The Haunted Tower

"Scholar Maehnal" a faculty student said solicit, as she respectfully slightly bowed her head as a greeting. "I hope your travel was comfortable and safe"

"I think the words you are looking are cold and terrifying" Maehnal said, with his face still pale. "Riding a gryph isn't like anything I thought it was going to be!"

"Maybe for your return, we can arrange some horses" the student said with a smile.

"A carriage would be better. Neither I'm a good rider" the scholar recogniced.

As they put aside the ammenities, Maehnal looked around, impressed... probably, he would had a better perspective on the back of the gryph, but he was too worried holding on to the Wind Rider and closing his eyes to avoid falling to his doom to look at anything.

"Indeed it's an impressing sight" the Student said. Maehnal couldn't believe it, as he looked to the tall tower of unknown material and other enigmatic structures. "The Lost City of Humanity, Darahim" she added

Maehnal nodded, as he explored the structure with his eyes. Really, it didn't looked like anything he had seen the humans had ever built... and he was one of the few experts along Dahl'Aran, the City of the Wizards of the Coast, to be an expert in human studies.

They had mocked him for long, but he knew his time will come... and it did!!

... could have been some centuries earlier, thought, he told himself.

Maehnar and the student walked across the bridge in direction of the tower. Since the humans of the Holy Sargonic Empire had began their search of what was thought where the mythical Lost Cities of Mankind, built by the ancestors of the humans from the Sky Age, there was a very uncharacteristic peak of interest among the magicians of Dahl'Aran about humans, after humansrediscovered the first of the old cities of their ancestors...

Thought, he found it was a bit dissapointing that when Dahl'Aran organized an expedition to discover one of the Lost Cities precisely in North Ushaenor, they didn't counted on him. HIM! Maehnal, the Anthropologist!

... well, it's true he dedicated much of his studies to human languages and customs of contemporary humans rather than what the half-mythical Sky Age of humans... and that many mocked him for the futility of his studies, as human customs and languages seemed to shift so quickly between few generations...

... and probably the scandal with the great-great-great grandaughter of the archmage of the tower of light didn't helped, no sir...

But still!!

How could they have excluded him in the expedition that discovered Darahim?!

Discovered... that made Maehnal think of something.

"How come, nobody had discovered these ruins before? They have been here for about two millena and half!"

The student turned to the High Elven Anthropologist. "Well... it wasn't unknown-unknown... When we arrived, there lived two families of elven farmers. They used some of the animal pens."

"And how come they never reported something like this?!" Maehnal said surprised.

"There are plenty of ruins, of ancient, more glorious days" the Student said. "They thought these where yet other ancient elven ruins"

Maehnal was dissapointed. "So, we aren't among the first elves to visit these ruins?"

"Not completely. The farmers didn't ventured into the tower, or it's dungeons"

"...they never where curious about it?"

The Student stopped, shivering a bit. "They feel that something was wrong. Very wrong. With this tower. No one wanted to come closer... don't... don't you feel it?"

Maehnal, absorved as he was looking at the ancient ruins and the questions that raised them for him, hadn't really noticed it... but as she said it, he became more aware of his senses.

"... there..." Maehnal began to said, before fully realizing the scary feeling. "There isn't any Maná around!" For the first time on his life, he couldn't feel the magic of the world, the Maná auras that elves, demons and dragons used for magic.

"It's mutted." the Student said. "And the closer to the Tower, the worse it gets. The farmers suspected it was an ancient Dark Elven curse or some other evil doing of the Hakes from the time of the Elf Wars"

He had never seen this before, and was deeply worrying.  What were the implications of this?

A place without magic simply feeled... weird, the Antrophologist thought.

They arrived then to the door. Or where there had been the door, that the High Elven Expedition of Dahl'Aran first arrived, had to break it.

"Much of the tower was sealed. Airtight" the student said, guiding Maehnal. "An air that hadn't been breathed for over two millenia" they continued along the halls of the tower. Maehnal saw much equipment, but only a couple of elves working in the tower... and all of them looked nervous.

"There were so many interesting discoveries!" the student said. "Human relics of a forgoten age... a shame, we don't know what most of them are! They did marvels, when we arrived!"

