Not knowing what to say to make things right, and knowing that anything she says right now, would be unwelcome anyway. Bambi was defeated and depressed, as she followed the others back to the castle... She wanted talk to Gina, but the ferret went ahead to be by Aisha.. Bambi casted her umbrella spell over the Ferret, but let the rain hammer her down into the dark muddy path..She travelled to the castle with an embarrassed look and shameful feelings.
PBH
((Edit:
This thread has gone on long enough to be split. The earlier parts can be found at:
Section 01, posts 1-600 (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=2196.0)
Section 02, posts 601-1200 (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=3373.0)
Section 03, posts 1201-1800 (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=3375.0)
All of these are in The Treasury (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?board=7.0).
Note also that the very first post, in section 01, has a very nice picture of The Castle itself, along with a probably useful description, and we recommend you read that at the very least.
Apologies for any disturbance caused. -- The Manglement ))
"Anytime I can be of service, Madmoiselle," Jeremiah replied with a bow of his own, mildly sillier. This the well deserved cold shoulder from yesterday, or does she just need to loosen up? Either way, best let it be. He fished one flashlight out of the basket before handing it back, remembering again at the last second to downgrade it from a grin to a smile, Just another little reminder...
"Well, if anyone needs me I'll be in the library," he said, waving over his shoulder as he walked away.
The bat chuckled and closed her eyes, turning her face down. Arms laying over her legs, she rubbed her right thumb and index finger claw together a little, thinking.
'No. I'm good,' she finally said, and dropped back on the bed, legs resting over the side. 'I'm thinking of getting some books up here or something...' Idly she lay there, waving her foot back and forth a bit, flexing and unflexing her long toes and claws, before she moved up and leaned over Cog's back, chin on his shoulder.
'What do you think we should do? I'm going to have to check some things before I can start thinking of getting out of here. And I'd like to get hold of the papers for this castle. But right now...' she said, and sighed. 'Maybe the others would want a drink or something. I'm not being a very entertaining host.'
Mel smiled back at Jeremiah as she took the basket and headed for the kitchen. Before she began unpacking the basket she conquered her fear of the stove enough to start water heating for tea. She didn't know who had eaten and who hadn't but tea would be warm and relaxing to those who had been chilled by the rain. By the time she had the basket empty the water was boiling. She found the tea service from before and began preparing a tray with the tea and some of the cookies the frog had picked out at the store.
Slightly discouraged after discovering Cogidubnus's room to be vacant, Keaton traversed aimlessly down the seemingly endless hallways of the castle, gaze shifting from side to side lifelessly in search for any sign or hint of the bespectacled wolf's presence. After what felt like hours of fruitless hunting, she started to detect something--unadulterated, exhilirating. A very outspoken emotional presence, especially in someplace as dreary and desolate as an abandoned castle... especially the emotions which quickly accompanied it. Humiliation or embarassment seemed to be accenting the rush of other emotions, up until something much more pleasant slithered its way through the stream.
A Creature often depicted in ancient legend as a carnal beast leeching off of desire and lascivious emotions very much knew where such emotions flowed from.
Keaton cursed loudly. And she ran faster, although part of her was uncertain about whether or not she wanted to arrive at her destination.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The bat made another sigh, not minding how distracting the impression of her on his back must have been for Cog, and moved around, placing herself in his lap again where he sat, the bedsheet almost sliding off her.
'I'm going to get going now, Cog. The others have to be back by now,' she said, looking at him. 'I think I owe Ketefe an apology.' Then, suddenly, she grinned, baring long fangs. 'I think I've apologized enough to you already. But if you want to talk more magic, or if there's anything else you want, don't be afraid to ask...' she said, and then quickly reached around and pinched Cog's butt with her sharp claws. Down below, Keaton felt another twinge of sadistic pleasure.
It was when Stygian lazily began removing herself from Cog that she suddenly stopped and turned to look toward the entrance to the room, hearing quick and heavy steps from below. The next second Keaton rushed in.
Almost the instant Stygian had predicted the abrupt arrival of Keaton, aforementioned jackal burst into the room, Catastrophe drawn and energy sparking around the mace's spiked globe and handle. Expression was resolutely set in a sharp, vicious, battle-ready posture, teeth bared like enamel daggers and ears slanted back against the depression of her skull--a gesture reserved solely for any potential victim of her mace. She was here! She could distinctly feel Stygian and Cogidubnus's presences in this room, where the emotions were at the strongest and swirling through the room like a miasmatic fog, bathing the chamber like a sauna.
Moving instinctually, Keaton whirled to face Stygian, preparing a spell. No time to think or negotiate. If he had Cogidubnus in here he was inevitably going to devour him, past experiences be damned. She just needed to--
Before Keaton could even shout a battle cry or begin blindly firing off every spell in her arsenal, she caught a glimpse of chiropteran and canine in their promiscuous position.
And that glimpse was all she needed for her entire body to fall slack. The hand holding Catastrophe fell at her side, the other one drooping simultaneously, the residue of her spell defusing in her palm. All signs of hostility evaporated nearly instantly from Keaton's once tense and bloodthirsty expression. Under her vibrant yellow fur, the color began to drain, leaving her skin a cadaverous shade.
That explained the emotions, at least.
Color in her cheeks swept back in, flooding her flesh with a very bright and uncharacteristically feminine pink as she watched the two react, and slowly put together every clue presented. Slowly, Keaton began to take a few steps back, unable to remove her eyes from the two. Then, carefully, she edged her way out the room, making her way to the door. Opening it, she finally slipped out the room, gently closing it behind her with a nigh-inaudible click.
Then she collapsed against the wall outside of the room, sinking lower, lower, until her rear hit the floor and she was blankly staring against the far wall, digesting all she had seen with startling slowness.
FUCK.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog made a noise in his throat as the bat leaned up against him, looking at her from the corner of his eye as she rested on his shoulder. He smiled, taking another drink of his whiskey, letting the patter of raindrops fill the room for a moment before responding.
"Entertaining? I don't think you need to worry about that. I mean, I don't know about the others..." he said, taking another drink, his eyes sliding over to meet the bat's own. "But I can't say it's been boring." He grinned.
Cog raised an eyebrow as she swung herself back into his lap, smirking slightly at her antics. He nodded as she spoke, he opened his mouth to speak, but instead let out a tiny yelp as she pinched his butt, his eyes suddenly narrowing in mock anger. He looked at her for a moment, and laughed, eyes softening, and adjusted himself to let her up. "Well. Go find Ketefe then. And...about myself, I'm glad you finally think so. I'm sure the oth-" Cog stopped, following Sebastian's own gaze towards the door, a puzzled expression on his face.
As if the hounds of hell were behind her, Keaton burst through the door, her mace Catastrophe blazing in her hands, an expression of utter vengeance on her face.
Almost as quickly as she'd run into the room, however, the Jackal stopped, as though she'd run into a brick wall, mace falling from her hands. Suddenly, painfully aware of his surroundings, Cog stared at the Jackal succubus aghast, one eye narrowed in twitching horror. He didn't quite know what to do - the Jackal could not possibly have come at a worse time...well, yes, she could have, but this was almost as bad - the bat sitting on his lap, sheets strewn about madly, both of them naked, a glass of whiskey in hand...
His mouth hung open, and Cog made a few strangling noises as they stared at each other, the Wolf and the Jackal, Cog quickly returning to deathly silence. He almost made as if to gesture something, raising a finger before his hand quickly fell back down to his side, seemingly defeated. His eyes never pealed off her, watching the Jackal slowly edge away and close the door softly, the nearly inaudible click like a thunderbolt in the silent room. Almost as soon as the door closed, Cog dropped his drink. The glass thumped onto the floor, a sound not unlike like a corpse hitting the ground.
Outside, a brief flash of thunder lit the room.
Aisha sighed as she entered her room and closed the door behind her, the voices shut away and the quiet was left to herself for the time being...the only exception was the flapping of wings as the raven hopped from her shoulder and perched on the bed's headstand. Uncaring, the panthress found her dry and clean adventuring clothes and changed out of the ones she borrowed from the castle, placing them on the windowsill to dry...hard to do, as it looked like the sun wasn't making an appearance anytime soon. I wonder just how many times I'm going to have to fix these, she snorted.
When she finished, she turned to regard the raven, which had been idly preening itself before turning its ebony head to stare at her again. She stared back, regarding it with curiosity with her arms crossed. "Well bird, now that that's over, I'm still wondering how the heck you were able to find me. And why you keep following me. I thought you weren't gonna fly in a storm," she smirked, then laughed with a mutter. "Listen to me, I'm talking to a raven. I doubt it can talk back either."
With a dismissive shrug, Aisha tied the cape around her neck again. "Ah well, if you still want to follow, you can, cuervito. Not like you've been much trouble yet." The panthress left the door to her room open as she exited so the raven had the freedom to fly after her if it wanted.
Her mind off of the evening's shortcomings for the time being, the panthress wondered where to go next. She figured on the library...surely her studious mentor still had her nose in a book or two, if she knew her. But it was then that the calming scents of tea and cookies wafted from the kitchen and was caught by the felid's nostrils. Well, I guess I have my answer. She followed it and eventually came upon Mel, the one doing the culinary preparing.
"That looks pretty good, Mel," she smiled to the dragon and reached for a cup of tea. "I guess your time in town was worthwhile."
There was a shocked silence, as Keaton shut the door and left Cog and Stygian sitting. Ten, twelve seconds probably passed, the wolf's glass just slipping out of his hand and the bat not moving an inch. Then, the bat's ear twitched. She began shaking. At first it was just confusing, but then, as she failed to stay up and leaned down over Cog's knees, her face came into view, eyes closed and teeth clenched hard. She opened her mouth and let out a laugh that came out as hissing breaths first. She slipped off Cog's knees and hit the floor with a thud, sheet under her, but just lay there next to his glass, shaking with near-silent laughter.
'Ahahahahehe...! Aaaw Hell... Damn but this is fucked up,' she said, once she had caught enough breath, slowly sitting up. She looked at Cog, grinning, wiping a tear from her eye, and then got to her feet, still chuckling. Her form began writhing and crawling even as she did her wrappings, slipping into black clothes with practiced quickness, and turned, changed back into her earlier form. He walked over toward the door with smooth, silent steps, and knocked it twice.
'Excuse me, Keaton. Could you please move?' he said with a smirk.
Mel looked up at Aisha's words. "Yes, Jeremiah and I picked up quite a lot of items. I hope what we bought will suit everyone. Your time in town seemed quite productive in a different way. What did I miss while I was dining and shopping?" Mel slid the plate of cookies nearer the feline as she took up a cup of tea for herself. "I came in as Bambi smashed the window," she prompted.
On the other side of the door, Keaton sat against its surface, still looking very shocked and very red in her cheeks, turning her whole face into an embarassed inferno. Aside from a few instinctual blinks she looked very similar to a face-flushed statue, unmoving save for those few, ocular gestures. After what felt like weeks of stunned inactivity her brain finally started to work aside from interjecting any efforts of coherent thought with the mental image of she-Stygian draped in Cogidubnus's lap.
'Well, wasn't that a lovely little sight,' Keaton thought to herself, still seemingly paralyzed. 'Now what to say next when I inevitably see those Cog? I can already see myself now. 'Oh, lovely to see you again! What smashing weather we're having, and you look so healthy too. By the way, I saw you two in the midst of an aftermath of something probably unmentionable without offending the weaker-minded and as naked as the day you were born, which definitely came as a shock because I was expecting to see Stygian devouring you alive. Have fun? By the way, here's that book you wanted back, I'm afraid I spilled a bit of grape juice on the second page, but it was a jolly good read.''
Well, it sounded much better the first time it passed through her mind.
Before she could review again she heard Stygian's voice, giving her the same sensation that jabbing someone with a six-thousand-volt taser would. 'OhshitIforgotheknows.' She knew that she would have to react some time, though, five minutes of keeping her hands over her mouth and furious blushing later, and stood up numbly after kicking her body into motion. Fumbling for the doorknob, she opened the door, and stared with a strange amount of calmness at the once-again-male Stygian.
A second of silence later she said the first thing that came to mind.
"...Hi," she said in utter monotone.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"Hmph," Aisha scoffed slightly as she poured her cup and reached towards the plate for a cookie, sitting down as she did so. "Productive isn't quite the word for what happened. But it seems today wasn't the best day to be strangers in that town."
She took a sip from the cup, savoring the warmth in her throat, and continued. "I chose to relax in the tavern and Ketefe, Gina, and Bambi joined me after a while." She sighed. "I guess there was some kind of disturbance following them...a succubus murdered in an alleyway by the square. A policeman came into the tavern and made a beeline for the four of us. I tried to reason calmly with the guy, as did the rest of us, so that we would be let go without suspicion...even when my little raven friend flew in and landed on my head during so."
The panther spared a quick smirk, but her eyes narrowed. "But I guess the biggest mistake was actually thinking it could be pulled off. Bambi went and told him that we were looking into the Castle, and that we had come from it...then proceeded to try escaping through the window, after magically transforming in front of a bunch of suspicious magic-haters, leaving us to deal with things...on top of that probably not having the notion that she could have been endangering us. She came right back though, but still...that Fae is just too impulsive for anyone's own good." she gave an exasperated growl.
"So much for being covert. The policeman let us go...but now we're forbidden from stepping foot back into the town again. The people down there seem to be very superstitious about this place." She rubbed the bridge of her nose and took another sip of the tea, having not touched the cookie. Aisha nibbled the edge of it and looked back up at Mel. "But thanks to you and Jeremiah it seems we have enough to last until they forget, anyway," she smiled.
But she couldn't help but wonder about the choice of revealing the murderer. People were uneasy enough already...
For a moment, Stygian stood, looking down at Keaton and using every bit of his advantage in height and the dim lighting to make an impression, dark eyes boring into the jackal's.
'Hey. What were you doing?' he said, no longer a smirk on his face but rather a vicious, content and deceptively mild smile. The fact that he'd obscured his emotions and thoughts back to unreadable darkness was probably just as unnerving to Keaton, her being a Cubi. She didn't answer quickly, off-balance as she was, and he didn't let her.
'Did you think...?' he said, face going solemnly serious for a second. 'Oh. Of course. That's right. I'm a monster, so...' Slowly, he took a step toward her. 'Well, you weren't entirely wrong, you know? I could still stomach some more.' He took another step, that smile creeping back onto his face, and Keaton was forced to retreat to avoid him coming closer.
Suddenly, Keaton heard a hiss next to her. Next, she felt something brush against her leg. As she looked, she saw things, tentacles of viscous darkness, slither about her, emerging from under Stygian's shirt. A little demonic head, eyeless and with a sharp snout full of wickedly long teeth, hovered just over her shoulder, a long, slim tapered tongue running between its teeth. When her gaze returned to the bat, he had already begun changing, black veins spreading around his eyes and tendrilous things moving under his skin.
'You've seen something I'd rather you didn't,' he said, voice creeping. 'And I would like another snack...' he said, and took another step toward her.
As soon as the Jackal had left, Cog shook his head, as though waking up from a bad dream, muttering under his breath. His eyes, however, were still wide as plates, and a deep, red blush was beginning to suffuse his features.
The bat sliding off his lap and thumping onto the floor seemed to jar the wolf back into reality. He cursed, leaning over to see if the she was alright. Foolish, really - considering everything they'd been through, a thump on the floor was nothing. What he saw, however, was completely unexpected.
He'd expected many things from the bat, shock, surprise, anger, or perhaps embarrassment, but not amusement. She was practically shaking with laughter. Cog continued to turn a brighter shade of red, and was about to stand when the bat got up, redressing herself and changing back into her...his, previous form.
Taking advantage of the interlude, Cog dressed himself quickly, pants and belt followed quickly by a shirt, then his shoes as he picked up his jacket and threw it over his shoulders, the cloth fanning out for a moment before settling down. Passing his arms through the sleeves was strangely comforting, and as he donned his jacket he picked up his sword and slid it back into his belt. His clothes were still a little damp from the rain, but at that moment they were the finest regalia he'd ever worn.
He turned as Sebastian knocked on the door, calling out to Keaton. He grimaced, panic suddenly evident in his eyes, and picking up his glass he poured himself another glass and turned to the window, gazing at the storm. He took a long drink, trying desperately from keeping his mind blank, the blush on his face still unfading. He turned as the door clicked, however, the Jackal coming back into the room.
Cog took a rattling breath, and steeling himself, turned around to completely face the Jackal, setting the whiskey down beside him. He almost spoke, his mouth opening, but the bat beat him to it, suddenly bearing down on the hapless succubus.
Despite the fact he knew the bat was only having a bit of fun with her, Cog found himself hard-pressed to laugh. He sighed instead, sitting down in his chair, and took a swallow of his resting whiskey.
Keaton wasn't exactly expecting for Stygian to react calmly to her impromptu entrance before. In fact, if she weren't staring in complete and utter terror, the blush which had been firmly emblazoned in her cheeks having faded away into that exsanguinous, lurid hue, she probably would've predicted what would happen next.
But if there was anything she had learned about Stygian by now, it was that he was, first and foremost, unpredictable.
The fact she couldn't absorb any emotions from him, or detect anything about his countenance was already unnerving. But when those rippling, squirming shapes started to stream from the shadows, slowly taking on the shape of something vilely serpentine, maybe even wyrm-like, and one of them brushed her leg, she nearly gave into that uncharacteristic feminine streak dictating her reactions and screamed. Hypersensitive, perhaps. Anything could set her off, especially something so unpleasant. Where the fuck was Catastrophe? Oh right, she had dropped 'him' when she stood up to answer the door. Attempting to edge away from the sinuous shape extending toward her from Stygian's shirt, Keaton nervously took a step back, forgetting exactly where Stygian had been cornering her and exactly what was behind her.
Her foot moved, heel starting to press against the subtle rise of the ledge behind her.
She felt herself fall.
Keaton's head snapped 'round over her shoulder, watching in wide-eyed horror as the darkness the stairs were leading into seemed to virtually open up to invite her form inside. Could've been her own surprise, could've been an exaggeration applied by her feverish mind, but it didn't change the fact that what undoubtedly awaited her was the painful and bone-breaking collision against the side of the stairs, and the tumultuous roll downward.
Instead, just as a half-scream, half-curse (likely something along the lines of "God-fucking-DAMMIT") started to escape her mouth, an alabaster-gold hand swept out and hooked around Keaton's waist, effortlessly pulling her away from the stairs and toward the body it belonged to, out of harm's way.
Or not. She wasn't sure what was preferrable. Being eaten, or getting her neck broken on the edge of a dangerously-pointed stair.
'Either way,' Keaton thought, unconsciously feeling a bead of sweat roll down her forehead, 'I'm not going to get a choice.'
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Still holding Keaton, Stygian leaned in and looked her straight in the eyes from close up. Now he was grinning.
'Or, you could sit down and help yourself to a drink,' he said, voice slowly returning to normal. The veins were already retreating, his appearance miraculously regressing from corrupted ferocity back to pallid beauty. 'Or leave, if that is your choice. Because I'd much rather that than eat you. Honestly, I think you'd be too sweet.'
Before Keaton could get another word in, the bat had let her go and started descending the stairs, the last snaking forms of blackness slipping back up under his shirt, leaving her standing there next to the half-open door.
Mel snorted her tea, "She told that bunch of hicks that we'd come down from the haunted castle? Could she have found anything worse to say?" The dragon shook her head, "I'm surprised we were only banished." She nibbled her own cookie. "What was it that got her so wound up about that dead woman? She made me go look at the body."
When Stygian grinned, Keaton found herself involuntarily trying to force her lips to form a smile, although she failed miserably, only managing to make the slightest corners twitch. Either way, Stygian didn't seem to mind, as he seemed much more jovial than what she had originally suspected he would react. What, he was letting her live? After all she had seen, his little episode with Cogidubnus possibly not included? Apparently so, because he was leaving to descend the stairs the next moment.
Keaton tensely watched him disappear down the stairs step by step until he vanished from sight.
Well, she couldn't argue with that judgment.
Suddenly feeling a monster of a headache slip inside of her brain, Keaton trudged with a visible lack of enthusiasm towards the door, being sure to scoop up Catastrophe on the way inside the room Cog was in. Hopefully he had taken the opportunity to get dressed, and wasn't too pissed about her little interruption, otherwise she would be re-introduced to the very definition of awkward. Not that she wasn't considering it worse than what she had just experienced. Today was just not turning out to be a good day.
"Uh, hi," Keaton said from outside the door's threshold, keeping her eyes averted. "Please tell me you're dressed, or at least covered, Cog."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
If Keaton had been looking as she had entered the room, she would have seen Cog sipping a glass of whiskey as he stared out one of the windows. He was a bit more composed, although he still seemed to be breathing deeply, and his eyes seemed a little...wild. He nearly jumped at the Jackal's words however, managing to suppress it into merely a slight tremor. He took a long drink before setting his glass down, and turning to view the Jackal succubus. He sighed, turning around to face her.
"Yes. I'm dressed." he said, voice strangely resigned. He only managed to not begin blushing again by sheer force of will. He grabbed the glass that Sebastian had left behind and set it on the drink table, turning to regard the Jackal succubus.
"About what you saw." he began, looking at the Jackal forlornly. He seemed to pause for a moment, mouth twisting, and turned back to the drink table. "The anwser is yes. Now," he said, picking up a bottle and topping off his own glass before setting it down, and turning to regard the succubus again, his voice just slightly off-kilter. "Would you care for a drink?"
Somewhat relieved by Cogidubnus's answer, Keaton glanced back into the room, looking rather sullen and still slightly pallid from what she felt was a close encounter with a very violent death. The fellow canine still appeared nervous despite his earnest efforts to suppress it, probably awkward and embarassed, and he practically radiated tension. Keaton didn't begrudge him that. If someone had walked in on her like that, then the results would have been far, far worse. Actually, she would've killed the unfortunate witness involved.
Ah, she could be so predictable sometimes. It was almost depressing.
Upon Cog's invitation Keaton somewhat hesitantly entered the room, looking crestfallen and exhausted (quite a feat for a creature which had no need for sleep), but otherwise grateful to be alive as she wiped her forehead free of sweaty residue. "Yeah. I really need a drink," she said tiredly, using a tentacle conjured from her exposed midsection to set Catastrophe back in its holster.
Stealing a bottle of whiskey, Keaton sat down nearby at a reasonably comfortable distance. No glass, of course. She preferred to drink from the bottle. "And in case you're wondering..." Keaton expertly gulped down a good deal of whiskey, then lowered the bottle, already looking rather pacified after getting some alcohol in her system, and continued as calmly as she could. "...and at the risk of making you feel even more uncomfortable, I'm not going to tell anyone about this little episode. I mean, I may be a bitch, but I'm not that much of one. To be frank I'm just glad you're in one piece."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Jeremiah had already sat down in the library to get to work when he finally realized what would probably speed things up. Talking to the person responsible for creating the specter curse in the first damn place. With a groan, he sent an illusionary message down the hall to seek out Gina and request a private chat. Probably shouldn't have been so worried about asking her in the first place. Admittedly, only a couple days ago she was a maniacal angel bent on killing all of us, but now she seems more likely to hide behind Bambi than do any vengeful smiting. All in all, unlikely to be a threat to others. Perhaps... He thought back on the previous day and winced at how freaking familiar it all was. Like when your friends suggest that you do something stupid and you're JUST drunk enough to listen, except the voice your listening to is in your own head. Perhaps with her aid, that could be true of myself again too.
Cog coughed a bit at the Jackal's words, especially the last bit, as he sat down in his chair. He crossed his legs, resting his elbow on one of them, and took a sip as he regarded the Jackal. He smiled slightly.
"Well, thank you. But honestly...knowing Sebastian..." he said, a slight, breathy groan escaping him as he leaned back. "Well, let's say I'm not worried about you telling anyone." Cog finished, taking a slight sip of whiskey. "Well, I knew I'd be paying for it, in one way or another..." he murmured, suddenly smirking. He stayed that way for a bit before returning to reality suddenly coughing. Not able to keep even a slight flush from his face, he took a sip of his drink and leaned forward, resting his head in his palm.
"Anyway. About that last bit...that's something you should probably talk to the bat about." he said, his eyes taking on a contemplative cast. It was strange-looking, the sudden, deep look juxtaposed with the panicked, wild-eyed glare of extreme embarrassment.
Cog broke the sudden silence. "Do Sebastian a favor, would you? Don't...at least talk to him, before telling the others." he said, sighing. "It's...well. Just talk to him."
Cog's last morose statement seemed to die in the air. Desperately trying to keep the situation from growing any more awkward, he suddenly began again, interjecting past the pattering rain on the windows.
"What were you even doing up here, anyway?"
Pierced eyebrow quirked irritably as Keaton took another, lengthy sip from the seemingly bottomless whiskey bottle, mostly in response to Cogidubnus's remark that Stygian would likely inform someone about their little bedtime misadventure. Gulping down the alcohol, Keaton rested the bottle on the table, wiping away the residual vestiges of whiskey from her lips with the back of her hand.
"Seriously. Why would he tell someone?" she asked, honestly intrigued, although somewhat unnerved by the idea of confronting the bat again. Considering he likely had the potential of disposing of her within a few minutes, she was, admittedly, almost certain that if things turned ugly he would emerge from their skirmish victorious. "Though, yeah... I should probably talk to him," she stated somewhat reluctantly.
'Grow a spine, Keaton,' she thought bitterly, 'Suck it up. You're not some idiotic brat scared of the monster under her bed. You have a mace and extensive dark magic abilities, and you're not afraid to use them. Act like it.'
In response to Cog's next question, Keaton coughed, then sighed in resignation. "Can I be perfectly honest? I thought that Sebastian was going to kill you," she said, "And I was soooo dead set on charging in at the last minute and saving you. Funny how the world works."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe was still in the main room, leaning in the same spot. She was going to join the others in the kitchen soon. She just needed a minute for everything that had gone on that day to sink in.
So... in the course of one day, I've switched genders, switched back, withheld information about a somewhat-planned murder, and been banned from setting foot in a town. Should I write Jarevei about this or not?
She smiled a little at her own mental question, then tilted her ear. She heard footsteps approaching.
Rynkura's ears quirked as she finally heard a couple of those far-off footsteps coming through the entrance to the library. She had been standing behind a bookshelf somewhere near the central point, the enchantment book she was reading still on the table. She listened for a moment, then peered out of the shadows to see whom it was.
"Ah, Jeremiah, welcome back," the tigress greeted with a polite smile, pausing before she moved across to another shelf. She remembered the frog once before...and she noticed he looked just a smidge pensive at that. "I take it your time in town was enjoyable?" she inquired. Surely there was someone who could elaborate on the supposed problem.
* * *
Aisha finished the rest of the warm drink, chuckling just a bit at Mel's reaction to her story. As she reached over to pour a little more into the cup, the panthress shook her head as an answer to her inquiry. "I wish I knew...people usually stay far away from a murder scene. But from what I heard from the way she tried to talk to the policeman, she wanted to be a help in solving it." She shrugged. "The fae's heart is in the right place at times, but..."
She left the sentence at that. Perhaps it was the calming influence of the tea and cookies, but she felt her aggravation on the matter start to dwindle, and thus figured any more behind-the-back talk wouldn't warrant anything useful. "Hm, anyway, perhaps the matter will be cleared soon. It's not like they can hold a grudge against people whom they think won't be coming back alive, for long." She snorted a laugh. "Underestimators. He didn't have a high opinion of women like us either."
Just a second or two after her noticing, Stygian walked in on Ketefe, a clip in his step that made his walk audible for a change. He stopped, and turned toward her, eying her with the same content smile he had given Keaton upstairs.
'Ah. So you came back. Glad to see,' he said. 'I was afraid that I'd put you off somehow. You seemed... tense, earlier.' Slowly he stepped closer and looked down at her.
'You have eaten, I presume? If not, I could always throw something together,' he said gently. 'I'm heading to the kitchen anyway.' He gave her one last intense look and then paced away, walking in on Aisha and Mel shortly after.
'Evening ladies,' he said, walking over to a cupboard. 'How was dinner?'
"Hm? Oh absolutely," Jeremiah looked up from one of the numerous books he'd been searching through, "Found the nicest little bookshop. However, I think the others got into some trouble," he scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "I don't know all the details, but I think Bambi pissed off the cops. Then again..." the frog drummed his fingers on the table thoughtfully, "It may just be a bad time to look like an adventurer down there. This cubi woman was found dead not too far from the bar where the rest of them were hanging out." He shook his head, "Yeesh. Curses, monsters, maniacs, whatever the hell Stygian is..." he gave a weak chuckle and thumbed through the book before him some more, "This sort of thing normal for you adventuring types?"
Listening to the frog as she continued to browse, Rynkura's ears flattened against her skull as the events from the town came to her knowledge. A murder? She thought, just a little surprised...but she suddenly seemed to understand what made Keaton edgy before, if she had been one to see it.
Bypassing those thoughts, she chuckled at the frog's question. "Ah, my adventuring days are mostly far behind me...but I would imagine that such things are still part of what they have to go through, yes." The tigress took another title from off the shelf and studied it...then when she started to thumb through it, her eye caught the ring on a finger of her left hand: remnant of such a past.
"There are more dangerous things in this world than anyone would bother to look for," she relayed. "For adventurers it's just another day of work." The healer's head shook thoughtfully. "But perhaps the situation was called for."
At least I believe it wasn't one of their group. There seems to be a few more Creatures than anything here.
* * *
Before she had recieved an answer, Aisha quirked her head upon hearing the bat's familiar voice as he strolled into the kitchen. She kept her expression neutral (easy to do after a tired day anyway), but she couldn't help remembering what she had been told. Was Gina mistaken?
Or maybe it's just unneeded paranoia.
"Mmh," she hummed a greeting while taking another sip from her cup. "Oh we didn't eat much yet...at least I didn't. Just getting an appetite ready though," she grinned. "Haven't had a meal here yet to complain about."
The bat took out some bottles from the cupboard and looked at Aisha.
'
Well, if you would want to, I could cook something quick up for you now. It wouldn't be too much of a bother. How about the others? You, Mel?' he said, looking at the dragon. '
Ketefe? Richard? Bam? Gina?' He began preparing a platter of things from another cabinet as well, stacking up small confections and fetching ice.
