Dark Armor: Return to the Crypt

So, I tried a scene out the week before last and it didn't work. We're deleting that one and going another direction. Such are the perils of storytelling.

"Ah, there you are, Boy," said Dakrin Eld as Pallian clumped his way into transport room. "I sent the others on ahead." 

The Black Knight nodded. The guards had not yet returned to their posts here, but it was only a matter of small time, and the fewer people who saw the Elders -- let alone Ember and Ashmiren -- the better. If word of their presence got back to Amedin, it would be a disaster. 

"Come," said the elder, and Pallian walked with him to one of the circles. There was that brief moment of darkness, and then they were back in the crypt. This time, Pallian had not the smallest urge to discover what might happen if he moved during that brief moment of darkness. 

A moment later he was back in the antechamber to the crypt, the Black Knight's carriage still sitting where it had arrived. Ember looked up, and the ghostly ancestor beside it said, "You see? He returns intact."

Most of the elders he'd seen earlier were still here, though their presence was louder and cheerier than before: they knew how the battle had gone. Tybben was engaged in conversation with the Shadow of Edrias, but turned and made his way over immediately. "Forgive me, Lord," the hairless, dog-headed man said."I was just speaking to your mercenary." 

Pallian glanced at Ashmiren, though fortunately the armor hid his expression. He would have liked to rest -- he would have liked to give all of them a chance to rest -- but whatever Amedin thought about it he couldn't risk hiding here while his father and brother might still be standing to battle. If his father survived and learned that Pallian had stood aside -- for any reason -- the wizard-king would have him executed. 

So Pallian ignored Tybben and turned to Dakrin Eld, instead. "Any word of the wizard-king and the heir? Or the royalty of Edrias?"

Ashmiren arrived at his side, Ember a half-step behind her. 

"No, Champion," said another of the elders. This one had been a woman in life, sturdy and determined, and it was only the chill grey of her skin and the faint shimmer of mist around her that betrayed her current condition. "Several of us attempted to scry, but... something has happened to the city of Marinul, and we cannot see past it." 

"Doesn't help that this place limits our reach," muttered a short, wizened man beside her. "I swear the Crypt was built to serve as a prison as much as preservation."

Pallian frowned. "What can't you see past?" he asked, before Ashmiren could.