chef_chocobro | Markov Manor; Stensia, Innistrad; Monday (Fandom Time). (Reply)

Markov Manor was torn apart, opened up and laid out to view like a dissected animal pinned to a board. Spires, halls, buttresses, and turrets were ripped from their moorings and left to hang at odd angles around the sundered core of the manor building.

Jace and Ignis stood at the end of a long arched bridge that jutted out from the mountainside. Below them was a sheer drop disappearing into mist. Ahead, what was once the rest of the bridge had become a scattering of steppingstones across the void, leading to the entryway of the manor.

"I guess Sorin probably isn't here," Jace muttered to to his companion.

Suddenly, he saw the place as it must have once been—an awe-inspiring structure of intricately decorated spires and balustrades, perched like a vulture at the edge of a lofty promontory. His breath caught in his chest as he took in the scale of the...not a manor, no, but a castle. A palace.

And the vision was gone, like an illusion. Scowling, he reached out with his mind, looking for some other intelligence that had forced the image into his mind. No one but Ignis was nearby, at least not anyone with thoughts he could detect. And he didn't think that had been a trick from the other man. Their relationship wasn't exactly chummy, but he'd seemed sincere in his desire to find Sorin with Jace. Sincere enough to risk infuriating Liliana. Jace had been on the wrong side of Liliana's wrath more than once and 'unpleasant' was a vast understatement. Still, he reinforced the wards he habitually kept around his mind and surveyed the castle as it actually was.

"Did Sorin do this, you think?" he wondered aloud. Liliana had suggested that he wasn't particularly welcome in his ancestral home. Either way, the sheer scale of the devastation gave him pause. "It's possible I should have taken Liliana's warnings more seriously." This was not the first time he'd thought that this journey and he was pretty sure it wasn't going to be the last.

	Ignis was incredibly tempted to not even honor that statement with a response, but it hadn't taken him long at all in their journey to realize that Jace Beleren was not a man to suffer silences willingly, especially not, apparently, when he could fill them with the sound of his own voice. So he gave a soft, dryly thoughtful hum before adding, "Is that so?" And obviously, Ignis could not see exactly what it was that would finally shake the other man into realizing just how far off the path of logical he'd wandered, but he knew enough between his conversations with Kristoff and his other various poking arounds to have a marginal idea. Besides, there was an energy, and not only from the likely state of the manor, but just in the dangerous terrain, the wind wailing up from the deep chasm below, that feeling in this pit of his stomach that one wrong move, be it with an actual step or some other mistake, would be truly devastating. But, he supposed, the more important question now was the one that next left his lips. "And do you still believe that investigating Markov Manor is our best course of action?"
	The long moment of silence between when Ignis asked that question and Jace answered it was the closest he'd get to acknowledging that his common sense was yelling that they should go. He glanced again towards the manor, watching as patterns formed and dissipated in the drifting stones, some hint that the pieces of the castle were arranged by an intelligent mind, some promise that there was meaning behind the incredible destruction. "It's a puzzle," he said finally. "And puzzles want to be solved." So, no. Common sense would once more be ignored in favor of curiosity. "How do you think we should..." He turned to face Ignis and the sight of his glasses reminded Jace, once again, that the other man was blind and had no idea what they were looking at. "Can I, ahhh, show you? There are some stepping stones with the bridge destroyed..." Hmm. This might be more difficult than he'd thought.
	"Puzzles," Ignis drawled a bit dryly, "rarely want for anything, and when they do, the ones I've encountered actually quite prefer the opposite." He couldn't help a faint grimace in recalling the Pitioss Ruins...or, hell, even Costlemark Tower and its absurd teleportation traps. The urge to leave Jace to his foolish machinations once and for all was a strong sway, but the guilt he'd feel over abandoning him still held on stronger. Not to mention, Liliana would be absolutely insufferable with (admittedly exceptionally well-earned) I told you sos. So he sighed and waved a hand almost impatiently before bolstering himself for the information. "But yes, fine, show me this puzzle, but please also do so while explaining to me how you could possibly still believe this is the right path."
	For all of his (many) flaws, Jace was a consummate telepath, and his mental touch so light and delicate that it was undetectable, at least until Ignis was suddenly able to 'see.' Although the sight that greeted him likely did not inspire more confidence. "This is my last, best idea for how to stop the Emrakul from devouring who knows how many planes," he said with surprising frankness. "She's the Titan of Corruption, the largest and most fearsome of the Eldrazi. Sorin was part of the group that bound her - bound them all - and he might have some idea how to find her and stop her. Unless you know how to reach him otherwise, Markov Manor is what we've got to go on." The first challenge presented by the puzzle was how to reach the manor. A vague pathway of steppingstones did not exactly fill Jace with a sense of safety. He reached his mind out to the nearest stone and prodded it. It barely moved. He couldn't push it hard enough to simulate his whole weight, but this first test had provided encouraging results. Stretching his power a little farther, he pushed the next stone, which bobbed only slightly. A third stone proved completely immobile, though he had to acknowledge that the strength of his telekinesis diminished as distance increased. "This is risky, no question. But I've never seen anything like the castle, not even on Zendikar, where the law of gravity is more like a guideline. I don't know what happened here, but it seems pretty important to check it out." Puzzles demand to be solved.