'
I will mention too that you are all welcome to join me for a few drinks in the northern tower.'
Back in the library, Gina suddenly walked in on Jeremiah and Rynkura, placing herself at the end of the bookshelf next to Jeremiah and starting to peer through the many volumes with a serious look. Somehow though, the frog knew that was not actually what she was doing, but waiting.
"Well, we'll never know now. The victim most certainly isn't telling. Ah, Gina!" Jeremiah grinned, "Just who I was looking for! Come, walk with me a while, there was a few things I wanted to ask you. I'll see you later Rynkura," Waiting up a little for the ferret to follow him Jeremiah set off down the hall, taking a somewhat longer route toward the kitchens so that they would have more time to talk.
"Hey Gina...?" Jeremiah asked when they were reasonably out of earshot of the library. He wrung his hands together nervously, once again reminded that he was about to question someone who had at one point wanted him dead...
"What would you say you know about laughing ghosts?"
Mel nodded a welcome, "Good evening, Sebastian. I had dinner but it was... abbreviated. It was made clear that I was not to linger. I hope the supplies are adequate. I was not sure what was needed or preferred." She smiled a bit, "Excepting Jeremiah's preferences. You will find a lot of junk food available."
"To watch me sweat." The wolf answered, smiling slightly. He very deliberately set his glass down, coughed, and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He tiredly brushed a bang out of his eye and seemed to visibly droop in the chair, although still smiling at the Jackal. He seemed to have calmed down somewhat.
"But thank you. I'm afraid the others would react...rather badly, if they found out. Or, perhaps not." he amended, looking meaningfully at Keaton. "But I think it's something the bat should speak to them about, rather than either of us. Besides."
Cog's eyes seemed to bore into Keaton's for a second. "I'm sure a Cubi, more than anyone else here, would understand...feeding." he said. He stared at her for a moment, when his gaze suddenly faltered for a moment. "Or doing things that you hate..." he murmered. The moon suddenly peeked from out between a gap in the storm, the silver light passing through the room and glittering off Cog's glass before fading again. It seemed that, for just a moment, Cog's eyes continued to glow, even after the light faded.
The wolf coughed, picking up his glass again. "In any case, while I appreciate the sentiment..." The wolf took a slight sip, looking away for a moment. "Please. Do knock the next time you decide to save my life."
'To watch me sweat.' Wow, wasn't that a wonderful response... although it seemed to be a fairly accurate response to how, ostensibly, Stygian appeared to operate. Fidgeting with her bottle, Keaton tilted it this way and that with only the slightest bit of interest, watching the light glide in smooth, silvery streaks along the glass surface of the bottle's throat. Even as their conversation was starting to take a more casual edge Keaton noticed that Cog still seemed uptight, nervous. Not that it wasn't understandable...
When Cog's saffron spheres pierced into Keaton's ocherous orbs, the jackal seemed to falter slightly, especially when he brought up 'Cubi and eating--most especially doing things that one hated. That just seemed to make Keaton freeze altogether, every muscle in her body drawing together into a thick knot like taut rubber bands. That offered a new perspective. Keaton hadn't stopped to consider if Stygian was actually remorseful about what was necessary to survive, nor the similarities between... well, Stygian and herself. That pensive, slightly disturbed expression remained on Keaton's face, the jackal focusing more on rotating the whiskey bottle in her hand and watching with detached fascination as the moonlight reacted against its angle.
The mood seemed to lighten with Cog's last statement, because Keaton found herself smirking wickedly, albeit sincerely. She wasn't sure she had a response to that quip, other than, "I'll take that into consideration." Well, she wasn't exactly vying for any awards for her sense of improvisational humor.
The bottle was set on the table, half-empty. Stretching her arms over her head, Keaton stood up, then glanced at the wolf. "Taking into account that you might want some privacy and some time to relax I think I'll be off... and I'll talk to Sebastian if I see him." She added the last few words almost as a reluctant afterthought. Self-encouragement could only go so far.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
'Ah. I see. Well then...' Stygian said and coughed. 'I'm sure things are alright. I just wanted to come down and check how things were. People seem to have wandered off, but...' He turned against them, and simultaneously popped a chocolate praline into his mouth, before turning and starting on a pot of coffee. 'If you want anything you're absolutely welcome to say it. As I said, drinks in the northern tower, so you know where to find me.'
Having said what he'd come for, Stygian got himself a cup of tea, put honey in, stirred gently for a few seconds and then exited with his things, giving Ketefe another smile and disappearing around a corner into shadows, from which he made a very immediate way back to the tower.
'I don't know whether you like chocolate, but with coffee drinks it usually goes well...' the bat said, stepping in before Keaton had managed to even properly remove herself from the room.
After entering the grand entrance hall, Bambi stayed in the hall looking depressed and reject and watches the others going to library or kitchen as she thinks about things which were and weren't her faulty. Gina goes to library after waiting for Bam to say something. Bambi looks away a shame, and she doesn't know what to say yet.
Bambi looks at the entrance hall's damage from weather, battles, and age over the years. She waves her magical of mending spells around which washes away the dust and cobwebs, restores dry rot, broken glass and wood molding. She cleans the mess of the hall as she thinks about this mess she made with the local police and with the Gina's warnings. but also about the Castle, and the bat. The main entrance hall is finally cleaned of dust and cobwebs, and the signs of many battles, when she finished.....
With a sigh, Bambi goes to the Library to look doe Gina, and asks her to come with the Fae to a private cover.
"Gina I am sorry, and I mess up I thought you were right behind me. With all your warnings, I figure you want to get back to the castle as soon as possible with or without the local law enforcement approval... I thought, whatever is coming, is going to be bigger than just the police's fur getting matted. up. I don't know what happen I usually think about the average people's feelings. But, no, I just want to get you out of there, knowing the police will or may connected you to that murdered cubi....I loved you and I want help you in everything. Yet, you have you own talents, you need to trying use them. and bop me on the head when I need to listen. If you want me to stay, I will but right now I am not sure what is directing me, myself or my chaotic magic, the dizzy fae nature. I am going to the showers and then to bed to sleep. I have supplies coming with my All terrain RV arriving in two days. I call my robot assistant as we left the tavern. You ...or We can decide then if I stay or go. from the Castle. But you need to start trusting some of the others. I will not be revealing any of your secrets, but we or they have to start working together, because the world will not wait for us to get our act together.
"Think about this Gina, because there are those who want this castle, and we set off a large magical flare that was seen by everyone with magical sight or sense for a thousand miles around here. Creatures of all types will know something has change here. And will be coming to check the place of treasure or weakness. We don't need more enemies because we already have a sociopath ready to break in and kill us. That spiderlady will likely throw a mind control mob of town people with torches against us next. She is just out there wait until she has lick her wounds and grown stronger, and then whoever hired her to kill the bat is out there, too." says Bam
* sigh* I need a shower, you need to think What or how will you protect you and your castle?" asks Bam and she goes to the bath.
PBH
Cog nodded at the Jackal, leaning back in his chair. "I could use a few minutes, yes." he sighed, rubbing his eyes. He lifted a hand up half-heartedly to bid the Jackal adieu, murmuring a goodbye under his breath as Keaton made for the door. "And thank you." he said, his voice sincere.
Before Keats had gotten halfway there, however, the door burst open, Sebastian entering the room with yet another tray of goodies. Removing his hand from one side of his face to gaze at the bat, he took a slow, cautious sniff of the air. Chocolate, it smelled like, with a hint of...butter. Chocolate cookies, then. Or something like that. He was about to stand, when the bat mentioned something to the Jackal about coffee.
Cog paused.
Coffee would be damned good right now.
He lurched forward and stood, his momentary lethargy forgotten. He raised an eyebrow at Sebastian, tilting his head. He still seemed...tense, somehow, but it was ebbing. By his expression, something warm and soothing might do the trick better than alcohol.
"Did you, perhaps, say coffee?"
Aisha thought of the bat's offer to make a meal as she considered how hungry she was...and figured she wasn't right then, not yet. "That's kind of you, Sebastian. I'll consider eating later," the panthress relayed as he walked out carrying his own little selection of things. Things were seemingly going smoothly now, as she finally saw happen, and the last of her frustration and anger subsided into nothing...as well as her suspicion of their host.
Considering things could have gone much worse in town, I guess we should count ourselves lucky.
Sitting at the table with Mel opposite, Aisha considered her options on what to do. People were indeed scattered...she hadn't heard anything from her other comrades since they got back...and in the case of Gareeku, since before they left. Evening was falling, the storm still lingering, and the castle was draped in silence that was only slightly less dreary, in favor of calming. Better stay that way, she thought.
Then the panthress gave herself a mental shrug, and stood up from her chair, comfortably readjusting the straps of the sword sheath winding down across her chest. "I think I'll go check in on Mistress Rynkura and--"
"No need, child," a new voice interrupted, a familiar one accompanying the clicking of a staff point on the floor. Rynkura appeared from the darkened entryway, having gone out of the library just a few moments after Jeremiah had. She looked across to the panther and dragon with a kind smile. "Good to see the rest of you are back. I'm just here to fix myself a little something and get back to the library. I shall be quite busy reading the fascinating books on enchantment this place has," she chuckled. "Old habits. You go ahead to whatever you were planning." I guess I shall speak to you later about town events, the tigress added silently to herself, her back turned as she looked around.
Aisha watched her for a moment, then barked a quiet laugh. "Alright...I might as well see what drinks they'll be serving in the tower, then. What'll you be doing, Mel?" The panthress asked out of curiosity as she started for the doorway.
When Stygian entered the room, Ketefe wasn't altogether surprised. She'd been half-expecting him. His words confused her a little, and she couldn't respond in time before he walked off. (A) I couldn't have stayed in town even if I wanted to, and (B) OF COURSE I seemed tense, you idiot! And I think you know why! She hated coming up with good answers after someone had left. She knew Stygian was probably just acting clueless on purpose to throw off the others or herself, but she knew that he knew that everyone else probably knew already.
His voice was calm, but the look he gave her as he headed for the kitchen suggested otherwise. She couldn't decide whether he was pissed at her or just messing with her. Trying to read into every signal given was like trying to read Braille written by a caffeinated woodpecker. Somewhat dazed from her failed attempt to decipher the bat's thoughts, she followed him into the kitchen.
"Not that hungry, thanks," she said in response to Stygian's offering of food. When he headed back up to the north tower, inviting others to follow, she blinked. She found herself thinking one phrase over and over:
What does he want, what does he want, what does he want, what does he want...
Then she shook her head, subtly, so the others wouldn't notice. The offer hadn't been targeted at her; Aisha was already on her way to join Stygian. Besides, he still had no reason to hurt Ketefe. It's not like his need for blood is some big secret, and everyone here knows who killed that succubus. Besides, somehow, part of her trusted the bat completely. If he wasn't worth trusting, she would have known it the second she'd stepped into the castle; the fact that someone of his power hadn't simply killed her for trespassing was all the proof she'd needed.
She walked over to where Aisha was. "I'll go with you. I think I need to talk to Stygian."
'
That, I did,' Stygian said, effortlessly balancing the tray in his hands over to his other hand and gently placing it on a table. '
If you haven't smelled it already, I have a pot of it here.' Calmly, he poured himself a cup and added a hefty bit of Irish Cream, stirring it lazily before sitting down on the bed next to Cog.
'
You really don't have to leave, Keaton. The others are joining us quite soon,' he said, sipping his coffee. He hissed through his teeth a bit at the steaming warmth. '
You don't have to feel pressured. Not by me or by Cog here. Right?' He turned slightly to look at the wolf. The next second, Cog felt something pinch his left buttock, clearly the bat even though he was holding the wide cup in both hands.
Gina had made as if to start talking to Jeremiah when Rynkura left for the kitchen, but before she could she was briskly whisked away by Bam. She made an irritated face at first, one that settled somewhat as she heard the fae talk.
'I know all those things, Bambi, and I think of them. The problem is that you don't seem to,' she said, a bit sourly but also somewhat sadly. 'Those people don't understand what is going on, and telling them will not help us in any way. I was just trying to do what I needed to, and as carefully as I could. Think!' She stepped closer, looking up at the cat seriously.
'I have to protect this place, and I am not strong enough to do it alone. But getting
reliable help is crucial! Anything else is just dangerous,' she said, and turned her back on the cat. 'I'm sorry. I just... I'm going to talk to Jeremiah.'
With those words, the cat left Bam and walked back to the library, a sad look on her face.
Mel smiled at the tiger. "Good evening Mistress Msh'taan. There are tea and cookies here to tide you over until you decide on a meal." At the mention of books on enchanting items Mel gave Rynkura an interested look. "Do they have any by Cray? I always promised him I would read his work. He was such a joker, you never knew what sort of enchantment he would put on something."
When Aisha asked what she was going to do Mel paused. While discussing enchantments was something she could spend hours on their host had invited them. "I will join you, Aisha." She stood and bowed to Rynkura, "Perhaps we can exchange book reviews another time, Mistress Msh'taan?"
While Aisha leaned on the door awaiting Mel's answer, she quirked an ear to Ketefe who had walked in the room whilst they were talking...the huntress noted her demeanor, perhaps just a little jumpy. Nonetheless, Aisha smiled and nodded to the masked feline. "Sounds like a plan then." Her head turned to observe Mel and Rynkura converse for a moment.
Rynkura turned around to the dragon with a chuckle. "Ah, yes, Cray, the old fool. There's one or two I picked out lying on the tables in the library." The tigress paused however as Mel answered Aisha with confirmation that she was also going along to the north tower. "It will be nice discuss it later then, Mel of Icewing, if you are interested," she said with a polite bow back, her head tilting a little. It wasn't far too often that she found someone with the same kind of interests. "And thank you for the tea and cookies."
Aisha nodded her head with confirmation. "'Tis settled then, amigas. To the drinks," she smirked and started out the door, sparing a bow to her mentor before exiting. Because she had mapped out nearly the entire floor, it wasn't too hard to find the corridor leading to the north tower, and the voices from above accompanying as they stepped further up.
Jeremiah shook his head with a chuckle as Gina returned, Those two... If I hadn't at some point been menaced by the both of them it'd almost be adorable. "Glad you could make it, I was starting to think that Bambi was going to monopolize your company all evening," he looked around to make sure the room was empty before continuing. Fortunately, it seemed that most everyone had vanished to the kitchen.
"Now, correct me if I'm mistaken Gina..." He continued with a friendly smile, "But last I checked you knew a good deal about this castle. Its residents, its history, and on a more important note its curses," he shrugged, "The latter I have reason to take an interest in. Namely the curse that results in those cackling specters; the kind that scratched me a mere few minutes before we were first introduced. I've been going through everything relating to such afflictions in this library and I've yet to find anything on the subject of how to dispel it or indeed, and mention of a monster ghost curse at all. I don't suppose you could tell me anything on the subject?"
Cog sighed in relief as the bat said so, the rich flavor filling his nostrils. Just what the doctor ordered. Something to soothe his frazzled nerves...
Cog was about step forward and pour himself a cup, when he felt something brush up against his pants and suddenly pinch his left buttock. He jerked, his eyes snapping to Sebastian, and by an almost supreme force of will he kept himself from blushing, stepping forward. He kept his eyes glued to the bat - Sebastian said nothing, of course, his face a perfect mask of innocence, although his eyes glinted with silent amusement.
Cog sighed and grabbed a mug, pouring himself a bit of the steaming liquid and fixing it up to his liking before returning to his seat, settling down and taking a drink. He seemed to groan as he sipped, the wolf seemingly emanating waves of relief - tension seemed to drain out of him, and with a deep sigh he seemed to calm a great deal.
He took a deep breath, savoring the aroma, and nodded at Keaton. "I'm actually feeling much better. If you'd like to stay, please, do." he murred, steaming mug in hand.
With heavy sigh and a long look after Gina, Bambi goes to the bath room. "More reliable" weighs heavy on her. She starts with a shower and then in just soaks in hot tun of water. She had banished her leafy dress, and tries to think of who is in charge of her, what was controlling her actions... She finds that her personality has been changing.... But why? Her new found power, new love, her Fae nature surfacing. She would have medical exam, once Beeker 2.0, her robot got here. He could check of abnormal conditions or effect on or to her. Yet, Could she even use any of her old equipment without it exploding in her face.? Mab never seem to be able to bake cookies, even from uncooked dough without her destroying the Alexsi's kitchen.
Even now , with the storm and the rain, she feels like just jumping out of this tub and fly or zip around the castle and few dozen times. Just to feel the power of her wings and the wind in her face. Bam had to find the healer, she decides maybe she could help her.
Bambi gets out of the bath, and wave her paw at the water. The water runs up and out the bath and cleaning the tub and the tiles around it and down the drain in the floor.
The Fae heads to the library and waits for the healer to return. The tigress is greet by a depressed and down Fae sitting in the healer's chair once her returns to the library.
PBH
Standing up again, Stygian smiled and sipped his coffee further, brushing a bang of pallid hair out of the way.
'
Tense? You seemed quite exhausted not ten minutes ago, puppy,' he said, not making a particular face but the mischievous glint in his dark eyes still strong. His ears swiveled just a bit as he stood to the side in between Keaton and Cog, leaning against a chest of drawers.
'
It seems we have another guest coming. Step in, Aisha!' he said, calling out the last words a bit louder.
Gina stood and looked at nothing for a short while after Jeremiah posed his question, empty eyes in a solemn face. Then, slowly, she turned those white, gleaming orbs against the frog, face unchanging. He felt that gaze rather deeply.
'The ghosts that you talk about have no real names, because no one ever thought of naming them. I guess you could call them Lunacies, if that's what you're after,' she said, her tone businesslike and bitter. 'They are the remnants of those who have gone insane and died of it here in this castle. They are immaterial and invulnerable, just like madness is, and still they can interact with the world around us, so long as they have a physical anchor. The masks, remember? You never see madness in someone through just looking at their face. It hides behind the mask of the flesh.' She exhaled slowly and looked down for a bit, before speaking again. 'Fighting them is like fighting madness. They are poisonous, because they use the conflict and insanity within a being and infects it, magnifying it. That's why they are so deadly to someone frightened or already a bit crazy, because it's easier to affect them.'
"Distressingly fitting," Jeremiah murmured, "So, you say fighting them is like fighting madness? I doubt that you mean counseling sessions and overmedication. I note that all of these Lunacies, as you call them, vanished after you... settled on a voice..." the frog began looking about nervously, his gaze briefly darting over to Bambi. (When did she come back?, "You mentioned how to fight these things, but what about restoring them? Is there any sort of cure?" he continued, keeping his voice down.
With the others behind her as far as she could hear, Aisha traversed the path to the tower and stopped mentally mapping the trail to relax her head a little bit; it was experienced knowledge that going around a long time in the rain and dealing with a stressful situation at the same time tended to give one a headache, or worse. But the atmosphere seemed to feel a little more welcoming as she approached the door where voices could be heard...three different, all familiar.
And it was confirmed when her name was called before she even set her paw within three steps of the threshold. There was only a slight pause before she entered the room with a laugh in reply, laying her eyes upon those already inside...Cogi, Keaton, and of course Stygian.
Well that's the mystery solved as to where two of them went, she thought to herself as the panthress followed her introduction with a lithe step and a light-hearted bow, her crimson cape flaring slightly behind her. "Thanks for that welcome, and greetings. Quite a party this is is looking to be," she joked, and jerked her thumb back to the doorway as she stepped in. "Mel and Ketefe should be straight behind me."
* * *
Rynkura hadn't been too awful long in the kitchen. She listened to the others leave, the remaining tea left on the table...she figured then it might be a good idea to take the trays with her. There hadn't been many footsteps coming back towards the kitchen, and the tea was likely to get cold fast if left. The tigress made her own small meal of a couple of sandwiches with assorted pieces of meat on the inside, and proceeded out of the kitchen through the quiet corridor to the library, staff floating along behind her on command instead of having to be carried with full hands.
On the way she hummed to herself, just to listen to the echoes produced off the stone. The storm sung along, or at least tried to interrupt with a thundrous drumming sound. She hadn't minded. It would break the silence just so...
The healer could be heard still humming before entering the library, where she quietly stopped her singing to look upon those gathered. At a table near the central portion sat a very somber-looking Bambi, and at another table Jeremiah and Gina conversed among themselves. "A motley group," she chuckled and set the tray down with the remaining cookies and tea at a table near them all. "These are courtesy of Mel, should you partake," Rynkura notified with a nod of greeting and proceeded towards where she was sitting before, books strewn in different places.
"And what ails you now, child?" the tigress said, tilting her head questioningly at the saddened Bambi as the staff floated back into her free hand.
Sitting and waiting with her eyes close, Bambi listen to the Frog, go on about curing the undead, ghost of all thing. Her impulse was to jump down his throat with comment There is no healing the dead, but she stay silent and waited for the healer to arrrive.
Once the Healer return with Tea and ask her a question, Bambi opens her eyes.
"Healer, please I need healing, I am still cursed in someways and I don't know my own mind sometimes. Can you check me over?"pleads Bambi "Can you find out why there is still mental blocks in my speech and other things"
"And Jeremiah, the ghosts just need to realizes that they re dead and sometimes need to be guided to the afterlife." sigh Bam and turns to the tigress "We all need guidance sometimes, even those with ultimate power, need help in using it."
PBH
Mel was a few steps behind Aisha. The freshly smashed wardrobe at the first landing gave her a momentary pause. Despite the fact that they were invited that seemed like more of a keep out. Since the panthress ahead received a friendly greeting that didn't involve projectiles Mel continued upwards.
Ketefe followed Aisha and Mel upstairs. She found herself humming "Breaking the Girl" along the way, just to pass the time. Although the broken wardrobe surprised her for a second, she stepped around it gingerly and continued. Aisha had been invited in warmly enough so that some of Ketefe's paranoia dissipated, so she looked and felt a bit more relaxed as she walked up to the panthress and Mel.
As she let Bambi speak of her problems, Rynkura sat down on the table opposite of her and set her own plate of sandwiches down. She had just gotten in a couple of small bites when the Fae finished her plea, to which the tigress had a look of brief thought in her emerald eyes.
The first thing she did was chuckle at her insistence on what seemed to be Jeremiah's problem. "From what I overheard--and I do apologize for that," she interrupted herself with a glance toward the frog before continuing, "Is that these aren't average spirits. I propose you let them deal with their problems and focus on your own," she relayed with another quiet laugh. "And plus I must correct that there is no such thing as 'ultimate' power. However powerful a Creature would be with an array of magic or a specter with energies abound, they will always have weaknesses. Just as with anything that occurs in nature, all anything tries to do is find a balance."
The tigress cleared her throat as she took a sip of tea and another bite from her meal and looked back to Bambi. "Lecture aside...you say you have a problem with mental blocks?" She hummed, looking thoughtful and yet apologetic. "I have no experience with mental healing, I'm afraid. I have only dedicated myself to physical wounds and dappled in spiritual as well." She smiled. "Anyway you seem well and capable of speaking, and it looks to only get better with time. But what else ails you then?"
Taking a sip of his coffee, Cog did not quite manage to hide a slow intake of breath at Sebastian's last comment. He coughed once, not quite looking at the bat, and suppressed a small smile.
"Well, perhaps I feel a second wind coming on." he said, his eyes sliding over to meet the bat's own, a slight hint of amusement in his yellow eyes. He glanced back quickly, however, seeing the panthress walk in.
"Mel and Ketefe." Cog murmured after she spoke, sipping his drink. He seemed calm, except for a brief flicker of worry that seemed to pass over them. "Well, good then." he said, his voice suddenly cheerful. "They can try one of Sebastian's drinks."
When Keaton mentioned that one defining trait about Stygian was unpredictability, she couldn't have been more right, especially when the chiropteran himself seemingly materialized out of nowhere (well, at least from her perspective) behind her. Probably entered the room without her realizing it, but it didn't make his appearance any less spontaneous and unexpected. It took an almighty effort to keep herself from screaming out another, unpleasant curse at this turn of events.
"Oh jesu--uh, I mean, hi." Keaton forced out her greeting from between her tightly-clenched teeth, quaking lips spreading to something akin to the semblance of an insincere smile. "Sebastian. We were, uh... just..."
Unconsciously, her eyes landed on his cup of coffee, the steam gently rising from it in sifting coils. When he entered the room she attempted to forge some relaxation to her countenance, shoulders slumping and hands digging around for her marble. "Yeah. I need to--"
Then Aisha arrived. Blinking at the untimeliness of this appearance, Keaton regardless shrugged it off, and waved her hello to the melanistic feline. "Oh, hey," she said, then managed to choke off a laugh at the mention about a 'party.'
She had no idea. Ironic about how something which was so initially shocking to her became so comedic within the next few minutes. If Cog wasn't still feeling uptight about it she would probably torment him about it... ambiguously, that was. She didn't want to risk anyone else finding out.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Mel stepped over the last threshold into the room. "Good evening Cog. Keaton." A quick glance around showed why Sebastian had taken these rooms, they bucked the predominately blue decorating trend of every other room she had seen. Dark and heavy they didn't seem to belong to the rest of the castle.
"*sigh* It is OK, then I have my sleep-learner arrive ina few days. I had known five ancient languages, and a few spoken ones before coming here to this Castle. Now, I might be up to a ten year old in this primary language of Furrae. But, Fae are know not to be Tech-friendly. I may afriad to use my old lab or my old equipment Also, it seem a limiting facture of Fae is their ADHD nature" says Bambi.
"Thank you for bring tea, I will pour if you want some. Healing Rynkura, I would like someone to help me learn to control my magic and maybe myself also then I maybe will feel less flickle Gina and Jeremiah would you guys like some tea? " asks Bambi as she pours more tea for the tigress and then serve herself.
PBH
Rynkura had nodded her confirmation to the felid as she continued eating and listening, also allowing her to pour some more tea. Her thoughts were screening through this predicament, and its possibilities. The condition she described was somewhat strange, but from the things the tigress had heard of and witnessed in the castle, it wasn't too far-fetched a notion to lose part of one's mind.
Her eyebrow quirked however as Bambi went into controlling her magic and about her Fae nature...that was something that struck her as something confusing. Taking another sip of tea, Rynkura cleared her throat. "Well, pardon me for asking, but were you not born a Fae, child? Unlike many creatures, when one has the knowledge of how their death and rebirth is controlled, one would think that they know how to control their abilities sooner or later and thus know what they are. You act as if you only just learned of this without inherent signs...at least, by my observation."
She smiled. "Also thus, if you were able to operate your machinery before, you should still be able to do so." Rynkura took another pause to finish one sandwich, and continued. "Like other individuals, individual Fae may all be different. All share a sort of..." she rotated her wrist as she tried to find the right word. "...Of a fleeting, carefree streak. Some are just more impulsive than others, and some others not as experienced, and smarter. So contrary, not all Fae has such a reaction to technology as you describe. Inborn skill cannot be changed so quickly."
The healer hummed as she glanced at the orb at the end of her staff, glowing with a perpetual soft light. "As for your magic," she sighed and shook her head. "I doubt that you would not have control over it, as it's tuned into your own nature, not just knowledge of its use. That shouldn't take too long to regain, even without help," she smiled reassuredly. "I would just suggest thinking of others and the situation before you make a hardy decision about using your magic."
Rynkura grunted as she stood up from her chair, using the staff to help herself to her feet. In her mind, she thought about what Bambi had said about needing help, before sighing apologetically. "Also, I'm not sure I should be taking any more pupils at this point in time. Learning by observing isn't enough, however one thinks it is. Also...wherever you get lessons, and there are books here as well to gain knowledge from, sooner is better than later." The healer said with a smile, non-chiding, but with an expression that said the suggestions were serious.
My past, first the Fae often roleplay and act out a "part" in the Furrae. I want to try out a co-play with low magic in a Hi-tech city of beings. So, my magic was suppress to a mimium and I started my role as a infant to a two professors.
For twenty-five years, I learned science, and because of the low magic levels, my studies and experiments worked.... Yet my Fae nature must have slowly shutdown and I was lost in my role as a top scientist, when an accident at the lab brought me to Lost Lake. There I met a other Fae, Miss Mab, I remember, the fact I was one, too. Still I was trying to learn about Technologies from Jyrras, even if he was not hiring. Here, I am find my magics skills are alittle rusty" tells Bambi as she sips her tea.
PBH
Almost as if sensing Keaton's thoughts, Stygian only spared a moment to down the last of the latest drink, and then walked over to the jackal, rounding just behind her back.
'
Yes, I like that idea,' he said in affirmation to Cog, and then stopped right over Keaton's shoulder, just beside her. '
What were you going to say?' His tone was neutral, but to her it sounded loaded with meaning. '
Should I fix you something up? How about a Mind Eraser, hm?'
The bat didn't wait for Keaton's response, but immediately turned against the other women and greeted them with a warm smile.
'
Ah. Glad you decided to come. What will it be? We've just had an Orgasm. The wolf does like his coffee...' he said unhesitatingly. '
We had some Kamikazes too. So maybe something less bitter for the ladies?'
The ferret eyed Jeremiah solidly, chill in her gaze.
'It's nothing that's happened before this,' she said, clearly referring to the situation in the castle, 'so no one has ever tried to cure it. If it were me who were afflicted,' she continued and took a step closer, the chill not entirely disappearing from her eyes but a sort of sympathetic softness still springing up in them, 'I would try to stay calm and composed whatever happened, and look around for some sort of magical psychosis suppressor the first thing I did.'
While Mel and Ketefe made their appearances as per her words, Aisha's eyes wandered over the size of the room and the others within while finding a place to sit down. Her head tilted when she regarded Cogidubnus and Keaton, both of whom seemed to look just a bit less than enthusiastic at their arrival. For a moment she wondered if they knew that Sebastian had invited others up for drinks, and what seemed out of place...and decided that it was best not to inquire anything, dismissing any thoughts with a roll of her eyes.
As the panthress sat thinking of what to have and listening to their host on drinks, she suddenly had to cast a strange look at the bat upon his unhesitating "Orgasm" remark, as well as repressing an indignat snort. The heck kind of name...?
