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TRAS Chapter 68: Noué Areygni
🕑 Added 2025-02-11 13:05:58 +0000 UTCIt was almost funny. Almost.
Noué must have thought it was pure gold, shoving her flattened corpse in her audience’s face right after they watched her painted figure ‘hit the ground.’
Unfortunately, it was a mite too distasteful for Ailn. More to the point, it was throwing off his thinking. The woman had pulled out all the stops to unnerve whatever intrepid puzzlers had gotten this far, and even he let out a nervous chuckle.
The mummy’s mouth hung open. Rigor mortis had pulled her leathery jaws apart, and Noué looked like she was screaming. Reflecting the faint light from Ciecout’s artifact, her teeth still had some shine to them.
Renea’s scream brought Ciecout rushing down, who promptly let out his own scream and began frantically muttering prayers. Moments later, Kylian came sprinting in, sword already drawn, his holy aura manifesting.
“Good Lord…” Kylian paled at the sight of Noué’s body. “Why…?”
“It’s not worth thinking about,” Ailn said. He glanced over at Renea. “Are you alright?”
“...Ye… Uh…” Renea’s eyes were glued to the mummy. She sounded like she was gasping. “Yeah…”
“Renea, turn around,” Ailn said firmly. He lightly grabbed her shoulders and turned her away from the mummy slowly.
He hadn’t realized at first, but she was hyperventilating. She was just doing it quietly. Ailn wasn’t sure if that was her intrinsic fear response, or the result of her suppressing it, but at any rate the sight of Noué’s corpse had done more than just give her a little jumpscare.
“I’m not that…” She gulped. “Scared. I’m not.”
“I know you’re not.” Ailn tapped the shoulder of Ciecout, whose fear had largely subsided. “Can you watch her for a bit and calm her down?”
“R-right. Just breathe easy, Lady Renea.”
Now he could focus on the puzzle.
Kylian was already trying to solve it. He’d felt more indignation than fear when he caught sight of Noué, and that might have lit a desire not to be thwarted by her puerile posthumous prank.
“It’s gonna be tough if you don’t know the original text,” Ailn said.
“...Is that so?” Kylian’s frustration was clear in his voice. “Catch me up to speed then.”
The knight had already picked out the relevant verses, but it seemed he couldn’t figure out how to proceed. He’d been swiveling his head between the mummy and the text on the wall behind, trying to parse its hidden meaning.
⁶ Wind bore her, a new earth felled her, and she birthed a new world.
⁷ Separate the false from above, and the artificial from below, so she may no longer be debased and cast down
⁸ When she is pure, she shall rise again.
As far as Ailn could tell, verse six had more or less already been fulfilled when she went flying up and crashed back down. Which meant the next two lines were the pertinent ones.
“The corresponding lines on the original Emerald Tablet are basically… I’m going off memory here,” Ailn closed his eyes and tapped his temple to think. “Verse seven,” he started. “Separate earth and fire, and the coarse from the crude.”
“Verse eight,” he continued. “It rises to heaven and steals heaven’s light, and thus rules both above and below.”
“Steals heaven’s light…” Kylian glanced toward the upper chamber. “That seems more pertinent than the modified verse. The torch went out in the chamber above.”
“...It does,” Ailn said, mulling it over. “It’s a metaphor, though. For distillation.”
“What?” Kylian looked at Ailn skeptically. “As in spirits?”
“Spirits?” Now it was Ailn’s turn to be confused. Then it clicked. “...Right. I guess that’d be the catch-all term for strong alcohol.” He gave a nod of assent. “Yeah, that kind of distillation. Maybe it’s a play on the ‘purity' of spirits, as in alcohol content?”
‘Debased’ could mean more than morally debased. If a substance was mixed with impurities—like gold with copper or iron, for example—it could be called debased.
The two of them stared at the corpse for a while.
“Perhaps…” Kylian grimaced, seeming embarrassed to even say his next thought out loud. “... The mummy needs to be soaked in alcohol.”
Renea behind them seemed to hiccup and gasp at the same time.
“I hate… this woman,” Renea said.
