Javal had just finished talking to some city officials and was walking quickly making his way through Sol City. He had been contracted by the city to help raise its defenses by patrolling around the Black Spire area making sure nothing out of the ordinary was going on.



He made his way over to the Black Spire alongside his trusted retainer Nadia Sadrine and his scarecrow squire Bootsamon.



He was told to stand guard at the Black Spire while he waited for his patrol partner that was assigned to him by the city. He was warned that he should be looking out for a myriad of small problems. Some wild animals had taken residence nearby, sightings of scorched ones, and some rebellious teenagers invading the space and vandalizing the area.



Although it had been abandoned the city still wanted to keep it safe for the sake of city pride and historical value.



He was excited to meet his patrol partner, perhaps it would be a new friend or maybe even an old one.



He stood around for a bit taking in the scene and then sat on the floor. He started playing i spy with Bootsamon while Nadia stood around observing their surroundings,

Even as an adult it can be hard to ignore the stories you've heard since childhood which is why Leandros wasn't excited about working The Black Spire. He let out a sigh as he read the request from his study in Bluescale Manor. The knight folded the papers back up and tucked it into a pouch on his adventuring belt before he stood up. Time to don the armor again.

As much as he disliked it, it made sense why he was one of the few requested. Not many people had experience or working knowledge of the undead and how to dispatch them, he did. While most of his family's history is as dragonslayers, they've also made work of zombies and liches as well.

"Do you want me to come and hold your hand in case you get scared?" Apogee teased as she helped tighten the straps on some of the armor.

"Very funny~ I think I can handle this one, it's not like the tower has been taken over again. Just patrols and tips."

"Of course, a simple request always goes exactly as planned."

"I can hope can't I?"

Apogee just smiles and pulls him down for a kiss before handing him his halberd and seeing her knight out the door. Leandros heads to the stables to get Byrr and start the trek across the city to the Black Spire. Hooves clop against the streets and the light jangle of both his and the horse's armor ring out in a dull little melody.

Eventually he makes it to the area, taking in the fact that guard patrols seemed to thin out the closer he got. Well....that's problem number 1 solved. Actually patrol the area if you want to keep it safe. He then spots Javal and gives a nod.

"I see, you're the other they pulled into this? I'm surprised the Crown would call in outside help, but it also makes sense. Resources are stretched thin in this city."

Javal perked up once he saw that his guard duty partner would be his old friend Leandros; he hadn't seen the knight in a while.



Javal bows at Leandros and then says, “Yes, Sol City hired us to help you guys out and because of that I’m here to help”.



He points at his two retainers and the bow towards Leandros, “Bootsamon and Nadia can patrol around the entrance area here in case of any suspicious figures entering while I and you can go through the woods nearby and investigate any disturbances. I heard from a city official that there have been many issues from punks vandalizing, cultists activity, and other miscellaneous trouble”.



Javal waits for Leandros’s response and turns right and begins walking west into the woods as he continues to walk he decides to catch up with Leandros, “So Leandros how have you been doing? Where’s Apogee and the rest of your crew? Have you gotten any stronger?”.



Javal then stops and lowers down motion for Leandros to do the same as he hears a couple of people walk by talking and kicking rocks around Javal then hears a faint mention of starting a fire once they meet up with the rest of their group.

"A day off so to speak." He smiles and dismounts from Byrr, putting a hand up when the others bow with a little laugh. "No need to bow, this might actually be where my title matters, but being a lord is just a title."

The knight puts his hands on his hips as he looks towards the Black Spire. When was the last time he actually visited this place? Probably not since he was a teen and dared to go inside. It looked just as old and decript then.

"I admit, I don't know, I don't often think about. Strength is not an easy thing to measure, true strength that is.....In any case, the rumors are a bit worse than that. If it was just that, then the city would not have asked for help. Last I heard they are worried about undead in the spire again. Nothing all that troublesome, but something the average guard can't handle."

And most didn't want to in the first place, but that remark he keeps to himself. The undead were troublesome to fight he would have to admit that. In any case, unless there was some sort of super necromancer inside, this should take them an hour, maybe two tops.

“Yes in a sense”, he chuckled, “Hopefully we find something tough to fight to keep us entertained”.



Nadia and Bootsamon nod before setting up camp to wait for any coming threats waving goodbye to the others as they leave.



Javal nods as Leandros answers his question, “Yes I can understand being busy and not having strength at the top of your head however that is for me at least something that I think about a lot. I have gotten stronger since the last time we met. I have fought in so many friendly sparring matches against other fellow adventurers since our last match where you beat me”.



Javal then shifts back to speaking about the patrol there on, “Yes I did hear about that in passing I thought we should leave that part for last checking inside of the spire before ending the day. However I think quickly patrolling the area around the forest would be a good idea", he says, following some tracks of a strange creature that the unruly teens were messing around with earlier.