Despite that, Aisha calmly shook off her gaze and nodded back. "Sounds good to me. Whatever you recommend; I'm not too knowledgeable on mixing drinks." Thinking of coffee for a moment as well, she didn't really much care for that either. And she was already pretty much wide awake...the tea had helped with that. The very setting somehow did, too...which the huntress didn't bother to pinpoint.
Hackles rose as Stygian encircled her, Keaton's eyes tensely, unconsciously following his path until he vanished from immediate sight (Keaton adamantly refused to turn her head, as though she was certain it would expose her vulnerability). He listed the drinks in that questionable, secretive tone of his, making Keaton's brow furrow at the names of the beverages, especially that of the Mind-Eraser. Admittedly the Orgasm was hilarious by name, but she was too preoccupied to give into her immature streak and laugh at it.
Was Stygian trying to insinuate something unpleasant, specifically that he would completely brainwash her and remove all incriminating memories from her mind? That was... he couldn't do that, could he? Her mind was thoroughly-fortified and he wasn't a Cubi... was he? Come to think of it, she had no idea about his race.
"Uh..." Keaton kept that artificial smile intact, finally turning her head slightly so she could at least offer a slight glimpse at Stygian. "I'm actually not in the mood for a drink. For once..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe almost laughed at the "Orgasm" drink Stygian mentioned, but somehow, the atmosphere seemed too tense to allow it. Keaton was looking more nervous than usual, and even Cog, although more relaxed than the jackal, looked somewhat tense. Only Stygian looked completely at ease and happy to see the new arrivals. Somehow, this made Ketefe a bit more nervous, although she didn't show it.
When Keaton refused a drink, Ketefe nodded. "I don't really drink, to tell the truth. Coffee sounds good, though." She glanced around for an empty chair, and upon finding one, sat down with one leg folded Indian style underneath her and the other one drawn up to her chest, resting her palms on her knee. For some reason, that was what felt comfortable at the moment.
Mel was casually inspecting one of the pictures on the wall when Sebastian asked what everyone was drinking. "Whatever is easiest," she answered. Then she went back to trying to figure out the rather unusual painting. It was an odd thing of buildings that couldn't possibly stand and water flowing uphill. But it seemed to fit the room. She turned back to the group, hoping all the uneasy people had time to compose themselves.
The air in the room was veritably solid, everyone in the room seemingly catching on to the vibes that he and Keaton were giving out. Breifly feeling his gut clench in response, Cog willed himself to relax, taking another sip of his soothing drink and letting the dark, smooth warmth unwind him. He exhaled, his eyes sliding over the group, but only briefly stopping on the bat.
"An?" he said, taking a quick drink, and then addressing the others. "They really are rather good. Warms you quite well after being out in that rain." Cog motioned to the storm outside, and then nodded his head at Ketefe.
"A fellow coffee drinker. I was beginning to think myself alone." he grinned, sipping.
The response was less than enthusiastic, and Stygian knew he was the cause. Still, in the spirit that he was, that certainly did not put him off. He gave a sly look to both Keaton and Ketefe, and snorted. He had a clear opinion of people unwilling to poison themselves just a little, not seeing how
'Come on,' he said, teasingly. 'It doesn't become an addiction just because you take one little drink. That caffeine is just as dangerous to you. And more addictive.' He slowly began pouring up a wide cup of coffee, and then added a slight bit of milk and Bailey's to it and stirred, setting it on a platter and gently handing it over to the cat.
'Go on. I'm sure you will find the taste to your liking,' he said warmly, then turned to Keaton. 'As for you, I've noticed how much you seem to like whiskey. So how about a Tennessee Cowboy? I served one earlier. Believe me, it will fire you up.' He put his hand on her shoulder for just a bit.
When Mel answered indifferently and turned around though, he thought she was making just another exit out of the conversation and company. Under the circumstances, that would be an utter moodkiller. Even dragons could get drunk, couldn't they?
'Fair enough. Then let's see...' he said, turning toward the dragon and looking at her very intensely, slightly under his brows. 'How about a White Lady then?' He smiled.
Mel nodded agreeably at Sebastian, "That would be fine. Interesting picture you have here. Is it a whimsy or does the water actually run uphill in your gardens? Grandmother tried that once but eventually gave it up. Water gardens are problematic of themselves where we live without messing up nature even further." She laughed, "Not to mention the nuisance of hatchlings jumping in to ride up the waterleap." She was babbling a bit, but Mel hoped that others would put aside their tensions for a short while and take up the lightness of the conversation. Whatever was troubling them would not get better staring grimly at one another.
"Please, Healer don't let me stop you from joining the others, I must reflect on my place here. Or anywhere. I know I am young for a Fae and if I run home now I maybe restricted to Fae kingdom for 500 years or more." see the gloomy Fae. Bambi sits quiet with her tea and watchs the rain out the window.
PBH
As Rynkura walked amidst the shelves, but still nearby to the Fae so that she could hear what was going on, she had to shake her head with a slight bit of pity for the girl. She sounded distraught, and perhaps rightly so...but just because there was a storm outside, there was no reason for anyone to act just as depressed. At least that had always been her way of looking at a seemingly bleak life.
After a bit of silence, she heard Bambi drop the matter herself, to which point the tigress just chuckled in reply. "I'm afraid I have nowhere else to go. I wanted to stay in the library, and that's where I am. You however..."
She paused and gave her a comforting smile. "You shouldn't be just sitting and sulking. If you want to learn how to control and limit your powers, there's a whole resource here to choose from." She waved her arm around the whole large gallery of books as if to present it. "That is if you have the patience to search. As for the Fae Kingdom, who knows. Maybe it would do you a much better good to be around your own kind, instead of this world where people tend to loathe magic rather than encourage it. But the choice is indeed yours."
The tigress gathered her empty plate and started out of the library and towards the kitchen to wash it, but giving her one last look before going through the door. "Just take what I had said before to mind, and you shouldn't have any trouble."
As she made the trip to the kitchen and back, after washing and putting the plate in its proper place, Rynkura couldn't help but keep her eyes on the storm outside whenever she passed a window, and for once she swore that perhaps it was finally starting to recede. There was a break in the dark clouds, in favor of what she could see of the sunset giving a simple little streak on the sky's horizon...still it was hard to tell what position the sun was really in, but it was there.
Oh what blessed hope, the healer thought before she started back to another table to study the books she had picked...but on the way, in the hallway before the doors, she thought that her sensitive ears picked up the sound of flapping wings, somewhere far off.
* * *
Back in the room, Aisha leaned back in her seat as she observed the goings-on. Her face had a neutral, placid look, but her ears were pinned straight back to her skull in the presence of the discomforting air looming about their heads. Despite the light-hearted atmosphere that mingled, the mood was only slowly deteriorating.
Waiting for her drink, the pathress glanced towards Mel as she examined the painting on the wall. At least the dragoness had the right idea, turning from one distraction to another and keeping conversation alive. She took a look at the piece of artwork from where she was positioned as well, and found herself looking over the fine details just as much.
"If water flowed uphill around here, somehow I wouldn't find it surprising," Aisha stated dryly and crossed her arms behind her head. "Magic. Anything it doesn't do?"
As he leaned over the table, fixing up drinks for the others, Stygian raised an eyebrow at the girls and their conversation.
'Actually, I'm not so sure that painting isn't just upside down. It's not my choice; it was here already. I never was much for the surrealistic,' he said, and chuckled. It took a short while before he was done with the drinks. When he was, he handed them out calmly, and strolled over beside Mel, taking a closer look at the piece.
'There are various strange and curious things in this castle. The Caerules were avid collectors of more than just art. Doing as much traveling and business as they did, for such a long time, gave them ample opportunity to stock up on... exotics, of all sorts,' he said, and sipped his drink, before sliding out his arm and handing Aisha a glass. 'Here. This should fit you. I didn't know just what to whip up, so I went by intuition.' The liquid was a swirling dark amber with a slight green reflection to it, and smelled strongly of licourice and lime.
Returning to studying the painting, the bat ignored the mood for just a bit, pondering what to do next while watching the others. Moving them up there was done, so he considered moving up some furniture and other personal effects.
"Oh believe me," Keaton said with such a calculating amount of calmness that it surprised even herself, "Me getting addicted isn't something I'm concerned about."
Neither was the severe amount of innuendo lurking beneath Stygian's voice, but regardless Keaton was wondering if he was doing this just to make Cogidubnus sweat, like he had stated during their conversation. Certainly he wouldn't end up confessing all that had occurred in this room, would he? Unpredictability could be such a curse. Ultimately, at the mention of whiskey, Keaton resigned, promising herself that she wouldn't become so inebriated that her senses would be clouded by intoxication. Her nervousness was already obvious despite her earnest efforts to conceal it, but she had to loosen up somehow. The hand on her shoulder wasn't helping.
"Yeah, alright," Keaton muttered, eyes shifting to the side. "I'll have one of those Tennessee Whatever-You-Called-It's."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"What can't magic do?" Cog said, turning to Aisha, his expression mildly bemused. "Magic can do a great many things, yes indeed. It is powerful." Cog sipped his coffee and continued, looking at the painting Aisha had pointed out. "Very powerful. It can make water run uphill, yes, bid the ocean calm and the skies rage, move mountains, cheat death, and turn the universe itself on its grand, immutable head."
Cog peered at the painting, the others now looking at it, with a musing expression on his face. "If I could stop the very flow of time itself, but cared for others not, what good would I be?" Cog said, sighing, and sipping his drink. "If I could bring the dead to life, as some wizards do often, and yet did not care, I would be better off dead myself. Power without responsibility or conscience is as a sword without a sheath. Dangerous and largely useless." he said, suddenly quirking an eyebrow.
"I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Apologies." he said, nodding his head at the panthress, and took a drink. "I don't suppose all that is really magics fault, anyway." he said grudgingly. He took a sip of his coffee, making himself more comfortable on the bed. "It is a nice picture." he murred.
Aisha continued to lean back into her chair comfortably, listening to the others, including as Sebastian made a commentary on the painting himself. An ear pricked as he mentioned the Caerules as well as some of their habits, and for a moment she remembered that it was their castle that they were in, and also ones whom were subject to the adventurers' investigations. But she didn't inquire...being in that place seemed to almost make her forget what answers they were looking for there in the beginning. What answers? She tiredly mused. Now the huntress felt more like a freeloader than a thief.
Then the bat arrived with a drink of her own. "Gracias," she thanked with a nod and took the glass, observing the appearance and scent for a moment before tasting it. It seemed to make her tongue tingle, but she found it good nonetheless, and took a better sip of it before quirking an ear to Cogi as he spoke about magic.
She nodded in agreement with his statements, though perhaps somehow she found some of it had a tinge of sarcasm. Aisha chuckled when the wolf finished. "You're forgiven for the tangent. I was never big on magic...considering the things I kill wield it. No offense to the Creatures," she said quickly and held her hand up apologetically. "Other than how I like my weapons laced with magic I doubt I could handle it myself."
Deciding to simply listen to the conversation as she took another sip from the glass, Aisha suddenly thought she heard something approaching the door that sounded like a flurry of feathers, followed by a squawk, and finally the sight of a black blur landing on her head. "Gah...heh, so it followed me again after all," she muttered with a roll of her eyes and picked the raven into her hands again.
Bam sighs and starts the search for a book on the Fae and their magic... If not Fae than the Mythos, and her finds a books on Creatures in general and another on the Fae.
PBH
Mel had been about to agree with Sebastian's comments about the state of the closets of a long-lived and curious family based on the storerooms at home when Aisha and Cog began discussing the evil of magic. She took a sip of the drink she had been handed and laughed a bit. "No offense taken, Aisha. I know exactly what you mean. Kill all the magic users. Except for the healers. And the ones who sell magical items that make life easier for those without magic. Or that nice old man who does magic shows for the children at the library. Yes indeed, we should kill all the magic users, except for the ones we shouldn't."
She shook her head and wet her mouth with another sip of the drink before adding, "Your definition is too wide and your stereotypes end up killing more innocent than guilty. Say what you really mean, that you hate the abusers, who would be abusers if they were magic users, accountants, bakers, or even adventurers."
Cog raised an eyebrow and the dragon, a slight grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, and inclining his head at Mel he took a drink of his coffee.
"But of course, Ms. Icewing. Did I say otherwise?" He seemed to pause a moment, and continued. "Of course I realize that magic is a tool, to be used as the wielder sees fit. But I said power 'without responsibility and conscience'. I hardly think little old ladies fit under that category." he murred, sipping more of his coffee.
"Not all magic users are evil, of course." Cog said, putting his chin in his hands. A thin arc of electricity moved deliberately over his hand, snaking from one finger to another. Cog grinned and continued. "What I mean, is that Mages and Wizards, or those who study magic for magic's sake, seem oft disinclined to restraint or compassion. Perhaps predictably so. Knowledge for knowledge's sake, in the case of magic, quickly becomes power for power's sake. Which is only a step removed from real danger."
Cog leaned back. "Still, your point is valid. There is good to be found in magic - much good, but much less good than ill," Cog said, his voice slowing into the lyrical. "and while the sun and moon endure, luck's a chance but trouble's sure - I'd face it as a wise man would, and train for ill and not for good..." Cog trailed off.
He sipped his drink. "I am sorry if you thought I meant to condemn all wizards of all forms. That, would simply be foolishness." Cog grinned.
Aisha held her ears in a midway position on her head as she listened to Mel and Cogidubnus converse and reply to her statements on the position of magic users, while she coaxed the raven in her hands to calm itself down...if nobody had noticed its presence before, she didn't want it to be noticed now by a show of the creature's unpredictability. The panther's head tilted, as Mel had retorted to her statement with a bit of gentle teasing snark.
Aisha recognized the tone enough not to feel foolish at all...but it had brought back a memory. She had been called many things in her life because of shortsightnedness, and a presumably rightful hatred for demons. Her eyes closed briefly as she took another sip of the tangy drink that Stygian had provided, and she chuckled to regain the lightheartedness. It was surprising--if the huntress thought about it--how she had gotten used to more magic-based company than anything.
"You're right, Mel, and Cog, both of you, my apologies...I did mean that for the abusers...but I guess it all depends on opinion...perspective and experience. Some have had it for the good, and others for the worst. But I guess all anyone does with something like that is the best that they can." She muttered and took another sip, murmuring something beneath her breath. "Que será, será...que ha sido, ha sido. (what will be, will be...what has been, has been.)"
From afar, Keaton warily observed the raven seated atop Aisha's head with a skeptical expression. What the hell was up with that bird? Personally, she began to appreciate its presence, as it gave her something to momentarily distract herself from what she felt was an impending doom or confrontation with Stygian. She likely would've remained focused on the ebony bird for the rest of the discussion if it weren't for the few words which piqued her interest--and not in a pleasant way. Right ear swiveled upright and quirked itself in the direction of the three conversationalists, an eyebrow lifting in a rigid arc.
Moving her head 'round with a swift, yet noticeably deliberate jerk, Keaton stared at Aisha with a concentrated, stony expression, mostly unreadable and undetectable of any emotions. There was something distinctly not right about this situation, and it was lurking around Aisha. The weaponry, the slight contempt for magic, as well as the mention about killing some who wielded magic irresponsibly. Normally it wouldn't concern Keaton, but there was something Keaton was particularly adamant about, which she would be vociferous about.
"You're..." Keaton began stonily to Aisha, expression as hard and neutral as her voice was, but nevertheless intimidating. The fact she was exercising some form of restraint was something remarkable in itself, mostly because Keaton was notorious for acting on impulse, like many Cubi. "...an Adventurer?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
As Aisha stopped her muttering, she had her own gaze drawn down to the bird in her hands for a moment. There was a humorous thought on perhaps naming the little raven, if it insisted on following her like a familiar of sorts.
But her distraction didn't last long however, for suddenly the huntress felt like one set of eyes in the room was bearing down on her with what could be best described as disapproval. Then her ears quirked as she heard Keaton, with a hard tone and suppressed annoyance, inquire as to her profession. Just from that look, the panthress inwardly cursed herself as she remembered the state that the jackal was in upon entering the Castle...perhaps she should have kept her mouth shut.
Nevertheless, perhaps it would have been a good time to see if the mood could be mended. She didn't want any more enemies made. Aisha set her glass down and looked back to the succubus with the same kind of expression, sitting up straight in her chair.
"I am," she confirmed with a nod, truthfully and unintimidated. "Bounty hunter, to be more exact. But, I hope you can trust me when I say that I wouldn't dare try to pick a fight with you, let alone try to kill you, else I would have tried already. One of my best friends happens to be a 'Cubi, so I have more respect than that. Or I should," she ended with a chuckle, then sighed softly. "We've all been here long enough and have been through enough to be considered friends, I hope."
Keaton's gaze was unrelenting after she addressed Aisha, eyes narrow and pupils as solid as muddy marble, ears slanted back in an apprehensive gesture of restrained disapproval. When the pantheress confirmed that she was indeed an Adventurer Keaton's expression only convulsed into something far more unpleasant, the scowl on her face mirroring the tension in her claws as they tensed and flexed unconsciously, just out of sight.
As she continued, however, Keaton started to loosen considerably, looking, for the slightest moment, crestfallen. How ridiculous was she, wanting to turn on Aisha, who had shown no hostile intentions toward her in the past, for finding out that she was an Adventurer? Considering her violent tendencies Keaton had a deep contempt for Adventurers--after all, it was by their doing that she arrived at the Castle in such a gravely injured state, but they only attacked because she had stolen someone's soul in the past and had followed the rumors to her current hideaway. They were annoyingly persistent, those ones, and unusually strong.
"Yeah, I'd say we're considered friends too..." Keaton said slowly, still looking shamefaced. "I just... eh. I'd rather avoid the subject about Adventurers. Let's just say that I ended up here 'cos of some of them."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Mel gave a little sigh of relief. It looked like Keaton wasn't going to take past issues out on the panther. "We should be friends, we kept each other alive against some horrid foes. To fight amongst ourselves lets them win after the fact."
She shook her head and sipped the drink in her hand. "Abusers are not limited to magic users OR adventurers. They create each other. My own family history is an example. Grandmother would not be the fearsome creature she is without revenge to drive her. And many of the worse adventurers were motivated by her excesses."
Bambi, not looking so gloomy, but focus on her book. walks the halls of the castle or wandering about, and yet being pulled by her fae element to a courtyard garden in the south side of the castle.
PBH
As the topic had veered away from the amusing to the awkward to the irritating, so had Stygian's smile finally slipped from his face. When Aisha announced something that had been rather obvious up until then to him, that she was in fact an adventurer, he just sighed and stood to the side. The discussion about power and magic really did not improve his moods either. He growled under his breath.
'Satisfaction. There is no such thing as power for power's sake. But for purpose, or influence or money, or for sheer entertainment; that is why all sentient things wish for more power, or less. In the end it is all about their own damned satifaction,' he said sourly, and kicked back his drink, looking out a blurry window. The clouds seemed to roll slower, and a bit of dark sky was visible through them, the rain having taken pause and the weather seemingly catching its breath before the thundering cover at the horizon would pull in and cover them again. 'Most people only care about others for their own satisfaction, even. The ones who realize how to use power correctly, and that it certainly cannot bring them happiness, are few and far between...' He glowered at Cog a bit, and then somewhat less intensely at Aisha. Talking about such things in their company...
There was silence for a bit, and Stygian took he opportunity to open the window next to him slightly and slip out a slender cigar, flicking out his lighter and biting the butt off. He had only just lit it though, before with a flap and an audible swoosh a black thing swept past his face, snatching it from his lips. The raven cawed, flying out the window and away, while the bat's eyes widened and he glared out the window.
'Oh, for fuck's...!' he growled, staring after the eerie bird. Then he snorted and turned around, pacing between them all. 'I'll be back. Please, by all means, continue,' he said gruffly and walked past them. After a few steps his shape started distorting, darkening and slithering. In just a few steps he practically dissolved into a haze of those crawling, monstrous shapes of tentacles and maws, which blended into the shadows, passing, as it seemed, right through the stone wall of the room and disappearing.
Despite the reflexive disquiet that Sebastian's more monstrous transformations seemed to impart, Cog sighed a bit as the bat left, his displeasure obvious. Cog sipped down his drink a bit more, the room suddenly quiet. His face soured. Probably not the best topic he could have brought up right then.
He looked up at the others. "Ah, well. He'll be back later." he said, crossing his legs. "Perhaps a change of topic is in order?" Cog put on a slight grin, and sipped down a bit of his coffee. Staring past his foot, he was looking at Mel, when he noticed a slight shine underneath a chair. Eyes widening, he seemed to whiten a moment, and his gaze suddenly averting he took another drink. An idea clicked into his head.
"Ah, but that magic thing does remind me - I've been meaning to try and enchant a little something. I think I set it down on that table over there, to show the bat later..." he said, standing and walking over to the side table, and making a show of looking for the knife. He seemed to pause a moment, scratching his head, and very casually looked under the chair. He murmured something under his breath and grabbed the knife gingerly, picking it up with his free hand. He started absently flipping through different grips with it, going from a reverse to a regular with alarming rapidity. "Hm. Must have fell off." he said, and gracefully inclined his head at Mel.
"Ah, but perhaps you can show me the better side of magic, Ms. Icewing. I remember you saying you did some enchanting, back in the library? I've been wanting to do something with this little piece, and am afraid I know very little about the actual imbuing process."
With a bit of relief as she observed Keaton's reply, however stone-faced her looks seemed to be as they pierced the hunter before her with an unrelenting coldness, Aisha found it safe to lean back into her chair again with an agreeing nod. She held her hand up in a friendly gesture of peace, in any case. "Subject dropped then. To be quite honest I've gotten tired of the mood today anyway, being afraid of confrontations," she chuckled, half-joking on behalf of the jackal. The other half was serious, after thinking of the tirade in town.
She was also grateful for Mel's interjection and for Sebastian's own take, however sour it seemed. The panther flicked an ear and drank down some more of the liquid in her glass, briefly letting her grip of the raven perched on her leg falter...and it was then that the bat had opened the window, and with a surprise she felt the bird lift off and rocket towards the opening, snatching the bat's cigar in the process before she could try to grab the feathery mass. "What the...!" was all she could exclaim.
Her tail ring seemed to flare with the same intensity as the feeling from the bat was as he transformed into his dark and shadowy self, the panthress shrinking back in her chair just slightly while he excused himself and slid out through the very wall. "See you then..." she hummed...silence lingered until the panthress barked a laugh, an arm wrapped briefly around her side. "I guess my little red-eyed shadow decided not to stay after all," she snorted and regained her breath.
Slumping back in her seat, Aisha watched as Cogidubnus thankfully started a new topic of conversation with Mel, to which she paid attention. "Enchanting. This ought to be interesting," she murmured.
Mel looked at the knife in the wolf's hand and could see that someone had been trying to enchant it, there was a lot of magical residue. "Yes. My first training was as a metalsmith and I often enchanted the objects I created." Knowing she had stuffed it on top when Bambi had interrupted her in the magic store she pulled the toy butterfly from her pocket and allowed it to crawl across her fingers as an example of her work. "In what order did you cast the spells? Power, permanence, and then the actual spell? If you cast in the wrong order you will not get lasting results."
Cog bowed and handed her the knife. "I fear in no order at all, Ms. Icewing. Or, perhaps I don't understand what you mean - I did try and...well, it's hard to describe. Make the magic stick to the metal, as it were, and see if I couldn't make the knife itself cast the spell. Perhaps I was overthinking it?" Cog said, watching the little magical clockwork butterfly crawl over Mel's fingers.
Mel took the knife as Cog handed it to her, at the same time dislodging the jeweled butterfly from her hand. It fluttered for a moment then made a twisting circuit of the room, finally picking Ketefe to settle upon. "The method of enchanting I was taught consists of three parts. The permanence component would be the part to make it "stick." As a knife is not a living thing you also need to provide power, or at least an instruction on where to get power. Only when those two elements are in place will the spell adhere to the object." The dragon looked at the wolf very seriously. "With only minor variations this is the same way curses are laid so please make sure of your aim." Then she broke the seriousness with a smile. "That is also why most masters only take one apprentice at a time. Removing a glow spell from someone's behind is only funny the first few times."
As he offered her a mixture of coffee and Bailey's, Ketefe gave Stygian a half-hearted look for the jab about her sobriety, the kind of look one would aim at a friend who was being a little too annoying. She accepted the drink nonetheless, sniffing it once. Finding the aroma to her liking, and noting that the bat seemed once again to be vying for her trust, she sipped the Bailey's-coffee mixture. The taste of alcohol had never quite appealed to her, but this was different. It left a sweet aftertaste in her mouth; there was almost no trace that it had even contained alcohol. Point one goes to Stygian for figuring out a drink I'd like. She listened quietly to the conversation, tilting her head at the picture Mel was talking about.
When the conversation turned to a discussion on magic, Ketefe got lost in her own thoughts for a while, sipping her drink pensively. Mel was right; many adventurers jumped to conclusions to fit their own liking on magic users. But after many shows of magic that day, Ketefe had decided that magic was quite a bit like people; there was no telling what you could do if you pushed yourself hard enough, but pushing to the actual limits on magic had never been done. Those who had tried had probably had something worse than death happen to them.
She became more alert when a few people revealed pieces of their history, however small. Aisha was a bounty hunter? Cool... Then she wondered what had happened to Keaton. She could guess: Keaton had been on the run and sought refuge here. To be honest, that seemed to happen far too often. If that wasn't the basic story, Ketefe would've been a little surprised.
When Stygian left after Aisha's raven, Ketefe whipped her head around and watched the bat transform and fade out through the wall. Unusual, and somewhat confusing (what threat could a raven pose, even a creepy-looking one?), but not unlike Stygian. The conversation turned back to magic, as if nothing had happened.
When Mel brough out her little clockwork-magic butterfly, Ketefe marveled at it. It was amazing that something that seemed so simple could have such complexity behind its creation. The thing took flight, and landed on Ketefe's ear. She smiled, a true smile for once, and giggled as she transferred it from her ear to her hand. It seemed fragile, so she handled it carefully as she continued to listen.
"Does that method you mentioned stay the same from magic user to magic user, or does it vary?" she asked Mel. "Would you have to use the same spells, every time, to make something lik this happen?"
Contrary to the belief of some upstairs, Stygian had not gone after the raven, knowing that it would be a useless flight out into the bad weather. Instead, he took form from a spot of deep shadow in a hallway below and walked into the library. He passed Rynkura with a somewhat pleased glance and a nod as he made his way back to the table where they had piled the books before, snatching up two volumes and then a third from a shelf down an aisle, before he made his way out of the place just as quickly, heading in the direction of the dormitories and storage rooms in search of a few things.
Tension in the room appeared to alleviate after Keaton's response to Aisha's question, much to the jackal's eternal gratitude. Sighing with relief, Keaton leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and running her fingers through her hair. Large ears snapped back up into an erect position after she heard Stygian speak, her head jerking upright to stare at him. She glanced up simultaneous to the moment the avian once seated near Aisha swooped away from its perch and snatched up his cigar, flying out the window. As amusing as the whole situation was from an observer's standpoint, Keaton found herself only able to smirk only slightly, inconspicuously. Not intending to garner Stygian's ire again.
Fortunately, he didn't seem to notice her little slip, as he was gone in the next moment, although his disappearance was rather dramatic. As the remnants of darkness slipped from the room and Stygian's presence altogether vanished, Keaton hesitantly realized that she still needed to speak with the intimidating chiropteran. God damn it. Shortly after she reached this revelation her attention was garnered by another, interesting change of topic. Enchantment.
In addition to the conversation, Mel brought out what appeared to be a jewel-encrusted butterfly, and magically animated it, watching it skitter over her fingers. Keaton watched with interest, feeling her smirk in a surprisingly genuine, not condescending manner. Her father had specialized in enchanting and crafting weapons imbibed with magical energy, his masterwork being the series of weapons which were bestowed to his children. Catastrophe was one of them.
Her views on enchantment were nothing short of benign. She found it fascinating, admittedly, and beneficial--even when origins were malicious.
After all, how many people infused their weapon with a person's soul?
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog nodded at the dragon, smiling at the little butterfly that flitted around the room. He shook his head as the magical little insect landed and crawled around on Ketefe, still grinning slightly when he looked back at Mel.
"I can imagine." he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. ".And...I am, familiar, with curses." he said softly. He paused for a moment, seemingly looking nowhere before he blinked and smiled again. He began to idly crack his knuckles as he spoke. "But, although I understand the concepts of what you're saying, I confess I know neither the spell for attaching the magic nor directing it to a power source. Which brings up my next question..."
Cog reached into his jacket and various points about his body, little silver trinkets appearing seemingly from thin air as his hands passed all around himself. Removing something from behind his coat collar and something else from the inside pocket of his jacket, he raised his hands to let the dragon see.
Four little silver charms dangled from chains at the end of his fingers, and a gold coin rested in his palm. "How does one go about charging magical items? Or, indeed, where does one direct the enchantment to get power? They don't get it from me, and they don't get it from themselves, I suppose. Left alone long enough these always recharge. Except for the coin." he said, nodding at the little golden circle. "That needs sunlight."
In the garden
In the light rain and dripping leaves, Bam had walked slowly and carefully through the wild and overgrown bushes and shrubs. Whatever footpath that was here, has long since blocked tree limbs or expanding bushes to new young trees, only a few feet around. Now, she stood in front of a ancient Oak, a tree who may have been here before the castle. It stood over a hundred and fifty feet tall and twice that around with it's stretch out branches.
Bambi sheds her clothes and shakes off the light rain off herself as she reaches out her hand onto the Oak' trunk, and asks "How you been, old friend?"
A flash of light magic is felt through the castle, as if a door was opened and closed
PBH
Mel looked over at Ketefe when she giggled at the toy. "There are different schools of magic that use differing methods, and each practitioner develops their own style, so there are tremendous variations, but the same components need to be provided for."
She peered at the charms in Cog's hand. "To start with the last question first, these appear to be passively powered. They grab onto the ambient magic in the environment. If you need them to charge faster you just need to find a spot with a lot of magic. There are many other ways to power things. I can show you the basics or Mistress Msh'taan had several books on the subject selected in the library."