	Ignis had braced himself, not entirely sure what to expect from the event of Jace granting him 'vision,' his only real comparisons being the 'sight' granted to him either by the dead kings who should have killed him and a gift from Jace's own alternate-universe daughter. And, at first, he was almost certain something had to have gone wrong, because this couldn't possibly be the puzzle he had claimed to witness before them, but... Stepping stones with the bridge destroyed, indeed. Ignis frowned, not only from the ill promise this vision seemed to offer, but because it just felt a bit...strange, to 'see' it. But he was not about to look a gift vision in the mouth, however, and he tried to parse everything he could from it, no matter how much it strained the parts of his brain that were long out of use, and how much it flared up that familiar, dull burning ache behind his eyes. He closed them, though the vision remained behind them, and shook his head slightly as if to dislodge it and relegate it to the vaguer, more shadowy ideas in which he perceived things these days. "It does seem rather foreboding," he admitted, "and while this as a line to Sorin Markov is as thin as spider's silk..." He felt that stirring again, of an unfamiliar feeling that had only recently begun to make a strong appearance, now that it was no longer immediately shoved down and ignored, that stirring of self-interest and a concern for plans only just recently set into motion. It was countered by Liliana's harsh curt words, both last night and this morning, and a reassurance that, really, what was this other than a dungeon crawl like he'd done all throughout Eos? And while he felt far more confident in the companionship he'd had with Prompto and Gladio, Aranea and Iris and Cor as fellow dungeoneers, it wasn't as if he hadn't tackled a few by his lonesome, either. "...I am...curious..." He considered, again, the vision he'd had and lifted his chin toward some of the surrounding debris in the air. "That tower there, to our left," he said. "Is it suspended there? Does it look like it can bear weight? Though I suppose I'll only need it to for a brief second...mmm, but I'll have to keep in mind the gravitational disparity, as well....which could be as beneficial as it is detrimental..."
	Was this what it was like to be on the other side of someone making plans without bothering to explain them? Jace wasn't sure if he liked it. No, he was definitely sure he didn't like it. "It's certainly suspended there," he said, reaching out to prod the tower with his telekinesis. It didn't so much as budge. "I'm not sure about weight-bearing but it's not moving when I push at it. Why? What are you looking to do?" He looked over at the floating stones in front of him. "I think that these are jumpable to get across the chasm?" Not that he knew exactly how that would work for Ignis, considering that even if he was using Jace's eyes, this was one of those times where spacial relativity was vital and those stones weren't really big enough for two...
	"Mmm." Ignis gave a soft nod, feeling very glad that he'd armed himself with a lance for this excursion indeed. "That should work well, then, I suppose, because I'm quite certain I can make the leap to the tower, but across the whole thing might be a bit...demanding. But to the tower...." His chin seemed to bob as he explained, as if mentally mapping his progress across the space, "then off the tower to the other side, would be barely anything at all. And you, clearly, can manage the bridge of debris well enough without having to me having to make a slog out of having to discern the placement of each and every one..."
	"You can--" Jace was very intelligent, even if one could occasionally cast aspersions on his wisdom, but in in this case, both had joined together to suggest he shut up immediately. "I mean, if you're comfortable with that, it seems like a good idea." #NailedIt. "Uh, do you need anything more from me?" You know. Vision-wise?
	There was the faintest twitch in the corner of Ignis' mouth, but he reminded himself firmly that this truly was no mere peacocking, but also a matter of efficiency. Ensuring the goal that they both managed to get out of all of this alive was going to be quite the impressive feat already without adding anything more... But if one was going to do something (especially when one was making quite the personal sacrifice for it, too), might as well go all-out. "I think we'll cross that bridge," he said, gearing up and preparing himself for the leap now that the plan was agreed upon, "once we've squared away this one, yes?" From his low crouch, his lance now spun back behind him, Ignis took a second to push his glasses up the bridge (ha!) of his nose, and sprung upwards, off the ground, with enough force to dislodge a few more of the stones beneath them and leave them drifting in his wake in the strange gravity of the place. And he landed, easily, a moment later, on one end of the tower. Quickly, he took stock of his bearings, his direction, the map he'd built in his head from Jace's vision, and then hurried with a light and quick dash along its length to the furthest end, paying close attention to how well it might be supporting its weight, any shifting he might need to take into account once he reached the edge, and then, finally, feeling it tapering away to the tip of the tower, another crouching downswing and another launch to bring him to the landing on the far side of the bridge. He took a moment, then, straightening, adjusting his glasses again, twirling the lance into a ready position, and just listened. To the sounds of the rubble and how it shifted in its strange suspension, to the manor before them and the sounds of what may lie in wait for them there, to the wind rising up from the chasm down below and behind him now, and for anything from Jace as he made his way across the bridge to join him, senses sharp on every....little...thing, even a deep breath for any telltale scents that might be carried over on a breeze or a sigh or shifting of rock...
	"Okay, no, you're good," Jace said, a little weakly. Was that his power? Jace had been trying to figure that out since they'd met, and even moreso after the 'Irrim alarm' of that morning. But that was another, lesser puzzle, one for mulling over later, especially since they had a much bigger and more relevant puzzle before them. He stepped off the edge of the bridge and planted his foot on a stone that hung in the air. It sank more than he had expected, and his arms flew out to his sides for balance. Definitely not the casual grace Ignis was displaying as he leapt and ran across the tower - but if there was any consolation, at least he couldn't see Jace's more awkward attempts at traversing the space. He brought his other foot onto the stone and lowered his center of gravity. All right, he thought. I can do this. He stepped to the next stone, and the next, and again. Step, step. And then he was standing on a solid bridge again, and the castle ahead of him was intact and stern, looming over him. He pulled his foot back, unsure for a moment what was solid stone and what was an illusion - or a vision, whatever it was. He crouched and felt around with his mind again, probing for whatever entity was interfering with his senses. Still nothing, and the vision was gone. Another step and another, one stone to the next, and at last he was across the chasm. "I hope we don't have to leave here in a hurry," he said wryly. "Did you s--" wait no "--feel anything? While you were moving around up there? Like...well, anything weird?"
