Sage figitted through the introductions but Jaxen asked for help. "There are no snakes in Ireland. There is no anti-venom even if it were poisonous." Sage pulled up the footage of the snake and paused it as the grainy snake bit Jaxen's hand and then was slithering off. "It's not a two step snake, so you aren't dead, and you aren't showing other signs." As much as Sage was complaining about the connection it at least was a connection.
Sage tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for the information to return, he would parse it before the next bit came in and he growled. Back and forth he paced instead of impatiently tapping. "You'll be fine." He stopped walking and turned to look at Jaxen. His smile was bright and sarcasm dripped from his voice. "Your new friend could suck the poison out." He held up his wallet screen and showed Jaxen the funny comic he'd stumbled across while he was searching for serious stuff. He rolled his eyes but the smile remained.
"We can find a bandage, keep it tight so the puncture wound doesn't get worse. But until we can find a dark doctor around here you are shit outta luck." Bandages were not so easy in a tourist attraction without too much effort. A ripped up t-shirt would work and there were plenty of tourist shops for that. An expensive cheaply-made t-shirt at that, and it was all it was good for anyway. Sage wandered off to find one, tapping Aiden on the shoulder to indicate he'd be back. Even if the duo left him, Sage could find his way home. But he wondered why he was here - yet again his own usefulness was not in hunting treasures. At least not the type Aiden and Jaxen were after. He was just the boy toy of a rich rockstar...
Returning to the 'team' listening to Aiden chat with Lindy made Sage grind his teeth a little more than usual. He hated being a third wheel. He hated people and this was much more than he was comfortable with. Sage ripped the t-shirt into a long strip and roughly bandaged jaxen's hand. "You should live."
Sage cracking jokes? He was starting to really like the hacker. Jaxen smirked, lowering his voice for the other man. “I wouldn’t turn it down if she offered,” he said. Hell, he wasn't sure he'd turn it down if anyone offered.
Sage’s medicine soothed the worst of the pain, but his hand remained plump and swollen. He continuously wriggled his fingers, hopeful the lost dexterity wasn’t permanent.
They spent the night in town, making arrangements to meet Ethelinda the next day for the next leg of their journey, toward County Meath.
((Taking us forward some. Aiden, take us on toward the Hill of Tara or any side-tracks you can think of))
The day started early enough for Aiden. Breakfast was served in their rooms at the break of dawn. The three of them ate together while Aiden and Jaxen argued over where to head next in their search. The Giant’s Causeway had been a bust; although Jaxen insisted it had been a successful day – he had met Ethelinda after all. Aiden wasn’t sure how he had felt about her. Something was off about the woman. She was polite enough, there was just something Aiden could not put his finger on.
By the time Ethelinda showed up, they had all agreed on the
Hill of Tara. It was only a ninety minute drive from Belfast, so there would be no need to change hotels. Aiden rented a car for the endeavor and even drove the thing himself. They piled in, Sage up front with Aiden and Jaxen with Ethelinda in the back.
They had been on the A1 motorway for an hour when a Blarney Stonned song came on over the radio. Panic started to well up in Aiden’s stomach before his hand darted out to turn off the radio. Ethelinda still did not know that he was the frontman of the band; he still wore the same disguise as the day before. In an effort to draw attention away from the abrupt motion, Aiden spoke up.
“I am so happy we decided to do this. Mum used to go on about all of the historical sights here. It’s nice to finally see them in person – especially the Hill. Etherlinda, did you know that it is said to be the seat of the High Kings?” Aiden asked while looking in the rear-view mirror, making eye contact with the woman,
“If you don’t mind my asking, what brings you out this way? Your accent certainly isn’t local.”
Aiden drove and Sage had
a conversation with a friend of Nox's. It was a good conversation. No one knew he was having it as he leaned his head back against the car seat and closed his eyes. He wasn't sleeping, nor even pretending to sleep. He setup an algorithm to monitor the conversation around him to ping him when his name was said, but beyond that he was off in his own little world.
Writing code, searching for places for Nox's friend. He liked her. Sage wondered when he met this friend. He sorta recognized her from her pictures but Sage was never one to really remember faces and he didn't really want to do a memory scan to see why he recognized her. Not without a server to do the power crunching. Having the computer fully operational was good but having lost all his prior work was still frustrating. He wished for it bac, but that wasn't likely to happen with Phaser captured and incarcerated in the CCD now. Grim was dead to him.
