RuneScape Forum Archive | ¥ Lord Robert Callobridge ¥

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Clattering objects — ostensibly caroming along the floor — denoted a presence, but I could not see to verify as my tiring arms had dropped my head below the level of the floor. I called out, deducing no other means of entreating assistance: "Lo! Whoever is there, I pray for your help. I am here, stranded over the lip of the crumbling edgeway. Please, sir or madam, I implore your assistance. I don't dare to think it, but I shall surely fall soon to a fatal demise. I beseech you, please! Make posthaste!" I struggled to lift my body up with the tired and shivering arms that were latched to the mildew-saturated stones, scraping my feet against the uneven wall. Slowly I succeeded, pulling my head above the floor's level and finding a notch to set my feet — and rest my weight — against. Thereby secured, with my arms at last given reprieve of the struggle, I looked again to the doorway whence the clattering ensued.

22-Aug-2010 22:10:43 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:23:44 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Staring back at me were the gleaming, emerald eyes of the aberrant face that had, in the first, initiated my misfortune at L'Morfique — crouched like a monkey plucking fallen fruit was the twisted and unhinged physique of Madame Gusteau, her wispy, wiry hair unmistakable in the faint glow of the atrium. Her unblinking pupils were dilated, her eyebrows raised high upon her grease-stained forehead, plastered into a certifiable expression on a ****** and crooked head. Sliding her hand forward, its chipped nails grating against the uneven surface of the floor, she leaned in. As her wiry hair fell to frame her deformed face, she cackled and croaked in her singularly vile voice: "Ahahaha! Dear Lord Callobridge — suffering here at the edge of a pitiless drop, clinging to life as if he might survive. Aaahhh" she crowed at the ceiling, the shrillness sending shivers through my body and erecting my hackles. "You beseech me?" she continued, further twisting her head on the too-skinny neck that fixed it to her torso. "I dare say you importune, Ignorant Lord Callobridge. Whereas you implore my assistance, I deny it! You peremptorily assume the superlative, Inimitable Lord Callobridge. Did I not warn you of this place? Did I not admonish against the evil of L'Morfique?" Her voice reached a piercing pitch but calmly subsided for the bodeful conclusion — "Ah, but I did. I did warn you, Lord Robert Callobridge. You see, I beseeched you — I implored you. And if I am to learn from the Inerring Lord Callobridge, I must know that frenzied, emotional entreations are not to be abided."

22-Aug-2010 22:10:44 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:23:58 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

She leaned ever forward, sliding now her other palm along the slick stone surface. "It is, after all, only proprietous." She finished with another, more sonorous cackle that seemed to wander through the immense dungeon and reverberate from a thousand surfaces at once.
"Please, Madame Gusteau," I pleaded, sliding forward my hand to meet hers, which was yet only a slight distance away, "Please help me! I did not * could not know." I knew it was futile; I knew that I would die. Yet still I could not help but to ask, to plead for sanity in the woman's fading faculty. Her eyebrows sunk on the pale face, the mouth quit its quiver.
Calmly, heartlessly she continued. "You did not know? I shall accept no such prevarication. I warned you at the outset; I warned you as you continued. You were warned by the plaque at the doorway and yet further by the shrieking beyond the impassable door. It was by no means a result of the fiction that you didn't know, Lord Callobridge. It is purely the result of the fact that you didn't want to acknowledge reality." She stood up, calmly patting the grungy skirt into place.

22-Aug-2010 22:10:45 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:24:19 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

"But that is not true, Madame, it is surely not!" I responded, terrified that the sordid woman was permuting insanity for evil. "You spoke of illness in the house, and I only wanted to help. I assumed that the plaque — the one speaking of God's inability — was merely a warning against what seemed to be an incurable illness. Oh, Madame Gusteau, you have terribly misinterpreted my actions; I do hope you can reconsider your conclusion. The shrieking from beyond that Satan-blessed door was only fuel for my search, for I could find no logical conclusion but that it was issued from a body in dire need of help. I could determine nothing for my options but to help her. You must see, Madame Gusteau. You must!" I explained my rationale, the situations that had goaded me into further violating the privacy of the estate. It was difficult to see if my reasoning, my logic was pervading the clouded, insane mind of that delusional woman, but I held still to the idea that it could.

She turned and faced away, refastening the wiry creature atop her head into a bun and calmly readjusting the sleeves of her polluted smock. Coldly she rejoindered the most clear epithet of her existence: "Then let us hope, Lord Callobridge, that someone of such valour comes also for you". And with this she calmly walked across the balcony and opened another, hidden door in the wall. Without looking back, she stepped through it and disappeared into the darkness with a resounding click.

22-Aug-2010 22:10:47 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:25:25 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It was for several minutes that I remained so strangely perched along the side of that edge, slowly entering darkness as the candles from the atrium waned and the gas of the glowing chandeliers evaporated. I have, throughout life, prided myself on several facets of my being: of all the things which support my pride and defend my superlatives, there is a distinguished property. It, beyond the others, has engendered my affluence and has, through phases of applicability, been the cause for my relationships with many men of power and intellect, including the dear Monsieur Champeaux. This is my ingenuity. Beyond all peers, I have the ability to create distinctive solutions to elaborate, superficially unsolvable conundrums, delving into the solutions beyond the mere cosmetic and ensuring that, throughout my life, obstacles have not interfered with my ability to continue to subsist. It is difficult, I think, for any man to accept a situation that he cannot, despite intellect, power, or position, alter; it was especially difficult for this man to accept that situation of L'Morfique, unable to change any of the fatal qualities of the enervating situation. And this is why I continued to cling to that deteriorating floor, too stubborn to let go yet too stupid to surmise a method of freeing myself that did not end in utter discomposition: I had yet reserved the capacity of hope that, in my delirious, phantasmagoric state of consciousness, I could surmise innovation that would, eventually, engage me in a possibility of freedom. And, in fact, it was not painful, as odd as it would seem, to cling to that rotted bannister's previous demesne in fulfilling this odd and improbable hope; I had readjusted my weight on that found foothold to secure my rotundity against the cragged and angle side of the canyon; I as much leaned against the wall as I did stand upon my feet, and I kept my hands upon that rotted crevice merely for posterity and security rather than for safety.