Maehnal guessed, the student was surely an archeologist, or was doing a similar major in the Wizard College of Dahl'Aran.

"They did marvels?" he asked.

"They worked!" she explained. "And there where lights: lights, everywhere!!" she said, opening her arms. Maehnal looked around at the dark halls, only dimly lit by magic lights that twinkled agonically in that maná-less enviroment.

"...and what happened?" he wondered.

"We don't know. It's all dead now" she said, before recognicing, a bit embarassed. "We... we were a bit like childrens at first when we arrived, and we tried to turn on and try everything... but then, the lights fadded out, and finally died."

"Surely, it means the maná cores that gave them power were drained" the Anthropologist suggested.

"Our maná technicians think that too... but none of these human relics seems to have maná cores at all"

Looking around, Maehnal tried to imagine the tower with light... and then he noticed, that there weren't furniture. The halls didn't seemed to be built on a human scale -less an elven one-

"...If this was a city: where they lived?" he wondered.

"We aren't that sure anymore this was a city" the student said. "There isn't housing for an extense population, and we have only found a couple of rooms, all of them in the upper levels of the tower."

"Maybe this was a temple, and the population lived in houses made of lighter materials, that didn't survived the centuries or are buried in the tundra?" Maehnal suggested. The student raised her shoulders. "The rangers hadn't found anything, but we didn't had time to excavate or explore all the ruins, really"

They reached the center of the tower, and Maehnal could see it was built around a large well that went deep, deep down to the underground, and that opened itself across the tower, all the way up, to the sky. He became again dizzy, looking down the hole. The gryph ride hadn't helped him at all, to get over his fear of heights.

In his own, he doesn't even likes going into tall towers or near the edge of cliffs... then why it was so urgent his arrival, they sended Wind Riders for him.

"All of this is impressive, and I'm really glad to be able to see all of this" before the reports of the expedition, he mentally added. Everybody knew the Council of the Wizards of the Coast had send an expedition to find the Lost City of Darahim, but most thought they were send on a fools errand, and they where still wandering in the northern tundra aimlessly... "But WHY they called for me now?"

"It's not for me to reveal it to you... Archmage Thalanil will explain you, once we reach out destination."

"...and where it is?"

The student pointed to the top of the tower, as Maehnal feared.

"I'm afraid, is quite a long way up" she said, as she guided him to a diminute, endless staircase, that didn't seemed at all to fit the rest of the massive tower.

"I do wonder, how humans of the Sky Age did this everyday. We hadn't find other staircase!!" she said, as they began to climb. But as she turned back to Maehnal, seeing he hadn't followed her, she saw the Anthropologist was very interested inspecting an inscription in one of the walls of the staircase.

"Most interesting!" Maehnal said.

"What it is?" the student asked with patience, as the Anthropologist searched in his backpack for a book and some of his notes, and between staring at the inscription and quickly shifting throught the page of his books for the next minutes.

"Interesting, indeed!" Maehnal repeated. As he leaned closer to the inscription, the student saw he moved his lips, as if he tried to read it, concentrate.

"Do you understand it?" she asked, hopeful.

"I... I think I can" Maehnal said. "I would need to study deeper this... but these characters, and the language are indeed similar to some modern human languages... it have similarities with Tardic... or could be, Lataverican?" he looked again his notes. Noticing the confused look of the student, he explained. "Tardic and Lataverican are human languages: Tardos it's on Aels, one of the Five Kingdoms of the Northwest, and Latavericans are the human tribes that settled in southern Ushaenor, near the border lands of the Hake. It's most interesting the similarities their language share, as if they had a common root..."

He looked again at the inscription... "And we may have here the common root."

"And you can understand it?" the student said again.

"This is all preliminary, I will say" Maehnal said "But, I think it says... escaleras... de... emergencia... en caso de terremoto o incendio, no usar el... I don't know that word..." he said, looking again at his notes.

"What does it mean?"