[[ I have nothing to push forward so feel free to move on without my replies. Connecting to a yet unpublished post by @"Thalia" I'll link it in when it's posted edit: Thal posted
it.]]
By the next day, the snake bite was improved. He tried to get Aiden to rub the salve on his hand with a wink and a nudge, but in the end was forced to rub it out himself. The losers who didn’t want to help a brother out. Still, despite the mostly joking, Jaxen found himself checking the puncture wounds more frequently than he liked. Despite his loathing of snakes, he was never actually struck by one before. Biting women, yes. Slithering reptiles, no.
Speaking of biting women, Ethelinda was pleasant. She regaled them all with the tale of an university student writing some sort of project on the area. Apparently she was descended from a long line of Irish ancestors and was always drawn to the country. She claimed to be American, but only Sage was close enough to the culture to actually ascertain if she in fact was American. Then again, the cyborg was barely human himself, so he was an unreliable judge.
Speaking of hacking, Jaxen worked on his own tech while they rode south. He had his privacy screens enabled to keep prying eyes away from the work, namely Ethelinda’s. She was too perfectly plain to be so interesting. While Jaxen had every intention to make good use of her handy expertise, he liked to know exactly who he dealt with. Dancing with devils was fine, so long as he knew how to avoid the horns.
He was relatively proud of his skills when it came to digging up information on the internet, but Ethelinda left little trace for such an ordinary life. He sent a message to Sage to ask him to investigate her identity.
Bet you a blow that she’s a fake.
He smirked when Sage read the message, but the communication was between them.
And by blow, I mean hit. Pick your favorite party favor.
The Hill of Tara was spectacularly unimpressive, he realized upon arrival. For one thing, it was barely a hill. Aiden insisted, however. Citing ancient thrones and seats of power. Such was the kind of thing that made Jaxen want to swallow his tongue. Some sources suggested that the site was the original capitol of the lost city of Atlantis, which was absolute bullshit, but Jaxen wouldn’t mind being the first human to stroll through streets of legend, just to see what interesting shit was laying around.
He emerged from the car among a modest gathering of others in a rather out-of-place parking lot, placing a hand to his eyes as he scanned their surroundings. An old church was nearby. Green grass rolled. Every direction looked the same. It seemed no more interesting than farmland.
“Tombs. Pillars. Temples. Car parks. Where do you want to start, Aiden?”
Ethelinda adjusted a bag on her shoulders and pointed. “The Stone of Destiny is that way. It’s probably the most famous of everything. It’s said to roar when touched by the rightful king of Tara.” She shrugged, only offering a suggestion.
Jaxen smirked. The stone of destiny, a giant phallic shaped rock, roared when touched. He had no doubt.
Aiden nodded at Ethelinda’s statement. How much did the woman actually know? Unless she was an associate of Jaxen's, that he deigned to tell them about, Aiden very much doubted that the Trickster would divulge what they were actually after here. What if she was Atharim? Those rodents were lurking everywhere. The way Nox told it, your own mother could be a high ranking official and you wouldn’t even know it – until you started to touch that violent, magical Light and suddenly she is hoisting a large gun, aimed right at your forehead.
The Atharim always made Aiden think of snakes. Being of Irish decent, it was natural for Aiden to think of St. Patrick when he thought of snakes.
“Legend says that on Easter morning in the year 433 C.E. Saint Patrick lit the paschal fire in Slane county Meath – which you can see from the top of the Hill of Tara – in defiance of the order of the High King Lóegaire. It is said that Saint Patrick came to the Hill of Tara to argue with the King and his druids and to defeat them with his piety,” Aiden said suddenly and without thought. He shut his mouth and looked around at their rag tag group. He took Sage’s hand and smiled, “Sorry. I don’t mean to babble. I was just thinking that – never mind.”
They stood in the car park, a modest gift shop stood off near the entrance to the grounds. A few small ambling groups were coming and going freely – mostly the elderly interested in their heritage and school children forced to care about their heritage. St. Patrick’s church loomed behind the gift shop and then behind that stone monstrosity lay the Hills themselves. There were two ways to get onto the property, one by way of the Church and then a dirt path located at the opposite end of the car park. The tourists naturally went through the Church, which left the dirt path empty.