	"Not nearly as much gravitational disparity to compensate for as I expected," Ignis said, after a moment, going back to recall his brief trek across the chasm for anything he may not have noticed on the surface, with his determination and attention being so focused on merely making it across, "but other than that? I must admit, no. Nothing more than what we've already discerned. Things feel....off, but, at this juncture, that's a bit like calling water wet." He lifted his chin toward the looming archway before them. "How does the entrance look? Should we find a less apparent point of entry?"
	The archway towered before them, tall enough that six Jaces stacked head to toe could have fit through. Above and around it crowded a grotesque throng of skeletons, hags, wolves, demons, and things that defied mere names, with a giant vampiric man - the Markov for whom the manor was named, he presumed - overshadowing them all. On either side of him, leering at him, were skulls as tall as he was, and he couldn't be sure whether the whitish stone was actually bone. "Ostentatious," he replied, before giving Ignis a rough description. "I'm thinking we just go inside? I don't know if I want to press my luck dancing around more floating rocks. And if anything's in there, it'll be easier to convince them we come in peace if we come in through the front door." He scanned the edifice in front of him with his telepathy. "I don't think anyone is in there?" he added, sounding more unsure than he'd like, "or, at least, I'm not picking up any sense of minds around beyond you and I." Just sometimes strange visions of the manor when it was whole... Nothing for it, though. Together, Jace and Ignis stepped into the archway and the stone walls enfolded them both.
	And which, Ignis couldn't help but wonder, with a staunch, simple agreement to Jace's assessment about letting their intentions be known through transparency, was worse, the idea that anyone lurking still within these strangely disheveled walls would be so well hidden, or that there truly was no one within these halls at all? The Markov clan, as he'd come to understand it from his research, was as substantial as one might expect for being the oldest of the vampires of Innistrad, with as complicated a lineage as one would expect from such a history. The silence truly was disturbing; as to what kind of disturbing....well... A few steps into the hallway, Ignis reached out for some sort of feel of the place and waited, expectantly, for some semblance of what it was that Jace expected to do now that they'd gotten this far in his so-called plan.
	"...Oh gods," Jace whispered as they stepped into the formal receiving hall. "Oh no." He wanted this to be some kind of macabre decor, like the kind that decorating the outer archway. But he didn't think it was. Didn't think it could be. Oh gods there were so many of them, at least a dozen in the front hall right here; he could see the shock and horror that had rippled through the vampires The ones closest to the door looked surprised, confused, they didn't even have weapons to hand. Those further back looked no less confused, but had been getting ready to fight. Not that it had saved them. "Gods," he said again. "How many Markovs did you say there were?" Past tense. Definitely past tense. By reflex, he reached out for Ignis' mind; this was the kind of thing that words couldn't properly convey the depths of horror for. All around them were Markov vampires, all partially embedded in the walls in a grotesque configuration of art. Some were covered in a layer of stone, so they resembled statuary protruding from the walls, faces - when visible - contorted in pain and terror. The vast majority, however, were left unencased, their actual flesh and blood body parts left dangling from the walls, the ceiling, even the floor. They looked untouched by rot or desiccation and Jace had no way to tell if that was the result of whatever magic had been used to keep them like this? Or if this had happened so recently that the cold hall had been able to fight off the effects of...spoilage. Jace found himself wishing that they had listened to Liliana.
	...that they had listened, was it? Because Ignis clearly was very on board with all of this, Jace, and hadn't been expressing ad nauseum what a terrible idea all of this way with nearly every step across Innistrad. But that was neither here nor there, because they were here now, and, if he'd had just a moment longer, then the sudden burst of the scene that surrounded him in his mind wouldn't have caught him so off guard. Because he had just been on the brink of discerning that the odd grooves and shapes of the wall that his fingers briefly touched seemed to form... Then Jace had asked a question, and Ignis' attention shifted briefly to answer, and then his hand was retracting from the wall as if he'd been shocked, though the shock had only come from the fact that the face he was forming an impression of with his fingers was suddenly there, along with all the countless others in all their distorted, horrific glory. "A little warning," he snapped, pressing the heel of his hand to the space between his brow, where the sudden view of the room was accompanied by that dull aching behind his eyes, "before you do that would be appreciated." But with a good idea now of the scene set around them, his attention returned to evaluating things now that he could see it, even if just as an impression on his mind, and he sighed. "Well, something clearly has happened here," he said, with a new consideration for the wall, with less attention to what it was but rather how it felt, with all apologies to whichever Markov sire it was he was apparently prodding and poking. "The question now seems to be whether or not it's connected to what brought you here, or if it's something else entirely to have to add to the pile of concerns..."