"Oh? OH, yeah! That these are some sort of... Stairs, to be used on special occasions.. when it was time of great emergency or danger, it seems. Maybe they had some religious meaning, and they had to be used to try to placate their ancient human gods to avoid them sending catastrophes, like fires and... earthquakes? That's related to Earth, anyway."

"Earth?"

"Common place of origin of the human myths. Most interesting fact, all the foundational myths of humans have their ancestors to come from this magical land. Nobody have ever discovered it, but my theory it's that it was either in the eastern part of the continent of Zarhuy or maybe a sunken continent in the Yiss Ocean...

back to our text then, these weren't the main stairs... maybe that explains why they are so small!" the Anthropologist said with a satisfied smile...

... that soon was erased, as they had to climb hundreds of steps.

Soon, he was sweating -thought it didn't seemed to affect the student... oh, youth energy, Maehnal told himself!!

In a small landing, Maehnal was surprised to see a barren door, marked with several High Elven funerary markings, a crudely done christian cross as often he have seen karentian and Ushaverican christian humans used, along with some candles and written prayers. As he stopped, the student turned to see what delayed him. In her face, he could see she didn't wanted to be delayed there.

He raised his eyebrows in an inquisitive manner.

"That's where we found them". the student quickly said.

"Them?"

"The Humans."

Maehnal was confused for a moment. "There were living humans here?"

She shooked her head. "Sky Age humans... or their remains."

"It was a crypt then?"

"It looked like the living quarters of the tower instead" she answered, with a whisper. "As these chambers were hermetically closed, they were mumified..."

"A mumification ritual? How interesting!"

"It was natural" she said again in a whispering tone that begged to be answered in a similar manner. " Some of them where in their beds. We found a couple hugging each other... Most of them, where sitting along a table... Just sitting there, dead. On the table, many had wounds... self-inflicted, fatal wounds. A strange weapon was found in the hands of some, or near them."

"A Sacrifice ritual?" Maehnal wondered A suicide? but... why? "How many of them were?" he asked curious.

"We counted 17, before we sealed the room"

Knowing the inquisitive young wizards, this seemed strange. In his experience, they would want to prod, test and prove everything... Even more puzzling, as they, among the ones who more laughed of human superstitions, to paint a crude human cross on the door.

"Why you did this?" he asked pointing the cross, candles and written prayers. Most of the elves of Dahl'Aran he knew, didn't gave any importance to human mortality or their short lives -despise that Dahl'Aran and the whole Venerable High Elven Empire of the Whide Axis basically kneeled to the human Holy Sargonic Empire.

"...this place is haunted" she said.

If she wasn't so serious, he would have liked to joke.

"Haunted?"

"There are ghosts"

"Ghosts?"

"Human ghosts" she said, as she hurried him to continue climbing the stairs.

Human Ghosts? Maehnal wanted to laugh. He had been among countless human tribes, nations and peoples, and had heard hundreds and thousands of stories of ghosts, but he had never seen a human ghost. He smiled to himself. They really should have called since the beginning a expert on humans, rather than having young, impressionable elven students of only some decades old to believe in such nonsense!

"There aren't such things" he said with a confident smile.

"You will see" she said enigmatically.

Finally, they reached the last level of the Tower: Unlike the rest of the enclosed tower, there where windows: most of the glasses had survived millenia -surely as the tower wasn't made of stone but other material, these glasses were more resisten?-, but one had been broken by the pass of the centuries, so the room was naturally lit and was fresh: only then, he noticed how much he was tired of breathing the foul air of the tower.

As his eyes adapted to the light, he saw what he would descrive as a throne room... but the chairs were looking to the windows, rather than to the center of the room.

"Professor Maehnal. I see you finally join us" a voice said by his side. He well knew that voice. Specially after all the problems he had with the owner of it, in that scandal of him bedding his great-great-great grandaughter...

but really, she said she was 120 years old!!

"Archmage Thalanil! What a pleasure" He said. No point in discussing with the old coot, that he was just called three days ago by Wind Rider in absolute secrecy, and that he had the last two most terryfing days of his life, flying in a Gryf: he couldn't have been here sooner! Not unless some mage finally gets to invent teleportation, that old dream of all the greatest wizards of Dahl'Aran!