“The Stone of Destiny does seem like a nice place to start. C’mon, this way,” Aiden said as he nodded his head towards the dirt path, towing Sage along in his wake. He didn’t check to see if the other two followed, the crunch of the gravel driveway was enough confirmation. They made small talk along the way, Jaxen prodding at them with snarky comments or jokes, Aiden taking the bait more than half the time, Sage silently gazing into his digital astral plane, and Ethelinda laughing when appropriate with a few comments of her own.
There was not a soul in sight as the dirt path stretched on into the green distance. A soft breeze wove its way across the hills, making the blades of grass move in a way that almost beckoned to them. The hills were not that impressive, not in the modern age, but when one thought of Antiquity and what life must have been like back then, this whole area must have been breathtaking. With the ditches and banks that surrounded the hills, this was all most certainly man made. Aiden found himself wondering if these hills had stood taller in the past. Erosion was a thing, after all.
The path they took swung towards the An Forradh, the hill on which the Stone of Destiny sat – although the Stone did not always sit there. The Stone had been moved from another mound to the An Forradh to mark the graves of four hundred rebels that had perished in the Battle of Tara during the Irish Revolution of 1798. Aiden was kicking himself for not bothering to find out which of these hills had been the original site.
“There’s the Mound of Hostages,” Ethelinda suddenly said, pointing off to the left. Aiden swung his eyes around to settle on a modest mound of packed earth. A rough stone wall was partially visible from their side of the Mound. Aged mortar and cobblestones had been plastered onto the wall and a crooked iron gate hung closed between the cobblestones.
“Everyone is interested in the Stone, but I’ve always liked the Mound of Hostages. It is the oldest monument here. Did you know that?” Ethelinda asked them before breaking off and walking towards the mound.
Aiden looked to Sage and Jaxen before shrugging and following the woman. Her hips swayed in an almost hypnotic fashion, even Aiden found himself admiring the movement. Her stride was not quick, but it seemed to Aiden that she was advancing far too quickly. Indeed, she was already standing at the iron gate before they were more than halfway. Ethelinda started to peek into the bars of the gate and only ceased when the three of them rejoined her.
“Neolithic, if I’m not mistaken. Duma na nGiall is it’s Gaelic name,” Aiden said to her as she turned to face them.
“Niall of the Nine Hostages made great use of this mound,” Ethelinda said with a familiar air, almost as if she was speaking of an old friend, "There are more bones buried here than you will ever know.”
“You’ve done your research,” Aiden said with a nod.
“My family puts great store in our lineage,” she said simply, “The gate is locked, in case you were wondering.”
“Are you related to King Niall?”
“How could I know that? Niall’s Age has long since passed,” she shrugged.
Ethelinda moved past them and walked to the right, turning to walk up onto the mound. Aiden moved back and saw her ascending to the top. The hill was no more than eight or nine feet in height. She turned from them to gaze off into the distance. Aiden moved towards the gate and whispered to Jaxen, “Keep an eye on her for a second.”
Embracing the Light, Aiden came to the gate and rested his hands upon the bars. Torrents of energy seemed to crash through every fiber of his being as he steeled his resolve to command the God-like power. He wove flows of Earth and prodded along the metal, finding the lock. Within a few moments and some deft flicks of the Power, a loud groaning noise pierced the air as the lock undid itself and the gate swung open. Aiden let go of the Light and wasted no time in calling out to Ethelinda, “It wasn’t locked! Looks like you didn’t push hard enough.”
“Oh good!” she called back.
Aiden walked into the mound proper, having to stoop a little as he moved into the space. Just inside, to the left, was a large orthostat with roughly engraved designs. He ran his hand across the stone slab, tracing a small circular indentation that had several larger circles emanating from its core. There were other circular shapes, squiggles, and even a few arches on the stone; but Aiden’s eye had been drawn to the biggest one at the center.
The passageway ran down to Aiden’s right, with entrances to chambers lining the walls. Only the light from the gate shown into the Mound, leaving much to darkness. Aiden had to remind himself not to weave a globe a light, not with Ethelinda in attendance. The screen of his Wallet would have to suffice. He shuffled a little further into the Mound and called out for the others to come and take a look.
Jaxen came in first, followed by Sage. They both crouched slightly and made their way towards Aiden and the Stone. He eagerly pointed out the designs to them, “It almost looks like a map of the area, but I suppose we can’t know for certain… Ethelinda are you going to come in for a peak?”
