The House that Time Forgot

[Κομμα]

This place certainly has a timeless feel to it, probably because technically time doesn’t exist here. All are welcome, but you may find a different version of you dropping by to the one you expected. Some people rock up here older than they are at present, some younger, and some manage to get through with no more than a few days’ worth of interference. But of course you won’t notice until you meet a long lost friend or a stranger who knows your life story. So gather round, everyone, and let’s synch diaries!

[Elindë]

[Yay! Thanks, Comma XD]

On one of the many corridors on the first floor, a door opened. The sound of a strange tongue filled the air but abruptly ceased as the dark haired Elf peered into unfamiliar surroundings. He made a grunt of surprise and the blond behind him leant over his shoulder into the space.

"Oh fantastic!" He said, sarcastically, "I knew there was something fishy about that door."

"Sire, I don't think we're in Dale anymore," the dark-haired Elf said, hesitantly.

"No fooling you is there, Galion?" Thranduil answered, still sarcastically. Galion didn't mind though; he could easily guess what his friend's feelings about walking straight into the Muses' Realm were, for that was the only place it could be.

"There's something wrong with this place, can you feel it?" Galion whispered, glancing about for danger as he was chivied out into the corridor.

"There's always something wrong with this place," Thranduil replied, "but yes, it feels like this house shouldn't exist, not even here.

"Well seeing as something's decided to bring us here," the king continued as he closed the door behind them, "we may as well have a look around, see who we find." He took a knife from his belt and etched two runes in the door. Galion watched, nervously, but followed when Thranduil loped off down the corridor to the one looking down onto the ground floor without complaint.

The huge butterfly which flew up to greet them startled Galion. He ducked out of its way as it circled round their heads. Thranduil watched it, apathetically: "Well, Hallen's here." He placed a long hand on the balustrade and looked down. Galion hurried to his shoulder and did the same. Below them they could easily see a young child, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The circling butterfly flew down to him and landed on his head. "But he appears to be a lot younger than before," the Sinda muttered.

Galion had narrowed his eyes, trying to read the words on a old brochure on the table by the foot of the stairs, "There's some form of writing on the cover; I can't read it."

Thranduil followed the Silvan's gaze: "It's English. You remember English, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" Galion snapped back, still in Sindarin, "I'm... just a tad rusty as all. I don't get as much practice as you. And you could have taught me how to read it but you never did. I asked you enough times-"

"Well," Thranduil cut in, "it says The House that Time Forgot." He pursed his lips and looked around the practically deserted atrium, "Sounds ominous, hm?"

[Κομμα]

[You're more than welcome! Erm...prepare for very long post? ^^; I blame Ergualph, he's a terrible attention hog...]

"Where are we going?"

"The dungeons!" Cornelius very nearly tripped over a severed head on the floor of the Dead Wood as he was dragged along. It moaned at him for help. "Just ignore the heads, they like to make a fuss whenever they see someone new."

"You are one of the sickest men I have ever had the displeasure of knowing." Cornelius said, now noting the severed, still moving body parts scattered about this part of the browned and decayed forest that probably belonged to hundreds of Ergualph's ghouls that had angered him somehow or other.

Aside from the sickest, Ergualph was also the most fickle man he had ever known--if he could even be called a man at this point.

"How flattering of you. I suppose your next question will be 'Why are we going to the dungeons?' It's because I found something."

"You...found something." Cornelius found the childish excitement in Ergualph's voice more than a little unnerving; things Ergualph found exciting were rarely ever particularly good.

"I found something."

"What precisely have you found?"

"A door!"

Cornelius sighed laboriously. One thing he despised was not knowing what was going on around him, and this was certainly one of the cases. He had been temporarily de-aged back into a living being, wrenched out of his main lab in Cerran Meadows in the middle of a very important conversation with Ferros by the practically giddy necromancer and dragged first through the Old World, and then right into the accursed Dead Wood through a strange orange portal, and was now being taken to the Scarred Man's very own dungeons by the Scarred Man himself to be shown a door.

