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 Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 7:53 pm
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Quelling the FireSquires' Finale - Part 2- Continuing from Part 1 here -
The desire to stop and cope with what had happened to their comrades was likely strong with the young Squires...however, they were now in hostile territory and would soon realize that it would not be safe to linger for long.
Those who had emerged from the gatehouse area more or less intact noted that the room opened up a bit before giving way to the outside once more. The outer courtyard of the fortress spread before them, walls now at their backs as well as walls further ahead in the distance that marked the keep proper. Between, open land stretched out in either direction. There were a few smaller structures between the walls, most broken down and in a state of disuse. The layout suggested that once there could have been some sorts of stalls or booths laid out in rows...now, all was debris and marsh.
To the right, one building remained standing, though it seemed the back wall had begun to crumble. Tall spires reached towards the sky, like claws reaching up for the light that lay beyond the smoke. It was a smallish building, compared to the large scale of the rest of the structures. Within, amongst the rubble, the remains of several long stone benches could be seen, some partially crumbled, another broken clean in half. An altar, coated in dust and grime seemed to be the focus inside, though rough gouges in the stone seemed to offer the only explanation of what this was once used for. Completely indecipherable gibberish to the Holy Squires.
Another building possessed an entrance way that was both wide and tall, more so than any known Pae'il. Inside, the vast space was broken up into individual stalls, with troughs for food and water. Though not a common practice in the City, they seemed to resemble some sort of stables for keeping livestock. But what sorts of creatures would be housed here? The door had once been able to be shut and secured, but now one door hung loose on its hinges. The structure would have seemed deserted and broken down from misuse...except for the door. If no one had been here, then how had that fresh mud been dragged through the entrance?
Across the open courtyard, the entrance to the main keep yawned like a great maw. A drawbridge stretched over what once could have been a moat, but today was simply a deep trench filled with swamp muck. Any concerns about the drawbridge, if not noticing little signs of movement in some time, were quelled upon noting that the chains that were used to draw it upward were rusted, one of them broken completely. The question remained, however, as to what could have happened to it, as so thick a chain did not simply rust through...
In any case, the commotion in the gatehouse was sure to draw any nearby attention. Without more time or supplies, the remaining Squires could do little about their fallen comrades. They would have to leave them for now, though the bodies would be discovered by any who came to investigate. The remaining rescuers were exposed here in the open and would need to regroup and get moving quickly if they hoped not to be discovered...
**********
((Here we go, everyone! Take this chance to report in with your Squire(s), provide any responses to the loss of their comrades at the end of the last challenge, then prep to move. We'll have a couple days for everyone to jump back in, then we're going to get moving. Good luck, everyone!))
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Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:27 pm
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Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 11:02 pm
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Crouched low after her combat roll carried her well beyond the danger, Lailah had whirled back in time to see the others spilling out of the corridor. Good, they'd all make it...
Then, the pattern changed. The spears jumped ahead, abruptly barring the exit and leaving three Squires trapped behind them as the previous line continued ominously forward at its steady pace. The first scream echoed down the corridor and Lailah bolted to her feet purely by automatic reaction. "NO!" Though there was nothing she could do to stop it, she rushed forward towards the barred exit. There was no way through the thick iron bars, not in the next few seconds. It all happened too fast...and yet, it seemed to last an eternity. As sickening as it was, Lailah never turned her eyes away from what happened.
She watched, rigid, as their comrades were cut down, as the light faded from their eyes...
Some of the others were clearly distressed, sickened, shocked by what had just happened. Lailah was filled with rage. With a wordless outburst, she slammed her fist against the wall beside the corridor, then leaned against it, trying to focus on the mild pain and regain control. Head on her arm, she felt as if the others could see her shaking with the fury she felt. Why? This was supposed to be a rescue mission and nothing more! Now, their numbers were down by three and the mission had just started!
Why hadn't they been fast enough to get out? Hadn't they been pushed hard enough in training? Why had the trap changed its pattern at the end? What sort of twisted, diabolical being came up with such a thing?
Never again. I said never again.
Not that there'd been anything she could have done to keep that promise...but it didn't stop the feelings of frustration and guilt from closing in on the angel.