Cog nodded at Mel, and began putting the charms back in their various places, the little silver trinkets disappearing into his clothing. One of them he simply let hang around his neck, the little piece of twisted silver glowing for a moment as its protections re-activated.
"Ah, I see. That would make sense." he said, scratching his chin. "And I would love nothing more than a lesson, Ms. Icewing. But I fear now," he said, indicating the drinks and the others, "May not be the time." Cog tipped his hat. "Perhaps later?" he said, turning to grab his drink. He called back to the dragon.
"Although," he said, "That butterfly you have is simply amazing. I take it you've been doing this a long time?" Cog turned and sat, taking a sip of his drink as he did so. "I'm sure the others would love to see what amazing things you've produced over the years. Well, them and myself, of course..." Cog grinned.
In the library, Rynkura had been immersed in her readings for the time, enjoying the silence that came with the kind of ethereal solitude given to the studious there. The tigress had long since tuned out whomever spoke, after a while wondering as to whether anyone else was still sitting in there at all. But she did notice that Bambi had left with something of a pensive look, to which the healer just let her go...perhaps the Fae couldn't get into much more trouble on her own.
The books she had gathered in front of her were all from different authors from their take on enchantment, a curiosity that she thought seemed common in the castle. Among other theories, there was one written by a 'Cubus on the process of soul trapping...there were a few about an old-time method involving magical jewels and such...and then there was one which one in which someone in Rynkura's generation perhaps invented and that she helped build upon: resonance binding. I shall bet THAT is how that sword is partially done, the healer thought to herself.
It was then that she heard Sebastian walk into the library in his usual semi-quiet way, meeting his nod with a peaceable one of her own as she watched him snatch a few volumes up. "Your guests are boring you already?" she joked as the bat walked out, then shook her head with a chuckle and looked into one of the novels while thinking about the company she had met. Somehow I doubt so.
* * *
As Aisha finished the last of her drink, she sat back in her seat with her arms crossed comfortably behind her head, watching the others in the room. Especially she continued to listen as Cogi and Mel conversed on the subject of enchanting, which though she had no ideas of her own about, was an interesting subject to the panthress nonetheless. Her mentor hadn't bothered to explain how it was that she made it so the adventurer rarely had to recharge her magical things.
Sometimes her eyes strayed to the whimsical little butterfly that Mel had produced and let flutter around the room to land on various objects and Ketefe. She certainly agreed with the others, Mel was quite impressive with what she was able to do, even if it showed through such a small trinket. At the slight mention of Aisha's mentor however, she laughed.
"She has a mountain of books, I guarantee you," the panthress muttered. "But I agree with the wolf here, you're a natural," she commented to the dragon.
Ketefe looked up from the butterfly when Cog showed his array of magical trinkets. Though they disappeared just as quickly, they'd piqued her interest. "Woukd it be prying if I asked how you got all those?" she asked the wolf, the butterfly crawling across her knuckles.
Cog had settled down in his chair closed his eyes, taking a just slightly rattling breath, apparently relieved about something, when Ketefe asked him her question. He took a drink of his coffee as she spoke, pausing for just a moment as he thought. He took a loud swallow, and set his cup down as he regarded the masked feline.
"No. That's alright." he said, "One was given to me. The others I took from mage's tower, when the owner himself...ah, fled." Cog said, and gave a smile. He resumed drinking his coffee, leaving something unspoken, and turned his attention back to the dragon.
Mel bowed politely to Cog and Aisha for their compliments, but also shrugged. "I am a dragon, I have done most everything for a long time. As for enchantments, most everything I own is enchanted to one level or another. But most of it is boringly practical. My clothes change size as I do, and stains fade away within a day or two. Things like that." She paused for a second in thought. "Actually I do have something that might be interesting." She started rummaging around in her belt bag, half her arm disappearing into the hand sized bag. Various odds and ends of things ended up on the nearby end table before she pulled out a pair of silver rimmed spectacles. "These allow you to see magic." She held them out on her palm. "They might be a bit disorienting at first due to the ambient magic. This place is thick with magic."
The pair of glasses Mel held in her hands caught the low light and sent it around the room, the silver frames making small lines of light upon the walls. From where he was seated, Cog could somewhat see through the lenses, the insides of the glasses glowing an eldritch blue, the intensity of the glow ever-changing.
Cog raised and eyebrow and set his cup down next to the pile of other items, a particular memory of him throwing his old pair of shades into a brick wall running through his head. He stood and approached the dragon, to get a better look.
"See magic? Is that so?" he said, admiring the thing in the dragon's hand. A slight blue glow fell across her hands, where the light passed through the arcane glasses. Cog looked up at the dragon, obviously impressed. "Very useful."
"Perhaps you saw something earlier you might be willing to trade for them?" he said, referencing the trinkets that he had just put away.
Smiling as she listened to the dragon, Aisha kept a piqued interest in what else Mel would certainly have in her reportiore of magical things, including how she spoke about the practical use of size-changing clothes. Practical, she thought, but most fascinating to the eyes of non-dragons, or any Being in general.
The panther's eyes then widened slightly as she saw Mel bring out a small pile of things on the table from her bag until she found what she was looking for. Being quite the treasure hunter in her free adventuring time, Aisha had the urge to go poking curiously through them, if she didn't think it would be somewhat impolite. She glanced towards the magic glasses she had brought out with a bit of interest. "Allows you to see magic?" she echoed Cogidubnus's interest. "Now that'd probably sell high for adventurer use. Amazing."
But since the wolf had more of an interest in the shades than she did, Aisha let him look them over and returned her gaze to the table. She had a magic-seeking device already; dark-magic seeking, but for her occupation that was perhaps enough.
Aisha shrugged off the notion of impoliteness after a moment and looked through the pile of things, an interested look crossing her crimson eyes. "May I? I wish I had something to trade," she said quietly upon picking out a small amulet on a silver chain and decorated with ornate symbols, a clear jewel on the front containing the image of a small flame that seemed to be animatedly flickering, a somewhat hypnotizing effect. On the other side was the face of a clock, like the little treasure doubled as a timepiece. "I wouldn't mind having some of these in my collection."
'Seeing magic is only so useful. You can't be too general,' a voice suddenly said from behind Cog, sinuous and lurid. Even as it spoke, the shadows behind Cog deepened and contorted, turning into black shapes that congregated into a humanoid form. Stygian's return was no less dramatic to witness than his exit, especially considering the almost skeletal, bare and glowing-eyed look his face had before the skin and fur formed over it properly.
No, not him, they realized. Her. The creature, whatever Stygian was, had turned back into the female form of before, complete with a clinging black blouse and short skirt. She laughed. 'Feeling is far superior to seeing. To discern for yourself whether or not what you see... is true,' she practically purred, laying one hand on Cog's shoulder and leaning on his other. Then, as briskly as she had come in, she rounded the wolf and swung something out from behind her, which turned out to be a rolled-up carpet. How she could handle such a large and heavy thing so easily was very hard to see.
'You know, if we are discussing enchantment right now, I should say that I would be happy to share knowledge or expertise, limited though it may be,' she continued, smiling slightly. 'Right now, the last thing I need worry about is money or time. So...'
Mel nodded in agreement with Sebastian's assessment of the glasses. "They are not as useful as they appear at first. They show all magic, without differentiation." She looked at the jumble she had left on the table. "None of these trinkets are of any great power. Take what you like as a gift. That is why I carry them with me."
It was a moment before Aisha could say much more. Her eyes were still trained onto the flickering flaming insignia blazing the front of the hypnotic trinket, as it hung from the silver chain wrapped about her knuckles. But her self-induced trance of concentration was broken as her ears perked suddenly, hearing the voice coming from behind Cogidubnus.
The panthress's eyes narrowed as the figure took shape, for she at least recognized a portion of the voice and the tricks used as belonging to the bat. But the surprise of his sudden appearance wasn't anywhere near as startling as the fact that he was now a she... reminiscent of the female body he had been cursed with...had it only been a couple of days ago since that event?
Aisha's face was frozen with an incredulous look for just a moment, as was Cogi's, she seemed to notice. But her head shook to drive off the confusion, and she just nodded. "Welcome back, S...um..." she sighed. What to call her when she was like this? "Welcome back," the dark jaguar just assented with a smile and turned back to the pseudo-timepiece in her hand.
Then her ear quirked back at Mel's statement, and her face broadened into a smile, not unlike a child's when they had gotten a gift. "Truly?" Then it turned back to her trademark smirk as she looked at the pile, then at the fire-bound amulet again. "Hm, I wouldn't mind having one or two things that improve my defenses in battle," she hummed. Aisha had been working on that for a while, mostly as per previous suggestions from her mentor. While she was proud of her own skills, a little help was often welcomed.
She looked around at some of the trinkets. Since she had said not many of the objects had great power, Aisha didn't often expect to find something too ultra-special. But, a gift was a gift, and enchanted ones were always in her realm of dappling. "What do some of these do?" she inquired, mostly looking at the amulet, but also a general question on some of the others.
Mel turned to look at what Aisha had picked up. "That one in your hand has two enchantments. The first is fire resistance. Quite a lot of the items have that. A very popular enchantment where I come from." She smiled a bit at that. Fire protection among ice dragons was more of a mania. "But the main enchantment is a speed spell. Push the second button on the watch to activate it."
Cog was about to say something else about the spectacles when a he heard Sebastian's distinctive tenor behind him, the bat appearing as suddenly as he had disappeared. Cog turned his head and arched an eyebrow, one of his eyes reflexively twitching. He was about to say something when she leaned against him: his ear flickered and his eye twitched twice, but by sheer force of will he kept the blood from his face. He swallowed before he spoke.
"I...sight isn't everything. But sight helps a great deal, if not as in...familiar as feeling." He said, suddenly taking a large swallow of his drink and setting it down, and immediately dodging the carpet the bat rolled out. Without missing a beat he turned back towards the dragon.
"And that is quite generous of you. Again, if I may?" he said, taking the trinket from her hand. Looking the glasses over for just a moment, he set them on his head, taking care not to set them too far up the bridge of his muzzle. Best get used to them first.
Even not covering his eyes, the lenses were disorienting, and Cog set a hand on a nearby table as he stared through them - dull, dark blue light swirled around the room, interspersed with brighter and faster blues in certain places. The pile of trinkets Mel had set on the table gave off magic like a lamp, and Mel herself fairly glowed like a sun from behind the glasses - Cog looked away quickly, his eyes passing over Aisha. The sword hilt she wore was as bright as white-hot iron, the amulet in her hand only a little less bright. But by far the strangest one of the group was Sebastian herself - not because of any great enchantment, but simply becuase of the glow that she herself gave off. Her entire body glowed from behind the lenses, the half of her below the glasses solid blue, the half above simply her normal, creamy fur.
Cog closed his eyes and took a seat, blinking rapidly as he opened them again. Pushing them a bit farther down his nose.
"...wow. There's...more of it than I thought." he said, picking up his cup again. "A lot more. That may take getting used to."
He looked over at the bat, leaning back in his chair. "But, yes. We were. And by all means." he said, taking a sip of his drink.
Keaton was so engrossed with the fascinating presentation given by those in the room, particularly Mel, that she barely noticed or acknowledged Stygian's reappearance. Only thing which captured her attention was the fact "he" was in the same feminine form he had discovered him in when she had walked in on "him" and Cogidubnus, and that he seemed to enjoy tormenting the aforementioned wolf. Good thing nobody else was aware of their encounter aside from Keaton, otherwise it would be very awkward for everyone assembled.
For now Keaton busied herself with studying the various trinkets piled on the table. Idly, Keaton brushed through them, scraping a few uninteresting knickknacks a few inches away from her hand, while simultaneously switching her gaze from the magical specimens grouped before her to Cogidubnus, who was examining the glasses offered to him by Mel. Aside from disorientation and other apparent side effects of the spellbound spectacles, they seemed to be quite effective, according to what Cog had said.
Keaton felt her wrist bump into something, sending it rolling along the table and toward the edge. Reacting quickly, Keaton lunged out with her hand, snatching the indistinct object just before it tumbled off the table's corner. Keaton sighed. Hopefully nobody had seen that. Still clutching it in her palm, she went through the rest of the items, before she finally felt her attention start to teeter towards the item in her hand.
Judging by its shape it was perfectly spherical and about the size of her marble. When Keaton opened her hand she realized it was completely lusterless, about as cold and dead and gray as an ordinary stone, although it was engraved with elaborate networks of hieroglyphics around its sides, eventually leading up to a thin ring in the center. Nothing was particularly interesting about it besides that, as it was cold to the touch and only vaguely pulsated of something magical, but it was, in a way, intriguing, about how something so plain would be found among so many extraordinary enchanted objects.
"Hey Mel?" Keaton held up the marble-sized stone. "What's this?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
else where
"Dude you're a f***ing chickin!" A large raccoon shouted at a rat.
"Darrol I'm not sure about you but I don't like holding cells. Breaking and entering is something I don't want on my record." The rat calmly replied.
"Whatever Ian you're just a pansy!" Darrol said with a hint of poison in his tone.
"Fine! If it'll get you to leave me alone I'll do it! Lord knows I don't want you rideing me about it through my entire college career." Ian said exasorbatedly.
"Good to see you grew some balls doctor Abernathy." Darrol said sarcasticly.
Ian walked up to the castle gate. "Dosn't seem too imposeing. Ian walked inside the castle. seconds later Darrol heard a blood curdleing scream. Darrol bolted. Ian watched the whole thing from just inside the door. "Hahaha Serves the lug right. Still while I'm here might as well poke around." Ian started into the castle proper.
Folding her still somewhat muscled arms across her chest and taking on a leaning posture and sly smile, the bat faced Cog's examination. As the others continued examining the magical items, she chuckled and strolled over toward them. From behind the glasses, Cog could see the magical glow of her flow and trail, hanging in the air behind her for a moment as she passed almost like luminescent vapor, her own form flaring. There were even... other things that he could see. Though it was invisible to the naked eye, even as Stygian stood still little trails and tendrils of magic slowly swirled around her, spreading out and seemingly feeling the surroundings.
The bat eyed the thing that Keaton had just picked up, and her expression suddenly changed into curiosity. 'That?' she said, furrowing her brow. 'It looks like a bullet. But...' Cog saw some of those thin, wispy things starting to congregate in front of her, almost reaching for the thing as if to touch it.
Suddenly, the bat stopped, and immediately her ears tensed and one swiveled toward the stairs. The invisible tendrils evaporated like smoke, as she turned her head.
'Did anyone else hear that?' she said, sounding concerned. 'I think I heard a scream.'
Mel frowned at the object in Keaton's hand. "How did that get in here? It does not belong with the trinkets. It is an artificial eye. The demon who commissioned it died before picking it up." Before she could say more Sebastian asked about a scream. "From the library?" she questioned. That was where everyone had been last time they knew.
Frowning, Stygian looked at Mel boorishly. 'Yeah. Right from the library. In between the sixth and seventh shelves from the west wall, three yards from the main row,' she said and kept her gaze, looking at the dragoness quite seriously. Only a second after she saw the doubt in Mel's face did she snort a laugh and shake her head. 'I'm not a bloody sonar, whatever you make of my ears. It came from downstairs. That's all I could hear.'
Ketefe arched an eyebrow at Cog when he answered. Something was avoided, but she couldn't tell what, and asking further would have really been prying. She turned her attention to Mel's assortment of objects. The glasses were interesting, but Ketefe didn't like the idea of hurting her eyes.
Then Stygian came in. Ketefe succeeded in keeping her jaw from dropping, but her eye did twitch. He had become a she. How was a very good question, but apparently this wasn't new for the bat. Only Keaton and Cog showed any visible distress, and like Ketefe, they quickly hid it. She took a gulp of her drink, which was getting a little cold, and moved her legs so she could start to get up. She wanted to walk over to the table and get a closer look at the items.
The scream distracted her from this, though. It was a little faint, but the way this castle echoed, it was easy for her to hear. She tensed, noticing that Stygian heard it too.
"We should go see who it was," Ketefe said, standing and flexing her leg muscles once to wake them up.
Aisha listened to Mel's answer to her inquiry about the trinket in her hand, and her face lit up with interest as she looked at the amulet again. "Fire resistance and speed," she mused. "That'd be a perfect start." The huntress smiled, then took the chain in both hands, curiously slipping it around her neck with the clear jewel and flame on the surface facing outward.
As soon as it was clasped on, she could feel a slight shiver through her body, both a hot and cold sensation...and then a feeling in the back of her head. It was like the confidence that she wouldn't be burned if she were to stick her hand in flames. It didn't take her long either to find the button that the dragon had said was on the watch to activate speed...it was quite small. She would have to test the attributes soon. She still had the holy blade strapped to her back, in fact, to do so with that of fire.
"You have many thanks, Mel," Aisha nodded with satisfaction to the dragon and sat back, observing a couple of the others as they took the liberty of finding some treasures of their own in the pile. She smirked at Cogi as he tested out the glasses and found them to his liking, and observed Keaton pick up a small spherical object of her own interest. I wish I knew where the other wolf in the party is, I know he might like a free magical trinket, the panther smiled, thinking of her fellow adventurer Gareeku.
But only after little else could be said, Aisha quirked her ear to the door as the bat said she had caught a sound. A slight disturbance just on the edge of hearing that sounded barely tangible and mortal, and through layers of stone, fairly hard to pinpoint.
"A scream?" Aisha sat up, her eyes darting in that direction, before she semi-quickly got back up to her feet, nodding in agreement to Ketefe. "Sounds like something to investigate. I'll go see too." She made a brief nod to the others, with a quick bow to the female Sebastian. "Oh, and thanks for the drink," she grinned before starting towards the door, listening for whomever else was coming.
* * *
"By Heaven!" Rynkura exclaimed with a hiss as she was jolted from her chair from the sudden mortified scream, her own sensitive ears more easily capturing the new disturbance further away on the first floor.
After a pause to catch her breath, the white tigress closed the book with a soft fwump as her eyes narrowed in concentration, trying to hear what was going on towards the castle's front section. At first she hesitated, wondering if she should stay put and courteously let the host deal with the distraction...but on the other hand, just in case it was hostile, a guest's greeting was in order. Judging from the sound...
With a grunt as she stood from her chair, Rynkura grabbed her staff and nodded to Gina and Jeremiah, whom she assumed were still keeping to themselves. With both hands on the lightly-glowing talisman, the healer moved toward the door to investigate the ruckus.
"Who goes?" she called, leaning against a wall out of sight...at least it was hoped.
As soon as he saw the bat's ears perk, Cog's own gave a twitch, a faint, bloodcurdling scream drifting up from somewhere. Cog quirked an eyebrow and took a long, drawn out sip of his drink. He set the cup down dry, and suddenly gave a tiny grin as the bat stated its location. He stood rather quickly, avoiding looking directly at Mel or the pile of trinkets and danced by the Jackal towards the door. He couldn't have asked for a better opportunity.
"I'll just go check out was that was then, shall I?"
This was golden: the perfect excuse to get out of the room. The others weren't stupid - anyone with eyes could see the mussed bed and nervous looks, and it would only be a matter of time before one of them put the pieces together. And now with Sebastian leaning on him like that...well, two and two might get put together rather quickly. Although the talk about enchanting was interesting, he was barely keeping himself from jumping at loud sounds or sudden questions.
As he had said, golden. He was about to leave when he bumped straight into a heretobefore unseen table, and almost knocked his head into a wall. Stopping just before touching the stone, he took a slow step backwards and looked sideways at the dragon.
"Ah...might there be some way to turn these down, a little?" he said before opening the door.
Ketefe was relieved to see that others had noticed the scream. Her legs felt normal again (the odd position she'd sat in had only been comfortable until she needed to get up), so she walked toward the door.
But before she could reach it, a flash of yellow from the table caught her eye. She stopped, turning and looking closer at the glinting object. It was a bracelet - two pieces of black, coiled string tied to either end of a small yellow zigzag of gold. She picked it up, turning it over a few times between her fingers. It was small, but there was no question that it had some sort of power. Maybe it was just her strange predilection for lightning bolts, but the bracelet seemed right for her somehow. And Mel HAD said they could each take one if they wished...
"Hey, Mel, what does this do?" she asked, holding up the little bolt, one string already curled around her finger.
Keaton turned the hieroglyphic-engraved stone over and over again in-between her fingers, studying it intently. Utterly lifeless, the dull stone didn't reflect any of the light pouring into the room nor the image of Keaton staring at it, giving the impression of an ordinary, uninteresting rock. A bullet, Stygian had said, implying that the stone could indeed be a weapon. Keaton could've believed that, it was probably the only thing this ostensibly useless-looking pebble could be used for. But its true function was made clear by Mel, stating that it was an eye. This made Keaton's entranced state dissolve, her ears lifting themselves into an erect position and her gaze shifting to the dragon.
"Did you say an eye?" she asked, blinking. Still fascinated with the false eye, she lifted the rock in front of her face, feeling her pupils instinctually dilate. "Huh..."
How appropriate, Keaton thought sarcastically. A smirk tugged at the edge of her lips, her unusually pale, dull-looking eye staring lifelessly--an artificial mockery of its opposite companion, a much livelier, chocolate-brown orb--at the eye-stone aligned with it. Such was her interest that she didn't even hear the scream, not even aware of it when it was brought up. Blinking, Keaton lowered the rock, then stared lazily at the door, where everyone was beginning to file out.
Sighing, Keaton stood up, then pocketed the eye-stone. Later use, perhaps. She started to walk over to the door.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"WHAT THE F***?" Ian said considerably confused and surprised. He gained back some composure. "Sorry though this place was empty, stupid college prank you know....Not even my idea heh it was my room mates's and" he said quickly backing tword the door.
Seeing people leaving Mel scooped the remaining trinkets back into her bag as the butterfly flitted from nearby Ketefe back to it's owner's shoulder. At the felines question she looked at what was in her hand. "Hmmm... I barely remember that one. By the design I would say you get to cast a lightning spell a few times a day. But I think it might have a bit of magic shield to it as well, by the look of the magic upon it. I would have to look at it closer to be certain." Then Cog's question drew her attention away. "I guess I should have given out instructions." She walked to the doorway where the wolf was halted. She gently tapped the frame on the edge, by the earpiece, with a fingertip. "Little taps here will dim the effect. On the opposite site will strengthen it again." She smiled a bit, "Much easier than having it in your natural vision."
At Mel's last comment, Stygian made a face and a little grunt. 'Tell me about it,' she said. 'But yes, I think it would be most appropriate to examine.' Her eyes followed Cogidubnus, already on his way out, but it was Keaton who felt a sudden pinch and gentle tug around her leg that prompted her to stop. A quick, barely noticeable movement of something black whipping back into shadow along the floor was all she caught with her eyes.
Shortly after stuffing her new eye-rock in the pocket right next to her marble, Keaton started to follow her companions, knowing that she was going to need to pick up her pace in order to catch up with them. In the midst of a step over the threshold of the door Keaton halted upon feeling the telltale pinch and tug on her leg, fur spiking instinctively and tail bristling like a bottlebrush. Her uncharacteristically feminine streak was still going strong, apparently, but nobody really enjoyed feeling such an unexpected and unpleasant sensation out of nowhere.
Out of her peripheral vision Keaton saw something whip out of sight, withdrawing back into the rippling shadows. That was indication enough of who had made her stop. Again with the unpredictability. She supposed that it was probably fortunate, finally having an opportunity to speak to him, but she hadn't exactly rehearsed how to confront their tension. Once she was sure everyone was gone, Keaton glanced at the shadows, sighing with tense resignation.
"Hello Sebastian. I should've figured you were going to take this opportunity to try to talk... or something."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
As the stranger answered Rynkura's call, she shot her eyebrows up incredulously and stood up, relinquishing the defensive grip on her staff. A prank? She thought and allowed herself to step out from the shadows, her steady gaze falling upon the rat who had so boldly walked in.
The elderly-looking but strong white tigress tilted her head at his appearance, then chuckled and raised her hand peacefully...though her ears were slanted a little at the curse that the rodent uttered. "Ah, don't worry, it's not my castle...we're just guests. You've yet to meet the host," she said with a sort of ominous voice, nodding towards the door. "I'm Rynkura. You might as well come in for a while. The storm outside seems to have let up, but it may continue again soon. How you made it past that superstitious village down there is beyond me."
The healer started to turn back for the library, but then paused again. "Oh, but some of the other guests happen to be adventurers. You may have grabbed their attention by screaming."
It was then, right on cue, that Aisha had dashed the rest of the way down the stairs, with Ketefe somewhere behind, and she supposed Cogidubnus as well. She had tested the speed spell on her new amulet and now leaped in front of the stranger and her mentor in a flash of red from her cape, the bladed boomerang already in the black jaguar's hand as she braked before them on the floor. "Where'd the scream come from? Anyone hurt?" she demanded with her teeth bared.
Rynkura's eyes rolled. "Case in point," she laughed, then waved her hand at the eager-to-fight panthress. "Just another guest, Aisha, there's no threat. At least it's hoped so," she added, then started back for the library, leaving the rest of the group to meet.
"Mierda..." the feline cursed and replaced the weapon on her belt, looking at the rodent, who looked enough like trouble to do such a thing...at least to one's eyes. "Another one, huh? Who're you?"
At first, the bat didn't speak. She just watched the others leave the room, still with her arms crossed under her breasts and with a very slight frown on her face, ears slanted. Only when the last back receded out the door and it swung closed did she speak, and the jackal could see that her shape was already shifting, her skin crawling and practically turning itself inside out from her feet and up, turning black before taking on a new form. His old one, fortunately.
'Not quite the reaction that I had hoped for, but at least they're gone. And I think they'll be glad to grab a few more drinks later now...' Stygian said, voice changing mid-sentence, looking a bit distraught. He turned back to Keaton. 'Talk, yes. You were worried that it would be about something else?' He smiled and raised an eyebrow.
Cog nodded at the dragon, a smile on his face. "Oh, I see. Thank you. That could get quite embarrassing." he said, giving her a grin before dashing out the door. He barely felt the cold in the round anteroom beneath Sebastian's new bedroom, and probably not just because of the drinks. Still.
He allowed himself to relax again, taking deep breaths of the chill night air as he followed the others back downstairs. He resisted the urge to sit down in a corner somewhere for a moment and continued to follow the others. He'd find a room to collapse into later.
****
When they got downstairs, Cog quirked an eyebrow and simply leaned back into a wall, mildly surprised. It would seem they had attracted some attention with the stunts in the town. College students were already daring each other to come up here. He sighed.
"I see. Well. If you want to stay, we're not going to stop you. Mister...?"
Unconsciously, Keaton felt herself smirk at what Stygian said next. Not quite the reaction he had hoped for? Was he expecting to scare her then? Ah well, now wasn't the time to speculate over the inner machinations of Stygian's mind. As aforementioned, she did intend to speak to him at some point, whether she was prepared or not. After all, she needed to eliminate this barricade one way or another.
Keaton set her hands on her hips, feeling infinitely grateful that Stygian had opted to transform back into his original state rather than morph into some indescribable monster. It was unnerving that he had decided to transform right in front of her, but the results were much more fortunate than she had originally predicted.
"Well..." Keaton scratched behind her head. "I wanted to talk about our, uh... little unpleasant run-in at the town. I did some thinking after talking to Cog, and I realized..."
Keaton sighed, then looked away, appearing slightly shamefaced. "I guess I didn't really stop to consider your situation. Far from it. And now that I think about it this is no different from me, well... stealing souls and devouring them." She ran her hand through her hair, sighing again, although much more heavily. "And yeah, I've done that, for the record..."
Keaton then shook her head, swatting some strands of dirty blonde hair from her face. "But anyway. I just think I have been jumping to conclusions about this. And like I said, not stopping to think about your situation."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The bat nodded and closed his eyes, chuckling a bit at Keaton's response and comments. 'It's not merely about souls. I need to feed on life and on power,' he said. 'It takes a whole lot for me just to sustain myself. The natural equilibrium of things means that I have to expend power just to stay in this world. If I don't devour life, I slowly wither back into the darkness.' He made a short, bitter laugh. 'You know, in fact this isn't even my original body. That one was destroyed. Right now I'm just clinging to existence as well as I can.'
Strolling over the floor and sitting down at the end of the messy bed, Stygian bunched his fingers and took a brief pause, looking slightly depressed. 'And then there's my own power, of course. You cubi are fortunate enough to be able to feed yourselves well on emotions. But I can't, and I'm a veritable blast furnace when it comes to power turnover.' He sighed and licked his lips shortly. 'But there are few alternatives if I wish to keep going.'
There was another pause, longer this time, and more awkward, before Stygian took word again. 'Still, that wasn't really the most awkward situation here,' he said, a smirk reappearing on his face and his fangs glinting as he fixed his pinpricked, gleaming pupils on Keaton.
There was a period of lingering, tense silence over where Keaton stood, an almost contemplatively solemn look on her face as she absorbed the first words Stygian spoke. Releasing a heavy sigh, she blinked, then looked up at Stygian over the rims of her glasses, just where color broke away into colorblind dissolution in her right, injured eye and the world became suffused in monochromatic, static-garbled hell-world.
"Well that offers a bit of a new perspective," Keaton said, massaging her temples. "I didn't think at first that you actually needed to do that..." For a minute, Keaton looked genuinely ashamed of herself, maybe sympathetic, until she realized that Stygian might not appreciate being pitied and managed to curb her expression into something more neutral. "And I didn't think that I was fortunate about the fact I could simply feed on emotions. I guess I..."
A weighty sigh. Keaton glanced back down into the lenses of her glasses, color restoring to her right-eye vision. "Yeah. I owe you an apology there."
However, when Stygian slipped in his final remark, Keaton burst into a quick fit of laughter. Even so shortly after such a period of shocking awkwardness she still found the concept amusing, or at least when Stygian presented it in such a manner. "Okay, true that," Keaton admitted, wiping away a restrained tear from her left, organic eye. "True that."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
As Keaton decided to show an obvious ease about the subject, Stygian allowed himself to laugh along with her a bit, though far from as strongly. 'Yeah,' he said, a bit distantly, and Keaton almost thought she could see a slight redness to his cheeks. 'Well, what do you expect? You lock yourself up for a century, and you'll see how much you'll start to crave company.' He chuckled, then looked at her, his face a bit more serious. 'I hope that it's not a problem. I mean, I'm... Really. I just needed to... get it out. If you have anything against it...'