"Less talking, more working. I wouldn't have called for you, if it wasn't needed your help" Thalanil said, annoyed. He hadn't forgot the issue, Maehnal thought mortified. "There are much, much to translate, before the sargonic humans are breathing down our necks!"

"...sorry?" Maehnal asked, confused.  "the Holy Sargonic Empire were allies of the City of the Wizards of the Coast of Dahl'Aran... no? Why would they do that?"

Thalanil saw his puzzled look and growled. "We hadn't told them yet we have found the Lost City of Daharim." he explained. "Humans are looking with desesperation all over the world for these Lost Cities, and while they were desesperate enough to ask for our help finding them, they hadn't told us why they need to find them so badly. Everybody knows humans are looking for the Lost Cities of their ancestors -even the demons know!- but not why. And we want to try to learn the reason...

and maybe if we learn some handy tricks of ancient sky age human magic, it wouldn't hurt us.

But I'm afraid, humans writted everything down in their silly human scriptures and languages, and we can't ask some human experts to tell us what they say if we want to know the whole deal... and there are actually quite few elves of Dahl'Aran who have wasted their entire careers doing something as useless as learning human languages... so be helpful for once, and be the interpreter for our ghost."

Maehnal felt like he had been thrown a whole cart of information, as he hadn't reeally given much thoughts at the reason why humans suddendly develpped an interest for the ruins of their past, and he felt quite insulted as well for the archmage calling the studies of his life a waste... but...

Interpreter of ghosts?

What?

"What? They didn't told you of our haunting problem?" the Archmage asked.

"I... I just heard a rumour. Haunting problem?" he said, confused.

"It's not really a problem. He isn't dangerous or anything! -not so far, at least!-, but we can't understand a word of what he's saying... and like everything else in this tower, it seems that which each passing day he's fadding away, and before that happens we want answers."

Maehnal nodded: these news of ghosts, while unsettling, made him more curious than anything... Could he really talk to a human ghost of the Sky Age?

"We... we are supposed to wait to the night? Perform a ritual or something?" he asked.

Thalanil shook his head, and with a sign, ordered the elf student to advance to a small table. "Are you ready, professor Maehnal, for a direct communciation with the human other world, whatever it is?"

Maehnal nodded.

The Student then placed her hand over the small table... which light itself up, emerging a column of light.

Maehnal almost fell to the floor, as materialized from the light the figure of an elder human in weird clothes.

The ghost spoke, but Maehnal could only stare with his mouth open and eyes wide.

"Greet him, you bumpkin!" the Archmage said. He didn't seemed to be very impressed by the ghost -he surely had seen it many times-, and the student seemed uncomfortable, but not as struck as Maehnal.

As the ghost continued speaking, Maehnal gathered himself, and trying to identify the words, he presented himself.

But the ghost didn't seemed to notice him. He continued to speak.

Maehnal tried again to greet the ghost, to ask him who he was, what he wanted, why he was struck on this plane. He tried to remember different human rituals regarding how you should face one of the mythical ghosts of their stories... but the ghosts didn't seemed to have heard these ghost stories, and continued to talk.

Impatient, the Archmage asked: "SO?! What's he's saying? Can you maybe translate some questions I have to him?"

Maehnal fell silent, trying now only to hear instead.

the Archmage wanted to ask something again, but he made a gesture, asking for silence. He stood there for a while, listening. Then, Maehnal stepped back.

"He... he isn't talking to us" he said.

"What?" the Archmage asked.

"I don't think he understand us."

"That's precisely why I brought you here, you BUMPKIN!! To translate!! But of course, you were going to be useless, AGAIN!" Thalanil said, angry

"I mean, he can't hear us!" Maehnal answered, irritated. "He isn't talking to us!

he's giving a speech...

...a

... a warning"

"a warning?" asked curious the Archmage.

While they talked, the disembodied voice of the ghost was sounding more and more cracked, and the the light of the Ghost tililated... until finally fadding away. A last time, the distorted words of the ghost echoed in what Maehnal had called a throne room.

"What was he warning us about?" the Archmage repeated.

Maehnal stared where the ghost had dissapeared.

"Don't turn it on."