	Hey! Ignis was here, too, wasn't he? Right here next to him! So, clearly, they were both not listening to Liliana. QED. "Sorry," Jace said, absolutely meaning it the moment, even if it would have no bearing on his future behavior. "But I don't think so. Even if we'd somehow missed the two hundred foot tall floating monstrosity, this isn't her doing. Rocks are something she can't affect. She twists and corrupts living things, but inorganic materials - rocks, water, metals, etc - she cannot affect." He reached out and traced a finger over the wealthy fabric of a dangling sleeve as the view faded from Ignis' mind. "This is horrific, but it's not corruption." He walked a little further down the hall, studying how the body language of the vampires changed. His footsteps echoed in the long passageway, bouncing off the walls high over his head. Was Ignis following him? He stopped and glanced at the other man, who seemed oddly distant, as if he'd traveled hundreds of feet away, not tens. The sound continued on--not feet on stone, he realized, but his own heartbeat, each thump preceded by a softer, smaller one. Of course. Vampires. Naturally, they would have some magic designed to alert them of a living person entering their hall. Like the ringing of a dinner bell. His heart was beating too fast. Deep breaths, Jace. Slow that heart down. He needed a light. He stretched out his hand and cupped a blue glow in his palm, concentrating until it was just bright enough to light his way without giving his presence away from too great a distance. On either side of the hallway, tapestries rustled as if a wind was sweeping past them, but he felt nothing. Reaching forward with his mind to push a tapestry aside revealed only bare wall behind it. Another illusion, like those that had interrupted his trek inside. But why? And how? And who?
	To be perfectly fair, Liliana had also not listened to either of them, either, and Jace certainly hadn't listened to Ignis, so all around, a veritable mess of stubborn deafness, and, standing there now, with the full view of what had happened unknowingly at Markov Manor in his head, Ignis couldn't help but feeling like someone should be paying a bit more attention. His own attention was in trying to notice as much as he could with his newly opened mind's eyes as he could, though his fingers trailed over everything to verify. How much could he trust the vision that Jace had given him? How much could they trust any of this? But it helped, having what he was seeing confirmed underneath his fingertips, though it didn't make him feel any better about it at all. And then, the vision was fading, and Jace was moving, he could hear those footsteps...he could hear those heartbeats, he could hear his own, and he followed slowly, trying his best to not be swept up in the increased pace of the other man. Take his time. Listen beyond everything, but it didn't really matter. He'd already reached his conclusion. Drawing his hand away, he shook his head. "Whatever this is," he murmured, "we should let Liliana know before we proceed. Especially if you're sure this is unrelated to what brought you here in the first place. She will no doubt gloat about it, but it's a small price to pay for any valuable insight she may--" Ignis trailed off, as he slowly started to feel like he was speaking only to the frozen figures of the Markovs that surrounded him. A pause to confirm that the heartbeats he hear were only his own, and the footsteps had all but faded entirely. He felt the oppressive coldness of being distinct alone where he stood, save for the grotesque grimaces around him. "Jace?" he asked, pausing for the unexpected silence to follow, and then winced in a grimace of his own, "Oh, gods dammit.
	As if carried by the nonexistent wind, faint sounds reached Jace's ears: laughter, conversation, maybe music. Limping rhythms in discordant keys. Was it possible this place was not abandoned? More likely he was hearing the spirits of the dead. This plane and its ghosts. No wonder Liliana had made her home here. He reached the end of the hall, and the sounds ceased. It felt like he'd just walked into the middle of a party and everyone stopped dead, turning to stare at him. But only cold stone walls returned gaze. "Why did you come here?" A voice broke the silence. His voice - had he spoken? His mouth was closed, and he'd just realized how dry his throat felt. But he'd just been starting to ask himself... Why had he come here? Because she'd warned him not to? Because she'd told him it was dangerous? Because he'd wanted to stare death in the face and live to tell about it? "Because you wanted to die?" Jace knew he didn't say that. Again he reached out his thoughts, probing for the mind behind the words. But it eluded him once more.
	And, in the darkness that now surrounded Ignis, with the tormented figures of what Jace had shown him imprinted there like deep, deep shadows, a voice also reached out Ignis. Almost a mirror of the one that filled Jace's ears, except that it was said in Ignis' own voice, too, rising up out of the newly panicked pounding of his heart as he tried to work out exactly what to do now. "Why did you come here?" Ignis opened his mouth to respond, but the voice-that-wasn't-his spoke again before he could. "Because you wanted to die?" Ignis frowned, brow furrowing. "Well," he stated, straining for hints of where the voice had come from, despite feeling as though it had come from somewhere within him, and having a very strong inclination that the other signs he would search for in locating where someone might be....breathing, heartbeats, blood pumping through veins....were not likely to be found here. He started to move, carefully, hoping to narrow in on pockets of cold instead, but it was all cold. Nothing felt right. "In a manner of speaking...yes. Who is asking? What can you tell me about what happened here?" He paused, waited, straining to listen for a response, but he heard nothing. He adjusted the grip of his lance, using it as he might a cane to confirm the space around him, and tried again to reach out into this regrettable void. "Jace!" He shouted it like a curse. "Where are you?"