Javal stops and takes a closer look, noticing there seems to be a strange dark energy coming from it.



He then turns to face his friend, “Hey Leandros what do you make of this”, he hears a loud rustling in the bushes in front of them and then a roar.

"I can appreciate the warriors who strive to improve in that way, it's never a bad idea to test yourself against others...I suppose it has just never been something I really concerned myself with....I only agreed to our spar cause it seemed like a good moment to teach you folly of being so overly brash." He laughs softly as they walk. "Though I can already tell you've improved a lot, had you been the same man I met then, I imagine you would have already charged in."

There is another little laugh as they entire the grounds of the Black Spire. Rusty hinges creak and groan as the slightest bit of pressure is put on them. Everything around here seems to radiate that dark energy, this place does not skimp on feeling cursed and scorned by the gods.

The knight looks to the bush, moving the branches aside to reveal the creature. Below is a hideous kind of rabbit, twisted and grotesque, making the loud call but another pass with the hammer reveals it to be an illusion.

"Interesting...." He looks at the empty space a moment before looking up to the windows, for a brief moment believing he saw something move. "Harmless enough....likely meant to scare people away, but that means someone is inside and doesn't want anyone else coming in. I would wager they have other traps and tricks waiting for us. Be on guard."

Javal smiles and then says, “That’s understandable, I just want to be stronger than I was before and stronger than I’ll be. That spar of ours did teach me a lot. I've had to fight other fighters without using my magic and our fight helped me understand how to avoid those mistakes. I still have a long way to go, and I wouldn’t mind having another spar with you or getting some training after our patrol if you’d be okay with it”.



Javal looks around the black spire and notices its ruined appearance he says, “Man if this wasn’t so unkempt perhaps this great area of remembrance could even be a bustling part of Sol City I hope they do work on reconstructing this place”.


He then turns and takes out his katana ready to slash at the new oncoming threat sending small dark energy he sends out a slash before he can even see what he attacked.



“Nooooo”, he yelled as he noticed it was a small cute bunny and he fell to the floor, “What have I done?”.



He then takes a closer look at the rabbit and notices it was just an illusion he jumps back up and says, “Whoever would do such a thing around here? We do have to take a look around and clean this place up from all of the troublesome punks”.



Javal then walks into the black spire barely pushing the double doors before one of them falls off its hinges and the other lets off a loud eerie screech.



“Well then that’s a great omen to begin in let’s get started” and he walks into the darkness of the first floor awaiting the start of the trek up the spire.

"If it wasn't such a historical site, I imagine the city would've razed it to the ground by now....Superstition and fear keep them from doing anything, but walling it off. It's strange by keeping it so locked off, it seems to just attract the trouble they are trying to avoid."

He offers only a small laugh as Javal fires off at the illusory rabbit, the man was certainly reactive. A good thing when channeled in the right direction and he could tell the fellblood was aimed in the proper fashion.

"Let's see what's inside, you might not need my training." Leandros smiles broadly as he watches the door practically break in half. "I'm honestly surprised it didn't break when you looked at it....This building might honestly be a public risk at this point....let's clear it out, then I have a petition to write to the king to have this building inspected."

The knight follows after Javal and into the Spire. It's strange, crossing the threshold into the tower is almost like entering another world. The outside noise of Sol City disappears and seems to be absorbed into the oppressive silence of the building. The first floor is covered in nothing but debris and dust, spiders crawl around the floor and skitter into dark corners as the light from outside spills in through the broken door.

Javal says as he steps into the first floor and its darkness, “This place looks so inviting and magical perhaps in a dark way but still amazing either way I wish somehow they’d fix this place up. Walling it off from the people and just because of some little fear is wrong. I agree all it's doing is kicking up the wrong crowd like whoever made that devious evil rabbit illusion from earlier. I’d even be willing to come and repair this area on my own time. It seems like just a shame to leave such a cool-looking area so disheveled. Although I may not be from Sol City I still take pride in Charon as a whole from a person who was born and resides in it".


Javal begins coughing slightly as he finishes speaking Dust enters his throat, “I should’ve brought some water this place needs some good dusting ages ago”.



As Javal looks around the room not noticing anything dangerous or interesting in particular he says, “Alright let’s look for the stairs for the second floor so we can keep going”.



He then begins looking around, lifting debris off the floor until he shouts for Leandros, “Hey Leandros I think I found the stairs or at least where they should be”.



He then points to a set of broken and destroyed stairs along the wall as well as a large chunk of hanging stairs above them and a hole where the second-floor entrance would be.



“What should we do?”.

"The dust is likely the most dangerous thing here." As the knight confidently strides forward, the flowing of his dragonleather cape would send up more dust in his wake. He collects some matches and grabs a torch from a sconce to light it and give them a little bit to work with.