The woman stood a few feet away from the mouth of the Mound, sunlight shining behind her, obscuring her features and rendering her to nothing more than a feminine silhouette. She said nothing. Aiden shifted on his feet, trying to crane his head around Jaxen and Sage to speak directly to the woman.
“Did you hear me, Ethelinda? I asked if-“ Aiden’s words froze on his tongue.
Ethelinda’s backlit profile looked odd. It almost appeared as if her hair had been swept about by a great gust of wind, in such a way that it created a large hood that flared out from her head. It made Aiden think of cobras. Goosebumps rose across his skin, covering every inch of flesh. Her silhouette did not change, she did not move, and Aiden could not help but notice that the light gust from earlier had died down entirely.
“Ethelinda?” Aiden asked with a shake in his voice.
The woman suddenly broke into a run, heading straight for them.
The hood remained.
Aiden screamed and reached out for the Light.
Ethelinda leaped into the air, arms thrust out before her, head tilting down and that horrible hood flaring wider.
The Power surged into Aiden and he wove flows of Fire, Earth, and –
Ethelinda crashed into the three of them.
The Power fled Aiden’s grasps.
The world was tumbling.
Flicker
Aiden felt himself rolling through the air, flashes of light and shadow dancing across his eyes. He reached out for the ground but found only air.
On and on, the spinning of his body seemed to stretch out into infinity. He became disoriented and the flashes of light winked out. Shadow engulfed his body.
Aiden screamed for Sage. Aiden screamed for his mother. Aiden screamed for mercy.
Flicker
A light seemed to spring up in the darkness, directly before Aiden. He realized he was no longer spinning.
Aiden was falling.
A grey stone floor rushed up to meet him.
With a crack, Aiden’s body hit the stone floor and he sank back into darkness.
“The Mound of Hostages. Sounds like a fun place,” Jaxen winked at Ethelinda as he positioned his wrists over each other like they were bound together. He had some experience in that regard: the good kind and the bad. Skimming her eyes, which were quite dark now that he really looked, he liked to focus specifically on the good.
When Aiden picked the lock to the tomb with the Ancient Power, Jaxen plucked him on the shoulder. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Aiden McNally,” he winked and ducked into the darkness on their heels.
First thing he noticed was the smell of dirt and stagnant air. Second thing was that it was really fucking dark. He ran a finger along the carvings Aiden showed, but the symbols meant nothing except that they got his hand dirty. He rubbed it on Aiden’s sleeve, but didn’t apologize if it was noticed beyond an innocent shrug.
When Ethelinda just stood in the threshold, Jaxen’s smirk faded. The hair on his arms stood and a shiver crawled down his spine. He took a step backward, aware that retreat would only plunge him further into a hostage hole, but at least it put someone (ahem: Aiden) between him and her.
As he stepped, his foot struck on a rock, and he fell on his ass.
“Not ag–“
It happened before he could finish the words.
The shadow of her hoods expanded, and darkness rushed down the tunnel. Next thing he knew, the blackness pressed hard from all directions. He couldn't breathe. Iron bands clasped around his throat; his eyeballs bulged from their sockets; and his eardrums burst like they were bleeding. It was over in a flash, but that couldn't have come soon enough.
“—Again!” he popped to his feet almost immediately upon landing, turning in a circle and calling out for whom he assumed was the one that teleported him there. “Sora! Come out! I know it has to be you,” he summoned the Ancient Power, letting it roll through his body.
Alas, he realized Sora was not there. Two other shapes darkened the floor.
He went to stand over Aiden and Sage to see if they were dead.
Jaxen's message interrupted Sage's train of thought and he smirked at the challenge, but he'd already been looking for that mystery. This woman was unknown. And of course was the first thing Sage started looking into. But he was coming up empty. It was like she didn't even exist. And it was frustrating.
Already one step ahead of you. But I'm coming up with shit."
Aiden dragged him along. It was nice to be wrapped around Aiden. But he still felt useless.
The internet was spotty but he was able to boost it a little and get a decent signal. They went on about the sights they were seeing. Sage only listened enough to catch their locations and bring up information and save it for later. He tried to grab snapshots of things of interest. But he didn't have his camera out and the eye sight was a poor substituted, but it was all he had right now.