	Staring into the empty hall that felt like it should be full of partygoers, Jace realized that he and Ignis were not the first living men to set foot in this place recently. He saw it like a memory...whose memory, though? The castle's? Perhaps the voice that was not his own was part of the memory, too. He - the other man, the dead man - stood here, clear as day in Jace's mind's eye, terrified, knees knocking, clutching something - a book - to his chest, looking up at...at...Jace couldn't tell at what. Something over...there. He turned his attention there, concentrating hard and suddenly a door hung open there, where the man's trembling gaze fell. Damn it, this place was infuriating! Something was altering Jace's perceptions, pressing in on his mind, and he couldn't find it. And apparently couldn't stop it, either. He'd missed the door, before, and only noticed it because...someone - something? - wanted him to. A ghost? If one of Innistrad's geists were drifting through the castle walls, would he know it? He wasn't sure whether he would've detected its mind or not. He hadn't yet had the opportunity to test that. He'd have to remember to do that, if he should happen to see one. "Necromancer. Ghoulcaller. Fleshcrafter. Ghostslaver." Liliana's titles. Liliana's words. Liliana's...voice? Because he was thinking about geists? They were her domain, after all, not his. No matter. Keep walking. No thinking about geists or ghouls or the woman who commanded them. The woman whose lover he was here with. Somewhere. It had been awhile since he'd heard Ignis' voice. His footsteps. Maybe Jace was the only person left alive in this mausoleum. Perhaps he was walking into a trap, but he crossed over to the wall and pushed the door, and it swung open with a metallic wail. ...have to get out... The words sprang to his mind unbidden. He didn't think them. Yet he couldn't detect any other sign of intrusion into his mind - wards were as strong as ever. Some trick of sound in this place? Ignis, perhaps? Or the mind of an ancient vampire Planeswalker, too strong for Jace to penetrate or resist? Maybe Liliana was right. ...to kill me... A snippet of thought, a memory. Someone's memory. Probably the living man he'd seen in the vision in the party hall. (Or his geist?) There was a cold tingle at Jace's spine, which was completely irrational. He ignored it. His heart-steps echoed louder in this smaller passage. Glaring on the stone walls, his light seemed too bright. Jace let it dim and felt the darkness draw closer. "Why did you come here?" His voice was harsh, too loud. Yes, that was his voice. Talking to himself. ...Right?
	Slowly, now, carefully, with another whispered curse on his lips fading into the silence that seemed almost impenetrable, Ignis made his way back down the hall. At least, that's what he thought. That's what he hoped. Something had happened that managed to pull him and Jace apart somehow; he was recalling Steyliff Grove, that strange ancient tomb and how one misstep would send them whisked apart from each other, Costlemark Tower and its habit of sending you back to where you started, just as you thought you were making progress. But in these circumstances, Ignis thought it best to go back to where he started, either to wait for a sign of Jace....or perhaps just a sign to simply leave. If that were even still possible. But he knew, even if he did make it back to the entrance of the manor, he couldn't just abandon the man. Not leaving the fool to his own devices was the entire reason he was here in the first place. Well. Not the entire reason. As he moved, Ignis' fingers danced along the forms of the Markovs in their graven stagnation. Did he feel some of their flesh give away as if soft? Were those fingers reaching back against him, brushing his arm, his face, the way he did theirs? Playing with the fabric of his clothing, maybe testing their grip? He wanted to dismiss it as a figment of his imagination, but that seemed particularly dangerous, in this situations. He moved away from the wall; he let the lance do the guiding for him. And that led him not to the entrance as he had hoped (though he was not at all surprised), but he did find himself confronted with a staircase. This was not the way he came, obviously. It would only lead him further into the madness that was Markov Manor. Yet he felt compelled, one foot already on that first step. And then he could hear the voices, muffled and murmured, even too indistinct for his sharp ears. Was it Jace? Had he found someone? Some remaining Markov in the upper chambers of the manor? But Ignis didn't call out this time. This time, he merely climbed the stairs cautiously, warily, listening closely and reading his weapon.
	Option one: something was interfering with his memory. Option two: He was actually dreaming, in that strange fugue state where you flow from one scene to another with no transition. Jace didn't remember how he got here. He was in a grand hall, deeper in the castle now, with wind rushing through the halls around him. Stone ground against stone as massive fragments of architecture wheeled slowly around him. It had once been a great vault with soaring columns - now it was a floating field of rubble. Rubble with hands, faces, bodies protruding from the stone. Dozens and dozens of them, trapped and petrified and encased in the stone. "What is happening?" someone shouted. Jace started, pulling back into the shadows and casting his mind around to find the source of the voice. But it grew into a clamor of many voices, dozens of them, and screams, mingled with raw pain and fury, a glimpse of a white face with fierce eyes - I will repay... And it ended in stony silence. Jace turned his head, and he was face to face with a vampire, mouth open and fangs bared. He actually jumped before his brain managed to tell his body that the vampire was dead and embedded in the wall. Embarrassing. They were all vampires. Heirs, he assumed, to the Markov who built this place. They were strikingly inhuman in death: gaunt faces, sunken eyes, jutting fangs, feral features - ugly. One vampire near him was surrounded by a mahogany picture frame with a golden plate at the bottom, except the whole wall was upside down, and the nameplate rose far above his head, too far to be read. Tatters of canvas hung from the edge of the frame. Jace lifted the canvas up to see, mindful of the vampire's fangs, and the remnant of the ancient portrait, two red eyes in fading paint, stared back at him. He let the canvas drop-- Did the stone vampire just blink?
	The voices that led Ignis up those stairs seemed to have quieted as he reached the door at the top; cautiously, he pushed it forward, wincing at the mournful creak that it sliced into the air (or was that some inhuman cry, echoing in these torn and twisted halls like every other odd voice and errant sound?), and then waited. Still nothing. Well. Almost. Only a few steps forward, and Ignis felt something amiss already. A presence, that made the hairs on his arms stand up and a chill race through him as he realized it was coming straight for him... He moved back, swiftly, but not into the open door behind him as he'd expect, but rather, shockingly, into cold and grasping hands. He felt a flare of panic, a sense of heavy dread attempting to weigh him down with the sudden heat of hunger on someone's hot breath against his neck, a sense of an old and ancient, almost dusty, presence in the air beginning to bear down on him, so archaic that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt whose presence he was in... They would devour him. "No!" he protested. "Not like this! Not yet!" He pushed himself back, turning sharply and thrusting his lance forward. The tip bounced dully off of stone. Experimentally, Ignis tried a few more stabs to the same result. He lowered the weapon and stepped forward to reach out his hand to find, of course, another stone-cold figure. He breathed out slowly, pawing at his would-be assailants to confirm that they were just as harmless as the others, that there was something about this place trying to sway his senses away from sanity. As his hands moved, though, they stopped, stilled, as they brushed against something much different than the stone he was now getting familiar with. Something soft and yielding. Leather and paper and a strip of smooth cloth. "A book," he realized, and went to remove it from the stony grasp that clutched it to its immobile chest.