There seemed something very wrong with this entire situation.

"I drew the plans for these dungeons myself. I know them up and down, top to bottom, wall to wall, and this door did not appear in any of those plans. Now, what's behind the door, you ask?" Though he hadn't asked, Cornelius remained silent. Once Ergualph started, it was difficult to stop him. "I have absolutely no idea!" The old man was beginning to have a little trouble holding his temper. "I do know that it has the Wizard emblem engraved into it, along with some of their script. Now, as you know, I am a sorcerer, a necromancer, and a magician; I was not born with magic, and am thus not one of those love-and-compassion-and-equality-spewing moronic Wizards. That, my youthful apprentice, is where you come in."

"I have not been your apprentice for centuries."

"Once an apprentice, always an apprentice." Perhaps it would be best to simply not to argue.

They stopped shortly at a large trap door guarded by two particularly huge orcs with spears at least twice Cornelius' height; and for the first time since he had been dragged away from his research, he was glad to be in the company of the company of his mad acquaintance, for these beings wouldn't obey Cornelius alone. Ergualph spoke to them briefly in their native tongue, among the languages Cornelius didn't understand; though he did catch the gist of it in Ergualph's thoughts, and as expected, the orcs guarding the gate to the dungeons catered to their emperor's request and heaved the doors open. In an instant, Cornelius was being led down the stone stairs at the other side of the trapdoor.

The door was almost precisely at the foot of the stairs; it had been reported to him, Ergualph informed Cornelius as he examined it, by a guard on a regular run. It certainly hadn't been there before, so whatever it was doing there now was absolutely beyond him.

"Perhaps it had something to do with Tim. Tim likes doing this sort of thing. He seems to think it comedic."

"Themaes," Cornelius corrected absently, looking around the edges of the door, examining the stone handle that seemed to be carved from the stone of the door itself, totally nonfunctional.

"He lets me call him Tim."

"That's because you're practically his little princess, isn't it?"

"Stop being such an old crab. Can you open it or not?"

"Probably." Cornelius looked over and crossed his arms. "Just how much would you like it to be opened?"

"Ah. Payment." Ergualph nodded. "How about a compromise? You open the door, I don't sic my entire army on you, turn you into a ghoul, lop your undead head off and stick it atop my most kingly golden scepter so it can watch as I personally see to the slaughter of all your half-goat friends in Kreios." He smiled as amiably as if the compromise were a perfectly reasonable one; and to Ergualph, it may truly have been. "How's that sound?"

"Would Mistress approve of that?" The smile was wiped from Ergualph's face almost instantly. "I do this for you, you're doing scouting work for me in the Realm--stop that!" Ergualph had started groaning as soon as the word 'scouting' came up. "You agree or I leave, unharmed, and you get to keep wondering what's behind that door until you find another Wizard for an acquaintance."

For a long moment, Ergualph was silent, eying Cornelius shrewdly through his icy eyes. His next spoken words were equally shrewd. "If I lose any limbs out doing your dirty work, you're growing them back for me."

"Done." He had grown Ferros an entire body; limbs were nothing.

"Oh, heavens..." Sighing, Ergualph ran a hand back over his chestnut hair. "Fine.... Just get the damnable door open already, would you?"

It was scarcely little work. A simple sealing spell that, when it was broken, melted the door handle down into something properly functional; it was still made of stone, but it had a hinge and could properly turn. Cornelius stepped back and waved a hand at the door. "There you are."

"All right." Ergualph nodded. "Good. Then go on." He nodded at the door himself.

"I'm not opening it. You're the one who wanted it opened so badly. And if your friend Tim put it there, then it can't be anything bad." Yet Ergualph didn't look so certain, and Cornelius couldn't blame him. He felt a little energy leak through from beyond the door once the seal had broken, and it was a very distinctive energy; and he knew well that there was as much in the realm that was harmful as there was benign. All the same, it was Ergualph's curiosity, not his own, that had dragged him all this way; and it should be Ergualph to open the door.