No, everyone was not okay. The answer to his question was clear. Grimly, Eligor looked back towards the corridor when it was all done, eyes only flicking over Lailah's display nearby. No doubt some of the others would be angry. Shaken. It was understandable.
Guardians help us.
Feeling a bit queasy, he tore his eyes away from the bodies of their comra--their former comrades. Genesis' whispered words caught his ear the same time he noticed Harveer bowing his head in prayer. Though some may have thought their calm responses odd, Eligor knew that their training gave them this strength. This was exactly the sort of time when they needed that strength most. And besides...it wouldn't do to show panic or fear on the outside. It only bred more. Keep control over your emotions. Keep calm and collected.
"We won't," he answered Genesis quietly. "And when this is through, we'll give them the proper respect that they deserve." He followed her lead, looking ahead to what lay before them. The open space was worrying, yet after what they'd just experienced, more reassuring than the enclosed space behind.
With a final deep breath and attempt to steady herself, Lailah pushed away from the wall to turn back to the others. She'd failed...that's what her brain was telling her. Her heart. She'd failed, despite her promise. What could she have done? Something...she didn't know what, but...something.
Not as calm as she had hoped, the angel glanced up as something swiftly passed her field of vision. Katya was circling in a panic overhead, a long strip of fabric trailing after her. Lailah sneered, extraordinarily irritated by this singular action and the next time the cloth passed by, she reached out to catch it and yank downwards. |
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 8:57 am
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Being a more sensitive soul than some of his fellow squires was something Dante had always prided himself on. He felt it made him a better servant of the Guardians.
Not today.
Dante's mouth fell open in abject horror. Tears welled up in his eyes and he covered his mouth with his hand. He wanted to look away from the mangled corpses of his friends, but something kept him riveted. Finally his injured knee refused to keep him up any longer and he dropped to his knees, only barely registering the pain of bone hitting the cold, stone floor.
How had this happened? This was to be a rescue mission! And so far they'd met with nothing but horror. A tiny thought crept up in the back of his mind: Were these hostages worth all this? but he squashed it quickly. Any loyal servant of the Guardians must be protected--at all costs. They'd known that.
He caught a wisp of Harveer's whispered prayer and Genesis' urging forward. He looked around at the group--they were broken, both literally and figuratively. They needed some way to knit back together. Lailah would say they needed to keep quiet, since none of them knew what else could be watching them, and she would be right. Luckily for them, Dante could be loud and silent at the same time.
Wiping tears from his eyes, he labored to his feet, using his staff as a crutch. He began to pray 'loudly', using exaggerated signs to catch the attention of the rest of the group.
Accept the sacrifices of these, your servants, faithful Guardians!
Give us strength to move forward together,
Make us your light to shine in the darkness,
Weave our wills together with your will,
And bring us home safely at the morning!
Now, about this knee...Dante was loath to use his healing powers on himself, but he'd be no use to the group hobbling around like this. He pressed his hand to his knee and hummed the four notes for a healing spell. His shoulders relaxed as the pain dissipated and his knee was put right again. |
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:52 pm
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 Surely her and Dante were the last through the death trap. They weren't the fastest, nor in the best of shape because of this cursed place. But as Alethea turned at the sound of the blood-curdling scream, time nearly stopped. She'd reacted in time to watch a wall of spikes just nick Infernos' shoulder, and catch him off guard just enough for the next row to impale him completely. His maul, Shroud Break hurled forward and actually jammed one of the rows of spikes, preventing it from penetrating the stone wall.
Alethea locked eyes with Infernos, and the moment his soul departed his body jarred her and she thought her own soul would be ripped out. She could feel her confidence fade and the doubt building. Infernos was her best friend. He was the only one she'd ever confided in about her fears, and her doubts. He was the only one that knew exactly how badly she teetered the line of giving up and losing her faith. The only pae to ever encourage and believe in her was gone. She figured everyone else just assumed she was the same as them: devout followers. She did nothing to stand out other than be an idiot and lose a wing. But Infernos went the extra mile for her, to help her grow in her own faith.
