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You thought it was over? So did Joy. Up until she spotted the same Horseman that broke her nose suddenly charge for Roland. "Anak ng teteng! Not on my watch!" She couldn't fully stop it but she certainly made sure it didn't hit the Mist full on.

HP: 29/45
Defense: Roland for 7
Charge: 3/3

Joy intercepted the War horseman's charge, and Ro dodged and brought his scythe around to catch and hold the horseman in place. Perfect. Jordan grinned as Ferros roared, and he took the few long steps required to bring him into range, swinging Ferros in a powerful sideways arc into the horseman as the hammer burst into flame.

HP: 41
Dmg: 20
Charge: 3/3
War Horseman HP: 8

The heat washed over him, clear even in the muggy warmth of the jungle as Jordan’s hammer passed by him to smash the horsemen into the ground, still the creature remained staggering up onto its own feet again. Joy was already eager to end it, offering protection as Roland took up his twisted scythe. “I think I can agree to that.”

He moved forward rattling his scythe twisting it in his hands as the twisted length separated into its chain form, the links between each ridge spreading out as he walked up behind the horsemen catching his throat in two loops of the chain. A boot snapped out catching the Creature behind his knees leaving him struggling on said knee’s as Roland held him in place with his own weapon. Though Sylvia bit into his FEAR trying to drain him, she wasn’t able to do enough.

“I think one more should do it less he escapes somehow.”

Rep knew how Harrison felt about bugs, he'd had to help the other man too many times in battles where he'd been crippled by his phobia. It made it all the more urgent that he get rid of this creature before it ******** them both over.

"It's all ******** fear man." he said to Harrison, knowing it was a small comfort, that if he'd been faced by a snake made of fear he'd still be terrified regardless.

<>

He could hear the sound of fighting elsewhere in the camp but they could only focus on this guy right now. He drew Tracey again, focused and liberated by the fact he could fight something tangible, something alive. "We'll get rid of them."

There was something about the fact that Harrison, the most immovable person he knew was upset, something that made everything protective in him bristle and this time when he drew Tracey and tensed his whole body, there was something purposeful about it.

He leapt, swung twice and managed to fell two trees along with the horseman, who reeled in surprise at the intensity of the assault.

HP: 60
DMG: 21 (due to the full death hunter modifier)
Charge: 2/3

Famine Horseman
HP: 6/30
Autodmg: 6

Liang had tightly embraced his sibling, reluctant to ever let her go again, given that the last time he had, he hadn't seen her in a very long time. "It has been far too long." he said.

He only got a short time to reminisce with her though, as before long they were moving out to the hunter camp with the small group Artax had sent, or at the very least, Liang was.

When he spotted a blonde figure on the outskirts of the camp, he decided to follow it.

Managing over a year of 'service' as a Hunter without having her life directly threatened by any real danger was a pretty worthwhile accomplishment, Caroline thought. Life was always best lived to the fullest, and that generally required giving other people the short end of the stick. The only trouble here was that she actually cared about many of these people, and a year was probably long enough to go without pulling her fair share of the dangerous weight.

It was this understanding, and definitely not her intolerable boredom, that brought her to the camp when duty called. It was the resulting thirty-six highly annoying texts from Caroline that brought a resigned Mimsy along with her. If her mother was interested in getting herself killed just because she had nothing interesting to do, the least that she could do was watch. And she could use the opportunity to gather new samples anyway, which would be particularly valuable if they encountered anything of note. Research expeditions of her own devising were few and far between now - frankly, she was perfectly content with the roles that she had been given within her house, and had no reason to seek a new one.

They had unsurprisingly been largely unhelpful since their arrival, managing little more than the minimum as one of them remained much too excited to be here, and the other counted down the hours (and minutes and seconds) until she could go home. Mimsy followed along as Caroline chose tasks, ensuring that she didn't somehow die in some outstandingly mundane way.

This went on until the distress call came over their channel, and they both paused to listen. Caroline dropped everything as the voice cut out, darting off through the brush without warning. Mimsy heaved an exasperated sigh and pursued her with no urgency whatsoever.

"Hey--hey! What's going on?" Caroline called to the Hunters gathered at the camp, slowing out of her run as soon as they were in sight. Her weapon remained unsummoned, despite his whispers for her to change that.

Still trailing after her like a spindly shadow, Mimsy continued a steady, methodical pace until she caught up, remaining several steps behind her mother. She greeted everyone with a silent glance and offered no words of her own; the context of the situation was easily observable, and the remaining question of immediate importance had already been asked.

Artax moved through the ruins, torch in hand – an electric torch rather than what might have been expected typically of a horseman. He was wholly unafraid of human technology and considered it an asset to be understood rather than feared or despised. He might have wanted to control humanity but he considered that the answers lay in their own world as well as the world of the horsemen and no amount of arrogance was worth losing the war.

All legends in the human world led back to self-perpetuating prophecies, humans feared gods and monsters and therefore created them, and places where sacrifice and suffering had accompanied that belief lingered longest and most potently of all. Fear was generated like an enormous engine when cultures were so devoted to the shadow of a looming god.

And wherever fear gathered, artifacts appeared. It was an artifact they sought here, a residue of a great and potent cluster of belief. The logograms on the wall speaking of Itzamna and his thirteen sons and of his treasures guarded here in this place. Reading them was not a problem, the reach of the horsemen was long and there were those in their midst who could read the ancient languages as they remembered when they were new.

The explosion of energy in the jungle itself was down to unlocking one of the seals into the inner sanctum, an explosion which almost dissipated a few of Artax’ best scouts. They were lucky though, and it was unlocked, leaving them free to enter into the further reaches and to move closer to their goal.



Rep wasn’t even mad when Jordan kill stole the famine horseman out from under him, just happy to see the other man again and brightening immediately. He’d been determined to repel the creature as fast as he possibly could and when it dissolved into its composite bugs and fled, he let out a sigh of relief, regretting only that they hadn’t been able to destroy the thing permanently.

“Good job guys.” He said brightly, and it had been a good job, they’d dealt with the horsemen before they’d been able to do too much damage to the camp itself.

Still, celebration was short lived as the thud of energy rang through the forest, making Rep turn his head in the direction of the temple. They had hunters over there and he could only hope that they were all right. He just hoped no tourists had wandered into this area or they’d be mincemeat. It was a task he’d offered to the more pacifist hunters if they wanted it, the rather risky duty of patrolling for civilians to keep them clear. Perhaps it would have let some people sleep better at night he thought.

“That’s no good.” He said, rather obviously. “I don’t know what they are doing over there but we need some of our guys there too. Don’t go alone. I’ll come with you guys if we take a group, maybe we can head them off before they get to wherever they are going.”

----

Inside the temple the small group of hunters had heard and felt the explosion some were bruised with broken shields, others were fine apart from the ringing of their ears, all were tense and huddled in the encroaching darkness, lit only by a few LED runic powered lamps which seemed to create more chaotic shadows than they chased away. The way back where they’d come was blocked off and there was no way any of them could see to escape other than a square hole in the ceiling very high up that was only distantly illuminated when a death hunter shone a torch at it. It was far out of their reach and down here there was no radio signal.

They could only wait and hope as above them the sound of scraping metal rang through the hallways and ancient shambling armour sprung back to life.