Before the rat could respond to his query, Cog cursed something under his breath and pushed himself off the wall, his making a small bow. "Excuse me."
He turned and walked back towards the stairs, coat whipping just a bit behind him. He'd forgotten to get his knife back from Mel, and the dragon had probably set it down back somewhere in the room. He still wanted to see if he couldn't enchant the thing - he'd catch the rat's name later.
A few minutes and some stairs later, he found himself climbing up the spiraling tower towards Sebastian's bedroom, fighting off the chill in earnest. Rain still pattered off the windows, and he wrapped his coat a bit tighter around himself. The cold was starting to bite again, despite the previous warmth and the drinks. He hurried softly towards the room, pausing just before he opened the door, ear twitching.
Keaton was talking to the bat - something she needed to do, really. He lifted his hand away from the knob, and leaning against the wall, waited for them to finish.
The dragon followed the adventurers at a slightly more sedate pace, content to let those with swords go ahead. She arrived in the main hall just as the wolf decided to make a return trip up the stairs and to see Rynkura disappearing into the shadows that led back to the library. She had caught the fact that the child standing before Aisha was both the source of the noise and was planning on staying a while. Mel rolled her eyes as she stepped up beside Aisha, children did such reckless things. The same stunt just two days ago would have left him dead already. She smiled at the rat, which probably wasn't as reassuring as she believed, particularly coupled with the fact that since the threats in the village she had altered her height to a number closer to six foot than five. "What is your name?"
Ketefe admired the bracelet for a second longer after Mel described its magic, then tied it around her left wrist with her right hand and teeth. Then she followed the others downstairs to see who the new person was.
To her partial surprise, it was a rat who looked to be about the same age as her. He looked a little punkish, but Ketefe wasn't really one to judge by appearance when she herself was constantly masked. She let the others question him, but nodded a greeting to the newcomer.
"Ian." He said more confidently he was hopeing nobody would try and kill him but they wouldn't have bothered learning his name first. "Nice set up you got here. Has a 'rustic' thing going for it. You could throw a kickass rager in this place."
Ketefe walked up to Ian. He seemed like a nice guy, but he looked tense, and she knew why. "Well, that wouldn't be our decision. We don't own this place; we're all just guests for the time being. I'm Ketefe, and since we're all thinking it, I'm gonna go ahead and say it." She looked him in the eyes. "We won't kill you if you don't kill us. Okay?" She held out her hand and smirked.
"A pleasure." He did an over the top bow and kissed the hand. Obviously makeing fun of the romantic movies and yet being sincere in the same fashion.
Mel shook her head a bit at Ian's display. "Pleased to meet you Ian. As Ketefe said we are guests here ourselves, but the host should show up in some unpredictable manner at some unexpected time." She looked him over. The rain must have slowed down quite a bit since their excursion to town as he was only a bit damp and bedraggled. "Come down to the kitchen where it is warmer and get dried off. There was both coffee and tea there earlier." She turned and started down the hall, "I'm Melodie Icewing, generally known as Mel."
"Greetings Mel" Ian was glad to be welcomed in....the longer he stayed the more of an excuse he had to scare the crap out of his room mate. for this reason Ian turned off his phone and disabled the voicemail.
Halfway through forcing herself not to laugh and not to smirk, Keaton started to forget how tense the atmosphere enveloping both her and Stygian's surroundings was. At least she was able to laugh at something which was formerly so borderline heart-stopping a few mere moments after it had occurred, that was a good thing. The next moment Stygian spoke Keaton managed to pluck herself out of her temporarily lightened mood, at least enough to address what he had said.
Of course, it was enough to nearly make her burst out laughing again (at least his comment about wanting "company"), but she was able to curb her chortling and muster an indifferent shrug. "Well, uh..." she reached up and scratched behind her head, looking off to the side with a vibrant, pink blush flushing her cheeks. "Yeah, I guess that's understandable."
Probably not the reaction he was looking for, but hey, she deserved a gold star for her effort at self-restraint. Go Keaton, you're on a roll.
The next thing Stygian said just made her raise an eyebrow. "Against it? What do you--" Keaton blinked, then snickered. "Oh. Well..." Again, Keaton compulsively scratched behind her ear, making it flicker and twitch reflexively. "The only reason I had freaked out before was that I had walked in on it. Personally, I have nothing against it."
At least, now that she knew Stygian wasn't going to devour Cogidubnus alive.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe blushed and snickered good-naturedly at Ian's exaggerations. It was nice to have someone normal around at last, though she wondered whether he'd stick around after he saw how chaotic everything here could get.
Then she realized something. One element of that chaos was noticeably absent - and had been for quite some time.
"This is a weird question, but does anyone know where Bam went?" she asked the room at large.
The bat nearly raised an eyebrow at Keaton's response. The blush he could understand, though it was unexpected from a Cubi. It didn't seem much like she'd gotten the full meaning of his words.
'I was speaking of interest, Keaton,' he said. 'I've been looking for some comfort, but I'm pretty much fine now, and if I am in your way...' He turned his face down, eyes hiding behind his blond bangs for a moment. The smirk on his face when he looked up didn't seem forced, but it was rather sudden. 'Well, I think you'd only have to turn on that cubi charm of yours.' He showed a brief flash of teeth. 'And you would probably have fun while at it. He's a bit stiff sometimes, but real nice.'
At first Keaton wasn't entirely sure what Stygian meant by "speaking of interest," so she decided hesitantly to leave that statement unattended. The vivid crimson blush had cleared from Keaton's cheeks within a few moments, leaving a soft afterglow of red in its wake. Ears pricked as Stygian lowered his head, speaking. "In her way"? What was THAT supposed to mean?
Stygian glanced back up, wearing a smirk on his face. Keaton blinked, then barked out a laugh. "Turning on the Cubi..." Keaton shook her head again, albeit much more slowly. She couldn't help it, the idea was just so amusing. The closest attempt to seduction Keaton had ever mustered involved an unfortunate calamity in which some poor soul had tried to hit on her in a bar--she had laughed, led him on, and five minutes later she had nearly broken his jaw. Bad habit, most likely.
"Uh, hardly?" Keaton scratched behind an ear, smirking. "I'd probably have him wrapped 'round my finger without even trying, but hey..." That was mostly her being egotistical while simultaneously joking, obvious from the easygoing smirk on her muzzle. "I'm not really looking. In all seriousness though, you're not in my way or anything."
Five-hundred-nineteen years old and single. What a world.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The sarcasm of her tone was hardly lost on Stygian, but Keaton's remark did seem rather puzzling though, mostly because the smirk which was supposed to mean one thing was a bit hard to read, considering that she had been laughing and smirking just before. The bat's smile dimmed, and he tilted his head to the side, blinking once. For a moment he sat, just looking at her like that, pondering her reaction and her blush. Had he just pricked something there?
Slowly, Stygian stood up, and casually walked over to the table, making himself another drink, face down and blank. 'Well...' he began, trying to think of what to say next. He had a shot at finding something out here, but he had nothing specific to go on. To get her to open up, he had to get her interested, or too off-balance to be careful. Turning against her again, he sipped his glass, and strolled toward her.
'You know, usually I'd take that as a bet, but... Well, I'm trying to change,' he said and smiled. Making the impression of warming up to her was key. She didn't seem the most socially adept, so that might well faze her a bit. 'I've behaved enough like an idiot to last me the whole month. So I'll try to be nice from now on.' He chuckled, a low sound that had smoothed out along with his speech, calm and purring.
It was when he stopped up close to her and took another sip of his drink that it really hit Keaton, as if her senses had been clouded or he had made some effort to hold it back up until then, played crude and sour and fiendish to hide it. Stygian really was beautiful. His muscled and hard but smooth-lined physique, his velveteen and unblemished fur, the contrast between his dark-eyed gaze and his flawlessly shaped, pale predatory face, his very body language; all were so naturally handsome that it was hard to believe that she hadn't remarked them to herself, even less noticed them yet. A slip of teeth showed in his smile and she could see that they too were as impeccable, sharp and fiendish though they were.
'But as I said, go ahead if you want to. I suspect you would do well,' he said, a murr that made hairs stand on end. 'He's a wolf, after all. Show him a soft spot and he'll hump it, just like any other puppy.'
"Ian, huh?" Aisha muttered as the newcomer introduced himself to the group, settling down a bit when he saw that nobody was going to be very hostile. The panthress even had to roll her eyes a bit at the rat's charming attitude towards Ketefe. First appearances were always deceiving, of course, but what she saw before her most likely was just a child...if not in age then in attitude. Should've expected people coming up to the "haunted" castle on dares.
Still, people were people, guests were guests. Aisha just uncrossed her arms and nodded her polite greetings along with the others. "Yeah, make yourself comfortable and watch out for bats," she smirked.
Seeing that the storm had picked up and it was getting to be night outside, Aisha really hadn't a thought on where else to go...perhaps spend some time with Rynkura in the library, or just go to bed...the drink hadn't made her that tired. Her ears quirked upon hearing Ketefe's inquiry though. "Bam? Huh...last I heard, she was in the library."
"She went outside," a deeper voice entreated, before a familiar pair of emerald eyes peered from the shadows. Aisha snorted. It was just like Rynkura to have stayed and kept an ear on the conversation. The adventurer finally heard the tiger's footsteps as she returned to the interior of the library.
"Out in the storm?" She muttered, shaking her head and fingering her new amulet...that was something to get used to, having a trinket wrapped around her neck. "Chica's gonna get hit with lightning."
Mel led the way to the kitchen where she found the tea and cookies missing. She guessed that the tray had gone with Rynkura to the library. But both the tea kettle and the percolator with the remaining coffee were staying warm on the back of the stove so they should be able to make do. "Grab a mug of whichever you prefer, and get yourself warm. We have cookies if I remember where I put them."
"He's a wolf, after all. Show him a soft spot and he'll hump it, just like any other puppy."
Well if that wasn't the best line Keaton had heard all day, she didn't know what was. If it weren't for the sudden revelation about Stygian's appearance Keaton probably would've mustered another smirk, but instead, taking advantage of the absence of the lopsided leer she desperately wanted to create, she felt her cheeks go ablaze with bright, erubescent sanguine. That was the problem with her--instead of being bestowed with a frightfully feminine accent such as peach-pink for her blush, Keaton had a much more conspicuous blood-red. It was almost like tattooing a giant, embarrassing "NOTICE ME" sign right on her face.
"Uh..." Keaton blinked, ears lying flat back and eyes attempting to shift in an opposite direction, preferably towards a very interesting groove in the wall. She failed, still finding her eyes inexplicably locked onto his. "Y'know, I was kidding about that, Sebastian..." she said with a slight amount of uneasiness to her voice, face still afire. Shakily, she forcibly attempted something akin to a confident grin. "Really."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
A few scant moment after Keaton spoke, an audible click snapped through the stone room, startling and turning the heads of both the Jackal and the Bat. The knob dipped down as the door swung outwards, letting in a cold draft of air from the outside - Cog's boot made a soft footfall as he stepped through the doorframe, stopping just a little way inside
Keaton he mostly ignored, his yellow eyes instead staring at the Bat. No tears fell from his eyes, although from the wet stripes on his cheeks, it was obvious some had fallen. His body shook for a moment, his eyes soft as he met the Bat's eyes, and almost made as if to speak - but before a sound left his throat, Cog clenched his jaw, and he stopped shaking as his body tensed. His eyes grew hard, the yellow orbs staring at the bat with hatred.
He turned to Keaton. "Don't worry. You don't need to hide your pillows. I'm not that sort of fellow." he said, his fiery eyes brushing past Sebastian as he walked past, picking up the knife Mel had left on the table. He walked stiffly, and after staring at the little thing for a moment simply held it in his hand as he walked back out.
"I needed my knife." he said, walking past the both of them. Without another word, he opened the door and slammed it behind him, steps echoing as he descended the staircase down.
"I'd better not have coffee. You know how rats get with our high matabalism and all" He said pouring himself a cup of tea. "You said we're all guests, Who is the host is what I'd like to know. I guess I'll find out later. In all honesty I didn't even want to come in at first. I already have a criminal record for 'hacking the school computers' though I was just getting rid of a bug I found. Didn't want to add breaking and entering to it."
His mouth still slightly open and his ears tensely standing, Stygian stood and looked after the wolf for a few very long seconds. For a short while, things became as dreamily distant and unreal as whenever something terrible happens, the shock detaching the bat almost completely as his mind raced. He wasn't sure whether if he was confused or utterly ashamed or afraid. It seemed as if he were seeing things through someone else's eyes. He couldn't have made such a terrible blunder again, could he?
The slam snapped Stygian out of his paralyzed state, and brought a venomous sensation of guilt and despair to him. He started for the door, and Keaton could feel more than see him gripping the shadows to move faster.
'Cog! Wai-' he began, but mid-stride his voice turned into a painful grunt as he shuddered and fell forward on one knee, hitting the floor hard, his left hand slapping the floor and his right clutching his chest as he shivered and hissed. 'Stop... please...' he croaked painfully.
At first Keaton wasn't sure how to react when Cogidubnus burst into the room. One part of her was relieved that she didn't have to listen to Stygian's response to her awkwardly presented statement. Another was hoping that he hadn't noticed her aforementioned uneasiness at all. Most of her, however, was screaming an endless tirade of shrieking curses and insults at how much of an idiot she was and how ridiculously sour her luck had become.
Motionlessly, she stared at Cog as he stormed past her and snatched up his knife from nearby, only beginning to move after he took a few steps past her. Apparently her body had taken its precious time in allowing her to move again. Such was her shock that she didn't even realize most of what the wolf had said--all that had processed at that moment was that he had been, apparently, crying, and she had fucked up badly.
"Cog, hold on a second!" she blurted, starting to move after him. Five milliseconds before her muscle gave the slightest twitch Stygian gave a very late reaction, starting to pursue the wolf after the door was slammed. He didn't get far--shortly after trying to gather up the shadows he had stumbled, falling painfully to the ground. Keaton snarle as yet another aspect deteriorated. "Oh SHIT!"
The jackal raced over to Stygian, kneeling down slightly so to look at the fallen bat. "Sebastian, what the hell happened?! You okay?!" Of course he wasn't, but damned if Keaton wasn't going to end up checking, one way or another.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Sebastian's cry fell on deaf ears. Through the wooden door and stone walls, the patter of rain outside and on the windows, and the despair covering the ears of the wolf, the cry never reached Cog's ears. The sound of tinkling metal falling on stone echoed through the cold chamber, the knife slipping from Cog's hand. Without sound, without word, he simply left, passing those in the lobby without comment as he walked through the main doors to the outside. The chilling, wet wind blew his hat off his head, depositing the thing inside just before the oaken doors closed - and then they shut.
And he was gone.
Ketefe was puzzled as to why Bam would've gone outside in this storm. Aisha was right, she was putting herself in slight danger now that the storm had picked up. She had just decided to go see if the fae was all right when a very upset-looking Cogidubnus left the castle, not even bothering to retrieve his hat when it blew off his head.
She found herself torn for reasons she couldn't explain. Go after Cog and figure out what the hell's the matter... or check on Bam. Go after Cog...check on Bam...Cog...Bam...
"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right," she said under her breath. She waited to see how the others would react to the wolf's departure, her tail twitching with indecision.
Mel offered some cookies to Ian then took a mug of tea for herself. "Our host is Sebastian, but I think I will leave it at that. You can form your own impressions." She sampled one of the cookies before adding, "You were smart to not want to set foot in here. Two days ago the reception committee consisted of bats and spiders. The kind that left neither fur nor bone behind."
Aisha hummed as she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, watching as Mel became the host to invite Ian into the kitchen for food. She watched the rat leave, shaking her head slightly. He'll fit in, alright. Huh, well I wonder where the others...
Her thoughts were interrupted as soon as the people in the front hall had started to disperse, and that was when Cogidubnus came trudging through the foyer with a curious demeanor about him; hurt, angry, what have guesses have you, he had it. The panthress quirked one eyebrow, then the other in sudden concern when he opened the door and left into the darkness and the rain, lightning painting the sky white in small flashes. All that was left behind was his hat...and she didn't even hear footsteps coming back for it.
"Well that's not like him..." Aisha muttered and kicked away from the wall, wondering what had gone on, how his demeanor had suddenly changed so. The hat still lay on the polished floor, and she watched Ketefe look around in the traditional feline sense of indecision. Aisha's own tail tip twitched...but she figured, on a day like this, nobody deserved to be out in it. And there was nobody else left to try near the door, but them.
She nodded over to the masked felid and picked the hat up, pulling her cape hood over her head at the same time. "Alright, friend retrieval duty. I'll go after him. You can go after Bambi," she offered, and then lost no time in passing through the large doors, her dark form blending in with the ominous night's shadows just perfectly.
Dashing down and splashing her bare feet in the puddles, rain pounding her back, Aisha thought for a moment that she had to use the speed feature on the amulet again...but that wasn't needed, for soon she happened to spot the canid's familiar outline not too far off the path.
"Cogi! Hey! Amigo!" She called after...but either the storm seemed to drown out her voice or he was focused on ignoring anyone who would come for him...his pace looked quite fast. Her eyes narrowed, and that's when she used the speed feature. A press on the amulet, and her feet flew fast enough for her to be mistaken as a dark red blur...a dizziness that was easy enough to get used to when one's focused.
Cogidubnus would see the blur rush past him, then brake a little ways in front of him, a figure in a cowl that hopefully looked familiar. Or if not, at least the accented voice was, and the seemingly-glowing red eyes. "Hey! You know you left this behind?" She said, holding it out in front of her. "And it's probably none of my business, but I oughta ask what's wrong anyway."
"Who was that?" Ian asked Mel. "And that Aisha girl seems to keep to herself. She alright?" Ian looked confused and bewildered. guess it's to be expected when you meet a legion of new people with quirks like this motly crew.
"Who?" asked Mel confused. "I am not sure what you mean. You have met Mistress Msh'taan, the white tiger, she is a healer. Ketefe introduced herself. Aisha is a quiet girl, but very nice. Very smart and thoughtful. The last of the group that you have seen is Cogidubnus Mithlome, the silver haired wolf. I have no idea why he was so rude as to leave in the middle of talking to you. He normally has very nice manners. There are a few others, but you have not met them yet. When you are warm and dry we will go to the library and you can meet them." The dragon looked very seriously at Ian. "Please do not go wandering off alone. We have misplaced a few adventurers already and have no idea of their fate. I am not joking."
Taking a deep breath, Stygian pushed himself up with another grunt, more a snarl this time. He was still shuddering, feeling the pain sear through him and hating himself both for his actions and for his weakness, but he had experienced these jolts of pain often enough that he recovered quickly from them. Or, at least he had learned to ignore the agony.
'I'm fine... I...' he growled, face twisting, and then hobbled forward, throwing open the door and dashing down the stairs. Halfway through the movement his shape began distorting, darkening as he shifted to his true form to move faster and more steadily. By the time he had stumbled down to the base of the tower, he was a haze of crawling, swarming darkness, only vaguely recognizable as a humanoid shape with some sort of large wings amid all the twisting dark. He stormed after Cog's trail, trying to catch up with the wolf, moving in an almost serpentine fashion, making his way forth on all limbs like some grotesque arthropod. When he reached the entry hall he stormed right at Ketefe, clearly scaring the wits out of the feline as she saw his bestial face and glowing eyes come at her and felt the blackness brush over her, but not stopping, throwing open the doors and pulling himself out into the rain.
Aisha had just rounded Cog when Stygian closed up on them in the dark, stopping just out of sight in the darkness in between the trees that lined the path just beyond the walls, not knowing how he should approach either of them.
Ketefe nodded a thank-you to Aisha as the panthress left to get Cogi. She had just taken a step in the other direction when a murky haze of darkness with blazing eyes, wings and a grotesque face that could only have been Stygian charged right at her. Her eyes widened and she let out a short scream of fear as she jumped out of his way, but as he passed, she felt some sort of darkness brush over her, as if somehow her soul had been briefly eclipsed. He went on as if he hadn't noticed, going straight out the door and into the storm.
When the bat (if he could be called that in his present form) left, she was shaking all over and still wide-eyed. Somehow, this had been even scarier than watching him attack the Mythos. At least then he'd had a reason to look terrifying.
"What...the bleeding hell... is wrong with him....?" she said to no-one, trying to slowly regain her composure.
"Really? Get the student loan people in here. They'll find a penny in a sea of copper scraps if you know what i mean." Ian said with a snicker. He took a sip of tea. "I hope Darrol isn't too terrified."
The wind and rain blowing both of their clothes about them, and the foul weather making it difficult to look directly at the panthress, Cog paused as she stood in front of him, and almost as if confused he took his hat from her hand.
He turned, the wind molding his coat around him, and he stared back up at the castle, seemingly oblivious to the weather. He began to shake, and looked off to the right, away from her.
"Just go." He said thickly, and took a rattling breath. "Please. I'm sorry. But...ju- please, go."
Aisha, from where she was, couldn't see him crying. And though her eyes and ears were sharp, neither could she see Sebastian in the woods, perfectly illumined by the magic-seeing glasses Cog wore.
Stalking closer and around the pair standing in the middle of the road, Stygian came almost into view, the glowing pinpoints of his irises dimly visible in the shadows. The rain suppressed nearly all scent, but both Cog and Aisha with their heightened senses could catch a slight whiff of his scent, toxic and vaporous like some sort of smoky alcohol or fuel. With him this close, Aisha's tailring flared in a nearly steady emerald glow.
A lightning flash finally lit him up where he stood between the trees, monstrous and snaking with shadows deeper than those surrounding him. He slowly began walking closer, the blackness drawing inward but his form still hidden in the dark as he shifted, again assuming his humanoid disguise.
'Cogidubnus... What are...?' he hesitantly began as he emerged partially into view. While his darkened face had been hardly readable, the sadness and worry was evident on his now much more normal face. 'I... I didn't...'
"Motherfucking--!" was Keaton's only exclamation after Stygian lurched to his feet and staggered out the door, dashing out of sight. It took her a while to react properly, her body frozen in a sheer state of shock over how everything was so swiftly degenerating. A single twitch heralded the sudden movement of her muscles, her body rushing forward, out the door, and out of sight, the scuffling of rapidly scraping heels and a loud shout of "FUCK!" being the only harbingers to Keaton's approach.
By the time she had made it down to the door Stygian was already outside. Apparently Cogidubnus had left, and considering what had transpired, Keaton didn't particularly blame him. Blatantly ignoring Ketefe, a look of panic about her, Keaton rushed outside without even observing the weather conditions. She didn't even muster the effort to conjure up another umbrella to shield herself from the rain--she was just in too much of a hurry, and as menial of an example of shadow manipulation that was, she didn't want to unnecessarily waste any energy. Unfortunately, as she burst out the door and sped outside, where she was instantly greeted with the downpour of rain, she began to regret this decision.
For Keaton, the shadows were hard to manipulate when their presence was being obscured by assailing, tumultuous rain. It made it hard to concentrate. Fortunately, when Keaton managed to focus enough, she forged a smaller umbrella from the same shadows she did during her leisurely stroll before, protecting her somewhat from the bombardment of water. It was frail, but it had to do for now.
She found Cogidubnus near the trees. Sighing, Keaton walked over, her normally vivid yellow appearance eclipsed by the shadows draped over her, her dark clothing and markings, and the unsteady weather. "Cog?!" she shouted, not immediately recognizing Aisha until she noticed the green halo of energy radiating off of her tailring. Stygian was too concealed for her to see. "Jesus, you--you scared the shit out of... I..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Unaware of the fact that they had been pursued for a small time, Aisha tilted her head to watch Cogidubnus's reaction to her interference. She had expected to perhaps be lashed at, or ignored...but not this. The wolf turned his expression away from her and uttered that the panthress just leave, in a tone that she could swear carried tears.
And she certainly felt like obeying. As was said before, the problem was hardly any of her business...but her eyes narrowed, regarding him, and she didn't move an inch from the spot she stood in, even when she was becoming completely drenched. "I don't think so, comrade," she said, crossing her arms. "I think we both know that you would rather not walk out in this rain, and the only reason people do, is if they're depressed." She sighed and tried to put on a reassuring smile. "As I said to Keaton, we're all friends. So I'd like to hear what's got you so..."
But the panthress never finished her sentence. Through the talk, there was the unnerving thought of the encompassing darkness near the trees...and the feeling that they were being watched...the strange mix of scents...all brought to light by the sudden flare of her tail ring, giving the area around them a constant, pulsating emerald glow. Looking up, she saw Keaton approaching, also coming back for the wolf, she assumed...but was she the cause of the flare...?
No, that was. The lightning briefly illuminated the dark shape in the trees, which made Aisha back up and instinctively draw her boomerang, raising it over her head. But she didn't fire...instantly she recognized the bat, approaching the hurt and saddened wolf as well.
With a sigh of relief, Aisha replaced her weapon and crossed her arms. "Okay...well...should I get out of here?" she asked incredulously, but she kept her concerned...and now curious...expression.
Cog instinctively bristled at Aisha's refusal to leave, almost turning and lashing out at the panthress as she stood in the rain for him. He bit his toungue instead, watching the bat walk out of the woods and start speaking.
About then Keaton showed up.
Cog turned and regarded all three of them, Aisha, Keaton, and Sebastian, looking at each of them in turn. Tears still ran down his face, and after sputtering a moment, set his teeth, his fur standing on end and his eyes flashing.
"Get...AWAY!" he screamed raggedly, both of his fists clenching and erupting with tiny orbs of force, visibly displacing the rain around them. Still shaking, Cog turned on Aisha. His eyes, furious, and wet with rain and tears, seemed almost feral. "GO." he said, and the sky suddenly cracked with thunder. "Just...J-...GO!" he yelled, growling and baring fangs at the panthress. The storm, already fierce, became yet more intense: the rain began to fall in sheets, and the wind began to tear violently at Aisha's cloak, nearly dragging her forward. Cog whirled, glaring daggers at Keaton.
"Leave!" he said raggedly, the wolf unable to keep a snarl out of his voice. A stroke of lightning suddenly struck beside the group, exploding with an earsplitting boom as yet another bolt fell in the same spot. Cog gestured to the storm, and it responded to his call, the skies darkening yet further.
The weather was becoming truly dangerous.
Cog turned and regarded the bat, his eyes inhuman. He wasn't sure if the other two had left yet. He no longer cared. "You didn't what? Mean what you said?" Cog stalked forward, staring straight into the bat's eyes. His teeth flashed dully, briefly illuminated by a thunderbolt. "Didn't mean that you've lied to me. Betrayed me? Used me?"
He voice choked, but the wolf kept speaking, walking closer and closer to the bat. "Tricked me? Laughed in your sleeve as I professed love for you, because you needed a fucktoy for a few hours?" Cog bit out, his voice thick and savage at the same time. "Or what? You didn't think I meant what I said? Did you think I was lying?"
He shook, and made a sudden chopping guesture with his hand. The sky growled, and thunder roared in response, bolts of lightning falling frighteningly close all around them.
Cog was only feet away from the bat. "That...I'd...well, you said it. Like any other puppy. Maybe the Cubi will get rid of him for you, right?"
It should've been easily predictable that someone who had their heart stampeded on a million times over would've reacted violently to being encountered by the source of their heartache in front of a live, and consistently-increasing audience. It honestly should've been. But, logic and basic reactions aside, Keaton never would've anticipated such a volatile reaction out of Cogidubnus--poetic, articulate, smooth Cogidubnus of all people.
So when he whirled around to face them, tears streaming from his eyes and fury shrieking from every pore of his body in palpitating, viciously vivid rays, Keaton thought she was hallucinating. Originally she would've heeded Cog's screamed demand, obligingly sidestepping until her shock wouldn't allow her to move any longer, but instead she merely stared in owlish surprise, the hand gripping her umbrella having gone taut and pallid with tension. Thunder rolled overhead; chains of lightning leaped between the billowing clouds like crackling shackles, spasming and fluctuating as a lance of electricity barreled to the earth, colliding against the ground with an earsplitting crack.
Keaton didn't scream--but she felt her concentration loosen just enough for the umbrella to dissipate, vanishing in a swirling mass of atramentous vapors. Another lightning bolt kissed the ground, Keaton staggered back, gripping her wrist unconsciously as she felt dark magic instinctively spark between her fingertips. The emotions radiating off of Cog were overwhelming, nearly enough to penetrate her mind-barrier and send her careening into delusion, but only pummeled away at her senses in the background of her panic. Cog didn't seem to care if Keaton remained around any more, because he was advancing on Stygian.
Many proclamations Cogidubnus had made, but one particularly smashed Keaton out of nowhere. Love? He had declared love to Stygian? All this time Keaton had assumed their encounter was nothing more than a fling, something shallow and meaningless which only then Keaton realized would be terribly uncharacteristic. Not everyone was like her, after all. Severing these thoughts prematurely came the downward cannonade of lightning, cacophonous thunder echoing in an eerie crescendo around them. Keaton let out a loud grunt, dodging a haphazardly thrown spark as it grazed past her ear. She could feel something in her head pop and sizzle sulfurously, but she wasn't quite sure what it was yet.
All that really mattered right now was getting out alive, but Keaton couldn't find herself able to move, or even draw her weapon. It seemed... distasteful. The only thing she was capable of doing was staring and listening to everything Cog said, observing Stygian's reactions from the sidelines.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian took one step closer, then wished he hadn't. The crack of thunder that was way too close wasn't nearly so uncomfortable as the wolf's pained and tear-streaked face. He stood and heard out the tirade, his own face contorting in both pain and anger with every word. As Cog neared, the bat's hair stood and his neck ruffled as he reared a bit, clenching his fists.
At the mention of the word love though, the bat nearly cringed. As Cog finished his last words, Stygian bit his lip, one of his fangs piercing it and drawing blood. Then, when the wolf stopped speaking, he looked up, eyes like daggers, and punched him straight in the face.
