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Day 1 - Vows & Oaths
The heavy fabric of Nona's robes provided sufficient cover for the trembling that very nearly made her bones rattle. Her fingers curled in her sleeves, holding tight; she'd rather have white knuckles than risk anyone, living or dead, seeing the way her hands shook. Tension wound through every part of her like thread, stitches snug to keep her from falling to pieces. She had even been holding her jaw clenched just to keep her teeth from chattering together like a wisp testing out mandibles for the first time.
Her friends who had already followed this path, who already bore the title of Watcher, had told her it would all work out. But it was not so easy to release the worries. All of her hard work had built up this moment… and she wasn't sure she would remember her vows.
She had practiced them for weeks, of course, and they truly weren't that long or difficult, nor did they hold any trickery of the tongue. But it would be mortifying if she fumbled or tripped over her words, or said something completely wrong, or—
A whisper.
She turned her head, the bells tied into her hair softly singing as one of her long braids slid from her shoulder. While she did not see anyone with her in the chamber, Nona knew all too well that not being able to see a speaker did not mean no one had actually spoken. Beside her cheek, the Veil pressed, bending around an intrusion, not letting it through but letting it reach. She tipped her chin down, eyes closing halfway as she waited for the words that might come next.
I swear…
Nona's breath caught, but before she could hear anything else, a louder voice drew her attention.
"Enter, Nona Ingellvar."
The Veil smoothed itself to stillness. The door ahead of her rumbled open to reveal a stretch of long, dark hallway, illuminated intermittently by sputters of Necropolis veilfire.
Ahead waited the unknown; ahead waited Nona's future.
She only hesitated for a moment before she took her first step forward. The next came easier, and she was fully enveloped in the dim green-tinged light before she knew it. She had not heard a door close behind her, but when she glanced back to see how far she had come, the same darkness with pinpricks of light stretched on behind her. Fascination bloomed in her chest, warding her heart against fear, as she realized the doorway had never been a doorway. No, it was a path between locations within the Necropolis, a traversal point captured as a flat plane. Magnificent.
Oh, the Necropolis held so many mysteries, and Nona never felt more blessed than when it was so kind as to share them with her.
She continued forward, finding confidence with each step. Beneath her bare feet, she felt the bite and kiss of scattered stone and dried leaves. Their remnants caught in the fabric of her robes, pulling some of the detritus along with her, and Nona wondered if it would still be there when she reached her destination. As she walked, the darkness and green light stretching on without end, Nona let her mind go quiet. This was not a time for intensive contemplation; this was a time for preparation, another stretching moment gifted to her to ready herself for whatever waited ahead. Her mind cleared to quiet but for the soft reverberations of her own footsteps.
Here, she was naught but the oath she would soon swear.
Here, she was a spirit awaiting purpose.
Here, she would become a Watcher.
The ground beneath her feet sloped upward. Nona followed the unswerving path laid out ahead of her, trusting wholly in the Necropolis as it guided her to where she needed to be. But it was hardly dull or derelict, not with the sputtering light and the echo of her own breath washing over her. Disruption came when, for just a moment, the feeling that she was not walking alone broke Nona's concentration on stillness. She glanced back over her shoulder again, trying to see who might be walking behind her, the sonorous chime of her bells singing in the stillness.
No one walked behind her. She turned ahead again, and found no one walking ahead either. As though in response to her attention, the feeling faded away— just in time for Nona to realize that she could see light ahead of her that was not veilfire, nor illusion.
She stepped out of the long hall into a bowl-shaped balcony hewn directly from the stone-flesh of the Necropolis itself, ancient stone providing a cradle for her and those waiting for her. In the center of this space, an unlit brazier waited for her, flanked by Vorgoth and a Senior Watcher— and one she knew! Recognizing Emmrich Volkarin brightened Nona's spirits all the more. It touched her heart that two individuals she trusted, including one who had had such a constant and prominent hand in raising her, would be present for her oath-taking.