Was that really the answer? Ailn found Kylian’s reasoning to be sound enough, but his intuition disagreed—and Kylian didn’t seem fully convinced by his own idea either.
Not to mention, if they were wrong, that solution would be a one-way act of desecration they couldn’t undo.
“Er, not going to complain Ciecout?” Ailn asked the good priest.
“About? …Oh! You shouldn’t do something so profane, of course,” Ciecout chided. He didn’t sound particularly bothered by the idea. Guess mummies didn’t fall under his auspices of priestly preservation.
“It’s an insult to human dignity…” Renea fumed.
“Well, let’s… try other stuff first…” Ailn mumbled, looking back at the verses. His eyes were drawn to verse seven. “Separate the false from above… and the artificial from below…”
Something about those two words specifically—false and artificial—stuck out to Ailn. Nominally, they were just synonyms for ‘lie’ but…
Then verse thirteen jumped out at him.
¹³ Call me Ishmael, three parts Ahab, and one half Odin.
He whipped his head back around to look at Noué, and just as he did so Kylian’s holy aura flickered in just the right way—one of the mummy’s eyes gave off a glint.
Despite himself, Ailn started to laugh.
“This woman really is nuts,” Ailn said. “I’ve gotta give her credit for being clever.”
He reached toward the mummy and plucked out the false eye—notably, its painted iris was hazel not gold—and casually tossed it toward Kylian.
“What the hell…” Kylian cursed profusely as he awkwardly caught the eye with his free hand, clutching it to his chest to keep it from falling. “Give me… some warning!”
Then, Ailn felt Noué’s right leg and grimaced. This was a real leg. He definitely just felt some of her calf crumble.
“Wrong leg, Noué…” Ailn muttered, in annoyance. “Or I guess you actually lost it in life?”
He removed her left leg, which was in fact artificial.
Almost immediately, the mechanical noises kicked in. The section of the wall where Noué’s corpse had rested began to rotate, revealing plain wall. Yet, the chugging didn’t stop, continuing to echo through the chamber.
They could hear the torch flicker to life in the top chamber.
Quietly, everyone in the lower chamber gathered around. It was apparent something was being brought down behind the walls, the same way Noué’s mummy had been.
Ailn could feel a gentle tug at his sleeve.
Finally, the machinery went silent. A moment later, the plain wall began to rotate again, this time agonizingly slow, accompanied by a creaky whine that made Ailn suspect the suspense was entirely intentional.
The wall finished its rotation.
There it was. The puzzle had been so elaborate, and the puzzlemaker’s intent so clearly taunting, they could hardly believe it.
Hanging on the wall was the portrait of Noué Areygni.
___________
Renea had been pulled to and fro by Noué’s artistic whims.
Her creations were enchanting, imaginative; whatever style she imitated, she never failed to capture its beauty. And yet, there was always that quiet mockery echoing from her works. As if she couldn’t stop just at artistic satire—she had to frighten her audience, and then spit on everything sacred, even if it meant defiling her own corpse.
No, perhaps that was the most disturbing part of it. She was always the main object of her own scorn.
Whoever painted this portrait, however, must have loved her dearly.
“She was beautiful,” Renea said softly.
Were this portrait to be believed, Noué Areygni was a fetching woman, and she’d evidently dressed in her finest for this sitting.
Her auburn hair fell just past her shoulders, braids of it playfully woven like a tiara.
She wore not a dress, but a tunic—prettier than any gown. Cream-colored and trailing down to her ankles, it was cinched at the waist by a silken, gold-hued sash. The mint capelet draped over her shoulders only accentuated their delicate frame, lending her a pixie-like air.
The portraiture had captured the natural dew of her eyes, and that liquid gleam made Noué’s look like molten gold, still waiting to be cast.
Her smile looked so sad though.
“It seems I would be a fool to ever doubt you again, Ailn,” Kylian said.
“Let’s hope I live up to that,” Ailn said. “We really might find this treasure.”
“...Did you doubt that you would?” Kylian asked.
“Sometimes even I’m impressed with myself,” Ailn shrugged. “If we didn’t find anything, all’s well as long as we had fun, right?”