	Unaware that somewhere Ignis was having the same experience - hell, unaware where Ignis even was - Jace stumbled back from the blinking (did it? did it really? Or had he just imagined it?) vampire and he, too, felt hands all around him, clutching and pulling. His hair, his clothes, even his face and arms. He screamed and struggled against the vampires' grasp, but they were too strong. He could feel the hot kiss of fangs as they scraped over his skin, but they didn't dare pierce it. They were waiting; in this instance, obedience meant more to them than fresh, hot blood. But they didn't have to wait long, he could hear - no, feel their sire approaching, the weight of centuries - no, millennia in his bearing. Liliana was a few centuries old, he knew, but this man - no, this being, there was nothing human left of him, made her look like a squalling infant in comparison. This must be the one, Edgar Markov, the ancestor of all Innistrad's vampires... No. This was not happening, not now. The hands dragging at him were motionless stone protruding from the wall, and the approach of the vampire sire was just a memory. The dead man's memory. It must be his geist, or else some sort of psychic echo of his mind lingered in this place. Perhaps the geist was pushing into Jace's mind, forcing these thoughts upon. Or perhaps it was his own sensitivity picking up the stray thoughts. Or, again, maybe he was dreaming. Nightmaring, really. That was a word now. He was the Living Guildpact, he could do that kind of thing. On Ravnica, anyway. And Ravnica felt very, very far away right now. He found himself walking. He didn't know where to, and he couldn't remember if this was the way he'd came. Option one - yes, he'd considered those. There were so many dead vampires here. Liliana was right - if Jace had come here earlier, they would have torn him apart. He wondered if that was what had happened to the man whose memories he seemed to be experiencing. In a narrow hall, he saw his own face suspended in stone, horror imprinted on his features. No, it was his face, the dead man's, bearded and blank-eyed. The man from the hall. One human amid all the vampires. What were you doing here, you idiot? And then it wavered back to his own face and he found himself asking the same question.
	It took some doing, but Ignis was finally able to free the book from the stone grasp, and no sooner had he noted with wry amusement the irony of how little use something like a book would be to him... It felt as if the book had practically come to life in his hands, flying open with the pages fluttering by, and, most astonishingly of all, he could see them. Obviously, there was a strange, strong magic here that wanted him to know just what exactly it was that he held in his hands. A journal of sorts, and as the pages fluttered by from the back until they settled on the last of the writing. Ignis leaned in to read, caught a word....or a name...Jenrik. Just as soon as he read it, the vision of the book in his hands dissipated, plunging him into absolute darkness yet again, but his attention was already on something else. Movement, nearby. A frenzied, feeding sort of laughter, and, most importantly, a heartbeat. Erratic and terrified, but a heartbeat nonetheless. Closing the book in one hand, Ignis readied his weapon and stalked forward yet again. Somehow seeing without seeing, it was as if he knew exactly where to go.
	Jace cowered in a secluded nook as the sounds of the vampires' feast drift through the castle, the limping rhythms and harsh laughter. He couldn't get out. They knew he was there, but they were toying with him, stalking around like cats outside a mouse hole, waiting for him to show himself. This was tiresome. Jace might have been able to learn something from the geist's memories, but he didn't need to feel his fear, his abject terror. Jace's heartbeat had not slowed; if anything, it had grown louder, at least to his own ears. What was he doing here?
	"Looking for Sorin," Liliana said. Her voice was too loud for this place. "Looking for death."
	"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not. I'm looking--looking for something else. Answers. The puzzle wanted to be solved." But Liliana wasn't there. Why would she be here? This was not good. "Liliana is mine," he accused...someone. Something. Maybe the geist. Maybe the castle itself. Whoever had pried her out of his mind and used her voice against him. How is this happening? "She belongs in my mind." Option two, that he was dreaming, seemed increasingly likely. He would like to awaken now, please.
	"You should go," Liliana said again. "While you still can."
	He couldn't tell if she sounded worried, angry, triumphant, or even afraid. Didn't matter, though. He should go. ...He couldn't get out.
	For once, as he approached the voices...no, no, Ignis shook his head lightly....it was just the one voice...that were leading him, they didn't fade into silence, and, in fact, the fact that he now recognized the voice, too, almost brought out a sigh of relief if he didn't feel the urge to snort instead. The puzzle wants to be solved, indeed. He might actually believe it if it didn't feel like the puzzle was seemingly doing everything in its power to avoid meeting such a fate. He was about to inform Jace (and, gods, he hoped it was the man and not just another layer to these various trickeries and subterfuges) about the potential piece of the puzzle he'd found before something else caught his attention. After all, he wasn't letting his guard down for a second, even with the prospect of reunion, and so there was no denying the familiar scent of mulberries and cedar wafting toward him as he approached. And just as soon as he was about to inquire after it, the word he was going to say fell from Jace's mouth instead. And then several more words, besides, and Ignis' brow made a quick leap toward those high, vaulted, crumbling ceiling. Don't hesitate to leave him if you need to, she'd told him, before he'd departed on this foolish babysitting mission. In that brief moment, he had almost considered it. He also considering giving his lance a firm jab into the direction of Jace's voice for good measure. After all, clearly things were not the way they should be in Markov Manor. Better to be safe than sorry... Instead, though, all he did was clear his throat, and continued to give Jace Beleren far more grace than he could ever deserve. "Jace?" he asked, though he couldn't quite keep the sharp iciness out of his. "Is that you? Are you there, Jace?"
