Magister Luminash Dawnwing
Still Air
“What do you make of it?
“This fog? Thick, yes, but another natural hazard of this vile swamp, no doubt,” Luminash responded to the Reliquary digger, “It has certainly not been a pleasant outing, even before this.”
“Why did it not roll in for a week, then? I won’t lie, there is something unsettling about it, unnatural,” the digger replied, his bare, dirt-covered arms hugged to his chest, a tiny pin barely visible on his dusty red and gold tunic marking him as the lead digger of the site.
The wan sun filtered through the jungle canopy above and lit the thick fog like fire, a red-orange mist consuming all it touched. It had appeared suddenly a few hours before, the entire expedition camp swallowed up in it, a fog so thick it appeared solid, a wall dividing camp from digsite, and worker from worker. Luminash could barely see the digger a scarce few feet from him; all beyond was brilliant fire in the pale, setting sun.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Some fog is hardly our greatest worry, and either way, we are protected here. Our Nightborne friends have kept us hidden this long, even with Alliance incursions along the coast, and further inland in Zuldazar itself,” the magister said, golden eyes squinting into the distance, unable to make out even a single one of the crystalline wards the Nightborne had set up to ward away prying eyes, both Alliance and Nazmani.
“Safe or not, magister, I advise we recall our workers for the night. On a normal day, we would have plenty of daylight left, but in this…”
Luminash nodded, turning his attention back to the digger, “I understand entirely. Call them back in, and have them get some rest. Extra rest, even. By the time this burns off by mid-morning tomorrow, we can all be back to work.”
Outside Luminash’s tent, the fog still held the Reliquary camp captive. Their fires barely cast light for a few inches before being devoured in inky blackness; the glowing crystals hanging from tent posts might as well have been dull stones for all the light they put off into the night; conversation around those fires and in those tents was so muffled by the heavy air that voices were reduced to a whisper, an eerie sort, the sort one might hear drifting through the trees in an empty forest; the jungle and swamp, too, were swallowed up, silent and black and lonely.
Luminash turned an object over in his hands, the light of the crystals within his tent hardly able to pierce the gloom even here, with tendrils of fog creeping in through the tiniest openings in the canvas of his tent. The item appeared to be bronze, perhaps a mask, shaped in the likeness of something - a man? A woman? It was impossible to tell, its narrow, pronounced features only serving to give it dignity, if not identity. It was the same material, the same smooth metal, that now adorned his robes, thin, hammered plates woven onto fine cloth, the garb of ancient watchers. Some part of him felt great satisfaction in wearing it, the same part that brought the mask up to his own face and brought a laugh to his lips at seeing how well at seemed to fit.
Placing the mask down on the makeshift desk he had set up for himself, he turned and opened the tent flap, revealing only a wall of utter blackness, no fires in sight, and no voices to be heard. He shook his head, and was about to close the flap, returning to the collection of dirty metal pieces and broken mechanisms his diggers had pulled from the wet earth, when from the darkness, a breathless figure approached.
The dirt that had been smeared across his face and arms earlier in the day had been washed away, only to be replaced with a pallid look of fear.
“Magister! The Nightborne…” the lead digger shouted as he approached, his breath catching and his voice nearly stolen away entirely by the oppressive air itself, “The Nightborne illusionists on our perimeter, they are missing!”
Luminash’s eyes grew wide as he stepped out of his tent into the inky night, “Missing? What, exactly, do you mean by that? They could not have just vanished without our wards being triggered.”
The digger shook his head, “One of the watch returned from his perimeter patrol with the news, and I came right to you. She is rallying the others to make sure we are protected. She said…” The digger bent down, hands on his knees, “Eternal Sun preserve us, we are alone out here.”
The magister placed a gloved hand on the other elf’s shoulder, and spoke calmly, “And we will find a way through this, if you tell me what has happened.”
Nodding, the other looked up at Luminash, and took a deep breath, “There were no signs of struggle, and no bodies. Just empty posts, all around our perimeter, and the crystals… The crystals maintaining our barrier have been tampered with.”
Narrowing his eyes, Luminash removed his hand and squinted into the blackness, “Tampered with how?”
“Her initial reaction was… Well, they were black, you see. Still there, not inert, but sucking in light rather than putting it out. It was…”
Luminash tensed his jaw as he felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach, “Void. It seems our luck has run out; we are under siege.”
| Age | Adult |
| Eye Color | Golden |
| Height | Tall |
| Body shape | Slim |
| Residence | Silvermoon City |
| Realm | Wyrmrest Accord - US |
Ooph! Luminash's stories are always going somewhere, unlike my usual slice-of-life stuff. It's good to see him doing things and what is going on! To the next installment!