Nest offered Cee a rictus smile as life and youth was once more poured into her. Bob wasn't enough. But as the horsewoman laid hands on her beside the student, he didn't have to be. Moths once again filled the huntresses mouth, silencing her and soon Cee would find herself nearly young again, nearly back to normal. But the gift of years brought with it a crawling sensation.
Abruptly it stopped and the mother slowly turned her head toward a wall. Her form rippled along with the small bodies that swarmed her body. Dark browns and creams of flutter wings sped up, blurring and twisting and darkening until there were moths not longer but a shining and shifting black armor of beetles. Many, many beetles.
With a gesture they shot toward the wall, slamming through stone and sand.
Sindri, quite possibly, was the most surprised. But had little time to remark on it as her body, at the forefront of the little group, dissipated under the force of the attack. Zeke and Paige fared better, but only just.
Patches of grey speckled Nests skin and crawled, matte and listless and wrong, along the carapaces of her small but countless army. Advancing on the two without a word, she moved in jerking, abrupt motions.
Ever lay flat on the ground for far too long, listening to the distant sounds of screaming and talking through a haze of pain before he managed to pull himself together enough to get upright.
Sort of.
His ankle throbbed the second he put weight on it, and he had to suck a breath in through his teeth, eyes closed, until the stars dissipated from his vision. In the back of his mind, he could taste the eye-roll from Amory, the probing mockery that said if he couldn't handle this he should just lie down and die. It wasn't like a sword through the gut or anything.
So, leaning against a wall, he did the most insane thing he could: hobbled toward the sound of fluttering wings and chittering insects.
Cee gasped and choked and fell to her knees as she desperately tried to spit and hack out the insects. Even if they had restored her, they were disgusting and all encompassing. Her skin crawled.
She felt wrong.
And then suddenly she was left alone, gasping and crawling on the ground as the skeletal being moved away and armored up. The sound of the explosion made her jolt, falling to her side while wracked with gags and coughs.
Cee's dark eyes rose to the figures prone on the ground, and even if she couldn't see them clearly through both Nest and the aftermath of the attack, she knew the odds that they were her actual friends.
Snap appeared with a thought, the whips curled around her wrists and pooled around her body as she pushed herself to her feet. Unsure herself if this was a protective action, sheer panic, or some mixed up version of self preservation (because they needed to get outoutout), Cee advanced on Nest's back.
"Leave 'em alone!" Her whips struck home like razors.
--- Dmg: 6 Charge: 1/3
lizbot
lemme know if she should have altered stats or if her health is nerfed or if anything else is effed up
"Paige." He had time to pull her back against him, an arm snaking protectively around her waist, then the wall was exploding inward and it was impossible to tell what was slamming info them between the rubble of rocks and the shiny gleam of something much more alive. There was a moment of being stunned, of feeling and senses returning to his body. Sound returned last, and he could hear debris falling around him, but above that, he could hear Cee screaming at someone.
With the majority of his body covered the sensation of creeping, scurrying bodies was confined to his head and face, and that really wasn't much of an improvement. A disgusted grunt proceeded a flurry of swipes to ride to little bodies from his person, but where he knocked some away others took their place. They seemed endless!
When he could see though, Zeke realized the bugs weren't their main concern. A skeletal being was advancing on them, a horsewoman, and this one didn't seem half so passive as the last. "s**t!" Scrambling to his feet, he tucked a hand under Paige's arm to haul her up as well before resummoning his weapon. The initial blow had taken a lot from his shield but what choice did he have here? He attacked, swinging at the grotesque figure with everything he had.
Which wouldn't be much, the Mist still not steady on his feet.
HP: 13 DMG: 2 CHG: 1/3
and be bluexx
iloveyoudiexx
pinchmonstexxr
lizbot
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 6:09 pm
The impact of Nest's attack took Paige down; her shield was weak, but it was still there - she was thankful for the small things in life. Harle flashed brilliant colors of concern, but grew more muted as Paige silently assured her weapon that she was still here, still kicking.
Hearing Cee's voice renewed her, though, and it was stupid and ******** up but Paige felt like she could just burst into tears at any moment. She couldn't believe she'd ever doubted Cee's ability to look after herself - not that she'd ever really doubted the dark-haired woman, she'd just... felt like it was her own fault that Cee had been taken.
"I'm okay," she whispered softly to Zeke, already moving through what was left of the wall. She just needed to look at Cee, just a quick glance of reassurance, and then she'd attack the Horsewoman.
He was slow, and he hurt, but at the sound of familiar voices in the overall noise, Ever picked up the pace: squinting in an attempt to make out shadowy figures and slowly, quietly, drawing Amory as he lumbered his way after them. Sure, Ever could barely stand on his own, and fighting seemed a terrible idea, but he wasn't going to walk into this unarmed.
Instead he'd stumble in, lit across one side by a smattering of broken-glass red runes. A poor choice,s perhaps.
"Cee?" His voice crackled, and he caught himself on the wall, attention flashing toward the broken wall and the little fumbling encounter on the other side.
The horsewoman spun toward Cee and then turned her back to the huntress, ignoring the attack and fixing instead on Zeke. A wave of shining black bodies slammed into him once, then twice, before swarming over his weapon.
There was a sensation on his weapon bond being muffled, almost silenced and then it screamed inside his head, it screamed and could not stop and then silence fell.
A cracking sound echoed through the chamber as Zeke's weapon was broken. Finished with him, Nest slowly turned her gaze on Ever.