And for all of his faith and confidence in the Guardians, this was how they repaid him. The most loyal - she was sure of it - servant of the all powerful Guardians is skewered in the gatehouse of a run down pile of useless rubble in the middle of mud and stinky muck. This was not how it was supposed to work.
The young one-winged angel ran to the now quiet and very locked up spiked gate. She tried to reach in, thinking (wrongly) if she could just get to Shroud Breaker, maybe it could help Infernos. Maybe it could help Agnus and Elda. It was a divinely blessed weapon. Of course it was the solution. But she couldn't reach it, not that it would make a difference. When Infernos' light went out, so did Shroud Breakers.
A new kind of anger burned inside. She wanted to just leave this forsaken place, and not risk anyone else dying. Those hostages were not worth the lives of their comrades. They were probably already dead anyway. And three of the Guardians' Chosen were not worth the lives of these two nobodies. Alethea was trapped now, because she couldn't just fly out like the others. If she could fly, she'd have done everything in her power to convince them all to leave with her. And just as she was ready to raise her fist to the sky and curse the names of the Guardians, Eligor's sweet voice cut through that cloud growing in her mind. His light flickering for her in the fog. She stopped her vain and desperate attempt to reach her fallen comrades. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands, and sniffled. The anger wasn't allowed to cross the threshold to hate; she wouldn't let it. She still had Eligor. She clung to her feelings for Eligor, trying desperately to keep herself from just breaking down. She couldn't let him see her in such a disgusting and vulnerable state. 'He deserves a pious and humble girl. I can't give up!'
"What do we do now? Do we have a plan?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 5:35 pm
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There was only the brief tinge of mourning, of grief that crossed Clarux face before it disappeared back into the demon's usual stone expression. Now was not a time for mourning. She could see easily by fresh tracks that someone, no, something had been here, and recently, and there was no need to add to the death toll by sitting around and moping. Some might call this train of thought cold or cruel, but to Clarux, she was simply adapting to the situation at hand.
And adapting was what Clarux did best.
"The dead are dead," she said bluntly. "And if we linger here we are sure to join them." She straightened her posture, looking back on the fallen squires for a brief moment before looking away. "The last our fallen comrades would want is to die in mourning. We are not alone, and if these potential foes are near they will come to investigate the traps going off. We need to press on. There is work to be done"
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 6:02 pm
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 Upon feeling Lailah's sudden downward yank on her backpack, Katya's mind momentarily replayed the cacophonous din of spears crashing all around her, through her gear and almost through her. She yelped- a sound she would have otherwise considered quite un-squire-like- then instinctively flapped heavily upwards towards the roof of the gatehouse. Although her wings were strong enough to lift Lailah off the ground, Katya was unbalanced, rocked to the left by the force of the tug, and she tumbled to the ground in a bundle of wings, tail and bandage. The landing was awkward enough to knock her bow free from her hand, and it clattered across the flagstones unceremoniously as the young demon rolled unsteadily onto all fours, struggling to look up and see what had pulled her to earth.
At that moment Katya found herself staring back out the corridor they had escaped and saw, silhouetted against the failing light behind them, the bodies of her comrades and the countless metal spikes that had pierced them. Even as the other squires were now starting to express shock and grief at the sudden tragedy, Katya's gaze remained unblinking on the grisly spectacle before her.
For the image that was burning itself into her consciousness was the fears she had been harboring for a long time coming to pass. Somehow she knew that it would happen some day; in the struggle to serve the will of the Guardians, some of them would fall. But this- so many, so soon- three of the chosen that had been a part of her life up to this point so easily extinguished- it was all too much to take in at once.
At length, her near-petrification was broken by a combination of adrenaline, fear and nausea. The little squire heaved, arched her back and retched, right there on the ground. She knew the others had been able to contain themselves, and as she spat the last foul dregs on the ground she felt shame mix in with her shock and grief. A fine tribute to your noble, fallen friends. She chastised herself bitterly. With tears rising uncontrollably to her eyes she shuffled to where her bow had come to rest, picked it up and slowly stood. She finally started to hear- and see- the reactions of her remaining comrades. Genesis, Eligor, Dante, Harveer, Clarux; they were all correct. Now was not the time to lose one's self in grief.