The necromancer frowned a little, crossing his arms, bringing a hand up over his mouth, scratching the bridge of his nose--as fidgety as a child. "All right..." He nodded, stepped toward the door, and placed a hand on the handle. "But you're coming too. I mean, you have to, after all. I leave, and you won't be able to walk through the Dead Wood alone, not with all the guard I have placed out there."

"Fine."

"Well, you're going in as well, so I suppose you wouldn't mind actually opening the door--"

"Fine," he snapped, and shooed Ergualph away from the large stone door. He took hold of the handle, twisted it, and pushed his weight against it; it opened much more easily than he had expected for something of its size, likely enchanted to weigh less than it should, and it sent Cornelius stumbling into the room beyond it; a hallway.

"Heavens!" Cornelius looked over his shoulder to see Ergualph watching from the opposite side of the door. "What are you doing looking like that?!" he demanded, almost accusingly.

"Like what?" Cornelius gave a pause at the sound of his own voice. There was an odd quality to it he couldn't quite place. "Would you stop stalling and get over here?!" he half-shouted. "It's just the Realm!" He knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt now; the energy was absolutely uncanny.

"Well what's the Realm doing in my dungeon?!" he demanded as though Cornelius were at the sole fault of its being there.

"I don't suppose you're going to find out if you plan to stay there." And with this, Cornelius turned to leave the door behind him, glancing at the doors down the corridor as he walked. He paused at one with a couple of runes carved in it; it looked to be quite recent. Curious, he tried the handle, but it wouldn't budge. "Hmm."

For now, he didn't worry of whether Ergualph would catch up with him. He could only stand the psychopathic necromancer for brief periods, and the time spent being dragged by him through the Dead Wood had been plenty enough for him. So he continued on down the hall, unaware of Ergualph stepping into the hall himself as carefully as if testing the depth of a pool of water; and Cornelius paused cautiously only when he saw ahead of him what appeared to be a couple of elves, wondering whether they had head his shouted exchange with the necromancer a moment ago.

There was real worry in Ergualph now. The moment Cornelius stumbled over the threshold, he was centuries younger, likely little older than thirty years, his hair long and light brown and tied back again, his previously bushy gray beard shortened into a much smaller goatee. Ergualph was unsure what that might mean for himself, and there was fear and worry equal to a certain hope within him. Far enough back, and he wouldn't be stuck within this wretched human state; but he would be mortal again, and if this was a lasting enchantment, then he wanted nothing to do with that end of it.

Frowning, he gathered up his courage and stepped through.

He felt no different.

This didn't relieve him much; Cornelius barely seemed to notice a difference in himself when he crossed over. Uneasy, Ergualph kicked the door shut behind him and waved a gloved hand at it; a few characters of capran alphabet appeared there, burned into the wood on this side of the door, and Ergualph strolled down the hall in the same direction the much younger Cornelius had gone in; though Cornelius was already out of his sight around a corner.

[Elindë]

"Are we just going to stay up here or are we going to say 'hello' to this younger Hallen?" Galion asked, though he was quite happy leaning on the balustrade up here.

But Thranduil held up a hand and hushed him; "Lasto."

Galion listened and heard what the other already had done. "Voices..."

"We are no longer alone."

Both turned at the same time and saw at the far end of the corridor, close to the door that they had come through, two others appear.

"See how they changed when they stepped through the door?" Galion asked. The Sinda nodded, his brow furrowed. "We should go," the dark haired Elf pressed. But Thranduil didn't turn to leave as he'd expected. Instead he followed Cornelius. Something at the back of his mind told him he'd met this person before, somewhere, somehow. Despite his misgivings, Galion followed without complaint.

[Κομμα]

Aware of being followed, Cornelius found more than a little discomfort in his inability to check the thoughts of his pursuers. Telepathy had never been any sort of an issue for him; it was, in fact, one of his strongest points, learned not long after his leaving the Academy and perfected over the following centuries. Still, he could only pick up the vaguest of things, such as the fact that they were following him.

