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ChosenSavith Vice Captain
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 Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 7:29 pm
A destroyed human village. Corpses abound. The stench is horrific.
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:11 pm
As she neared the area where the human village lay, the wind shifted, making her cover her nose. Shine too startled and sneezed trying to erradicate the stench from his nostrils. She didn't like it, she couldn't smell anything else, especially danger that may approach from another direction. It was much like the cove where the wind blew inward from the sea making it hard to smell what was around.
She layed her bundle of wood down and looked around. The village wasn't very big, but it was going to take a lot more wood than she had gathered.
She left the pile to gather more, she would have to return soon, and she had hoped it would be enough for a small controlled fire at least. She hoped she wouldn't have to move the bodies into a more centralized area to burn.
((TIME PASSES))
Near dusk was approaching as she hefted the final load of wood onto the pile. It wasn't a very BIG pile, but she figured it would do the job. She dusted the splinters and leaves off her before hopping on Shine's back and heading for home.
Home.. what a funny thing to call it.
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Huntress Starsong Vice Captain
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ChosenSavith Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:14 pm
It's long hours later and into the deepest part of night when Savith leads the others toward the village, gliding at a pace meant to reserve his strength.
The stench is almost overwhelming, and as it hits his senses, the glider slows, lands down, and swallows hard against the want to retch.
**The village lies here,** he sends simply, struggling to keep the nausea from his mind's voice.
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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:15 am
Following Savith's send (and his nose), Blaze finally tripped and shoved his way out of the thick underbrush into the village. "Stinkin' tripper-weeds." He kicked an unnoffending bush. "I'd burn ya all if I wasn't busy."
Looking around, Blaze wrinkled his nose in disgust, but seemed otherwise unaffected by the smell. Rather, he seemed interested in the dead bodies more than anything else. **What killed these poor bastards? It looks like something or someone had a really good time doing this.** His send carried a bit of a laugh; an admiration of sorts. He gave the bodies a closer look, inspecting the wounds. **A really good time. Keep your guard up.** He glanced about, noting that if there really was something out there watching them, he would have nowhere to run.
Watching Savith try too keep his gag reflex under controll and waiting for Starsong, Blaze began to take stock of the amount of fuel, placement and number of bodies, combustibility of the human huts, dryness of the surrounding forest; everything that a fire shaper would be concerned with.
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ChosenSavith Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:19 am
**Don't know,** replied the glider, jaw set tensely against teh urge to vomit. **But a look out it certainly a good idea.** He too waited, and kept an eye out, standing guard over the fire-starter.
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:38 am
Blaze assumed the pose of someone who might be directing a construction site rather than a mass pyre. One hand on his hip and the other gesturing, he laid out his plan to Savith. **First off, we are going to have to move the bodies. To burn them up one by one would be inefficient, and it would take untill at least sun-high on the morrow. We have enough wood, I will have to thank Starsong for that, but we should burn their huts; those will burn quite well. Those also must be moved. The forest is quite damp from the sea winds, so I do not fear a wildfire.** Grabbing the nearest corpse by the hair, he began to drag it's comparativeley massive bulk towards the center of the clearing. **I might add, help yourself to their spear and arrow points, and whatever other usefull things you find. It would be a great waste not to gather them up. Why do all this work for nothing?** As the neck began to pop and distend in it's decomposing state, Blaze abandoned that handle and tried an arm, continuing his nonchalant monologue. **I wonder, what keeps Starsong?**
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ChosenSavith Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:05 pm
Savith took his orders well, though commented, **Perhaps wouldn't it be better to put them in their huts, then burn them?** He too moved to the next corpse and began dragging it, following after Blaze. He didn't reply about Starsong. He never felt he was her keeper, to know where and when she would go. As he pulled the body, he did keep an eye out for spears and arrowheads. The spears he could use, but the arrows he had little expertise with.
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 8:37 pm
She was in no hurry to return to the group, why should she be? After all, she wasn't the one with the ability to burn the bodies. She defended her reasoning in her head, even though part of her still scolding for being late. Shine had to go off some ways to find food to fill his belly, and it took him a good while to return when she sent for him.
She silently walked the paths she remembered in her head and finally appeared by the woodpile she had built not too long ago. She saw them dragging the bodies and was hoping that it wouldn't come to this. She gave direction for Shine to do a perimeter sweep as she went to join the others.
**Pleasant winds** she offered them, a hint of sarcasm as she found a large beam of wood, roughly a hands width in circumference and began to shovel bodies towards the center, where the others were.
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Huntress Starsong Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:54 pm
Blaze was almost downright cheerfull by this point. **A very good idea, my friend. However, the hottest part of a fire is it's top, and if we burned them in the huts they'd be at the bottom of the pile. A rotten body like this** He gave one of the bodies a sqelching kick. **ought to be burned as hot as possible.**
He gave Starsong a loose salute on her arrival, mentioned the possibility of good arrowheads and bowstrings, and continued his open send and dragging of bodies. **So we'll take the woodpile, cover it with the skins and framework of the huts, then put the bodies on top. Then we set the whole thing off, and High Ones willing, I can make the fire do what I want it to.** By this point he was grinning like a cub who'd caught a lizard.
Seeing that Savith and Starsong were almost finished with the draggging of the bodies to the pile, Blaze moved on to dismantling the huts and rifling through their contents. But as he did, his neck bristled, and he got the feeling that something was out there in the dark, watching. Then he found a bright red scarf of suprisingly fine material, and forgot the sensation for the moment.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:00 pm
Savith was unpleasantly silent through the body relocation process, finding it dirty work in all aspects of the word. Starsong's arrival received a nod, but little else. Fire work, he knew little about, and so just did as directed by Blaze, pausing only briefly to glance about for anything amiss.