Katya eyed the end of the roll of bandage sitting on the ground beside Lailah. The same one she'd felt the tug come from. She walked past with a glare and a not-entirely-friendly shove with her right wing, before resting her forehead against Dante's shoulder as her breathing steadied. "Guardians," She whispered, "We need your light now more than ever."
The little demon eventually stepped back, resting a hand on Dante's arm momentarily before returning to the situation as it stood. Alethea had asked about a plan. Katya's voice cracked with emotion, but her mind was rapidly clearing. "Clarux is right. We need to regain the initiative and find somewhere less exposed to regroup." The question was- would the enemy soon arrive in force to crush their intrusion, or did they lurk in wait beyond, hiding behind further traps and ambushes? Katya spread her wings into a takeoff stance, signaling that she was ready to find out as soon as possible.
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 11:32 pm
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Lailah hadn't expected such a dramatic response. The dangling bandage had annoyed her, so she'd reached out to yank it to the earth. She hadn't expected it to catch on something in the pack and actually pull the little one off course. However, what was done was done now. For a moment, she twitched, starting in the fallen demon's direction...until she started retching. Lailah caught herself and hurriedly looked aside, lest the remains of her own most recent meal join the display.
She turned her attention instead to the dropped bow. No signs of damage to the weapon. Good. Though the way this was going, she just hoped they'd get a chance to use their weapons if they had trouble again. The thought alone brought a glower to her face and she was distracted until met with Katya's glare and wing strike.
Fine, if she needed to be angry at her and that helped shake her out of this, then so be it.
Lailah was growing increasingly uncomfortable with this situation anyway. Sure, likely some were still dealing with what happened...but if they stood here much longer like deer, they were sure to be next. Trying to hide her antsy energy, Lailah checked her gear and moved away from the rest. "I'm going to scout ahead a bit. I don't want any more surprises...but we need to get out of the open soon."
Some were clearly shaken, but others holding together, at least visibly. Good. They could help anchor the rest. Eligor nodded solemnly at the group consensus to move. "Indeed, we should-- Lailah! Don't go off alone!" His words fell on deaf ears, the angel already slinking forward around the corner of one of the dilapidated structures. He sighed, shaking his head and looking at the rest. They wouldn't be far behind at least.
"I say we start moving forward. Check these buildings on the way, but quickly. Just to make sure we're not leaving any surprises behind us to catch us later. Don't anyone else go alone. Move in twos or threes, check briefly, then convene on the other side by the drawbridge. Lailah will warn us of anything up ahead, so let's clear the path behind."
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:15 am
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Genesis nodded her head firmly, thankful that almost everyone was on the same page that they should be moving on, even if not everyone was handeling what had just happened well. It made Genesis feel more uneasy, watching Alethea wipe the tears from her eyes. If they were not all together, they were more likely to make mistakes. After what just happened that seemed likely to get them killed.
She bowed her head in silence for Dante's prayer, thinking her own prayer for strength, but when he was done that was all she could stand to give the matter. They might die, moving on before they were all mentally prepared, but they were surely dead if they waited here in the open much longer.
"Lailah..." Genesis frowned, she really should have taken someone with her. If something happened to her, they would never know. Eligor was right, "Agreed," she told him as she began to move forward, a hand on the hilt of her sword. Unlike Lailah, who left quickly without looking back, Genesis turned her head to make sure the rest were following.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:11 pm
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With a few haphazard twists and knots, Katya had managed to mostly repack the bandage that had snagged itself on the side of her pack, when a sudden movement caught her eye. She saw Lailah zip on ahead, and responding to the notes of concern from the others, the short demon muttered in an even, low voice "I've got her." Lailah was a good scout, but Katya's eyes were at least as sharp. With a couple of heavy wingbeats she rose into the air, wiping the last of the wetness from her cheeks as dust swirled around her. She did not try to get ahead of her more aggressive comrade, nor did she dare fly above the height of the crumbling structures around the courtyard, but rather she swept low, swiftly and silently toward the nearest such building and abruptly peeled upwards, hugging the face of it and finding a narrow window a couple of floors up to hold onto. For this she did not rely on her arms- which she was keeping fresh for any impending bow work- but with the claw tipping her left wing, which in any case was far stronger and more robust than both her arms put together.