Nona crossed the balcony to join the waiting Watchers at the brazier. Despite her excitement at entering so blessed of a ritual space, her gaze drifted to the view of the Necropolis beyond where they stood. The cradle of stone they stood within opened into the air and, beyond the edge, the Necropolis stretched out to the horizon in a vast and endless expanse. By its very nature, the Necropolis could not be known in its entirety, always changing and ever-shifting, creating new caverns and rooms and revealing ones lost to history. Nona held her breath at this opportunity to view the Necropolis from so high of a perspective, seeing it from a perspective that only Watchers could.
As she drank in the sight, trying to map the spaces she had already been, Nona wondered at how much of it she had yet to explore. The thought thrilled her, warmed her heart; there would be no end to her work as a Watcher, and there would be work for every Watcher that followed after her. Time stretched infinite within the hallowed halls of this beloved sanctuary. This day, she received the honor of promising the weathering of her hands, the weariness of her bones, and the eternity of her soul to the care of the Necropolis.
NONA INGELLVAR.
Vorgoth's voice drew her back from the ever-expanding horizon of her home, returning her thoughts to the very important purpose that she had been brought here for. Nona exhaled the breath caught in her lungs, then smiled. "Hail to our glorious dead and the hallowed halls that cradle them."
The words came so naturally; she had been speaking them all her life, long before her training as a Mortalitasi, long before this opportunity to join the Mourn Watch. Nona curled her fingers once more, then uncurled them, and felt the tension in her finally ebb away. She had made it this far, and what came next was entirely out of her hands. The Necropolis would decide.
HAIL TO OUR GLORIOUS DEAD.
"And to the hallowed halls that you shall be tasked with guarding, maintaining, and inhabiting. Are you ready, Nona, to make your oaths?" asked Watcher Volkarin, his expression serene. He chuckled, despite the solemnity of the situation, at the eagerness with which Nona nodded. The sound of the bells in her braids rang out beyond the balcony. "Very well. The Necropolis awaits your promises. Place your hands."
Nona dropped her gaze to the brazier before them and took note of the worn-in grooves where hundreds, thousands of Watchers before her had placed their hands on the stone. She followed their guidance without hesitation, laying her bare hands in the bowl. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vorgoth gesture—this was all the warning she received before the brazier leapt to life with veilfire.
Later, Nona would not be able to describe the sensation. Her mind buried it deep, for it was the oaths that mattered most, not the pain she walked through to speak them. Nona fought to find her voice, knowing the Necropolis would be patient but only to a point. The fire fought to consume her, to take something from her that she was not yet willing to give— she had so much work yet to do, after all. The words rang clear as she began.
"I swear, as a member of the Sacred Order of the Mourn Watch…"
I swear…
"… to preserve the sanctity of the dead. I swear to uphold the rites and ceremonies that sustain the reverence held for those that have departed this world."
I swear that she…
"I swear to always watch over the boundaries of death and measure the Dreaming Sea."
I swear that she will live…
Nona's voice faltered, but for a moment, her breath holding. It was only now that she realized that the soft whisper she had heard before beginning her journey had returned, speaking as another voice beside hers, unfamiliar and familiar alike. Her eyes left the fire dancing around her hands, to look out across the Necropolis that spilled forth like a sea unending.
And she realized, her heart leaping—
She realized that, through the flames, she could see them. Those beyond the Veil, those within it, and those further still. Spirits crowded close, curious, hopeful, wanting, waiting, eyes unseeing and seeing too clearly, watching her. So many of them, near to her and yet still with the Veil between them, lingered near.
It was to them that she made her final promise.
"Above all, I swear I will provide the use of my training in and knowledge of necromantic arts to maintain order between this world and the Fade. For as we were born out of the darkness thus we remain as children of the dark."
The voice, both present and distant, made a promise in turn. The Necropolis rumbled, not a groan nor a roar, but a chorus. Goosebumps rushed over Nona's body as she found herself leaning closer still to the flames, wanting to see more clearly. It did not seem, at first, that one spirit in particular spoke, but that the words came from something older, something deeper still, something unknowable—but it spoke to her and another, somewhere, in the crowd of those watching.
I swear that she will live, this child of loss.
She will thrive and she will be as my own.
Where your life ends, hers now begins.
The fire went out.
RISE, WATCHER INGELLVAR, AND FULFILL YOUR OATHS.