	"Ignis?" Jace's head snapped up and he reached out with his powers to probe - was this real? Was he real? Either of them, really. But his mind sensed the proximity of another and the brief skim he did to make sure was too fast for even whatever the 'Irrim Alarm' was to sense. "Is--Is Liliana here, too?" he asked, scrambling to his feet. "I just saw her...but that doesn't make sense. I think they stole her from me, from my thoughts. But I don't understand how. Or why. But she belongs in my head, not out here." He might have continued to test the rest of Ignis' patience, but then he noticed the book Ignis carried. "What's that?" he asked, pointing. "Where did you find it?"
	"Of all the places where Liliana Vess might belong," Ignis couldn't help commenting stiffly, "I'm sure your head is the very least of them. And I'm surprised you should find it so alarming that whatever has occurred here would make an attempt to use your own thoughts against you if given half the chance..." Which made him wonder if there was anything he should do to mentally guard himself against them as well, before anything started trotting out his own misguided impressions. Of Liliana, of Gladio, or Prompto, or Noct...Would they be able to delve that deep and pull those out of his head? It was hardly even worth thinking about. In fact, that would only make it more likely they could access it, and so... "But I believe I've found a journal of sorts," he said, reminding himself to stay the course on why they were here and not get too distracted; it was exceptionally clear to him now more than ever that the sooner they departed from the manor, the better, "clutched in the hands of one of the victims of this ill-fated place. It took some doing to pry it free, but I quite imagine you would be able to get far more out of it than I." When he went to hand the journal over to Jace, however, he nearly fumbled it, with a sharp jolt of something catching his attention, turning his head. "Wait," he murmured, certain (or perhaps not so certain; what could he truly trust, in this place?) he could sense....something, elsewhere, deeper in the manor, demanding his attention. "I think there is someone else here. Several someones perhaps. Do you hear it?" The journal fell from his hands. Whether or not it made it into Jace's suddenly didn't seem so important anymore as he pulled away toward where he thought he could sense some movement. And then a voice, which he would call beckoning if not for the fact that it seemed to be coming from his own lips. "Why are you here?" "To know more...of what I may one day become." "Then come," his voice that was not his voice responded, "let us show you." Ignis moved away from Jace. He knew exactly where to go, too, following the compulsion, and he could even see it there, dimly forming from shadows, huge double doors standing partly open in the vampire-studded walls, drawing him in.
	Inside was something like a chapel. A sculpture, similar to the relief that towered over the castle entrance, dominated one whole wall. Again the master vampire stood over the scene, carved into the wall, only this time he was more human, less...inhuman bloodsucker. Others stood around him—-some carved into the wall, some half-emerging like the once-living vampires in the great hall outside, and some freestanding, with their backs to Ignis' entrance. They were dressed like aristocracy, but there was a hungriness to their poses. The dozen of them circled an altar where an angel lay bound, straining against the ropes as the master held a knife, poised to open her veins. The knife slashed and glowing silver blood erupted from the angel's throat. The twelve drew closer to feast - Edgar first, catching the blood in a silver goblet before drinking it. A young man was bound to a chair and forced to drink, spilling some of the blood as he fought the master. His face contorted in horror and and panic before he abruptly vanished, leaving Edgar to stare in shock at the now lax bonds in the chair. The others barely noticed this drama, clustered around as the life slowly drained from the angel and new life took root within them. Wiping her chin, one of the twelve looked over her shoulder at Ignis. Olivia Voldaren, grinning and laughing as brightly as when Ignis had first met her, blood dripping down her chin and throat. Either she was inviting him to join the circle, or planning to drink his blood next.
	Ignis staggered backwards, out of the room, with a startled, strangled gasp that seemed to have been pulled up from deep within. Of all the visages he could have expected this middling manor to conjure up for him, he would certainly not have expected that one. Perhaps that's what made it so much more effective, and a very small sliver of him actually felt impressed...or he would, if he wasn't so taken aback. And it wasn't so much that he saw what had transpired there, as he felt it, as the shadows shifted and swarmed, sharpening into incredible detail when it mattered the most, and because these visions were building more on the raw emotion of the scene itself, rather than the mere paltry visuals of it, ...the pain of the dying angel, the terror of the bound man and the sheer reality-rending power of his disappearance, the lustful hunger and renewing triumph....oh, gods, the hunger.... For a brief moment, did it truly matter, which it was? Invitation to feed or be fed upon? For a brief moment, he was willing to eagerly resign himself to eather. The briefest of moments, because there would be no question. Of course he would feed, he would join them in their hunger, in their legacy, in their immortality. (A brief whisper in the back of his head, of Kristoff's stern voice, opening himself to answering all of Ignis' questions, except for one, except for how it all came to be, was this...?) "No," he murmured, then louder, while he was staggering back through those double-doors, "no! Not. Like. This!" He turned, striding forward, twirling his lance back around to guide him as he marked the walls and steps that would hopefully lead him out of this place. "We need to go," he growled, to the Jace he assumed was still cowering in the shadows and clinging to the specter of a woman who was beholden to no one, not even your insipid and desperate memories, Jace Beleren, and if he wasn't? Then good bloody riddance. "Now!"