She pressed herself flat against the wall, looking for all the world like a giant bat clinging to a cave face. She would have been visible to any observer looking straight at her, but in the grey-red hues of this cursed place's sunset, she was difficult to spot under any other circumstance, especially with her brown flightpack concealing the gold breastplate underneath. From here she could see well in many directions, although the buildings surrounding the group still provided many blind spots. Below and slightly ahead was the stealthy angel who moved gracefully and confidently in the shadows. Trailing behind, just out of eyeshot and cautiously moving between points of cover and concealment were the rest of the group, with Genesis and Eligor at the head, now vacating the vulnerable gatehouse area.
Their situation was still dire, but at least not so immediately perilous if they could regroup unseen around or behind some hard cover. Katya for her part now watched Lailah's movements and guessed the general direction she would head in, picking out another narrow but tall(ish) building ahead to move to so she could keep an eye on the advancing angel, but still be within eyeshot of the majority of the squires.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 4:01 pm
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The Squires' progressive search turned up no new dangers lying in wait for them. At least, nothing living nor any new traps, though the observant would have noticed a few things that raised further questions. Primarily, the strange markings scattered about in the mud. Some were in mud too deep to leave more than a messy hole, some places were too dry for a proper print. A few semi-solid areas however were perfect to preserve what appeared to be cloven hoof prints. There were never enough in a line to track or follow, simply scattered in all directions. They also seemed to vary in size, some tiny, others much larger. But there was no sign of what had left the markings in the courtyard.
Though it groaned in protest, the drawbridge held firm for the young Squires to cross safely. On the other side, they would find themselves in a grand atrium. It was made solely of cold stone, which negated any such feelings now, but perhaps once it had served as a warm welcoming room for the fortress within.
Or perhaps not, given what they had seen thus far.
The room was open and circular, the walls composed of large, rough hewn stones. If there had been any sort of decorative or ornamental trappings, they were long gone now. Darkened halls curved away on either side of the entrance, and straight ahead on the other side of the atrium were a pair of large, heavy wooden doors. The wood was dark, perhaps some sort of hardwood that grew in the forest outside. Carvings on the face of the door depicted several rows of shapes that when viewed from afar, seemed to be some artist's rough rendition of flames, licking upward, as if reaching for the sky.
Little hooves clipped against the hard stone floors, the sound reverberating against the walls loudly despite the small size of the one making it. The mass amounts of cold, lifeles stone weren't much to look at or keep one feeling safe and warm, but the small bundle didn't seem to even notice it as she walked by it all quickly. Could be thanks to the mass amounts of dark, fluffy fur covering her body or the cold look in her eyes as she rounded the corner, but either way, the environment didn't seem to faze her. What did though, was the group her eyes landed on as she crossed their path.
Her sure steps faltered. She came to a halt and stared at them with wide eyes, a yelp leaving her lips. She had been sent out to inspect some weird noises going on, but wasn't expecting this at all. For a moment, she just stared at them, a wide range of emotions flickering over her eyes. She was still a good ways away from them, but it would have been hard to miss the way she was struggling with the sight before her. Her mind raced with what to do, before motion slowly returned to her limbs. She took a few steps back, a hiss replacing the scared noises she had been making moments before. After making sure a good amount of hissing and what sounded like curses had been directed towards the group, the small child bolted back behind her.
Instead of taking the corner where she had come from, she made a mad dash for the thick, wooden doors that sat to the far end of the atrium. It took all of her strength to push it open just enough for her to squeeze her plump little body through the crack. She was in such a rush, she didn't bother to close it behind her. As soon as she had appeared, she was gone, leaving the Squires alone again.
She had to warn him before they got to him. Oh man, were they gonna' be in trouble when he found out about them!
