him.

But, he wanted more. That was the wickedness of the Void, the intoxication and musing, almost siren's call. He was down here already, wasn't he? Might as well clear the dust and oil to the joints to remind himself of a different time.

Emrys stood and tucked away his chair, in the way he usually did. Towards the back of this large room was an area, an open space that was undecorated...except for one thing: a body. A body wrapped in bandages and dried, the soul left it long ago. In this dark, dank, cellar, it's must was hidden by the scents of bleach and dried blood now cleaned.

Emrys held open a hand, fingers flexed, and soon a shadow spear appeared in his clutch. He was heaving now, huffing, chest rising and falling with adrenaline and chaotic euphoria. That smile of his, that wide-eyed, small pupiled stare reflected the madness that was filling his mind. Joyous, wonderful, lustful, galvanizing power.

Spear after spear, he thrust conjured javelins towards the mummy in the back of his workshop. The basement was alit with the sounds of vocal, efforted, spell-work. Sweat beaded on his brow and dripped down to his collar. The spear clashed and dissipated as it went through its' target. To a living person, this would have been an excruciatingly painful experience; overkill and beating a dead horse, flesh feeling rended and perhaps actually so.

When his energy was spent, he stood in the quiet. All that remained was the sound of his deep, heaving, pants.

Emrys straightened his tie, his collar, and he fed his fingers to interlock in his wheatgrass hair. He felt alive. He felt passion. He felt *power.*

And soon... the punishments for his exercise in nostalgia resurfaced.

Emrys dropped down to a crouch, to a yell a cry of pure horror. Fingers pulled at his hair and pressed into his scalp. Visions filled his field of vision, behind his perception of his workshop. The fire in his childhood home, the thoughts of his last breath in his deathbed, the pain and agony of loss of love, of a future of millions of dying... permanently...

...because he would fail in his endeavors. Stellvia rotted in the ground. Leenra, a pile of cremated dust. Leenra's death at the hands of the Scourge. Kien, bled out and rotting in the ground. Julian's arm, which he could not save, and Emrys could not keep. The blood and gore of Julian's medical bed as Emrys worked fervently to save it.

When he settled, Emrys found his forehead pressed into the cobblestoned ground. Hours could have passed. In fact, they had. The outside evening had long transitioned to night. he picked himself up off the floor, took one last look at his workshop for anything amiss, and went to leave the way he came.

As if nothing had happened, the languid, unemotive man reset the kitchen table, reset the chairs, and uttered a final incantation to hide away the trap door. He drifted lethargically up the stairs. The washcloth to his face in the master bathroom did well to clean it, and he pat the cooling water along his neck. Tie undone, shirt unbuttoned, he stripped until he was in his underclothes and went to bed. Even in the dirty laundry basket, his clothes needed to be folded neatly.

Tomorrow was the Hallow's End Gala, and little did Emrys know how it would unfold.

The Day of the Dead was soon upon them, too.

*"Emrys...", "Emrys...", "Poor little bird in a cage, without the freedom you crave. Take back what you desire most, and change the world."*

The face of Lady Sky Matheredor, of Adaline Grimwood, at first normal, then twisted into the macabre and monstrous. Each with sultry, lascivious whispers... only to shift into long haired hags.

How was Lady Sky doing, he wondered. One final spell before bed couldn't hurt more, could it? Another incantation, where eyes shifted mauve-lilac and soon... he would see the world beyond his room.

There was Roz'am. There was Cedar. There was Adaline. There was Lady Sky. There were the people's of Ebonfall, unaware except for perhaps the nagging feeling they were being watched, being watched. All seemed well from a cursory glance.

And then, crippling pain.

Unused to using much of the shadows these days, and Emrys' growing prestige with the Holy Light, the whispers intensified until his vision went white with stimuli. He curled into a ball in his bed and gripped his head.

*"Good night, Emrys..."* said the voice of Cedar. Beneath the floorboards, the arm seemingly waved it's goodbyes in Emrys' mind's eye, as fingers curled in flirtatious, cat-like fan.