	A white face, shining like the moon, leaned close to his own. Her lavender eyes gleamed with excitement as she explained a theory to Jace, about something she called "cryptoliths." Was she the one touching his mind? He reached for her mind--she was not there, of course. He felt around again, searching for the intruder—something lurking at the very edge of his awareness? It was the geist's memory again. The writing in the book - it was a journal - was hers. The man couldn't possibly know or understand what she was: one of the moonfolk from Kamigawa. A Planeswalker. It would take a little more time to puzzle out her writing. Jace flipped to the back of the book, blank pages, and moved toward the front until he found the last writing—but this wasn't the careful script of Kamigawa. It was written in a different hand, probably his. Jenrik--he had written his name at the start, when he'd took over, after she'd entrusted the journal to him and sent him here. To his death. "Why are you here?" He heard again. Was it Liliana's voice? No, his cracked lips stung from forming the words. "I came for this," he said, fingering the book. "What's so important about that book?" He didn't know. He opened the book and look through the pages for an answer. An angel's face stared back at him. Beside the drawing was another sketch, showing one of the weird, twisted stones he'd seen a few times since he'd been here. There was a schematic quality to the sketch, and he wondered if the author of this journal was responsible for the stones. There was magic in them, manipulating mana flow. But as he puzzled out the words on the page, slowly learning to read Innistradi as he went, he realized they were about the angel, Avacyn. Clinical and carefully lettered, as if to underline the weight of the words: Sorin had made her. Sorin had wanted to protect the humans of Innistrad so the vampires wouldn't overfeed on their blood. Innistrad's incarnation of purity and goodness had been manufactured by a vampire Planeswalker to maintain the balance between powerful predators and helpless prey. Angels--Liliana had mentioned angels, suggesting that they were even worse than the werewolves that attacked him. He'd taken it as just another one of Liliana's snide remarks. She never had liked angels. But the writing was suggesting something else. He heard Ignis coming towards him, yelling something that he hadn't actually caught. Besides what he had to say was surely more important. "The angels have gone mad." His dry throat croaks in the echoing hall.
	"We'll both go mad in here if we don't--" Ignis, so deadset and determined just a mere second ago, intent as he was on the singular goal of escaping this hellish place before it truly was too late and the two of them, more than likely, joined the stony, twisted figures surrounding them, halted, as Jace's words managed to slip through the mental barriers he was attempting to build and settled into his consciousness. "--wait," he said, attention diverting his way, a new tingle in the back of his mind, "I'm sorry, what was that again? About the angels?"
	"Sorin Markov made Avacyn. Avacyn ruled the angels. The angels have turned on the human populace. And someone tore Markov Manor to pieces," Jace said, scrambling to his feet and waving the journal at Ignis to underscore what he was saying "Option one: Sorin has gone on a rampage, destroying his ancestral home and turning his angelic creation against Innistrad's people," he said, speaking faster and faster, the words tumbling from his mouth in a torrent to get them all out. "Option two: someone has challenged Sorin, destroying his ancestral home and turning his angelic creation against Innistrad's people. Both options are slightly terrifying, I know! But either one would explain Sorin's absence from Zendikar, see? And this book--" he waved it again, "--explores the madness of the angels. And either option points to the angels as a way to get to him. " He stopped waving the journal and clutched it to his chest. "This is what we need. This is what we came here for. This will help me find Sorin."
	Ignis' frown deepened as he listened to Jace's hurried, somewhat frantic summary, putting into place whispers and other things he'd been hearing of goings-on around Innistrad. But he shook his head lightly. They could figure all of that out once they left this place. If they left this place. Whatever insight the journal had offered Jace was all but useless if they only wound up perishing here before they could get any use out of it. "It is what you needed," Ignis corrected. "It is what you came here for." He had mostly come just to make sure Jace got out alive, and he fully intended to be successful in that endeavor. He would also like to maintain the same for himself, too, while he was at it, but remembering that pull he'd just felt in that feasting chamber... "Now can we please get the bloody hell out of here already!" It was not a question.
	Yes? Yes. They did have to get out of here. The faster they left, the faster he could find Sorin, find out what happened to the angels, unravel the secret of the cryptoliths. He scrambled to his feet, still clutching the book like a talisman to keep away the darkness. "Yes. This way. I can get us out." The next hall was familiar, and he knew where to go. It all made sense, more and more with every step he took away from the heart of the castle: the place was full of psychic residue, snippets of memories both recent and ancient. Jenrik had come to the castle carrying the journal, but as the vampires were about to catch him and feast on him, someone ripped the castle apart and trapped the vampires - and poor Jenrik - in the walls. But that didn't matter anymore, sorry Jenrik. He had the book and ~~Rosalind Franklin's~~ the moonfolk woman's notes and with those, he might be able to stop what was happening in Innistrad. And now they were in the entry passage. He took one last look behind him: It was dark. So, so dark. He felt a presence in the darkness, a hunger, a desire. But still no mind, beyond the cool and methodical mind of Ignis beside him. He reached out, straining, aching to find more, and he felt...nothing. Nothing at all. A void. With a shiver, he turned his back on the darkness, passed through the soaring entryway, and left the corpse of Markov Manor behind.