22-Aug-2010 22:10:48 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:25:46 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Thus, I cannot begin to fathom the amount of time that I affixed myself to that position; it was a span between a moment and a lifetime and any further clarification is pure postulation.
Without conjecture I can say that I was exasperated and in dire need of mental and physical rest. I laid, for whatever time it was, against that surface in a comatose state of uncaring subconsciousness yet was consistently aware of the fact that nothing was transpiring. In this context, I was superficially unhinged when, following this unknown interval of tarrying hope, a pealing set of clattering footsteps wound their dizzying path through the atrium and doorway and cavern before arriving at my tired, under-stimulated ear. The hackles of my neck were erected and my heart fluttering through unmitigated palpitations immediately; my arms were shaking and my back shuddering by the time the footsteps, some minutes later, found their way through to the dungeon's entry. For as much as I did not want to die — for as much as I did not want to rest my body against that crevice for perpetuity, I would rather either of those than to confront once more the execrable figure of Madame Gusteau.

22-Aug-2010 22:10:49 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:26:08 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I heard the haggard breathing of a figure that had undergone intense physical exertion drawing deep, wheezy breaths and could nigh distinguish the slight cackling of a susserrating candle underneath it. Was this ludicrous woman to immolate me? I could hardly bide with the suspense of not knowing what the near future entailed, and, thusly disquieted, looked to the opposing wall in the deep chasm's distance to see the flickering shadows of an identified candle's light dancing along the cragged surface. Seeing that creeping spectre jaunt its way along the asperous rock, I could not contain a shudder that convulsed along my entire spine and wound its way through to my hands and feet, threatening my foothold on the steep wall's angled surface. I felt with horror as my blood congealed in my torso and my fingers, still braced against a crack in the terrace's floor, clumsed and lost operation. It is impossible to describe the unmitigated state of total terror in which that creeping phantasm placed me; it is impossible to describe the fetid bile that ascended my esophagus or the literal sickening of my stomach. I tried to pray to God, but found my stupor preempted coherence and I tried to plead for help, but I could not overcome the incomprehension of my predicament and the utter denial that this vagarious position spawned. As I found myself in this condition, my heart pounding in my ears as a war drum, the shuffling above suddenly stopped. As the final echoes slowly drifted their way down to the chasm's indiscernible bottom, the eerie silence resumed its miserable reign.

22-Aug-2010 22:19:37 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:26:23 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

"Lo! I am here," I rejoindered, raising my gaze to meet the candle's light. A prayer left my body as unconscious as the pain, and again I noted the vagarious nature of my experience at L'Morfique. The figure etched his footsteps on the dust-strewn stone, his luminous eyes reflecting back a chandelier of the small fire's light. His head swayed as prided lion's, keenly descrying the dungeon's shadows for the source of the voice. Relieving from its craggy hold my dirt-smitten hand, I filled my fist with the crumbling remnants of the banister's mortar and strew them across the floor above, driving it with a sonorous source. "Lo!" I called, again sending my urgent request beneath my breath to the heavens. As the scratching of his poorly formed limp progressed and the his nose continued its juddering turns, I slouched in dismay and felt as another set of cragged stone cascaded to the depths of the bottomless pit. "Lo," I whispered, defeated by the Luciferous forces of Madame Gusteau, "Lo".
This lilting sway bearing no fruit, the footsteps chafed their path to the door again, the chandeliers reunited in the atrium. The figure turned to face the sable room and attempted one last time to see staring out from the stretch of darkness the sparkling reflection of a set of eyes. But my eyes had no such sparkle; they had only the atramentous pupils that enveloped the light, that ate it away like the massive cavern within which I was perched, precariously holding to a receding lip of age-old stone. And the figure, whose face wa but a shadowed recesses, closed the very door I had sacrificed all of my most prized possessions to broach; they key turned and the levers tumbled all with the resounding tintinnabulation of despair.

22-Aug-2010 22:19:38 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:26:39 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

"Lo," I cried, my soul foreclosed as a debtor's estate. I inhaled slowly, tensing all the muscles in my body before exhaling it in a pitiful sigh that expropriated myself of hope and earthly desire. "Lo," I repeated, forming a mantra in my incapacity to comprehend a justification for the fate I had endured.
"Lo," I said, as much to God as to myself, before letting go of my worn-through grip on the stone floor's edge and flinging myself into the darkness below.

22-Aug-2010 22:19:39 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:26:53 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

THE END
Thank you so much for reading this! I would love to hear any feedback you have about it. Don't worry about hurting my feelings; I want to get better.

22-Aug-2010 22:19:40 - Last edited on 06-May-2012 04:27:32 by Yrolg

Forums

¥ Lord Robert Callobridge ¥