He should invest in some cybernetics to help with the physical world, a microphone and a camera. A few external pieces that worked remotely. He smiled at the thought and sad he hadn't thought of it earlier.
Aiden picked a lock and they were all inside the mound before they knew what was happening - or maybe Jaxen did. There was a blip and a gut wrenching feeling. And in the next moment Sage rolled over and lost his breakfast. The abrupt cut off of his feed and the motion itself of landing - landing? - had made Sage's stomach roll. There was no internet here. Nothing. Sage felt the processor looking for a signal but it just kept searching. "Where the fuck are we?" Sage stood up and frowned.
Aiden’s eyes opened slowly. A blazing pain throbbed at the back of his head. He vaguely recalled the cave and then the strange fall. Had the ground collapsed upon them? The Mound had been excavated decades ago, but the structure had reportedly remained intact. Then again, the gate had been locked. Aiden had assumed it was to keep out vandals or those without a tour guide.
The sky above shimmered with a strange, thick haze. How had they gotten outside? And why did the clouds have such an opalescent tone to them?
With an effort, Aiden sat up and groaned loudly. He closed his eyes and rubbed at the sore spot on the back of his skull. Did Jaxen know how to Heal with the Power? Aiden chuckled despite himself, if Jaxen possessed the skill it was unlikely he would use it to aid Aiden.
“What the fuck just happened?” He called out as his eyes opened back up, taking stock of his surroundings. Jaxen and Sage seemed fine, apparently Aiden had been the only one to take such a tumble. Ethelinda was nowhere to be seen.
They sat in a large stone chamber, glittering walls rising high into the air and the ceiling opened to that strange sky. Raw gemstones and precious metal ores dotted the room. There was light here, enough to see by, but no visible source save the sun-less sky. Thirteen doors lined the round room, leading off into dark tunnels. There was nothing else remarkable about this room that Aiden could see. There was no possible way this room was located beneath the mound, not with that alien sky.
Aiden staggered to his feet and walked over to Sage. He looked his boyfriend over, checking for any serious injuries. Sage, thankfully, had no visible wounds. Aiden took him into his arms and cooed into his ear, “You’re okay? No pains or anything? Fuck… Where the fuck are we?”
A rustling sound came from one of the many doors and Ethelinda came into the circular room, looking completely normal. Aiden felt himself tense. He opened himself to the Power and held on to the raging storm of energy, ready to pounce at the slightest hint of aggression from the woman. She had something to do with this, Aiden wasn’t sure how, but why else would she tackle them so? And what of that strange hood that had enveloped her head? Where had it gone? What was it? What was she?
Too bad Aiden and Sage were alive. It meant Jaxen now had to figure out how to shove three people out of snake land rather than just himself. If shit went much farther south, every man for himself was going to be the order for the day.
His gaze followed Aiden’s upward to find a distinctly different ceiling than he recalled previously. The sky churned pearlescent white-gray in a way that stood the hair on his arms. Naturally, Aiden had questions, and just as typical, Sage was useless with answers. Guess Snakeland didn’t have wifi yet.
Sora explained that the reason she plucked Jaxen from the realm of sanity and dropped him into the fierce bizarre was to rescue him. What motivation drove Ethelinda to the same cause? Jaxen and Aiden were both Ancient Ones, but while Aiden was a damsel, none of them were in distress. Did some danger lurk beneath the Hill? A trap they walked into? They met Ethelinda at the Giant’s Causeway, there was no way she could have known they’d wander into potential danger?
Jaxen turned in a circle, not liking the height of the tower walls. No stairs led toward skyward freedom. Suddenly, through a door that opened on its own, slithered the sultry Ethelinda. She looked completely unchanged from before, but Jaxen saw through eyes that colored the world for what he knew it to be. He swallowed, imagining her skin swirling into scales and the globes of her eyes splitting to black slits, hoods spanning shadows that nearly reached his feet.
He hadn’t realized he was backing up until bumping into the stone of the tower wall. There, he wrapped his arms about himself and spat out demands with a quivering voice. “Why bring me here again?! I did what Sora said. I did it!” Heart pounding, eyes flared wide, Jaxen snatched at the Ancient Power, and with a roar of anger and fear, flung an orb of fire in her direction. Then, while the others ducked or were incinerated – he didn’t care – he ran through one of the doors, seeking frantic escape.