Bodies moved, the glider turned his attention to likewise dismantling the structures and sorting the contents.
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ChosenSavith Vice Captain
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Huntress Starsong Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:51 pm
She finished her task of body hauling, interspersing them with dry wood she had found, silently. She doubted that this village had anything of any value to her. From the looks of it, they seemed a lot less advanced than her tribe was, so even if they did have some sort of arrowheads or bowstrings, they would be of poor quality. Time passage, was also a factor.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and headed back to the tree line, upwind to get some fresh air, and take a swig from her water skin. Shine continued to lurk among the edge of the forest, but had not alerted her to anything out of the ordinary.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 4:10 pm
Positioning a final bundle of frayed hides and wood framing on the pile, Blaze briefley muscled a few of the larger logs about so that the air would flow better. Fishing out his striker from the folds of his tunic, he set a tinder-bundle of dired grass and small twigs in between the larger branches and rotting bodies. He seemed uncharacteristically hesitant, looking over his shoulder at Savith and Starsong, then sweeping the area with his eyes again. Then, with the air of someone lighting the fuse of a firecracker, Blaze sent a shower of sparks onto the tinder, which caught fire almost instantly with his help. Standing, he removed his hat and tossed it over the small pile of items he'd salvaged.
**I am going to burn this at almost three times the normal heat of a fire its size, so you might want to stand back. If I begin to act strangely, do NOT come near, just keep still or back up. She won't hurt me badly; She needs me, but I do not know how she will react to anyone else. If you feel an abnormal amout of heat anywhere on your person or clothing, get to somewhere cold and wet; the trees. And, above all, keep sending to an absolute minimum. Please.** His tone was reluctantly serious, with the air of someone demonstrating the use of a peice of heavy machinery.
Cutting off the send and slamming the doors to his mind shut, Blaze took a few more steps back and began to focus on the fire, like focusing on an exceptionally powerful locksend. The flames that had been ordinarily fluttering a moment before suddenly clawed at the fuel like a living thing, pulling itsself up onto logs, caressing the dead bodies, and leaping from stick to scrap of hide untill the entire construct was cocooned in writhing flame. Small puffs of leaves began to dart into the flames, pulled by the unnatral force of the suction created by the rising super-heated air. Blaze appeared to be doing nothing more than standing guard, but small air-ripples of heat had already begun to appear around him.
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ChosenSavith Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:50 pm
Savith did /not/ need to be told to clear out twice. He drifted on a sour breeze toward Starsong, landing down at her side and wiping his hands on the grass at the foot of the trees. He said nothing, but give Starsong a questioning glance.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 9:49 am
She was already in the treeline, and had no desire to move, she felt fatigued, but didn't quite know why. Shine shivered at the sight of the fire, she knew how he felt. Most animals knew what fire was, and that it was something to be avoided at all costs. Her instincts told her also to flee, but she mentally knew that she would be fine... at least if this fireshaper could handle it.
She watched with both wonder, and mistrust, hard to quell the instincts of the beast inside her. She had never seen fireshaping before, lots of other kinds of shaping, rock, water, earth, plant, but not fire.
After a while she pulled her eyes away from the trance of the flickering flames and looked at Savith. He looked even more tired than before, she noticed his questioning glance and shrugged at him. She handed him the waterskin, her skin prickled a bit as she felt the heat, and suppressed that ever growing urge to flee.
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Huntress Starsong Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:44 pm
The pyre soon began to crack and hiss as wood shattered and warped, and the air currents ruffled Blaze's flaming-orange hair with the winds of a forest fire. He was constantly pushing heat into the fire, reflecting escaped heat back and pulling outside heat in. Periodicaly he shuddered under stress; as he was approaching the limits of his passive use, but maintained his reverant pose.
Blaze cloed his eyes, and began to whisper, unheard over the noise of the flames. Small shapes began to form in the fire. Red lizards scampered up searing branches and leapt into the air, exploding in a puff of sparks. Birds of prey circled, then rocketed upward on smoky wings. Blaze's whispering intesified, and elves began to appear. The images flashed into then out of clarity; a hunt, a raid, a vicious fight for controll. Faces, old and young, gizzled and beautiful, but all fierce-eyed, and strong. Then the fire took the shape of a mountain range, and rumbled. Peaks cracked and burst, spilling pitch-black smoke into the air. Images of fiery bombardment, frantic flight, and then there was a single scream as a large fire-log warped and split and in a liqid sweep, the images were wiped from existance, leaving unassuming flame.
Blaze inched forward untill he was almost standing in the fire, flames whipping around an invisible shield. Whatever moisture that might have leaked fom his eyes soon vaporized, he reached out into the fire, the flames parting around his hand. Then the fire flared fast enough to create a concussion in the air, and Blaze was hidden for a moment untill the fire receeded. He had assumed a fighting stance, his face contorted into a hellish grin. A female form had appeared in the now-raging inferno; it looked like an elf, but it was not an elf, nor human, but some sort of mix. A mad roar came from both of them, and they slammed into eachother, a fiery corona forming around Blaze as the fire-given-a-mind tried to overwhelm the shield of bearable temperature he'd created.
This was what Blaze had warned Savith and Starsong about, the reason he'd kept his distance from the fire at the camp, the She, and he was ready for her. "You will listen to ME now!" With strength born of desperation and the will of a leader who had ruled by his indestructible doggednes, Blaze began to push the fiery apparition back into the flames, away from his friends.
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