Even with a light source, the darkness is heavy around them. This place really does live up to its name it seems. A careful eye is turned to the various doors and spaces around the first floor....nothing of note standing out unfortunately. A communal room or two, storage closet, everything broken and worn down to be certain. He let out a sigh as he looked over towards the stairs.

With how loudly the wooden floorboards groaned under his weight, he wasn't exactly enthused about traveling higher. Who knows how long it would be able to bear the knight before giving way.

"Whoever is hear has already proven themselves to be fairly adept at illusions, if something seems off or insurmountable, I would test and see if it truly is even there before worrying about it."

As he walked, Leandros would shift things around with his feet. There could always be lower levels, glyphs, traps, anything really hiding somewhere in this mess.

Javal looked in relief as Leandros was able to light up a torch and guide their way into the spire further, he looked around the area still being sort of difficult to see even with the added source of light. The debris where he saw a set of stairs were destroyed he didn’t have a clue on how they could get up but thankfully Leandros was able to find another one leading their way up with his torch. Javal walked behind him slowly and carefully up the stairs however during the third step up he broke the floorboard under him.



“Darn it this staircase is so fragile they need to get this replaced as well", as he continued walking up many floorboards were broken due to all of the weight on them as well as just the general fact that they were quite old.



As the two stoop walking up and arrive at the second floor Javal looks around noticing the walls being filled with strange runes some seeming old and matching the building’s theme, and others that seemed strange and out of place some seemed to paint signing off punks names and other seem to be eerie and filled with cultists imagery.



Javal shouts over to Leandros as the spots something concerning, “Hey Leandros I think I found something strange”, and points over to a wall filled with fresh-ish looking blood stains and scratches around the hallway.

The second story is bright with paintings and sigils.

"Nothing in this place is likely to be replaced, no carpenter or stone mason in the city wishes to touch this place....and those that do charge more solars than it cost to build the castle." He sighs as he is able to just barely scoot around one of the holes in the starts to find himself on steady ground.

This place would be the death of him, he was sure of it. The knight looks around at the second floor....it seems an odd repeat of the first at the moment. He peers over the railing a moment just to confirm they had actually traveled up a floor.

"Well....either this necromancer is working on something newer than he's used to or there might be something worse about." Leandros heads over and scuffs the stains with a boot just to make sure it is real and it is blood, not something else.

"There may be a monster on this floor...and given how we travel I doubt it will be surprised by us." The pair of men stare down a long hallway of doors. Each one could be hiding the monster so heading forward was dangerous, but so was standing in place.

Javal nods at Leandros’s remarks, “Yeah you’re probably right let’s keep our eyes sharp here and starts walking down the hallway slowly and quietly with his katana unsheathed and ready to be brought down on any hidden foes or monsters. He swung twice in case anything was in front of him hidden and about to ambush him but nothing came or seemed to be there.



“Heh, maybe whatever’s blood we see is probably already dead or on some other floor”, Javal says as he continues walking forward.



He opens a door nearby and tries to look around the room for anything suspicious. He only finds bits and pieces of broken library cases on the floor and torn-up books with painted-on symbols of red eyes scattered about the room.



He leaves the room and decides to keep looking around all the while a mysterious figure looms at the end of the hallway.



Suddenly as Javal walks up to the room across from him and is about to turn the knob to open another door a Choldrith appears from its hiding place at the hallway's corner and spits a web at him and the rest of the hallway and sounds out a quick ice spike.

Leandros watches as Javal dodges the web, stepping in immediately behind him to swipe upwards with his halberd cutting the monster down the midsection. The tough outer shell prevents it from being an immediate killing blow. He grits his teeth as it chitters at both of them before retreating towards the darkness.

"Hurry before it has a chance to escape again." Leandros trusts Javal, the man proving himself fairly quick and much more adapatable in a fight. His arsenal of magic and ranged options might provide a better chance than Leandros barreling in himself and falling into a deeper trap.

He keeps his eyes turned to the shadows, what else could be hiding here? This thing isn't native to Sol City and especially not to cities like this. Something brought it here....but who? But perhaps more importantly, why?

Javal has barely enough time to open the door that he was about to open in front of him and avoid the terrifying web attack ice spike combo that the Choldirth that was previously hiding in the dark threw at him. He hurriedly opens the door back up and springs into action with his katana in hand and his eyes looking for the monster only to find Leandors cutting into its midsection and escaping back into the darkness.



He yells at Leandros, “I got this, this beast won't escape on my watch” and slams both of his green glowing fists into the ground, summoning large thorny vines springing up from the floor. To the roof of the floor they were in. He stepped back admiring his work as he heard the choldirth screech and he looked into the nettles to see it trapped within the small beetle forest.



“Huzzah have at thee foul beast Just hold still so I can kill you”, he says lifting his sword in the air ready to throw it into its head.



The beast roars out as it opens its mouth enraged and fires a purple ray of wounds towards the two adventurers across from it.