'You idiot!' he shouted, and it was evident by hearing his voice that he was on the verge of tears as well. 'You stupid, ignorant fool!' He snarled as he cried. He looked straight down, shoulders tense and his fists still clenched. For a bit he didn't speak at all.
'Yes!' he said, finally. 'Yes, I thought you were lying. I thought you were smart!'
Mel took the last sip of her tea and set the cup down. "Well, if you have dried out I will show you to the library. The last time I checked everyone was there. It is probably where anyone who did not return to the tower is holed up. Really interesting collection if you are studying magic."
Aisha had recieved her answer with a definite bang, as it was soon found out. She stood her ground as Cogidubnus started to whirl on her...she was wondering if a nerve had been struck or what was going on. The presence of the others only just seemed to make things even more tense and destructive...as the storm whirling overhead clearly showed.
Aisha lowered her head and started to back away, though she was fighting the oncoming wind in doing so, and was nearly blown off of her feet. She kept her eyes on the wolf, but she was staring aghast at the way he appeared, as Keaton certainly was as well, walking towards Sebastian with a glare so venomous it would have made many of the wise back away without a thought.
As the panthress held onto her cape and exchanged a glance with Keaton, trying to figure out whether to leave or to go, the lightning and thunder increased in frequency. She was starting to opt for the latter option, just as soon as two bolts...one after the other...landed square near them. Aisha leaped away to catch herself from falling on her side, blown nearly deaf by the booming sound and the intense heat.
But, unfortunately, she could all too clearly hear what the wolf had said next, words blazing towards the bat like spears. And of course, as the wind blew the hood from her face, that would reveal the melanistic cat's aghast expression.
They...did WHAT?!
"Ugh!" she snarled and held her horridly-aching ears, rolling back onto her feet as the lightning only grew more prevalent, and Stygian retorted with his own--very cold, one might add--argument and slammed the wolf's jaw with his fist. Needless to say, there seemed little reason for the bystanders to be there...Cogidubnus had grown uncaring of their presence. It didn't look like they were going to stop.
"I'm outta here," Aisha said in passing to Keaton and replaced her hood, starting to race back toward the castle. "Do what you want, but you oughta do the same!" The action might have seemed cowardly...but she came to bring back someone from the storm, and that's what would end up happening, one way or another. There would be some musing over what was going on later.
Better warn Rynkura that there might need to be some healing after all this dramatic bullcrap...
Cog's eyes widened in surprise as pain suddenly flared up from his jaw, his brain processing that the bat had just punched him. His head snaked back at the bat, his eyes now truly feral in their fury. He listened to the bat finish, and snarling even as a little blood ran down his chin.
"Then you should have listened! If I am an idiot, than you are truly the god of imbeciles! What did you think...what else could I have been saying?! That I was simply trying to get some? That...I...Iah..."
Cog faltered, his eyes and ears twitching with rage, the lightning around them, building to a crescendo of deafening booms he screamed, his cry starting out horse and ragged, and blurring into a two-toned, distorted howl of despair and fury. The storm raged all the more furious in response, the roar of thunder becoming almost a constant rumble, and the flashes of lightning almost staccato in their frequency. He howled, even as his voice began to gradually weaken, becoming less distorted. Finally, and with his head still high, the wolf stopped.
And fell to his knees.
The storm began to weaken rapidly, the thunderous flashes growing less and less frequent, and the sky itself growing lighter. The rain began to patter instead of rain down in sheets, and the wind blew a little less strongly. Cog lowered his head, his eyes empty.
He fell to his hands, and on the ground, Cog wept.
Cog didn't fight back. He didn't even try to walk away. All he did was despair. And as the wolf cried out in pain, Stygian could do nothing but agonize with him. He fell to his knees, and the bat almost stepped up to catch him. Stygian swallowed visibly.
'I'm... I didn't think...' he said lamely, then sniffed and looked down, ears drooping with rain and his blond hair falling in wet tassels over his eyes. 'For Hell's sake, you idiot! Why do you think I'd speak to... It's only been days! Are you out of your mind?!'
The bat dropped to his knees and grabbed Cog, pulling him close. 'I can't, Cog. I can't do that to you. I just thought...' he said, and bit his lip. His voice thickened while he spoke, his own black eyes squinting through tears now. 'Damnit! Look at me!' He grabbed the wolf's shoulders and shook him. 'I'm not a woman, Cog! I'm not even a creature like those you know. I'm a thing!' he said painfully. 'I thought you understood that! Did you think you could...?!'
Again, the bat stopped, letting his head fall and the rain spill through his hair and soak his shirt slick against his hard, arced back. He shivered.
'I don't know what to say to you, Cog,' he said. 'I think you've made a mistake. I want to say that I feel as you, but...'
His rage spent, Cog seemed almost limp in the bat's arms, the wolf listening to the bat speak, without growl nor snarl. He merely listened, letting the rain soak him, and between rattling breaths he sighed, looking down at the dirt. The bat shook him, and Cog's eyes rose to meet his. Cog was surprised to see tears there. As the bat shivered, however, Cog looked at the strange, shaking thing before him, pausing for a few long moments before speaking.
"I know." he said simply. "I know all those things. I knew all those things. And yet..."
He stared into the bat's eyes. "It didn't matter. It doesn't matter. Why didn't you...I..." he faltered, and his eyes seemed to light again. "I told you. I wasn't lying. You're not a woman, I know. You're not a man either. You're a thing. I...I didn't..."
Cog stuttered, his lips pressed tight, and he spoke, outpouring his heart. "Why? I...I...how coul...dammit! Why couldn't you have said something? Why did you let me..."
Cog shook, pausing and sucking in breath, and letting it out slowly, desperately seeking the calm he knew so well. It didn't seem to want to come. He looked at the bat, and drew a hand across his mouth, wiping away the blood.
"I...I think I understand."
He seemed to fight with himself for a moment, his hand jerking on his hip several times. "If you...don't feel the same. Than you don't." he said. He couldn't quite bring himself to put his hand on the bat's shoulder. "But...what you said. Is..."
He paused. "Is that how you see me? Really? Just another puppy, looking for a soft spot?"
As fast as her feet would carry her, Aisha dashed back to the sanctuary of the castle with the storm behind, eager to get away from all of the noise that still left a ringing in her ears. And when the thunder stopped rolling and the storm quieted down to nothing more than the mercilessly-pouring rain, she stopped at the front doors to catch her breath and just looked down the pathway, quite curious as to what had happened all of a sudden.
I'd like to see what the quiet's about...but I guess that can wait...the panthress shook her head with a sigh and quickly pushed the doors into the entrance hall and shut them again as she trudged in. Drenched from head to toe, Aisha shook the water from herself with a very disgruntled look on her face and started across the foyer, wondering where everyone else was. A few were in the library...and a few in the kitchen, she remembered.
The feeling of the water made her shiver. Suddenly, her nose wrinkled. "Ha-chnk!" she sneezed, ears still pinned to her head while her hand was on her mouth...despite feeling a little worn, she wondered now what to do, and where to go. For all she knew, those three hadn't been at all close behind her. Should she get help...?
But a major part of the panthress, after hearing what she did, felt like just leaving everything be. Everyone down there could more than take care of themselves, said the back of her head. And hey, maybe it's deserved...
...I'll...tell Rynkura in a minute, she decided, and started towards the kitchen. She tried to hear who was there, but she couldn't bring herself to move her ears from their laid-back position. Damned lightning...stupid ringing...stupid...gah.
"Library? it'd more than some Sports Illustrated and a few Playboys right? Darrol has a very limeted selection for reading when I get bored and I've already read all my books thrice." He shot a smile at Mel. "Sure let's go." Ian started walking then promptly remembered he has no idea of the layout of the casle nor does he even remember how to get to the front door. "Er...um. Lead the way?" He asked hopefully.
Mel laughed, "The library is huge, bigger than most public libraries, and I rather think the original owners would frown upon anyone leaving nudie magazines in there." She had only made her way as far as the kitchen door when she spotted Aisha coming at her, as mad and miserable as only a wet cat could look. "You look like you fell in the bathtub, Aisha. Come here beside the stove." She pulled one of the chairs over right next to the warmth and helped Aisha disentangle herself from the clinging folds of her soaked cloak. Dropping it over a second chair to dry she lit the main boiler to start water heating for a warm bath then poured out the last of the tea. After handing it to the sneezing panthress she asked, "What would possess you to go outside right now?"
As Aisha wandered into the kitchen, she was somewhat surprised to suddenly see Mel already up from her seat. "Oh, hey...sure...thanks" was all the panthress muttered as she let the dragon help to remove her wet cape. She sat in the chair and took the tea without much question, also giving a light nod of greeting to Ian as she entered.
She had to chuckle slightly at the "fallen in a bathtub" remark...Aisha probably did look a little bedraggled...but the warmth of the inside soon helped to calm her down a bit, though she was still a little jumpy from having nearly been blasted to pieces. After all of that, Aisha hoped that Keaton and the other two would make it back in one piece.
After a gulp of tea, the huntress smiled to Mel. "Thank you...and I was trying to get Cogidubnus, as he stormed out of here in a bit of a rage...then Keaton arrived, and then Sebastian...then everything went to hell. The storm got worse, a fight got started...I think they're still outside...mierda santa..." Aisha cursed silently and took another sip of her tea, stopping there. She wasn't going into any more details than that.
She sagged a bit in her seat, and then looked back up at the others. "Anyway, I'm sorry, I hope I didn't interrupt any good conversation."
"We were just talking about some books nothing too interesting. Here." Ian set a small tube filled with a slightly clear greenish liquid beside Aisha. "That'll stop any cold before it starts." He looked like he was thinking, "Won't stop syphilis though. Greg found that out the hard way."
After watching Keaton bolt out the door after Stygian, Ketefe had calmed down. Something inside her told her that this wasn't something for her to interfere with. Still, she needed something to distract her and help her relax, so she went upstairs to her room.
Luckily for her, there was a bathroom adjoining her room. She set her drawstring backpack on the bed and pulled out an outfit, set her sword leaning against her bed, then walked into the bathroom and locked the door.
About twenty minutes later, she walked out, hair slightly damp and dressed in a black cotton t-shirt and blue jeans. She folded up her old outfit and put it at the bottom of her backpack, and left her mask on the bedside table. She wasn't all that concerned about her scar being visible; pretty much everyone in the castle knew she had it, and she wore the mask out of habit more than anything. The bracelet Mel had given her was retied around her left wrist.
She headed back downstairs and to the kitchen. She could hear voices in there - Ian, Mel, and Aisha, who sounded a little shivery. Not surprised, Ketefe thought before entering.
"Oy. You okay, Aisha?" she said upon seeing the panthress clearly. She was soaked to the bone, and looked a little rattled. Not too surprising either...Stygian is a scary person when he's mad, and Cog is practically never upset.
Stygian paused, looking at the wolf before him, lost for words. He conjured up a little crooked smile.
'You're a puppy to me, Cog. But if you're so sincere...' he said, and stroked over the wolf's cheek. 'And I do feel for you. A lot. But I am not sure whether we could work together. Not in that way.' That was the simple truth of it, however much one might dislike it. With Stygian's nature and history...
Sighing, the bat tugged Cog up, bringing him to his feet with more ease than might have been comfortable. He stood though, even if he looked every bit of the sad dog he was with his scruff slick and his fur wet and drooping. But Stygian guessed that he must look no better himself.
'I would love to be your friend, and perhaps a bit more. But I've got a long way to go before... Before I can even settle down. Before I can allow anyone so close,' he said. Though what he really thought was before I can work out the problem of what and who I am, somehow... 'And most of all I think you should try and find someone more deserving of you. Why else did you think I spoke to Keaton?' He smiled unexpectedly over Cog's shoulder at the jackal, as well as he could. 'A devious, sadistic succubus is ages better than me.'
When Ian caught a glimpse of ketefe's scar he shiverd for a second, and stared for a few more when he caught himself. "Oh! I'm so sorry I didn't know you had a, ...and I didn't mean to...."
Quirking her eyebrow at Ian as she sipped her tea, she glanced at the tube filled with the liquid and took it, sniffing the substance inside with a bit of caution. Being a healer's apprentice, she recognized the scent of various healing substances, perhaps some made with herbs and some other things.
There was a snort of laughter at his syphilis comment, shaking her head. At least the kid had an interesting sense of humor. Aisha took the medicine and felt a little warmer, perhaps so as it was combined with the warm drinks provided by Mel and the overall mood of the castle. Still she would probably have to see Rynkura about her near-shattered eardrums. "Thanks," she nodded, still a little shakily to the rat.
The panthress then perked up as Ketefe came back, giving her a nod as well...though she had seen the scar before, so she wasn't quite as surprised as Ian was. "I'm fine, thanks...just a bit of a chill, nothing more." How understated is THAT...? That's when her mind snapped a little bit back into business. She still wondered if it was good to leave them out there...she flexed her claws momentarily to let out a bit of tenseness, and scritched the back of one of her own ears. "I couldn't really fetch Cogi back...Keaton and Sebastian are handling that." She looked up questioningly. "Did you find Bambi?"
From afar, as the rain pelted the earth from the miasmal clouds churning in the sky, Keaton stood on the sidelines, listening attentively to every word uttered between Cogidubnus and Stygian. Aisha had escaped previously, inviting for Keaton to join her, but for some reason the jackal found herself irreversibly frozen where she numbly stood.
When Stygian punched Cog in the jaw Keaton expected for the sky to begin raining lightning and thunder again, but instead the wolf reacted more emotionally, dropping to his knees and weeping. The storm gradually ebbed away into relative inactivity, the flashes of lightning dying and the gravelly thunder disintegrating to rocky hiccups. Keaton glanced up at the sky, watching the storm cease, but immediately regretted this decision once a sizable bullet of water stung at her malfunctioned eye. Against the damaged ocular replacement, it created the sensation of a pint of acid being poured into her socket, just before she felt another loud sizzle and all vision in that eye disappear.
"FFT--!" Keaton hissed, grabbing at her eyesocket and shielding it from any further assault. Normally she would've let out an endless string of curses, but for once she curbed her temper, and the oncoming water she felt well up in her organic, uninjured eye. That could wait for later.
The rest proceeded with a surprising amount of peacefulness--Stygian had drawn Cog back up and was speaking to him, though when he mentioned about why he was speaking to Keaton, the aforementioned jackal nearly choked on the rainwater dribbling into her mouth. Her, being better than Stygian? For Cog? That... that was a maddening thought. Nearly enough to drive Keaton into incoherency. If this had occurred in any other circumstance, Keaton would've looked almost comical in her reaction, but instead appeared somewhat sober, if stunned into silence.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog stood forlornly, dripping water, and regarded the bat sadly. He snuffled once, shook his head, and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and he brushed his sopping hair up and out of his eyes. He slowly settled his hat back on his head.
"I thought you spoke to Keaton to get rid of me." he said bluntly. "Which you were, I suppose. But..." Cog paused. "Not like that, I guess. But...do me a favor, Sebastian."
Cog's eyes were strange. "Don't make decisions about what's best for me, for me, Sebastian." He said, his voice oddly even. "I...yes, this, is as much my fault as yours. I should have been more clear." Cog looked straight into the bat's eyes. "But...you should listen when people say things. Sometimes they really do mean them."
He looked at him for a moment longer, and turned. "I meant what I said, Sebastian. I still mean it. But if that is how you feel..."
Cog began walking up the hill. "Keaton is a nice girl." he called back. "But you shouldn't put yourself down like that." Cog sighed. "No offense, Keats." he murmured as he passed her.
Water dripped down the front of his hat, as one very wet, very sad, and very exhausted Cogidubnus walked back up to the castle, intent on finding somewhere dry, warm, and away.
Ketefe gave herself a mental kick when Ian shuddered and stared at her scar. Whoops. She smacked herself in the forehead, saying "Oh, jeez. I'd forgotten you hadn't seen it yet. Sorry. Didn't mean to freak you out." She gave Ian a smile so he'd know she wasn't offended by his reaction.
When Aisha spoke, she turned and felt a little ashamed about her answer. "I didn't go looking yet. I was about to when I heard your voice, and I wanted to see if you'd had any luck. I probably should go check now... I'll be back in a minute." She turned towards the door.
Mel looked a bit incredulous. "Cog, Sebastian, and Keaton are having a fight? In the pouring rain?" Well, that would explain the thunder she had been hearing, since Cog didn't seem to have much magical control yet. A quick probe of the storm showed a lot of magical tampering but it seemed to be past. She hoped that meant the fight was past as well. Just then Ketefe entered and spoke with Aisha. Bambi was missing too? Even with the worse of the dangers gone this place was still claiming people. When Ketefe left again Mel turned to Aisha. "I have started the boiler, but you might want to catch the first hot shower before the others get in. Ian, I found the laundry earlier. Do you mind helping me get towels for the others before our library tour?"
"I thought you spoke to Keaton to get rid of me."
This statement made Keaton's expression adopt a slightly ugly edge, pierced eyebrow lifting in a rigid arc over her organic, untarnished eye and upper lip drawing upright just slightly, enough to expose her canines in the scowling grimace which had become characteristic of her. What did they take her for, some sort of lowly hitman? She shouldn't have felt offended by that statement, especially when there was so much more to feel irritated at, but perhaps the expiration of her long-malfunctioning and finicky artificial eye had made her feel a little unnecessarily sensitive.
The look marring Keaton's features didn't last long, fortunately, and vanished before anyone could notice it. Cogidubnus was walking past her, still speaking. Keaton followed him with her uninjured gaze, looking slightly bedraggled and sourly damp from the whirlwind conjured up previously combined with the water saturating her clothing and fur. By this point, superficial appearance wasn't something Keaton was doubly concerned with.
Surprisingly, she had no response to Cog's statement, other than a slight, unreadable huff. Didn't have the energy to make it sound noncommittal. Nor the strength to care about whether or not it was misinterpreted. Other than that, Keaton was totally silent, watching Cogidubnus leave, defeat and devastation accentuating every step the bone-soaked lupine took.
Keaton's ears laid flat as she glanced to Stygian, not looking depressed, not even looking disappointed or infuriated. She just looked thunderstruck after all that happened, as though a thousand different shreds of information had been crammed into her head all at once. Sighing, she removed her stare from Stygian and walked back to the castle, taking the same route Cog had wandered down.
And once she was safe, Keaton removed her hand from her side of her face, exposing her eye, glazed over with lusterless, syrupy bronze, resting in her scorched socket like a dead stone.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Aisha had chuckled, listening to Ketefe as she quickly calmed Ian down about her scar. The panthress had little care when it came to that...in battle, scars were either merits of honor or badges of shame, depending on how one viewed them, and their experiences. But she figured, that was left up to Ketefe. Heh, I wonder what she and Gareeku, and others with scars would say if they knew Mistress Rynkura could remove them...
Shaking her head and finishing the last of the tea, leaving her chilly body with a warmer sensation, Aisha turned her attention to Mel after bidding Ketefe good luck on finding Bam. She had expected the dragon's incredulous response, for the panthress was in much the same way herself. But the words that really caught her aching ears were those that gave the prospect of a warm bath.
"Yeah, I'd better," she nodded in assent and pried herself from the chair, grabbing her cape as she started out through the kitchen door. "Good night, you guys, and thanks again."
With the horrid sounds of the rain pouring outside and the natural lightning flashing away, Aisha made her way to the baths and closed the door behind her. Soon she had disrobed and was enjoying the warm water, banishing the afflictions of the cold that was trying to sneak up on her as her nose twitched and caused her to sneeze again. I'm a jaguar, for the sake of cielo, she thought, irritated. Rain shouldn't make me ill. Stress, perhaps, not rain.
Throughout the bath, and the decision to just head to her room to sleep for a while, Aisha couldn't help but think of those getting themselves separated and lost in the castle...the events going on that probably should never have happened...and finally, if perchance there would be a good time to leave. Maybe there's hardly a thing here to find anymore. Well...maybe we found more than we thought...it was worth it just to know we freed someone...
She ended up shrugging away the warring thoughts as she made the short trip from the bath to her room, setting her clothes on the sill to dry alongside the fancier borrowed ones from earlier in the day. She just collapsed on the sheets, eyes closed even before she walked in the door. What dreams may come, Aisha was just going to try to give up on the day entirely.
"I wouldn't mind. So long as the library don't burn down before i get there." Ian liked useing that phrase because it reminded him of a friend long passed. He would often use it when Ian was being impatient.
Mel shook her head, "I guarantee nothing in regards to this place. But considering that the last time I was there a smallish mage fight did set a few books ablaze it is probably due for a flood next."
Mel led the way down a hall from the kitchen and into a laundry. She had found it during the same expedition where she had acquired the coats before the freeze spell. Past the boilers and mangles and ironing boards stood a series of linen cupboards. Sheets and tablecloths and towels to supply an entire castle stood in neat little piles on their shelves. Grabbing one stack of towels and handing it to Ian she pulled a second stack for herself. She retraced her steps back to the kitchen then out to the front foyer. On the way Mel decided the towels smelled a touch musty after spending 150 years sitting on a shelf. One quick spell had the towels fluffed, warmed, and lightly scented of calming lavender. She smiled a bit to herself at the gesture. People foolish enough to stand out in the pouring rain to have an argument deserved dusty smelling towels. The dragon and the rat arrived before the foyer doors just as they swung open.
Ian stopped to look at a painting on the way and was left behind. He was standing at a juncture and had no idea where he was. "Ummm Mel?" He squeeked out in a small voice.
First Cog walked away, oozing depression thick as the rain that dripped onto him, and then Keaton paced off without so much as a word. Stygian stood left out in the drizzling rain, ears hanging and face blank, shirt wet and shoulders drooping.
Way to go, asshole, he thought to himself.
Beginning to see why they all abandoned you yet? He mentally told himself to shut up and go back to Hell, and after a puse to straighten his shirt and comb his ebon claws through his hair to get it out of the way, he walked up after the other two, deciding that even though he felt like beating his head against a wall quite a few times, he would be able to better do so or something else if he returned to his quarters.
Once he came inside though, Stygian caught Keaton standing in the entry hall, tending to her damaged eye. He stopped, slowly closing the doors behind him, and looked over his shoulder toward the jackal. He wasn't sure how offended she had been, what with her demeanor and her being cubi, but even creatures like her had their limits. '
Keaton... I'm not sure how you feel about this,' he said as he walked toward her, '
but I want to apologize either way. Things like this happen all the time when I don't keep myself in line.' He sighed and looked down a bit, scratching the back of his neck while trying to pull together the nerve to look her in the face. '
I don't know... Next time I start to make an ass of myself, would you please go ahead and just smack me one with that mace of...'
Quite suddenly, Stygian stopped to look at her. '
What are you doing?' he said.
If it weren't the darkest hallway that Ian had seen, then the one to his right would do pretty well too. But he didn't seem like the guy to know many dark hallways. In either case, the sudden sensation of being alone in such a large and dark building hit him hard. It didn't help either that the sound of Mel's light footsteps had faded eerily fast from when she had moved off. The aura of the castle was thick and murky, the sensation of something watching in the dark strong. The occasional sounds around held none of the clear and even qualities of company, but rather some eerie living quality, the whispering of wind from outside windows like breathing and some inaudible but palpable thrumming just out of sight getting to the rat's very bones.
Jeremiah remained in the library, his search through the various books renewed. Magical psychosis suppressor, magical psychosis suppressor, magical-
Having trouble there, greasy?
Shut up, Bal.
Why, so you can keep up your search? So you can find this latest McGuffin to make all your problems go away? WE'RE HERE, JEREMIAH.
IN.
NEX.
PLIC.
CAB.
BAL.
ZzzzmMMMzzZZZmMMMZZZz! That hum that had started with the Lunacy's arrival, it's manic attempt at speech.
DO YOU REALLY THINK SOME NEW MAGICAL TOY IS GOING TO GET RID OF US!
SHUT UP! Jeremiah squinched his eyes shut, rubbing his forehead. SHUT THE HELL UP!
You honestly think that we'll be gone one day, don't you? HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WE DIDN'T EXIST BEFORE YOU EVER EVEN MET THAT STUDENT OF YOURS!?
The frog's eyes snapped open in shock, but Bal was done talking. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he returned to his search. Magical psychosis suppressor...
Only partially did Keaton realize that Stygian had followed her inside the castle, the latter occurring much to her infinite shock. She had easily suspected that he would've spent some time in isolation, perhaps to brood and consider all possibilities to remedy or rectify the series of mistakes which had sprouted over the past, roughly estimated half-hour or so. Keaton normally would've devoted her attention to the chiropteran's arrival, but the irritating sting of her eye after its impromptu contact with the rain was starting to affect her nerves. Normally it would be a lot more resilient, but the lightning's contact with it combined with how finicky it was to begin with--apparently its earlier malfunction after she was regurgitated from the shadows had triggered something--had led to this.
She supposed that the destruction of her eye had resulted in her getting a burn somewhere in her socket. That obviously needed to be tended to as soon as possible, preferably by a distinguished or seasoned healer like Mel or Rynkura. She wasn't entirely used to the lack of depth perception after so long, so walking into the castle was rather dangerous--she had nearly bumped into several objects or pieces of furniture, tripping at least once or twice. Turning around to face Stygian, she blinked, then addressed him, groping around the back of her head.
"Honestly, I didn't take any offense to what happened," Keaton said, prodding slightly at the back of her head. Where was that depression she was looking for? "The only thing I'm concerned about is you two. I had no idea about the complications of you two... well... doing it, so I think I'm somewhat responsible about this incident as well."
Unconsciously, she flinched. Accepting responsibility was something Keaton wasn't entirely intimate with, not to mention something she was comfortable with doing. Especially when it was something to this emotional magnitude.
Finally, she felt her finger tap at the depression in her skull she was searching for, aligned perfectly with her eye. She felt her eye deactivate completely, the pain dulling down to a slight throb as it flickered and died from a dull bronze to a glassy, translucent texture. One by one, colored pixels began to flash and appear on the surface of her eye, becoming nearly identical to the texture and appearance of the corresponding lens of her glasses.
Then, with this completed and all feeling from her eye detached, Keaton reached into her socket and literally scooped out her dead eye. All of this finished, she stared intently at Stygian. "And also, I tried smacking you with my mace before if I remember correctly and it didn't end all that well. But that's irrelevant. And--"
She finally heard Stygian's question, and blinked at him. "Oh. I'm just removing my eye," she said, perfectly unperturbed. "It got deactivated somehow..." she sighed and glanced down at the aforementioned stone resting in her palm. "I think I got burnt a little bit too. I need to see Mel about that."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Dripping water, Cog walked wetly back inside, Keaton and Sebastian not far behind him. He stepped into the foyer slowly, his boots squishing, and looked up to see Mel waiting for them, the dragon setting a handful of towels on a chair. Cog's body tensed somewhat, wondering if the pantheress had said anything - and almost immediately relaxed again. His eyes closed, and then looked back down at the carpet. He simply didn't have the energy to be worried anymore.
He walked up to the chair and picked up a towel, and paused. It was...warm, and smelled like lavender. He looked at the dragon, his expression almost bemused, and gave the dragon a soft smile. He walked up to her and threw his arms around her, somewhat forgetting that fact that he was dripping, and gave her a hug before walking behind her and towards the hallway.
"Thank you.", he said, starting to dry himself off. He was headed to his room, and probably from there to a hot shower, and then sleep.
The bat raised one eyebrow and drew the other down, not staring at Keaton's empty eyesocket but rather right at her with a plain sort of unsettlement. Still, considering how hard it had seemed to throw him off so far, it was pretty good as shock went.
Stygian coughed into his hand. 'Well...' he said, and looked back up at the jackal. 'I'm not going to ask you right out what happened to your eye, even though I thought cubi could regenerate such things...' He looked down again, looking as if he almost wanted to bow to her in apology. 'I'm still sorry. And I'm sorry for... talking as I did back in the tower.'
When Keaton didn't say anything, whether out of confusion or hesitation, Stygian turned and began walking off. When he had taken about half a dozen steps, he stopped and turned back toward her. 'And I'm sorry you had to see these things too. I won't stop you if you have more you want to discuss, but right now...' He paused, sighed, and walked away.
Mel was a bit surprised when the wolf gave her a damp hug. Scented towels were nice, but not that nice. As he disappeared towards the stairs she guessed that he was in a sensible hurry to get warm and dry. The other two seemed to be distracted by something in Keaton's hand and in no hurry to dry off. She retrieved her stack of towels to carry them to those in need and looked around for Ian, only to discover that he wasn't anywhere in the large foyer. "Ian? Where are you?" She raised her voice a bit, "Ian?"
In response Keaton merely shrugged, still unflappable even on a topic which would be considered universally sensitive. How she lost an eye wasn't exactly an issue to her--it was the events which surrounded that occurrence. "I actually don't really mind," Keaton said casually, keeping her empty eye-socket closed. She was starting to wish she had brought an eyepatch or some bandages to use as a makeshift eyepatch. "And as for why my eye hasn't regenerated, it's a very long and boring story."
With her eye still closed, Keaton watched Stygian, ears pricked. Still, she found herself at a loss for words, judging by her slightly reticent, hesitant expression. After all that had proceeded previously, she just wasn't certain about how to react, especially on how to offer decent advice about how Stygian could repair the situation about him and Cogidubnus. Keaton wasn't a relationship person. She had even failed Seduction in SAIA's courses, being considered too violent and too capricious to make a lethal seductress. Noticing her silence, Stygian made one last remark before he left, leaving a silent Keaton standing there, feeling like the world's biggest bitch.
Keaton glanced at the ground, sighing and cradling her damaged eye. For a minute, she stared down at the ocular stone, allowing her thoughts to wander, then left, searching for Mel or Rynkura. She was almost certain she could hear Mel's voice nearby.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Leaving Keaton behind, Stygian found it hard to simply return to his rooms, knowing full well that things were bad. He usually slept more or less ill even under normal circumstances, and even though the night's weather was soothing he knew it full well that he would feel even worse in the morning if things remained as they were. So he walked for a while, passing by the library and those within, and the southern garden, where he thought he could see a green light through the windows, before ending up back in the round ballroom, where the towering windows admitted a view of the rolling clouds and the half-obscured moon. He stood there for a while, thinking.