Dmg to Zeke: 19
beejoux
and be blue
pinchmonster
iloveyoudie
lizbot Vice Captain
No Faun
Online
Beejoux
Wrathful Demigod
Offline
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:47 pm
{Do not be reckless, boil!}
That certainly wasn't his intention, but the results were similar. Nest's attention swiveled around to focus on him with the glancing blow of an ax, and that alone was enough to make his skin crawl, as if it were trying to tear itself from his body, but that was nothing to the blast of little black bodies that hit him seconds later.
It was like being hit with a sledge hammer. His boots scrapped across the stone floor as the first wave of beetles collided with him. It stole the air from his lungs, and he was doubled over and gasping when the second blow knocked him right off his feet and sent him smacking back hard against the wall he and Paige had just emerged from, tearing a pained grunt from his throat as struggled to keep his feet under him.
Lagertha's voice was a shrill siren in his head as she screamed for him to run. He was too stunned to notice it at first, aching pain radiating deep. By the time he realized, noticing the swarm of black bodies glittering over one of the ax blades, it sounded as if the valkryie was yards away from him and drifting farther and farther until he could barely hear her. Panicked, he swung, trying to shake the beetles off as real panic set in for the first time. He couldn't hear her! He couldn't hear her!
Then suddenly he could.
She screamed, blood curdling and awful, and he echoed her. The sound tearing from his throat to bounce through the underground chamber until it ended abruptly with the sharp crack of metal as one curved blade shattered.
It felt like every nerve ending in his body was suddenly on fire. Pain shot through his body like a vicious stab, bubbling past his lips in a weak moan as he finally dropped to his knees and fall to his side. The remaining ax disappeared a second after, the stone pendant reforming around his neck. A long, deep crack stretching down the entire face of it.
There was nothing but white noise in his head.
HP: -6
and be blue
pinchmonster
iloveyoudie
lizbot
and be blue rolled 1 8-sided dice:
2Total: 2 (1-8)
Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 4:37 pm
For a moment, Ever was just still: standing where he was and staring back at Nest with very wide eyes, Zeke's voice still echoing in his head. He didn't run not because it didn't occur to him, but because he simply couldn't, his ankle all but buckling under him as he just stood there. So, instead, he held his weapon up, as defensive as he could manage as he wobble, carefully, toward his fallen friend, eyes still locked firmly on Nest as he did.
He moved slowly, partly because he had to and partly because some instinct in the back of his mind thought that, maybe, Nest would ignore him if he didn't look too threatening.
"LEAVE EM ALONE!" Cee's voice came out in a furious shriek, never once thinking the horseman would stop, but mostly because she never did anything without making some sort of ear piercing comment.
Now that she could see through the rubble she realized Zeke was down, her stomach roiling as Nest turned for Ever. Cee's whips lashed again, striking sharply into the skeletal creature's back.
After assuring herself that Cee seemed to be in alright shape, Paige swung Harle around in an attempt to hit Nest. She really put as much force as she could in the swing, despite the way everything hurt, despite the way she could feel the way her shield had weakened.
The sight of Zeke's weapon struck her only afterwards, and she let out a sharp sound of ********, Zeke, ********, are you okay?!"
The fight was brief and brutal and for some of the hunters, it would be the first time they fully understood that even with weapon in hand and a heart filled with determination, it was not enough. They were not enough. The other horseman had long since fled, leaving Nest and the growing slivers of discoloration shifting across her forms. She was Many and Many again as the swarm peeled off her body, filling the room and then their mouths and lungs. Glowing weapons took out great swathes, countless little bodies falling underfoot, and still...
They lost.
Cee and Ever were the last to fall, the only ones to hear Nest rasp, "The debt remains."
If you would like an extra rp point, simply post a death solohere. Word req: 400
Everything was wet and slimy and wriggling, both without and within, and the need to immediately purge themselves of the within would be overpowering until countless little bodies were added to those already moving on the ground beneath their hands and knees. There were people standing, talking in excited and concerned voices.
"Holy s**t!"
"...thought they were dead, except that one, right? They thought she'd..."
"Yeah, yeah! So what's up with the one in New York?"
"s**t...they're..."
Breathing freely would be more than any of them could handle. Darkness once again followed by the harsh lights of the infirmary, a figure in a hazmat suit hovering. "Good morning!" Dr. Stephen's oddly filtered voice greeted the waking group cheerfully. "You'll be in quarantine for a few more days, but for the most part you all check out as human. We believe all of the specimens your bodies were playing host to have been at least 90% removed! You've been out for most of it, but today will be your first chance to eat and drink without an IV in nearly two months, so I'll leave you to it. Just hit the buzzer!"
Their stay would involve a great deal of bland food and nutrition drinks, impersonal check ups, and two more realizations: Zeke could not hear his weapon's voice, and Cee had apparently been declared AWOL and discovered in New York. No search necessary, as the presumed socialite's miraculous return to her family after being abducted by a cult was front page news all across the states.
beejoux
Sorry about the delay! You can consider them out of the infirmary by -now-. Zeke's weapon will be summonable after another month. Also a new coat will be waiting for him in his room.
Feel free to give him an unusual scar mark or two from tiny insect bodies if you'd like!
iloveyoudie
Add about 10 years to Cee's normal appearance and dat grey ombre. She's going to start dreaming of moths quite a bit, and some of them won't be regular nightmares but more like a loan shark reminding her that SHE OWES. The aging and hair means she can still go on leave into civ world, but New York is off limits once more.
Feel free to give her an unusual scar mark or two from tiny insect bodies if you'd like!
pinchmonster
Paige lives to see another day!
Feel free to give her an unusual scar mark or two from tiny insect bodies if you'd like!
and be blue
After Ever recovers, he is assigned first learning what they understand of horseman runes (it is not extensive but not cripplingly limited) and tasked to help break the language open fully once he's up to date with the progress so far.
Feel free to give him an unusual scar mark or two from tiny insect bodies if you'd like!