He wondered for a moment where that imbecilic necromancer had gotten off to. If he became lost, it certainly wouldn't be any issue of his.

"Well, isn't this interesting!" Cornelius actually jumped in surprise, and scowled a little. He hated being surprised; somehow or other he hadn't picked up on the necromancer's presence.

Perhaps it was because he wasn't emitting that usual sickening aura of death that Cornelius had been scanning for.

"I presume I'm still human," he went on, with a definite note of disgust at this, "but there must be some change for what the place has done to you. So?"

"I'm not interested." Ergualph frowned at the note of hostility in Cornelius' voice. "In your age or my own. I presume that's what this is about?"

"Well..."

"As I thought. I doubt this is anything to do with Themaes if it exists in the Realm, even if it most certainly is his style. There are still other possibilities I'd like to investigate--"

"Oh, why does everything have to be a conspiracy with you? You should enjoy your youth while it lasts."

"That isn't funny."

Ergualph rolled his eyes and placed a gloved hand to his forehead dramatically. "You're such dull company! I wish I had left you locked in my dungeons. I'm certain Mistress could find a slightly more sociable replacement for you with no trouble."

The fact that he received no response decided instantly for Ergualph that he would branch off at the next turn he found; he would rather be in no company at all than dull company. He kept his eyes to the many doors alongside them in the wall, occasionally spotting carvings in others; it seemed the house had definitely been visited by others, whether they were here at the moment or not. The consideration crossed his mind for a moment of whether any of them had made it back or not.

"Wait a moment..."

Cornelius had been doing precisely the same thing, it seemed, for he stopped so shortly and crouched in front of a door that Ergualph very nearly tripped over him. Quirking one eyebrow, he looked down at the man, and at the letters carved into the door his eyes were level with.

"This is capran. There's a faun here. And judging by the height and crudeness of the carving, likely not a terribly old one."

"Oh really?" Cornelius looked up, and saw at once a difference in the necromancer as he examined the carving himself. His eyebrows were slightly thinner and longer, his eyes contained a slight glow to them, and his ears came to very slight points under his hair, almost unnoticeable had Cornelius not been looking for it due to the other odd features. The structure of his brow had changed slightly, but the same dark scar still spanned across his face. "Hmmm. Yes, definitely. Likely around ten to twelve. That's interesting."

"You look like a half-elf."

"Well, that's also interesting." The place had changed him much more significantly than he had imagined. Still, there was none of the old magic in him; he would have recognized that in an instant. He was as he had been nearing the end of his corruption. He sighed inwardly, then raised his eyebrows a little. "You look as you did when you threw me to the Agorian guard and you don't see me complaining about it."

Cornelius rolled his eyes and stood. "Perhaps if you weren't talking of genocide I might have been a little more considerate. Enough arguing; I'm finding that faun before it gets itself into any trouble it can't get out of."

"Oh, wonderful, a rescue mission..." Down the hall, Ergualph was fairly sure he could see a turnoff; hopefully he could lose Cornelius there.

[Elindë]

"They're trying to read our thoughts," Thranduil whispered to Galion, again in Sindarin.

Galion paled; "Right, we're going home. I knew this was a bad idea-"

"They really are-"

"You always say that."

"Just stop for a moment and I'm sure you'll feel it, too."

Galion sighed and stopped, to humour his king, but almost jumped out of his skin when he did indeed feel something pressing against his mind, like a searching finger.

"He has strong magic. The only reason he can't glean much is that our minds are veiled by our own magic."

"That so?"

Thranduil closed his eyes: Well obviously. "We haven't just survived a 2 millennia long occupation by mere luck, you realise."

Galion pursed his lips and felt foolish.

The Sinda zoned back into the conversation of the others to learn that one of them - the one he didn't think he knew - had found more markings on a door and had identified their maker as a faun. So there i]were[/i] more people here.