Cogidubnus had all but just gotten out of the shower and into his room when an almost chilly sensation made him feel like he was not alone. Before he could do much though, a voice confirmed the feeling.
'Don't say "do you ever knock" please. I have gotten that one too many times already,' Stygian said, leaning on the inside of the closed door. 'And I think you want me here either way.' He slowly strolled over to the large reading chair placed by a coffee table in a corner, and sat down on the armrest. 'I'm doing this for your sake.' His look was serious, on the border of being grave.
After a pause, the bat looked down and put his hands on his knees. 'If you want to say something to me, or shout or beat on me, then please do. It's the least I can do for you,' he said.
Once she left the kitchen, it occurred to Ketefe that she didn't know which way Bambi had gone. She sniffed the air carefully; she'd been around Bam long enough to know her scent. Once she'd picked out Bam from the other scents, she started tracking her as best she could.
The fae's scent got stronger as she headed south (or at least, it felt like south - Ketefe wasn't much when it came to directions). She tracked her scent on a rambling path throughout the castle, ending at some sort of courtyard full of trees. Ketefe stood in the door to the courtyard for a long time, trying to decide whether she should really walk out there and look for Bam when it could take so long.
"Bam?" she called once, trying to make herself audible over the rain and thunder. She took a tentative step outside, edging towards the woods and getting thoroughly soaked.
Cog briefly shuddered as he walked into his room, a wave of chills managing to get its way past his fur, when he heard Sebastian's voice call out right behind him. He turned slowly, regarding the bat with a somewhat tired expression as Sebastian walked by and sat down, speaking to him.
Cog looked at him, wrapped only in a towel and dripping, his hair matted down in his face from the water. He brushed it out of his eyes as he regarded the bat, and tied a knot into his towel, freeing up his hands.
"I don't want to hit you, Sebastian." he said, walking over to one of the fireplaces. "I don't want to shout at you either. And...I don't really..."
Cog sighed, and busied himself with the wood set out by the fireplace, stacking the wood inside and whispering something under his breath. A rather thick spark shot out from his finger onto the wood, igniting the lowest piece. The small fire began to grow quickly.
"I don't know what to say, really." he said, standing and turning to look at the bat. "I mean...I feel the same as I did, Sebastian. But..."
He regarded him sharply. "Hearing you say those things broke my heart. I thought you felt the same as I did. And trying to...well, I don't know. Hook me up with, pass me onto, whatever you call it, with Keaton, well...I felt betrayed." he said, regular thumps hitting the carpet as water dripped from him. "I understand...why you feel, the way you do. Perhaps I was stupid. Perhaps I am stupid. To expect something so soon...but..."
He sighed, looking down. "If you need time, you need time. And it would be wrong of me to expect otherwise. And if...you simply don't feel that way towards me, then...you do not." he said. He took in a deep breath.
He picked up his clothes, and began to set them on a chair next to the fire. "I'm not mad at you, Sebastian...yes, I am. But I'll get over it." He turned to look at the bat, his yellow eyes reflecting the firelight. "But... I am still your friend, Sebastian." He said, making a half smile. "If that's quite alright."
The bat sighed and closed his eyes. His voice and face were both weary and sad as he spoke. 'I just don't know what to say to you. I do feel for you. I do,' he said, looking up at Cog, 'but it's very hard to even keep it up when you act like a woman. And even more so since I know that what you want would be...' He exhaled deeply and hard. 'Well, what do you expect? Does it seem like I would be a good choice? If it's more than just the face or the power you desire, and trust me, I know from experience that's hardly the more probable case, then you still know I'd hardly be good for you. It's not a good deal.'
Drawing up his shoulders, Stygian lifted himself off the chair and smoothly slid down, walking up to the wolf and folding his arms across his chest. 'Everyone who has ever said they loved me so far turned their back on me, and everyone who thought they did is dead. I don't know how old you are, but I thought you were old enough to know the chill of life by now,' he said solemnly. 'Old enough to take what warmth you could get...'
The bat paused for a second, before his face soured and he shook his head. 'No, I'm sorry. The fault is mine,' he said, and smiled jadedly. 'Cubi have their charm, and I still have an angel's presence. I've got to learn.' He looked up at Cog, straight into his eyes. 'You can be my friend, or whatever you want. But I think I know what to consider you, Cog.' His smile gentled.
Forgetting her errand with the towels Mel started back in the direction she had just come. "Ian? Where are you?" She hadn't gone far in retracing her way to the kitchen and laundry when she heard footsteps behind her. But it wasn't the rat, it was Keaton. "Sorry. I was bringing you these and got sidetracked." She handed Keaton the two towels she was still carrying. It was then that she noticed the missing eye and burned socket. "What happened to your eye?"
Cog quirked an eyebrow at Sebastian's remark, sitting down next to the fire. A few thumps still sounded as he dripped on the carpet, Cog still looking rather like a wet dog. He placed his hat over the mantle, a few hisses coming from the fire as the thing dripped water.
"Like a woman?" he said, looking nonplussed. "Perhaps I'll just go down a bit of whiskey and brood then, shall I?" Cog looked at the mantle, his eyes still reflecting the firelight.
"I'm sorry. That was rude." he said, sighing. "Yeah, I know I'm being a little...well, yes. But..." He turned to regard the bat. "I haven't had any time to digest any of this. It's been one after another since...Keaton. I'm probably a little emotional."
He sighed again. "Not that it's an excuse. But, still. It's not your face, Sebastian. It's not your power either. I keep saying it: it's you." He looked straight at the bat, his eyes strange. "I am not lying. And I mean what I say." he said, scooting the chair a little closer to the fire. He crossed his legs. "And, yes. I do know."
"But...I'm not going to turn my back on you. Dying, well. Here? Maybe. But no more than here anywhere else."
He looked at Sebastian. "Consider me what you will." he said softly. "But I am here. And as long as you are...well. I'm not going to...I'm your friend, Sebastian. For whatever it's worth."
Stygian chuckled. 'It's worth quite a deal. And I'll know where to turn then. But if it becomes unbearable...' he said. He turned from Cog and toward the door, silent for a second. 'I don't know how long I'll be here. I will try to remain, but...' He shook his head and exhaled. 'I want to find some way to change. What I am or how I am, I don't care.' If it could even be done. He had offered up himself to a darkness that he knew was already within him from the start, something that was no longer just ingrained in him but what his whole being was built around. If he could not change, then...
'I'm here too,' Stygian said, turning and looking at Cog. For a moment his appearance seemed... hazy, somehow, and the wolf thought he could see an outline of something large and dark behind him. It passed so quick it might have been a trick of the faint light though. 'And to know you are... Would you be willing to help me?' he asked, stepping close to the wolf again, his glowing pupils flaring with the candles.
Sitting in a chair, soaking wet and wrapped in a towel, Cog gave Sebastian a soft smile, meeting the bat's eyes with his yellow and nodding.
"Whatever you need, Sebastian." he said, picking up one of his boots and pouring the water out of it. "Although I might not be the most helpful person right this moment. But, if you do need something, I am more than willing."
What was Stygian to say? There were too many obvious answers for any of them to be right. He thought hard before settling on a course of action. Failing to show Cog that he cared wasn't an option, but neither was tying himself down.
'I want...' Stygian said, with just a hint of hesitation. 'I want your help in surviving, and in finding some way to... either change or to cope with my darkness.' He looked at his hand, black claws tense and extended over near-white fur. 'Just something to help me with this.'
The bat stood, then slumped to the side of the bed and sighed. 'And I'd like to know that you don't get furious with me for being as I am. Seriously,' he said, and looked at Cog with eyes that were almost pleading. 'I'll try. If it takes some sacrifice, or some pain, then that's that. I just need to know what to do.'
Cog regarded the bat with a surprising degree of softness, and brushing a bang of drying hair out of his eye he stood, shivering briefly as he sat down next to the bat.
"It is for precisely that reason, Sebastian, I feel the way I do." he said, and shook his head, his eyes distant. "I promise not to get furious with you, for being you." Cog gave the bat a half-smile, sighed, and stood up. "Whatever you need."
He stood and sat down next to the fire again, trying to dry himself off. "I don't know how much help I can be. But I'll help you, however or with whatever I can." he said.
He yawned, his tail curling up just a bit, and he sighed as he sat next to the flames. He regarded the bat, and suddenly bowed his head.
"I apologize for trying to kill you earlier." he said, a few pops coming from the fireplace.
'It is... quite alright,' Stygian said, distantly. He hadn't thought the wolf would have taken things this levelly. 'You're not the first to do that...' It looked like he might actually be able to straighten things out for once. He could back out right then and there, and be done with things. He'd done right. Was it really so hard to think? He stood up.
The heat of the fire struck his sensitive nose, and Stygian looked over at Cog, tending to the flames. He didn't really feel like leaving right away. There was no reason. And right then...
It was only with the slight sizzling sound and the brush of cloth that Cog was alerted, before he felt and saw the arms close around him, and felt a warm something press against his back, embracing him. 'Thank you,' the bat said, voice and presence changed into something much more pleasurable. 'I'm sorry for all this. And I'm glad for you.' She held him there for a while.
Just when the room seemed to have grown completely still, the only thing truly alive the everdancing flames, Stygian spoke again. 'Actually, there's something you could do...' she said, trailing a hand up through Cog's fur and over his shoulder. 'I'm still kind of thirsty...'
Cog blushed as felt her embrace him from behind, and simply sat like that for some time, and enjoyed the warmth from the fire and from the body behind him. The flames were hypnotizing, after awhile, and the smell and heat the flames afforded was simply...comfort.
As she murred behind him and ran a hand up his shoulder, Cog quirked an eyebrow for a moment, not quite certain what she was talking about. If she was thirsty, the liquor was always in quick reach to her. What...
Oh.
Cog's eyes suddenly widened as he realized exactly what she was asking. He took a deep breath, and looked down into the fire for a moment. He brushed a silver hair out of his eye, and swallowed loudly.
He sat silently for a moment, her hand still on his shoulder, and finally, and without a word, he inclined his head upwards, exposing his neck.
Ian a bit bewildered by the castle pulled a classic Ian move. He picked a direction useing "eney meany miny moe". He figured someone would find him eventually.
Looking slightly crestfallen, Keaton remained where she was after Stygian departed, still feeling enormously downtrodden after being unable to reassure the aforementioned bat. It was a momentary defeat, however, and she managed to shake her head clear of encroaching thoughts of self-depreciation. Just as she resolved to exit the room and search for someone to heal her burnt socket, Mel entered on cue, apparently searching for someone.
"Oh, hey!" Keaton said, infinitely relieved to have encountered the dragon so soon. She accepted the towels, draping one over her sopping wet hair, where she started ruffling her unruly hair free of moisture, and then slung the second one around the back of her neck. "Thanks for that. I really needed this."
When Mel realized she was missing her eye, Keaton sighed, then shook her head. "It's a long story, but I'll say first of all that the eye I had before was removable and false, so it's not a huge loss..."
Well, easy for her to say. Depth perception was overrated anyway.
"But my eye-socket's a bit burned," Keaton pointed to her eye socket for emphasis. "Do you think you can heal it before it gets sort of bad?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian didn't make a sound, waiting for the wolf's response. The bat held Cog when he tilted his head, and gently stroked the scruff hair of his neck to the side, exposing the skin right over his jugular vein. A slight growl escaped her lips, just before Cog felt her sharp teeth sink slowly into his neck.
The bat didn't drain him for too long. Cog could feel just a little dizziness coming on, the strange warmth of his wound turning cold in a while, before Stygian stopped and took her fangs and tongue from his neck. She let go of him for a while, but before he could move her hands wrapped around him again and pulled some black cloth around his neck, tying it behind his back. She gave him another embrace from behind and kissed his neck, before standing up and silently leaving the room, closing the door behind her with only a slight clack.
The lost rat wandered alone for some rather unnerving minutes, the castle empty and silent enough that one might have thought it was changing as he did to mislead him. The sensation of another presence and the fear of being lost began to grow on him.
He had just made it to what seemed like a corner of the structure, tall windows looking out over the cliff below, when suddenly things came rushing out at him from the darkness, flapping and clawing. He felt a number of shapes beating at him and rushing past, and high-pitched screams that jarred his hearing which had been attuned to the almost complete silence of only moments before. The things passed quickly though, fortunately, rushing off back into the dark. Whether he had scared them or they were searching for something was impossible to tell.
The relief that washed over Ian after the sudden shock was not diminished by the dark. Bats. Very large ones, but only regular bats. That must have been what he had felt all the time.
Suddenly and without warning, a snarling voice sounded from behind him. '
Who the Hell are you?'
"Have a seat right here so I can get a good look." Mel gestured to a rather uncomfortable looking chair in the corner of the foyer. It looked just like the chairs Grandmother kept around for people she didn't want getting relaxed. But there was nothing else available. Once she had Keaton arranged so that she could get a clear look the dragon saw that the burn, while bad enough, was mostly on old scar tissue. It looked worse than it would feel. Cool, gentle touches at various points around the eye started the healing. "Are there any other wounds that need tending? I understand that there was a fight outside. I saw Cog had a split lip but he did not stay to have it mended." The question was casual, Mel wasn't really expecting to catch any stray thoughts from a cubi. But it had been a very frustrating day and she was beginning to feel like the small child in a group of adults, with everyone in on the joke but her.
Ian took out his guns and was shooting at the bats as they whizzed by him, from the spots of blood on the floor it was evident he clipped one. Pumped full of testosterone and the slight feeling of power from weilding guns albe it small ones (twin 9mms), would not bode well for such a cocky and arrogant rat as the voice called at him. Overly confident he let his guns hang at his side. "Ian. And don't give me any trouble .....Ain't in the mood tonight."
Cog rubbed his neck through the black cloth, his hand passing over both the bite and spot where she had kissed him as he looked at the door. He sat like that quietly for a moment, his hand on his neck, the wolf finding himself very suddenly, alone. He sighed, shaking his head, and stood, gripping and falling back into the chair as the room spun.
Blood loss. Right. He placed a hand on his neck again and felt the marks beginning to clot beneath his fingers - it hadn't hurt nearly as much as he'd thought it would. Her fangs were...warm, and very sharp. Felt like no more than a nick he might give himself practicing. He'd barely felt it, really. Still. Hearing someone drink your own blood...
He could have sworn he'd heard her murr, between swallows.
He stood again, and took a few deep breaths, letting the room settle before he tried moving. Walking just a little slowly, he placed his drying clothing on the chair next to the fire, and stiffly walked towards the bed, disrobing and crawling into the sheets. A quick snap of his fingers sent a small gust throughout, extinguishing the candles and darkening the room as he laid down. The glow of the moon outside, and the warm radiance of the fireplace were the only lights in the room as Cog settled down, the tired wolf finally letting himself relax and untense.
He slept more soundly than he had slept in a very long time, the werewolf simply exhausted, and weary, from the day's events.
When Ian turned around, he had to look up because of the immediate closeness and greater height of the one who had addressed him. That wasn't what caused such a sensation of fearful unsettlement to well up though, but the other person was.
She was an inch or two taller than Ian, a bat, athletic and slender, and had a presence that could cause either a blush or hairs to stand on end, probably both. Hauntingly beautiful, shapely and strong-lined, she was nevertheless intimidating, with her pallid fur contrasted by claws and clothes so black they seemed at one with the shadows. Her straight, pointed muzzle ended in a flare-tipped nose and over her pleasant lips just the hint of a pair of fangs hinted. Perhaps most frightening, beneath her point-tipped ears and pale gold bangs were a pair of eyes dark as night, with a pair of pinpricked glowing pupils set in them, staring straight at the rat.
'And I am not in the mood to have to go and save your scrawny ass,' she said, her voice smooth but scathing, lightly accentuated. 'Perhaps you're not from here, but how hard can it be to see that this place is not the kind which you wish to wander in?' She leaned down and forward, those terrible eyes closing with Ian's. He noticed just then that she didn't wear an undershirt, just an open black shirt and black wrappings tightened around her arms up to the biceps. She didn't seem the least unnerved by his guns.
'Why are you here and where do you think you're going?' she murred, exposing long fangs.
Although a little wary of the threadbare and exhausted appearance of the uncomfortable-looking chair, Keaton took a seat, deciding it wasn't prudent to be picky about her choice in furniture. Other priorities were in order. She moved with Mel, allowing herself to be angled in a position that would offer the best glimpse of her burned eye-socket. As Mel healed her eye-socket, soothing ambiance coalescing through her body, Keaton responded cordially to her question.
"No, there's no other injuries. But thanks, though," Keaton answered. Feeling uncomfortable, she shifted slightly, not enough to ruin Mel's healing process but enough to jostle the two orbs resting in her pocket.
Clnk.
Both spheres rolled together, the sound of their collision nearly muffled by the fabric of her pocket. Keaton blinked, wondering what there was in her pocket for her beloved marble to scrape against, only to recall rather dramatically that she had taken the eye Mel had laid out among the enchanted artifacts before.
An idea formed. Curiously, Keaton stared at Mel. "Hey Mel, that eye you told me about... can it be used properly?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ian's rush had worn off midway through his first sentence. "Hold it you're the scarey person everyone keeps talkin bout." He smiled and holstered the guns. "Well like i was explaining to the others, I came in here on a bet and stayed because I was invited in....and to make my room mate think twice before betting someone to do anything else. sorry bout the bullet holes sometimes i get carried away." He leaned against the wall. "So is that all? You going to lead me back or leave me here to rot?"
Mel looked bewildered. "Eye? What do... Oh! That thing." She stared thoughtfully at Keaton for a moment. "Actually I think it could work for you. It was ordered by a demon, but since you use dark magic you should have no problem activating it. Saturate it with your magic then insert it. You should feel the spell in your good eye, as they link to work together." Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember details of the object. "Hmmm... the demon was feline so I think it has feline night vision. And he was aging so I expect some vision enhancement. " She looked at her toes for a moment. "It seems like there was something else, but I do not remember what it was. Frustrating. It seems like it was something I should remember."
The bat's lip twitched for just a second, but otherwise she was still. Still, that Ian reacted with such composure, a slight hint of surprise and nervousness the only small signs of his feelings on the situation, did irritate Stygian a bit. She snorted. Roommate? Bet? If he was a student, why did he carry guns? He seemed too odd for it to be that simple. But she couldn't just leave him there. At least he didn't seem too dangerous.
'Follow,' was all the bat said, before she unfolded her arms, her shirt somehow clinging to keep her decent, and slid past him, strolling off down the corridor through the dark, leaving it up to the rat to do as she said. It was somewhat hard to keep check on the bat, calm though her pace was, as she seemed to almost blend into the shadows at intervals.
When they finally returned to the entry hall, Stygian found that Keaton had been joined by Mel who was attending to the jackal's scarring. Pretty much ignoring Ian, since he was sure that the rat was behind him, Stygian, who inexplicably had returned to his former appearance during the walk, stepped in and looked the both women over.
'Well, I think I solved the problem with Cog,' he said. 'But I found someone else who shouldn't be here. And that still leaves you to attend to. I haven't planned anything in this evening. Other than locking the doors, of course.' He looked down into the floor pensively, oblivious to a clot of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Well that was an interesting little jaunt." Ian said walking back into the kitchen. He set the towels he could find and pick up after the incident down on a table.
Mel looked up from Keaton's wound at the sound of Sebastian's voice and Ian's footfalls. "That would be our screaming practical joker, I suspect. He seems to have a habit of being in the wrong place." She chuckled just a bit at Ian's description of his excursion as interesting. "I told you that your host would find you when you least expected him."
At Sebastian's question of what they intended to do for the rest of the evening she realized she was tired. Probably the walk into town hadn't been the smartest plan only a few hours after being healed of the nearly fatal wound. "I hope you do not find it incredibly rude of me, but I think I will borrow a book from your library and read myself to sleep after Keaton and I have tested her new eye."
After a few seconds with one foot out the door and the rest of her body inside, Ketefe bolted for the trees in the courtyard. Once she was under a few branches, she shook herself off and grimaced. Bam had better have a good reason for going out in such a storm...
"BAM?" she called again, being careful not to touch the trees around her. She moved from one relatively dry area to another, staying close to the trees and trying not to get struck by lightning either. The trees weren't really close together, and Ketefe hadn't seen Bam yet. Where could she have gone? She has to be out here, but I don't see her... Then she noticed a massive oak tree amidst the smaller trees and bushes. Somehow she doubted Bam had climbed it, but she had a pretty strong hunch that wherever the fae-cat was, that tree was involved somehow. "BAM? ARE YOU OUT HERE?"
Keaton clinically listened to all of the properties her new artificial eye contained from Mel, her hand rummaging about in her pocket before it surfaced with the aforementioned stone resting in her palm. Unconsciously, she stared critically down at it: it was still unassuming, and despite having its function revealed she doubted it would be of much use. Still, if it meant that she would have improved vision and wouldn't have to use her glasses anymore, which were more of a detriment than anything beneficial, it was worth attempting...
She didn't have the opportunity to, because Stygian arrived five seconds after this thought passed through her head, an unidentified rat with him. Keaton blinked at him, eyebrow arching, although this expression faded once she realized the spot of blood dappling the corner of his lip. She didn't want to imagine where it came from, but after the next moment she spoke her mind started wandering into very unwanted, unpleasant territories.
'Oh fuck he did NOT just eat Cog. He did not. He is just being ambiguous. That's it. Right? Right. He wouldn't. I mean, the two of them... they...' Without realizing it, Keaton noticed that her hand had been clutching the eye-stone in a pallid death-grip, knuckles turning bone-white beneath baleful black fur. Fortunately, Mel brought up testing her new eye, which garnered her attention immediately. Anything to get her mind off of this and reassure her that Cog was fine.
"Oh yeah, we still need to test this thing," Keaton said, weighing the eye in her hand. "We'll see everything that it does once I've tried it. Hopefully it won't blow up or something, though..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
'Ah. Very well then,' Stygian commented. He walked around Mel and Keaton and over to the doors. 'There should be a key to these around here. For now I'm just going to seal them from the inside and put something on them.' He pushed them once to make sure they were in place, then shot the long metal bolts that sat on the inside of the ornamented doors and hung a chain over them. Finally, he placed his hand on the face of one of the doors and held it there. Slowly the cracks between the doors and walls somehow darkened for a few seconds, before the bat removed his hand and turned back toward the others.
'I don't want you opening those doors again now. And you,' he said, looking at Ian, 'you're either going out the back, or you're sleeping here and where we can keep check on you. It's your choice.' He paced back over the floor, over next to the girls. 'As for me, I think I'd like a book too, and a drink. I've still got those bottles up there, if anyone wants to bother going up the stairs again.'
Noticing how tense Keaton was Mel answered, "I am positive it will not explode. The worst that should happen is a bit of double vision." Then Sebastian said he wanted a book as well and Mel remembered she had promised to show the library to Ian. "Why don't we test out the eye in the library, Keaton. It is warmer and there is more light there." She turned around, fully facing Sebastian and Ian for the first time, and noticed the blood on the bat's face. Not his, he had bled black before. Unfortunately she hadn't seen him when he had come back after the fight to know if it was from that or a more recent snack. Yet another mystery to add to the day. She hoped eventually she'd figure out what was going on.
Exaggerating her expression slightly, Keaton attempted to form some sort of semblance of relief upon hearing the reassurance that the eye would not explode, then perked up when Mel suggested they test the eye in the library. More than happy to extricate herself from the dreadfully uncomfortable chair, Keaton stood up, dusting herself off. "Alright then," she said agreeably, moving to follow Mel into the library. As an afterthought to Stygian's remark about the bottles, she added, "I'll probably get some whiskey after this. I kind of need it."
Just before she took a step, however, she stared down at her former eye, which was resting in the hand opposite from the one holding her new eye-stone. "Might as well get rid of this, though..." Keaton muttered, scowling.
Gritting her teeth, she clenched her fist around the old eye, concentrating momentarily. The old eye convulsed, twitched, bending its form gelatinously around Keaton's fingers, and one by one the colored, pixelated shards on its form vanished until it was completely black. Then, with that, its writhing form retracted in on itself like a black hole, disappearing into Keaton's fist, and seemingly exploded within her hand, the floating particles sent spraying out from between her fingers the only trace of its combustion. Satisfied, Keaton dusted her hand off.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian almost but not quite shrugged, not waiting for the others as he passed Mel and set off down the nearest corridor, his form soon obscured by the shadows he so much enjoyed, not noting Keaton's eerie way of dealing with her old eye.
Even though the books that at the moment lay up in the tower were all he would need to conduct the research he wanted, Stygian nevertheless decided to walk to the library with the others, setting a slow pace so that they could catch up. Still, the library turned out to be a bit too calm for comfort. Rynkura sat minding her own business, and though he could not see Jeremiah, Stygian guessed that the frog was busying himself with something more or less only concerning himself, or something he did not want to stick his muzzle in. He strolled halfway down one of the aisles, thumbed a book while his ears swiveled slightly to listen to the girls, and then leaned on it, looking toward them.
'I thought I'd grab those drinks and books. Can I trust you to make sure that... Ian, that was your name, right?' he said, and looked momentarily at the rat, then spoke on without minding him more. 'That Ian finds somewhere to sleep, preferably as close to you others as possible. I'll take a round to make sure that the place is locked up, but you're free to come up to the tower if you wish.'
With those words the bat turned and left them, calmly walking back out the exit and then down the corridor in the direction opposite to the one they had come from. His steps faded into silence immediately.
Rynkura had kept an ear on Jeremiah as he muttered to himself, scouring the shelves for his chosen topic of interest. Something of a strange one, she thought, then smiled to herself. But in this world there is always one stranger.
She hadn't paid much attention to time past, but there were still books in front of her...plenty on enchantment by different authors, for Mel to look at as she had discussed earlier with the dragon. The night seemed to be progressing slowly enough, and as per the tigress's mindset, she wasn't entirely sleepy just yet. Her staff leaned on the table, its glow making for a good reading light. Doing things like this brought back many memories of her long and studious life. At her age, it was hardly needed anymore, but it was still far too easy for her to lose herself.
The tigress perked her ears, suddenly hearing as footsteps approached the library. Her emerald eyes squinted to see whom it was; a small party containing the dragon, the newcomer rat, the succubus, and the bat. Speaking of stranger things. My, what a mix. What has it brought, what shall it bring...
With her jaws opening in a wide yawn, Rynkura gave a quick nod of greeting to them as they walked in. "Well, I hope the storm has caused nobody grief," the tiger chuckled. But it seemed like she sensed otherwise. "Now what interesting things have I missed with my head in these books, I wonder."
* * *
It was expected, a part of her mind said, as the nerves in her temples screamed with pain...the ringing in her ears had turned into an impeding headache almost as soon as she was about to sleep.
"Uuuuugh!" Aisha snarled, turning about in her sheets with frustration, her eyes squinting and trying with all of the will she could muster in them to stay closed. It was hard to tell if she was coming down with a cold anymore, but she hadn't had such a pain before...and she hadn't been so close to being struck with lightning twice in sequence before, either.
I will definitely see Rynkura about this, soon, the panthress thought, hands held tightly to her ears. At least the room was silent, and dark, the way she liked it...and the loud noises were all outside.
...However her hearing had been damaged, it seemed, Aisha still could listen well enough to pick out inconsistencies in the solace. For suddenly, there was a silent ruffle of wings behind her, as if having just materialized out of thin air, and a curiously irritating scent.
Aisha's body lay still in the bed, but her arm slowly reached to the indent next to the side dresser, where her weapons lay, and slowly gripped her boomerang. Tired and angered, it was safe for her to speculate. If it's not me, but a Creature's presence causing this unrest, they are very, very dead.
"HAH!" She jerked from the bed, holding the shimmering, silver blade over her head, threateningly to what sat on the window. But the source of the sound hadn't moved, instead just regarding her with that same crimson gaze as much akin to her own.
She paused, then lowered the weapon, trying to interpret the scene before her. It was the raven, having returned after seemingly flying off into the storm...and what was most strange, it still held the cigarette that it stole from Sebastian, in its beak, as if it were comically smoking the thing itself.
"Cuervo?" Aisha muttered, her brow furrowing as she tossed the boomerang back into its place...after all, she found the bird, and wouldn't kill it...but still. She stared at the thing for a minute, then snarled in a harsh breath. "How...in HELL...did you get back here...? And what...?" The headache became worse for that moment, and her hands came back to her head, interrupting the panther's snap.
She sat back down on the edge, then looked back at the bird. "Ooookay then. If the forces are keeping me awake, dammit, I'll stay awake. In fact..." she said to herself, her voice going into a mutter. "I'm going for a drink. You stay here, bird, then maybe I can see what you want." A pause, then a snort, red eyes going dark and dangerous. "Better have gotten rid of that thing when I get back. Bad habit."
With a sigh, Aisha picked just her navy blue clothes up from the dresser and placed them back on. She considered taking something on her weapon belt, and then shook her head. It's just the kitchen, I won't need more than my own claws and teeth. Painfully grunting, the felid pushed herself from the edge and opened her door, making her way through the first floor's maze and into the kitchen.
Jeremiah leaned out from behind a bookshelf as the others arrived. "Hm? Another one?" he smiled, again being careful not to grin, and strode over, "Well, good to see we're not the only ones with that special seeing problem that makes a creepy old castle look like a motel. Call me Jeremiah. And you are?"
Mel bowed politely to the tiger. "It seems that Keaton ran into a problem with her artificial eye. I happened to have a substitute but your experience with both enchanting and healing would be invaluable in getting it working optimally."
The ancient oak glows until the small courtyard garden seems to be shine in the bright sunlight... The dark wood's grain lines glow green when light blue as doorway opens from the trunk before the cat girl. Ketefe. Out of the white doorway steps a a full white unicorn with a bright orange-yellow fae-cat girl with royal blue long hair. The fae smile at Ketefe because she is wear nothing but her hair down her front with a green gem on her forehead and green leaf wings on her back.