She may have left an eerie sounding giggle in her wake, ringing off the walls of the atrium.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 7:28 pm
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With little more than the sound of whooshing air and a red blur, Katya swept to the stone wall over the drawbridge and clung there, watching as the other squires made their way toward her. Her eyes combed the silent courtyard behind them, half-expecting twisted beasts to burst out from any of the lengthening shadows they'd just left behind.
Yet nothing out of the ordinary occurred. The demon's golden eyes scanned left and right, and a cold uneasiness set itself in her gut. There was once again something wrong with this picture. In many ways this old fortress appeared to have been abandoned for years. Centuries. Yet the signs of recent activity seemed to be everywhere. The damaged chain. The oddly fresh hoofprints. The completely functional spear trap that had just wreaked havoc on their number.
Katya focused her keen gaze on the hoofprints. They were fresh in a relative sense, being far more set than those the squires had just made, but unless this place hadn't seen any rain in many seasons, they would have had to have been fairly recently made. The sheer number and haphazard placement of the prints caused them to be difficult to read, but Katya's scouting expertise (and a couple of lessons from the quirky beast scholar at the castle) told her that the creatures that made them were bipedal, and likely the same size or smaller than the squires. Odd. Not the usual profile of Dragnid beasts.
At that moment the young flier abruptly cursed. She'd lost sight of Lailah. Had the nimble angel already gone across the drawbridge? Alone? Katya wasn't completely sure.
She relaxed her wing and simply dropped from the parapet head first, arresting her fall a couple of feet above the bridge and swooping into the atrium, landing with considerable forward momentum, enough to cause her to slide across the stone floor for a few feet. The young squire held her bow up, peering at the darkness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and it was almost like watching a dungeon materialize before her. The room was spooky, no doubt. The construction and decoration commanded respect, fear perhaps, for whatever power dwelt within, even now as dilapidated and dusty as it all was. The lifelessness of the place now though made it eerie and foreboding. What power had lived here? And what had usurped it?
A clicking noise caused Katya to take a sharp breath and draw her bow. Her mind immediately began conjuring up images of giant insects crawling out of the darkness toward her, out of cracks in the wall, or perhaps down from the ceiling. But there was only one set of rhythmic 'clack-clack'ing, soft and light, coming from a bipedal creature, and it was coming from dead ahead. Katya's eyes met the strange creature's, and both of them froze. She recognized the fur, the ears and nose, the unmistakable hoofed legs. A heretic? Here? Somehow, some part of the back of her mind was unsurprised. Of course they would have a hand in this trickery. Just as the strange little thing began to make a hasty exit, she leveled her aim right at the retreating figure's back. It was so small, but still an easy shot for her.
So small, like a child.
The demon's aim wavered, and she relaxed her arm, lowering her bow and un-nocking the steel-tipped arrow. I can't shoot a child, even a heretic one... can I? For a moment she thought about reaching into her quiver for her thud-shot, but by then the heretic child had vanished. "Strange..." She said quietly. It was no ordinary heretic, and as it ran off down the hallway, the additional taint sensation she'd assumed was just a part of the room receded with it.
Guardians. A tainted heretic?
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 10:31 pm
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The pale angel slipped from the shadows of one structure to the next, pausing to check her surroundings for either danger or clues. No signs of anything living aside from herself and the other Squires yet. Nor were there any signs of further traps, at least as far as she could tell. She should have trusted her instincts earlier. She'd seen the holes...she'd felt something wasn't right...
...she'd said nothing though. And possibly because of that...
No, stop thinking like that. This is not the time. Wallow in self-loathing later when something's not likely lurking and waiting to kill you.
Lailah straightened up from studying one of the hoof prints. Not deer, something bigger. Of course, this was Dragnid, so it could be anything given some of the creatures that lived there, but something in her gut clenched at the sight. Nah, can't be...
Nearing the drawbridge, Lailah moved to the side with the broken chain. She knelt, studying the links that had fallen on the near side of the bridge. Curious. Though there were signs of rust, it wasn't nearly enough to explain the chain breaking. She was no metal worker, but she knew a bit about weapons-grade metal. Construction-grade should be even tougher, right? Or maybe at least equivalent? Eh, she didn't know, but from the sight, the metal appeared to have been sheered....broken clean through.