He cleared his throat as he saw the others about to disappear and finally spoke in English, though his lilt - particularly strong from not having spoken this language for a while - didn't make the switch obvious. "Strange place, is it not?" He said slowly, careful not to give anything away. "Before you disappear into the deep blue yonder I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to stick together. While I am certain we will annoy you as much as you will annoy us creatures from all realms and all times are being drawn here in the same way we are. No matter how strong one is this is reason to pause. There are dark creatures here already; the air has a tenseness I know all too well. In any case, mayhap a group of us can figure out what's is wrong with time in this place."

"What about Hallen?" Galion said, still speaking Sindarin.

"We can't exactly talk to him, now can we?" Thranduil replied, switching languages again, "And unless my instincts tell me false he shall soon be found by one more suited to watching after him than either of us."

Well they've told you some pretty detrimental lies in the past Galion thought, but kept this to himself.

oOo

It had been a long day, but the last hour had put the smile back on Wylofain's face and the spring back in his step. He dumped his robes on an armchair as soon as he stepped into his rooms and donned a coat from the coat stand. He poured half a glass of wine, downed it in one and wondered if he should refasten his tunic. He thought not; what could anyone possibly want of him this late in the evening? he replaced the glass on the table and ran a comb through his disheveled hair. As he did so he became aware that a tapestry that he'd previously paid no mind to was holding his attention.

It had been there since his father's time, and was fading to brown now. Discarding the comb, he walked slowly over to it and lifted it away from the wall. To his immense surprise he found a door behind it. To his even greater surprise he found that it still opened. Beyond it was a flight of steps leading down to another door. His father had warned him about such doors and staircases in his youth; while much of the palace was sound some of it was crumbling away. This could be an example of the latter.

Wylofain blinked as he found himself already at the base of the stairs with his hand on the doorknob. He turned it and slowly pushed. The door swung outwards onto a largeish atrium. The Elf's breath caught; he knew instantly where he was though he hadn't seen it for centuries.

He stepped through and span around, taking in the materials yet to be invented in his own world, the electric lights, the furnishings. "I thought I dreamt this place," he whispered. He caught his reflection in a mirror diagonally opposite - those amazingly large, perfect clear mirrors! - and winced. Before he did much else he'd have to straighten out his clothes.

The door had already shut behind him, so he wedged his brooch just above the bolt of the lock. There was a knack to dislodging it which would be easy for him but impossible for anyone else unless they were extremely lucky. With that thought, Wylofain strode away to see what he would see, hands automatically sorting out his various collars and redoing the clasps on his tunic as he went.

[Κομμα]

Ergualph whipped around first at the sound of a voice behind them; Cornelius had been distracted by something on the floor and was kneeling down once again. Were these elves? They certainly looked it, and yet.... His eyes darted between the two of them, taking in appearance more than the words of the English speaker, and decided with finality that they were not of his own world. This very nearly made him sigh.

He was glad Cornelius answered from his lower vantage point on the floor; Ergualph had hardly taken in a word of it.

"As much as I would like to figure out what is wrong with this place, I'm afraid I may have personal business to attend to here first...." Cornelius straightened out, examining a dark red liquid on his fingertip that hadn't been there before he knelt down. He looked at Ergualph meaningfully, and spoke quietly in a language he hoped the other man would understand. "I'm afraid I may know where this faun came from."

It had been some time since he had heard it spoken aloud, and it took Ergualph a moment to comprehend Cornelius's rather more fluent capran. "Mmm?"

"Those letters." Cornelius nodded at the door. "What do they say?"

Ergualph glanced at the door. "'O'nén'?"

"He was asking for help. I have a particularly bad notion of what this could mean--"

"You and conspiracies!" Cornelius rolled his eyes at Ergualph's outburst. "The odds that it's that brat are utterly astronomical. And if it is, I accept no part in it. None." Ergualph switched in an instant back to English, and addressed the two elves in much more hospitable tones. "My sincerest apologies for my apprentice; he's making positively outrageous claims. I for one am entirely for tracing this anomaly to its source."

