The confiscation of Gwynevere Grim's clothing can be used for redistribution and selling in our boutiques. If not, it can be sent to the lower city, where the nomages can use her dreadful clothing as whatever the poors do with clothing.
Whatever language is on the cover of her shirt, it is crass. We will replace it with something more appealing to young elven teenagers. We will switch the humans with elves, keeping the design consistent with their original appearance.
The rest of her clothes are inoffensive. I imagine there won't be much difficulty in convincing anyone to wear them.
In her pocket, however, was a little white box and some weird twinned snakes that talked whenever they were inside the white box.
It played some of her people's music, it seems. This is an excellent discovery. This is why I write to you, Mr. Waterborne. I believe we have a potentially lucrative opportunity on our hands.
Note from Kelvin sent to Lazlo Waterborne.
------------------
Kindread roamed the halls of the Cindered Archives.
The walls were a deep crimson, tinged with an ashy black from the Red Death. The smell of corpses hung in the air, combating the overwhelmingly pleasant scent.
He covered his face with his shawl, casting an incantation to enhance its purifying properties, even as the air tasted of sulfur.
Red skeletal corpses littered the hallways, most holding an item or maybe running from something. Regardless, they all perished.
Every Dyad, Whisperer, Mage, Scholar.
Dead.
This view was increasingly common in every archive he visited. They could've all been called the Cindered Archives, far as he was concerned, but that was not his objective. He has spent a few months teleporting to every archive in search of evidence of the first Whisperer, Vecro.
The only caster he knew that could answer whatever this red mist was.
Although the air tasted foul to anyone within the Red Death, unless something else lingered, it always smelled familiar.
The Red Death had a distinct odor, varying from person to person.
To Firedeath, it smelled of the flower fields of the Kosmairian Estate.
To Stonefist, it smelled of the hot springs of the Blackened Mountains.
But to Kindread, it smelled of his wife.
Mostly, it was the faint scent of whatever clothing she had worn after washing it. Sometimes the scents subtly changed between locations.
It was as if the Red Death knew she never used the same scents consistently, and it was feeding off his memories of that fact.
The thick red mist sometimes spewed creatures that Kindread had never seen before. Often being amalgamations or damned reconstructions of creatures in which he was familiar, but could sometimes barely recognize—a head where an arm was, six legs instead of four, for example.
The monsters were always deranged and violent. They terrified him. Kindread was forced to strike them down so they could never return.
As he continued through the decrepit halls, Keceo shook beneath his feet. Kindread readied himself as a creature, the mix of a shadowflame and minotaur, came crashing through a wall, spewing onyx flames with every step.
The creature hadn't noticed Kindread. The Whisperer prepared a water spell. He could drown the beast with an inescapable tidal wave. Yet, he decided to use something more precise.
He started with a ball of water, which appeared red in this mist. He then pressurized the spell until it was the size of a pebble. Then he enhanced the spell's speed by supporting a wind current that gently pushed the fog away and set up a slipstream to carry the bolt of water.
He released the spell, but the creature turned at the last possible moment, going through the top of its lion-shaped skull and shattering all four of its horns.
It bleated like a goat being consumed by a predator. It charged at him. Kindread shot six more water missiles, piercing its flaming body. Blood spewed as it slowed down after every hit. It was pierced twelve times before it came crashing to the floor.
Kindread silently stepped to its corpse before engulfing it in a green flame until nothing but ashes remained.
"Smaller than normal," Kindread muttered as he stepped past what used to be a fifteen-foot abomination.
He hadn't known how or why those creatures existed. But they always sounded demented and pained, as if their actions weren't their own. Kindread figured he was putting them out of their misery.
After searching for quite some time, he finally reached the secret library, where they kept all the hidden texts and the most important documents. Even veteran Dyads hadn't known of its existence, so one could imagine his surprise when the room was littered with red-stained skeletons.
He approached the shelves. The spells protecting the documents had been shattered, and they were all stained a blood-red. He unfurled a document, and its writing was barely legible. He opened books, and some crumbled to scraps under his touch.
"What is this miasma..." he said softly as he passed the third shelf, entirely consumed by the Red Death.
He reached the end of the room, where a body sat clutching a golden tome that seemed untouched by the Red Death. It glittered gold, as if the sun shone upon it, somehow, within the depths of this archive.
The skeleton holding the tome was surrounded by other corpses as red as the mist itself. Kindread pried the tome from his red, bony fingers. He flipped the tome over.
"Gods..." he muttered before coughing in surprise. It was unlike any tome he had seen thus far. "Vecro?"
The cover's face bore a resemblance to the elf he was searching for. It was beautiful as he was, the frustratingly handsome, arrogant asshole that he was.
Kindread opened the tome, but it started screaming.
"Tallboreign! Tallboreign!"
The tome was in agony, it seemed. The beautiful face of Vecro was twisted into a mask of malice and suffering as it screamed continuously. It only uttered one word.
Tallboreign.
Kindread closed the tome, and the screaming ceased. He stood up but noticed a piece of parchment sticking out of the skeleton's mouth. He pried it from his jaws, snapping it in the process.
He unfurled the paper, and in shaky elven script, it read:
My associates and I are trapped under the Golden Sigil Archives. We are trying to hold off the mist, but we don't have time.
Vecro has vanished, and in his place was this tome. Shortly after, Darkbeyond had a vision of horrible… awful things. A red cloud of fog began to envelop everyone, slowly transforming them into vessels of torment and suffering.
The tome screamed a singular word.
Tallboreign.
One scribe repeated the name and burst into a ball of red flames. No matter what we did, we could not put him out. We watched as he turned to bones and ash.
Whatever this miasma is, this book is part of it, of that, I am sure. The mist has sapped my powers, and I cannot escape. We all wait here to die. Please take note of this…
The writing trailed off, becoming more chaotic as it progressed. Kindread pocketed the note and picked up the golden tome. It hummed in his hands. He opened to the first page, and again, the cover screamed.
"Tallboreign! Tallboreign!"
A note fell from it this time. Kindread opened it, and in chaotic elven writing, it read.
DO NOT SAY THAT WORD.
"Word. What word?" Kindread mumbled to himself, then he recalled what the tome was screaming.
Tallboreign.
The note continued.
I see it. I know the end of our people.
TALLBOREIGN. The red cataclysm. Relentlessly, it echoes between golden pages. All of recorded history has survived due to the diligent actions of my fellow Whisperers, but this is the end. Bear witness, to utter the name of Tallboreign is forbidden. Mentioning the events or any information regarding Tallboreign is forbidden. Let this document be the final written evidence of this cursed omen. Let us die peacefully in the eternal flame. May the whispers guide you… But we are deaf to Her calls.
The note continued on the back, even more chaotic.
There is no avoiding our future. The elven people are doomed. We are evil creatures. We have to be extinguished. This is our penance. Weep tears of joy.
The end is coming.
Tallboreign is coming.