What could have done that?
She had noticed her aerial shadow, of course, but hadn't been paying her much attention in the last few minutes. She'd been too preoccupied with her own thoughts and focusing on being left alone to regain some sense of composure. So much so, that when Katya swooped overhead, Lailah looked up, puzzled. Wait, she wasn't normally the type to rush in like that; especially into an enclosed space. What was she doing?
The others weren't far behind at this point. Lailah paused for only a moment to watch them close in before she turned to catch up with Katya. Narrowing her eyes to help adjust quickly to the change in lighting, she stared in disbelief at the scene that unfolded before her. In a flash, she was at Katya's shoulder, snapping, "Why'd you let it get away?!?"
Aside from mud, stone, and those strange hoof prints, there was (possibly fortunately) little else to be found out in the courtyard in their wake. Feeling somewhat more assured, at least in their current position, Eligor took up formation beside Genesis, silently tracking each of the others in their progress across the grounds. Now, what were their scouts up to up there? As they neared the drawbridge, any hesitation evaporated as the two scouts went in alone. "Oh, by the Guardians, did they just go in? Stick to the plan!" he groaned, focusing on keeping the rest calm and together, if crossing the drawbridge a bit more quickly than he would have liked.
He'd expected more danger within, maybe. Why else would they have been in such a hurry? Or nothing...nothing would have been a pleasant surprise. But that...
Staring past the two girls at the heavy wooden doors on the opposite side of the chamber, Eligor paused and asked breathlessly, "What...in the Guardians' names was that?" His acute magical abilities were practically screaming at him in response to the level of corruption he'd detected on entering. And now it was gone. With the child. The correlation made him uneasy and he waited for the rest to enter and settle before turning and asking, "Genesis? Dante? What do the rest of you think? Was that...what it appeared to be?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:31 pm
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She was relieved that Katya followed Lailah, she was probably well-suited for that task better than any of the rest of them.
As they made their way to the drawbridge, Genesis was quiet. Her head was slowly turning from side to side, every once in a while she would completely stop in her tracks. Not because she saw something dangerous, in fact, all was eerily still as they made their way through. She was looking at the structures they were walking by, wondering what had once happened here. She couldn't recall the history books having much to say about what Dragnid was before the taint took over or really much about Dragnid at all since anyone rarely ventured in here. What age were these structures from?
Passing through the muddy area, Genesis stopped again kneeling to the ground to touch one of the more in-tact prints. She wasn't a tracker, so it was quite possible she was wrong and this kept her from saying anything, but the tracks did seem kind of fresh.
At last they had crossed the drawbridge and had also caught up to Lailah and Katya. All clear so far.
Genesis' became frozen at the sounds they heard next, pulling out her sword for whatever was coming. Instead, her eyes became equally wide, staring at the ball of fluff with some amount of curiousity despite the wild hisses and crude curses coming from its mouth. It was different from any of the tainted creatures she had encountered in the past. It was different enough, that she didn't immediately draw up its connection to the faun. Everything happened so fast and slow, as Katya drew her bow and hesitated. Genesis was hesitant too, the tainted creatures she had faced before were just beasts, but this... this was sentient. As much training as they had, as much as they hated the heretics, she had never taken a sentient life before.
After the creature disappeared, she shut her eyes hard. Reminding herself that whatever it was, it was tainted, even if it was sentient, it was gone. It was a beast just like the rest of the creatures that had come out of Dragnid. Focus regained, she opened her eyes, looking at Eligor who was speaking for just a moment before her eyes went back on the open door.
It pained her to admit it, "I don't know..." What he thought it was? Mind clear now, she summoned an image of the... creature... back to her mind. She could see the similarities to a faun now. Interesting. "A faun warped by taint?" She had never seen the effects herself, but had heard too much exposure to taint had its effects.
Genesis was still staring at the open door, thinking about how young the beast appeared to be. With a bear cub, its mother was always nearby, where was this creature's mother, and how much more twisted would she be? "We need to keep moving, there could be more." Genesis looked around, was there somewhere else they could go or did they have to follow the creature through this door?
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