Ignoring Ergualph, Cornelius turned his eyes back to the sparse trail of dark red blood on the floor. Whether it was Janus or not--and that he sensed both a faun and a satyr in the vicinity definitely made him suspicious that it was--there was still a sense of duty that he couldn't shake. There were many things about being youthful that he despised, and that sense of duty for things that had nothing to do personally with him were among them.

"Do what you will. I have an injured faun to search for."

There was still, Cornelius noted now that he was paying attention, an air of certain negativity around Ergualph, undoubtedly from his learning in that despicable, decaying magic of the draconites. He wondered whether their company would notice. Cornelius looked between the two for the first time, and his pale blue eyes lingered for a moment on the lighter haired of the two; he was certain he recognized him, but somehow his memories as a muse were vague. Likely again to do with the same reason he couldn't even get a glimpse into Ergualph's thoughts; his sudden youthful age.

Men who wished for youth were utter fools in his eyes.

[Elindë]

The corner of Thranduil's mouth twitched upwards as he saw the shadow of recognition in Cornelius' eyes. So he hadn't been mistaken then. Good; he hated it when he was.

"Of course; we understand," he said overly politely when Cornelius spoke, "One takes those whom one looks after for granted until they are gone. I wish you luck."

He inclined his head and then motioned for Galion to follow him. As they went their conversation switched back to Sindarin.

"We aren't going to help them look for their companion?" Galion asked.

"If we come upon it we shall direct it back to them but other than that it is none of our concern," was his king's reply, "we have our own small child to look after."

But when they reached the strange landing they found Hallen gone. Thranduil turned his back to the balustrade and leant on it in a huff: "Well that's just fantastic, isn't it?"

"We shouldn't have left him on his own." Galion said, also leaning on the balustrade but looking down into the atrium. Thranduil let his head roll back and looked up at the roof timbers high above. His brow furrowed but he said nothing. "We should look for him now, sire."

"Yes..." the Sinda said slowly, "we should. But before that, Galion; have you looked up recently?"

Galion blinked and followed Thranduil's gaze: "Spiderwebs, so what?"

"Huge spiderwebs."

"...And?"

"Well there are no giant spiders in the forest now, so what on earth are they doing here?"

Galion paled and stared wide eyed at the threads so ordinary to him now that he had failed to notice their significance.

"These aren't our spiders..." Thranduil added in the same, competitive voice. "Worlds collide here so who's to say all the entrants are friendly. And the webs are empty so either they are no longer living or they're here somewhere..."

"Those others; they said their acquaintance was injured..."

"Sod them. Where's Hallen?"

Galion was still looking at the webs, so when he realised what was going on he had to leap down the stairs after his master.

Hallen was oblivious to the consternation he was causing. He hadn't even met the Elves who were looking for him yet. But the white-haired figure who had appeared at the end of the corridor he was now wandering down, and had stopped, done a double take and cried something out seemed friendly. So the small child beamed as the gap between the two of them was closed.

"Hallen!" Wylofain exclaimed, unable to believe his eyes. "I thought I'd dreamt you up and all." He hurried over and knelt down so he was level with the small mage. He looked him over; "You haven't changed, though you seem younger. How strange... I suddenly find myself in a place I haven't seen for years only to find someone I knew many years ago is now younger..." He shook his head; when had this place ever made sense anyway?

He stood up and offered the mage his hand: "Come on then, Hallen; let us investigate this new place together." The mage willingly put his small hand in the Elf's larger one, and as they walked away Wylofain felt like the last time he had been here was only yesterday.

But as they mounted the top of a flight of side stairs, Wylofain felt light headed. Along the floor of the corridor was part of the trail that Ergualf and Cornelius were following.

[The spiders are just one of the creatures wandering around so if you wish add in anything you like. I hope bringing Wylofain and Hallen into what Cornelius and Ergualf are doing is okay...
I will get round to posting in the other threads; thinking of what to write.]