“No, not really,” Kylian said.
“We truly recovered the portrait…” Ciecout said in complete awe. “We have to… we have to keep this out of the bishop’s hands. He’ll just stash it in the reliquary! Your Highness, abscond with this portrait to the castle—and give me a salaried job there as well if you could—”
“Let’s just focus on finding the clue to where her vault is,” Ailn said, wincing and rubbing his temple. “I don’t want to have a fight with the cathedral if they get possessive. So, if this hint exists, I want to find it now.”
Ailn and Kylian lifted the painting carefully off the wall, while Ciecout held his breath. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything on its back.
“Maybe there isn’t anything except the portrait…” Renea said sadly.
“After all that?” Ailn furrowed his brow. “That can’t be right.” He glanced at the verses satirizing the Emerald Tablet. “...Oh. It went up.”
“What did?” Renea tilted her head quizzically.
But before they could discuss the missing hint any further, all of them heard a frightening noise—a low groan echoing out from the catacombs that the lower chamber now descended into.
___________
Unfortunately, urgency and moral purpose did not make it easier to find a path up, and it was actually only the next day he’d managed to find his way back. The explorer was so hungry he almost caved in, wondering if the odd substance in the obsidian jar would be fine for just a nibble.
It was that next afternoon when, wandering aimlessly and thoughtlessly like a zombie, he finally heard human voices. A girl’s scream rang shrilly through the air.
The exhausted explorer went as fast as he could to help—which amounted to a toddling, light-headed jog.
A few minutes later Ceric could see the light of the surface. And his shouts for joy came out as low, guttural groans.
Ah. Finally the company of friends. There was Ailn and his sister, the good knight Kylian, and a priest he didn’t know. No matter. If he was friends with Ailn, he must be a good person.
Relief hit Ceric’s body and he fell limp. He would’ve simply smashed his face against the ground if Ailn hadn’t caught him.
“Ceric?” Ailn gaped at him. “What the hell—how long were you down there?!”
“Who is this, Ani?” Renea asked, sounding terribly concerned.
“He’s… I can explain later,” Ailn shook his head. “When’s the last time you drank water?”
“...Yesterday,” Ceric croaked. “No, wait… I licked damp rocks…” He looked like he was about to die, but he fumbled with his explorer’s pack with one hand and pulled out an obsidian container. “You—you need to look at this.”
“Grab something for him from the cathedral,” Ailn said, nodding toward Ciecout and Renea. “Be fast.” When Kylian started to go with them, Ailn halted him with his hand. “Stick around here, Kylian.”
Ciecout and Renea left with a good pace, though Renea moved with such urgency and panic, it seemed she felt Ceric might really die if they weren’t fast enough. Sending frustrated looks every so often back at Ciecout—who lived a life quite sedentary—she had a nervous tap to her foot.
The priest considerately tried to match her pace.
Ailn carefully set Ceric upright against the wall.
“Cult…” Ceric looked like he wanted to cough, but didn’t even have the moisture.
“Save your breath—”
They could hear two cries of shock from the upper chamber.
‘Arghhh! I hate this woman!’
‘Lady Renea, slow down—’
“Should I check on them?” Kylian asked.
“They’re probably fine,” Ailn said, glancing at the upper chamber, then at the verses.
He turned his attention back to the obsidian jar that Ceric had brought back. It had been needless and self-inflicted, but he’d still gone through a lot of suffering to bring it here. And Ailn had a gut feeling that whatever was inside was important.
Holding his breath and covering his nose, he pulled out the stopper.
And he drew his face back immediately, nearly dropping the jar because of the noxious air coming out. It was slimy and billowing at the same time—and even though Ailn had only seen it once, he knew exactly what it was.
“How…?” Kylian shuddered, his voice trailing off. The concern on his face mixed with fear, and without realizing it he began to lightly manifest his holy aura. It was a reflex ingrained in every knight with sufficient experience guarding the northern wall; this close, its presence alone was enough to spike his adrenaline.
Wafting out of the jar was miasma.