The fae hugs the horned pony and he return through the door. As Bam grows a green leaf grown as she turns to Ketefe. "Thank you for calling me back... How are things here?" asks Bam
PBH
OOC: I will be updating Character sheet on OOC thread before I post again by this time tomorrow.
For a long while, about an hour or two, the only signs of the bat around the castle were occasional glimpses of him wandering down the corridors, darkness wreathing itself around him like a cloak, caressing him like a living entity. He moved about the place, silent as a ghost, searching and watching. He still had long to go before he would be able to sleep well, and even after what he had said he hadn't been too keen to go up and read. He had made himself a quick drink, but had downed it fast and kept walking. Fortunately, the place was calm and still, and together with its dark and ghastly qualities this soothed the bat. The sort of relaxation that the situation presented was something he'd needed for a long time.
When Stygian decided he had finally secured the place and that he should call it quits, he made his way back to the kitchen with a couple of bottles to have a last drink goodnight. He found Aisha standing leaning on a counter and looking rather worse for wear.
'Couldn't sleep?' he questioned, a rather obvious thing to ask, but he didn't care.
It was difficult for Ketefe to keep her eye from twitching at Bam's ... entrance into the courtyard. The fae was naked save for her forehead gem and her hair, and she was riding on a unicorn, out of a door that appeared in a shining tree. And she was pretty sure Stygian hadn't slipped anything into her drink.
Bam generated a leaf-gown, and when she spoke, it took a minute for the blue feline to respond. "Um... things are fine here. There's a newcomer, but other than that, everything's almost normal." Bam's speech had changed a little somehow, but Ketefe couldn't quite put her finger on it. There was a little thunder, and she suddenly remembered where they were. "Can we talk inside? I'm not a big fan of standing in rainstorms."
"Ian" he said with a smile. Then he whispered "Just between you and me....the people here are a little too normal for my likeing."
Well well well, I'm in wonderland. We're all mad here, "Wait'll you get to know 'em," Jeremiah replied dryly, "They can be a real hoot." He strode back over to the table where he'd left his research material (it was starting to dwarf the table itself, and the quasi-pattern formed by the notesheets had expanded to the point where some pages were hanging over the sides) just in time to steady one pile of books that was starting to teeter, "So, what brings you out here anyway?"
"College bet." Ian said cooly. "You know how unrelenting some weaker minds can be. I came for the bet, and stayed for the company."
Aisha was appreciative of the quiet, absolute dark surroundings as she entered the kitchen...though she trudged in muttering a mix of curses. Some of those were from her own tongue, and some were of the common...all of which were sour enough for the panthress to be thankful that Rynkura wasn't around to hear them.
Aisha shook her head slowly and rubbed the sides of it with one hand as she explored the shelves and cupboards for a snack, or a drink...something to help her sleep...and just ended up leaning her arms on the counter with a sigh, thinking about the day's events. The adventurer was just glad that she wasn't dropping into the middle of everything.
It was then that a slight glow from her tail ring caught the sight of one half-lidded eye, followed by a familiar voice a moment after. She hadn't been too surprised at least when the bat walked into the kitchen, but something made her just...shudder, all of a sudden.
"Mierda...Yeah...yeah," Aisha nodded her answer and turned to face Sebastian, shaking her head again to get rid of the feeling. I MUST be getting sick. Despite a somewhat ragged look to her, the panther smirked, uncaring. "Headache. It's what happens when your hearing should have been knocked out completely with lightning." Her smirk disappeared...but she still spared a polite nod of greeting. "I'm sorry if I'm disturbing, but I'm just looking for something to perhaps help."
As the felid turned around, however, she narrowed her eyes suddenly and turned back, looking at the bat. There was a pause, her face looking incredulous for a moment. But the panthress didn't feel it in her to be too unnerved at the sight of a droplet of blood on the his lip, though she probably should have been. She pointed to the side of her mouth, to indicate the spot. "Ahm, and you've got some leftovers or something, right there."
Her mind was still trying to grasp what she had heard before that, anyway. "I take it you can't sleep either," she just decided to observe, turning back to the cupboards.
* * *
Sparing a polite bow of her head back to the dragon, Rynkura's head tilted at the mention of Keaton. "An artificial eye?" she said with curiosity. "Huh, unheard of in a Cubus, but that probably isn't my business."
The tiger smiled warmly, and stood up, regarding the jackal with one dark spot where an eye used to be. "How may I help, then?"
As Aisha spoke, Stygian's expression developed into a sort of mild surprise. He was glad that her reaction was more positive than he had expected by far, even though she showed some mild irritation, but if that remark about disturbing was not sarcasm...
The bat raised his paw and gently touched the blood next to his mouth when he heard the panthress' remark, and frowned. If Keaton and Mel had noticed... He was being such a jackass. He had to tone down the whole 'dark and demonic' thing, or soon they would all be taking pains to avoid him. 'Sorry. Didn't notice,' he said, and stuck out his long tongue, sweeping the tapered tip over the side of his face and licking his fur clean. He then closed his mouth and swallowed, leaning back against the table in the middle of the room.
'I don't have to sleep much. I just like doing it. Keeps you in touch,' he said, facing Aisha. 'And if anyone should apologize for being disturbing, it's me.' Looking down at the floor, he exhaled slowly. 'I've been causing a lot of bother here. And... well... You didn't have to hear that, right now, out there.' He looked at her, shame apparent in his slight blush and his dark eyes.
Aisha kept her ears turned behind her on Stygian as he spoke, which was quite easy to do as they had been nearly glued to the back of her head that evening. She thought that shy of warm milk, tea would be a good enough drink to help one sleep, and took some of what was left from the cupboards.
As it warmed up, she turned to face the bat, her face kept somewhat neutral while listening to him and leaning comfortably on the counter. As willing as Aisha was to just get back to sleep, there was still time to listen, as was her habit.
Her head tilted as Sebastian finished, expressing something shameful in his expression, which came to her as something of a surprise. After a moment of trying to find something to say, Aisha just smiled. "Hrm, well, no, I probably wasn't," she agreed as-a-matter-of-factly and turned to pour the tea, her lip curled into a slight grimace. "But, hell, stranger things happen. Still it's wierd though...how...?"
She stopped and turned around with a cup in her hand, pausing to drink it. The warmth felt soothing as it followed the liquid down her throat, and it helped her to find what to say...or how to think of the situation. "Bah," she shook her head, dismissing the last thought. "Anyway, it's for you two to deal with...not me, or the rest of us, so I don't try to judge. And if you're happy...more power to you. And if you're not...more power anyway, just 'cause it's a good thing to say."
The panthress smirked. "As for a being a bother, amigo, well...I still keep my original thought when the bunch of us foolish adventurers trespassed. That we might have brought the bother, not you. Ugh," she suddenly grimaced and held her head again. "Damn pain won't forget to tell me that it's there."
She finished her cup, and then sighed. "Anyway, I should be going to sleep. That bird returned, and it's going into a roast if it keeps me up," the panthress snorted.
Stygian snorted, and made a sly smile back to Aisha. 'I was an angel to start with,' he said, and paused, as if that would explain everything. 'But I'm afraid that I might be more trouble for Cog than he might suspect. I need friends, not more people who loathe me...'
The bat made a pause and stood again, sighing inaudibly before looking back toward Aisha. 'There are some stronger things you can take if you want,' he said, and shifted his look toward the bottles for a brief moment. 'But maybe you're not the type. Sadly we don't have any... Aspirin? That's what you use, isn't it?' he asked, frowning a bit at his puzzlement. 'There's a pharmacy down in town, but I doubt that would be good at this hour. So were I you, I'd try cold water and not to focus too hard.' That was advice more from others' experience, since Stygian could not remember the last time he had needed to worry about things like the illnesses of regular creatures. He had headaches sometimes, yes, but those mended themselves, and could mostly not be helped with normal medicine. 'Either way, I hope you sleep well,' he added, just before she left. He had another drink before he went to get some sleep.
It was when he walked into the great round hall with the large spiral staircase near the heart of the castle that Stygian stopped, the sudden lack of thoughts striking him still and numb. His eyes wandered upward to the distant ceiling, a faraway silhouette in darkness, arches holding the vaulted ceiling up lit deep blue with the night outside the windows at the top. It looked so distant, like the backdrop of the night sky behind the stars themselves. And yet, he knew that he could reach out a hand through the dark and touch that ceiling with his own darkness in just a moment, if he so wished.
A thought came to him. Why was he doing this? Why was he pretending to be one of these creatures, to be like them? Why did he even bother with looking alike to them, or speaking to them? He had lost so many memories, so much understanding of what it had been like, that the essential feeling of being alive in the same way as them was foreign to him. Once, he had been so consumed by his own darkness that he had been numb to things like their feelings, unconcerned with their small lives in his cold hatred and focus. Why had that changed? His imprisonment should only have infuriated him further. Why was it then that instead, he just felt distance and bereavement when it came to the thing that had been the one goal of his life once?
Looking down, the bat eyed the carefully laid, perfectly smooth marble floor. To see the world around clearly even through the deepest black, but not being able to understand what lay within his own darkness; that seemed his curse. Well, I know what I wish, at least, he thought. And that darkness has no part in it.
Stygian cast one final look up at the distant, shadowy ceiling. Then he turned, and walked back down the corridor he had come from.
Trained to ward off assassination through martial arts that were as much a philosophy and a way of life as it was a way to do battle, for a time long enough that most common swordsmen would have called it lifespans, Cogidubnus still did not wake immediately when the door to his room opened and closed. His guest was a most stealthy creature. The rustle of fur and the smell though, brought the wolf to a still awakening. He didn't move, seeing as that might have warned a potential assailant, but from the instant his mind became actively conscious, he was ready to spring.
The soft sound of cloth and a weight on his bed, a light tug on the sheets, were more surprising, as was the sudden familiar voice, smooth and silky.
'Don't worry. It's just me,' she said, moving closer. 'I heard your breathing change.' She sighed and relaxed, slipping a hand around his waist. 'Easy. I'm just going to sleep...' she said tiredly.
Cog was surprised she had returned, really. He turned for just a second to regard her, his yellow eyes gleaming dully in the night, and he blinked silently before laying back down. His breathing softened, and he laid still, feeling the warmth of her body behind him as she slid behind him. He closed his eyes again, willing himself to relax.
He murmured as she slipped her arm around his waist, and as she moved closer he could feel her chest rising and falling with her breath. He couldn't help a small smile at her words - even had he wanted to, draining him of blood certainly wouldn't help with that...
"Sleep well." He sighed, adjusting himself just slightly, and soon he began to breathe deeply, the tired wolf again falling into deep sleep.
"Well, Ketefe I am glad you called, My mother was not pleased with me coming here with no magic the first time and then I go break my own "rules started use some.. She said I could only come back If someone call me. or 500 years whichever come first." says Bam as put on her glasses again.
The unicorn had returned through the magic door, and the magic door closed. With the closing of door, the magic in the Old Oak slow fades . The moment of sunlight gives way to mist and then light rain as the natural order also return to the garden...
"Yes yes We should go inside, the storm has not let up at all. Before the heaby rain hits us. Wait how long have I been gone." Commends Bam as she race for the indoors.
PBH
In answer to Rynkura's question Mel said, "I happened to have with me an artificial eye commissioned by a demon and not picked up. I believe Keaton should be able to use it, but it is a custom piece, designed to work specifically with the magic of that demon. Some minor adjustments may be needed to the enchantment for her to receive the full benefit of it. Your help would be appreciated."
Ketefe ran inside with Bambi. Once they reached the interior, she shook herself vigorously and spoke again once she was reasonably dry. "You were probably gone two hours or so. Your mother really was going to keep you there for 500 years? And how'd you get into the oak tree?"
Still studying the eye-stone intently, Keaton trailed dutifully behind Mel, following the ice dragon into the library. Occasionally the jackal would devote some of her attention to where she was walking, and making sure she wasn't putting herself in danger with the absence of depth perception, but for the most part she was engrossed in her inspection of the eye-stone. So it was commissioned by a Demon who specialized in dark magic? That meant it was basically meant for her.
Keaton's previous eye was just a mere augmentation, something primitive and low-maintenance for the lack of technology of her age. Not to mention the people who had given her the eye in the first place hadn't exactly dedicated themselves to finding her a well-working replacement. Part of the reason Keaton was so skeptical about this new eye-stone was because it looked even older than her last eye. If technology was so limited back then, what would it be like dating to times stretching back even further?
For the moment, she discarded these musings, especially when they encountered Rynkura. She waved as pleasantly as she could, a juxtaposition to the ghastly sight of her vacant eye-socket. Mel explained their situation, and Keaton nodded, setting the eye on the table. "Yeah," she said, "You think you can help us out?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
With a hum, Rynkura listened to Mel and Keaton as they explained the situation of the eye to her. The tiger's expression turned to one of thought. "A demon's eye? Whatever happened to him, I wonder," she mused and picked the small orb up from the table, weighing it in her palm.
It looked rather plain for the description of an enchanted object. But briefly, the tips of Rynkura's fingers glowed and sent a small portion of detection magic through the relic, and she could feel the energies reflecting back. Just as she thought, there was considerable power within. "It's well made, Mel. Very old indeed, but well-preserved. Dark magic, a few elemental and biological properties," the old healer surmised in an observational tone. "So the vision should work well...it's gem-enchanted perhaps, but keyed into the user's traits, so there's never a need for recharging it...but as for the magic..."
The tigress smiled and looked back to the expectant dragon and jackal. "Dark or shadow magic isn't in my reportoire to add to what's there, but I will try to help. Perhaps I can manipulate it enough so that it's made for you to use quite perfectly, without it losing any of its special effects. Let's see..."
She held the stone-like orb up for a closer look, narrowing her eyes, then glanced back at Mel. "If I may please know what the eye was made to do, if to provide anything more than just vision, specifically?"
* * *
Despite the lingering pain in her temples, Aisha chuckled at Sebastian's reply to her words. "Well, you may just find more friends, even when you aren't looking for them. And yes, cold water would be fine," the panthress replied with a smile, but wondered if she should even bring up the small detail that they were no longer allowed into town. If it's worse, I won't need aspirin. S'what healers are for anyway, she mentally dismissed and gave a nod back to the bat as she turned around, exiting the kitchen, but leaving the tea out. "Thanks. You sleep well, too. Buenas noches."
As the panthress walked back to her room, just keeping her tired eyes ahead of her, she couldn't help but smirk ironically to herself. I guess when times like this arise, it's good to take back what I once thought of having Mistress Rynkura be here. I still feel like such a child for feeling so, Aisha sighed, thinking of the healing. At least Gareeku had brought her a bit more comfort then...but she wondered where the wolf was now, hoping he wasn't one of those mysteriously vanishing...
Shaking her head, she opened the door to find the raven still there, hanging on the window and staring ahead at her, as still as some sort of statue, and its expression quite menacing as it always seemed to be. "Anyone ever tell you that you go well with the decor?" she asked the raven dryly, still wondering if some portion of the animal understood what she was saying.
Aisha dismissed the thought, undressing again and sliding into the sheets, this time finding it much easier to fall asleep. Not totally, but well enough.
Mel made a bit of a face. "I am not sure I remember everything it does. As you noted, I made it a very long time ago. It is not something I would normally undertake but it was a special commission taken at Grandmother's request for the grandson of one of her old friends. He was killed before he could pick it up." The dragon stared at the thing in Rynkura's hand. "I remember that it has vision enhancing properties because his sight was failing. He was a feline demon so it has enhanced night vision. But there was something else. Something to do with dark magic. It stores it so the user can use it later. But I can not remember why, although considering the one who commissioned it I am fairly certain it was a weapon. Perhaps Keaton can tell."
Looking the eye over while listening to Mel's answer, Rynkura nodded to signify that she had paid attention, and hummed when the dragon finished. "Ah, I see...quite unfortunate I suppose, the demon's death, before the eye could be put to good use."
She smiled back at them. "Don't worry about not remembering everything...I sense powers in the eye, but most likely they aren't spontaneous. Keaton should be able to sense them for herself." Rynkura held the small orb in her right palm, and it felt quite light for something that appeared to have the density of a rock...but magic held no weight.
The tigress turned to sit at the table, on the side so that the onlookers could watch and perhaps comment if anything. Rynkura was not vain about her skill, but even with onlookers, she was quite drawn into her craft. She lay the item carefully on the table, pushing a few of the books out of the way to clear the space. "Now let's see..." she murmured and placed her fingers on the sides of the eye's circumfrence.
Sending a little more sight-seeing magic into the object, Rynkura picked out the exact powers that Mel had described: enhanced vision capabilities and a store of dark magic around what would be the cornea. Much like her healing magic did, she bypassed those traits and with a quick flash of a dark, shadowy light, expelled capabilities from the eye that would have made it perfect for a demon, and the magic seemed to waft in the air like mist before disappearing altogether...and at last, she inserted a touch of her own magic to keep all of the capabilities in place.
The tigress lifted her hand from the orb, and it looked just as pristine as it had been before, with a minute difference in energy for those who could sense it. Satisfied, Rynkura picked up the eye and offered it to Keaton. "There...I simply made the eye more generalized so that it could fit anyone if the need saw it...it ought to help. You need just give it a taste of your own magic before inserting it, if I'm correct, and it should fit you well."
Keaton watched everything that proceeded with piqued interest, ears swiveled upright and eyes concentrated on the stone as it was gently carried in Rynkura's hands, fingers wrapping 'round the spherical surface. Everything seemed to happen almost instantaneously--there was a bit of focusing on the part of Rynkura, a subtle squeeze of the hands, and then the palpitations of freshly-released magic as it coalesced outward in a quick, sizzling vibration, then disintegrated in the form of a drifting stream before its disappearance. Anew darkness flushed back into the ancient stone, rejuvenating it from its slumber.
Still, there was no ostensible change to the eye-stone aside from the enlivened pulse of magic. For some reason Rynkura seemed rather satisfied with the results, leaving Keaton befuddled as she stared at the eye-stone once it was passed into her grasp.
"Hey, thanks!" Keaton said--while the outer change wasn't significant, she could still feel that the eye-stone had come alive in some way. Experience with magical objects and weaponry taught Keaton that was enough to make some sort of difference. Carefully, Keaton lowered the eye-stone, entwining it in her fingers until it was slipped, snug between her palms. "Now I just charge it, right...?"
She focused. And she felt something spark up from within her belly, enough for her to take advantage of and push it outward, outward, outward, forcing it along the channels of her body and through the veins networking in twisting trails within her arms, snaking out her fingertips. It seemed as though, for a moment, electricity was creeping in darting dots through the hieroglyphic engravings ornamenting the eye-stone, at first starting off as a neutral purple, but then darkening to a deep black as it flowed in, saturating the essence of the stone itself and permeating it with her signature. That was enough. Within her palms, the black glow faded, wispy whirlwinds of sable fog spilling from around her fingers, then she opened her hands again. The stone sat comfortably between the crook formed by her palms.
"I guess it's safe now," Keaton murmured. She lifted the eye-stone. Still no physical changes. She angled it slightly, expecting for it to react lifelessly to the faint glow of Rynkura's nearby staff.
For a split second, she thought she saw a flash of something akin to gold.
"...Alright," Keaton said, preparing herself. "Here I go."
And with that, unblinkingly, she opened her eyes, carefully pushing the eye-stone into her empty eye-socket with her thumb and forefinger. Nothing happened at first, the eye slipping in painlessly. There was still no sight in her eye, and for a moment Keaton thought that their ritual hadn't worked.
She was wrong. Something similar to an electric shock stabbed at the back of Keaton's head, yet despite the unexpected flare she hardly felt herself react. The same electricity tightened, sending bands of lightning flashing through Keaton's head, automatically drawn to the beckoning presence of the eye. Instantly they worked their magic, hooking in, interacting perfectly despite how different the linking forces were. Darkness surged in darkness, Keaton forced herself to squeeze her eyes shut, feeling overcome by a certain pressure, she was unsure, but she thought she was in pain--
--then they opened, and Keaton felt the room come alive.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The South Garden Courtyard
"Well, I am embarrass to say but I am only 2500 years, and breaking the rules of co-play could mean a 500 years timeout. So. I am not coplaying, now. I am here to help my friends." stated Bam as flip her hand toward the tree. "This is very ancient oak. Some Fae made friends with her and make her into a Fae doorway. But she has not been used or talked in a long time, since before the Castle was built, I think. She was just now feeling lonely. She is a nice old lady. I will have to remember to say hello again sometime this week. It is not easy to talk to tree"
They had reach the courtyard doors as the rain become a heavy down pour and the lightening lit the sky again. "Well, I am a little hungry, let us go to the kitchen. I hope, the Bat is in a good mood, the place seem more gloomy.. and Gina, I will have to find Gina and apology to her" says Bam as quicken her pace to the other more travelled place in the castle.
Mel watched Keaton carefully as she activated and inserted the eye. While she was certain the eye was still in good condition, as confirmed by Rynkura, she was less certain of it's reaction to a non-demon host. When the jackal winced and closed her eyes Mel asked, "Are you okay? Do you need help Keaton?"
"Are you okay?
Do you need help, Keaton?"
Mel's voice was a distant echo, barely muffled by the sudden wave of revelation that came crashing through Keaton's body for the most precious of seconds, something that was so instantly worshipped and revered by her soul for that moment that her mind was utterly devoted to preserving its minuscule existence. Following its passage came a sudden amplification, every syllable of Mel's voice flowing with increased speed and realization through Keaton's heightened senses. Suddenly very aware of everyone else's presence in the room, she glanced to them, hand involuntarily reaching up to undo the piercing securing her glasses and remove them from the bridge of her nose. For some reason, they just--fogged her vision, and she was surprised to find everything, for once, in focused clarity.
"Sorry about that, Mel," Keaton said, smirking sheepishly. "I'm fine."
More than fine, in fact. Against the sloping shadows of the room the appearance of Keaton's new eye suddenly became very obvious, its once stony form having been transformed into a sleek, glassy outline. The contours of the hieroglyphic carvings were still intact, very much visible against the ephemeral globe, and nearly glowing with bright saffron light from the concentrated core of honey-gold circulated in the pit of Keaton's eye. Surrounding that sphere of gold light was a thin outline of hazy black, a miniature nebula intertwining and juxtaposing with the harmony of the golden core. Instead of pulsing and throbbing dramatically it just remained where it was, suspended in the heart of the eye, seemingly still but still alive.
Keaton pressed her fingers to her temple, gazing around the room with a clear expression of shock on her features. Everything seemed so... clear, so full of color. Not since before Keaton's eye had been lost was she able to view her surroundings in such clarity! Flawless sight had undoubtedly been taken for granted, sadly petered out of Keaton's memory until it was but a faded hallucination, a mocking mirage of what once was, what could've been, but what wasn't there.
"Wow," Keaton said. Even that single syllable seemed to be permeated with shock, somehow conveying her utmost and absolute amazement. "I... guys... I can see. Without my glasses. This is...
This is fantastic."
Grinning wildly, Keaton whirled around to face Mel and Rynkura, ecstatic. "Thank you!" she said excitedly, "Just... thank you."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura watched intently after she gave the jackal the eye, grabbing her staff to hold while leaning forward. She knew little of the nature of the succubus before her, but from what she had heard, an eye previously made by a demon should work. It would have to...the object took in the jackal's signature magic, as expected and with no side effects.
The tigress held her breath through the entire ordeal. As the jackal placed the eye into her socket, Rynkura tensed as the effects of the implant kicked in after a quick moment...the small bit of magic she placed in it did as well, helping the biological effects along. The jackal took the shock that was sure to follow, and her eyes closed. Rynkura's ears tilted slightly as Mel stood up to help, in case of trouble, her face staunch and neutral...waiting. Let it work, she pleaded silently the air.
And then, when Keaton opened her eyes, she was met with the concerned faces, and Rynkura finally let out her breath as she saw the powerful elation on Keaton's expression and demeanor. It had worked, and her vision now had its perfect clarity, with a bit of discolor in the artificial one to denote its difference. But the tiger smiled. It had worked.
"For my part, you are more than welcome," the healer smiled and stood up. "May it serve you well. And now," she chuckled, "I think my time in this room is done with...I'd suppose that my student went to sleep, thus I shall too. There are books left for you here to look at, Mel, if you wish." She gestured to the table, and then bade her farewells with a bow of her head. "Good night, to everyone."
With a wide yawn displaying an impressive set of sharp teeth, Rynkura gathered herself and spared a nod to the others before setting off to the stairs to the second floor and to the room she had chosen. A productive day, if quick, she thought to herself. Let's see what tomorrow brings. I may yet stay if this bunch intends to.
Keaton's joyful look caused Mel to grin in return. It had been successful and after all these millennia the enchanted object had finally found a home. "That is great. I am glad it works for you." Rynkura's yawning exit caused a similar reaction in the dragon, although she tried to hide it behind her hand. "Perhaps tomorrow we can try to figure out the function I have forgotten." She quickly glanced over the books the tiger had left out and picked out one that looked interesting, but not so interesting as to keep her awake. Covering a second yawn she asked, "Keaton, do you mind showing Ian to a room when he is done looking around? I don't think I can stay awake much longer."
A slow trudge up the stairs got her to the room she had spent the previous night. After quickly cooling down the room to made it comfortable she slipped into the bed with the book for a sleepy read.
Ian yawned aswell "I think it's time I turned in as well.
In the solemn, murky surroundings of the castle, the retreat of the others left Ian and Keaton in a pressured solitude almost as deep as the one the rat had experienced earlier. Fortunately, the library was at least lit, even if only dimly. The amber light and silence were a comfortable contrast to the mausoleum-like pallor and looming darkness of the corridors. And there was nothing to disturb Keaton's energetic elation at her new and greatly improved sense of sight, save a little feeling in the back of her head that as the others had gone away, maybe it was time for her to get moving as well.
I can't stand around here. Better ditch the rat, she thought, distantly somehow.
Ketefe's eye twitched again at the fae's explanation. That she could live that long was only half-surprising, given her race; but what the hell was coplaying? Meh. She'd ask for an explanation after food and rest. She followed Bam to the kitchen, opening the fridge and pawing out anything that looked like it would make a good sandwich.
Jeremiah continued to toil away in his little corner of the library, studiously oblivious to the world around him. I'll stop researching and go to bed soon, the artist thought to himself as he leafed through yet another book on magical healing in the vain hope there would by a section on psychological ailments, Midnight's soon.
New person's funny, Plic tended to get chatty late at night. Out of all his personalities Jeremiah often found her to be the least obnoxious. The fact that she was essentially a psychic kleptomaniac made that a fairly sad facet of his condition.
The rat?
Funny, Plic said, like a three year old being insistent about something to a grown up, Funny little student with guns.
Guns? Jeremiah had a mixed opinion of guns. On the one hand, his low opinion of adventurers as a group could be attributed to them. If they took creature injustices so seriously, why did they go after said creatures wielding swords or other archaic weapons? It wasn't about looking good, it's a matter of solving a problem. On the other hand, those who had guns were so rarely adventurers... I didn't notice those.
Weren't looking, shame shame. Things you don't see can be bad for you.
Huh... Jeremiah looked around the room thoughtfully, 11:30. I'll turn in around 11:30. And I'm locking the door to my room.
"Thank you Ketefe for the samdwich...*yawh* I guess I will have to head to bed.. I have a feeling that Gina is already in bed or maybe in in the Library.. Have You found a room to sleep in yet?" asked Bam as she head down the hallway toward the Library and beyond to her own bedroom.
At the Library, Bam enter with three glow spheres that light the whole room up. She looks in the see the Keaton and Jeremiah.
"Has anyone seen Gina?" ask Bam
PBH
On her way towards escorting Ian to a room, Keaton felt her elation heighten and heighten as she absorbed every new, minute detail that was so cruelly robbed from her when her eyesight was uneven and distorted. The lights, the colors, everything so vibrant and different, elevating her above mere happiness and into nirvana-laden ecstasy.
Hardly any introductions had been given towards Ian--instead, Keaton merely attempted to fulfill her instructions as brusquely and quickly as possible so she could go back to experimenting with her renewed vision.
The lack of lighting wasn't even noticeable by Keaton. The new eye provided near-perfect vision in the darkness. That only energized Keaton's happiness. Urgently, Keaton located the door to an unoccupied room and, after poking her head in to ensure that it was safe, gestured for Ian to enter. "Alright, here you go. Enjoy." And that was all she said, for once bereft of any sarcastic comments, before she walked off, in search of a room of her own.
She quickly found another room not far from Ian's. After ensuring that it was safe, Keaton entered, stretching her arms over her head. She didn't need to go to sleep, but there was something she was curious about. Sitting down on the sofa, the only piece of furniture that could suffice as a comfortable bed in the chamber, she rummaged around in her pocket and withdrew her marble, rotating it between her fingers. Kaleidoscopic colors, electrified and revitalized through the surface of Keaton's eyes, swirled and danced together, churning gently.
It seemed... different somehow. Brighter. Enhanced.
And for that Keaton was glad.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ian flopped down on a bed. It was hard for him to sleep knowing that finals were comeing soon, but he'd studied enough to earn a break. though if he planned on staying longer than a week he have to find his back and take the exams and get contact info from graduateing friends. Eventually he finnaly managed to sleep.
Ketefe finished the sandwich she'd thrown together, and decided she should get some sleep as well. Tomorrow would no doubt be just as trying as today.
She headed upstairs to her room, listening to the breathing from other rooms as she passed. She propped her sword by the nightstand, removed her jeans and t-shirt, and slipped under the covers. Falling asleep was easy yet again.
Still, in all of her bliss there was something else that Keaton felt, something out of place, like a rock in her shoe or more accurately, a nagging sensation in the back of her head that marred the sensation of joy. Her sight was returned in full and more, yes. But she wouldn't get to enjoy it in this dark castle. She was tired, yet somehow she realized she was on edge too, knowing that there was something else she had to do.
She had to open the doors. The thought was there before she knew it. The feeling of the chill, nightly breeze, the sound of the rain falling, the rustle of trees all seemed so... pleasurable all of a sudden. But more than that, more than anything else right then, there was something beckoning to her, a tremendous revelation she knew she would find if only she could make her way out undetected... if she could open up the doors to the castle...
It didn't take long for Keaton to register the strangely lulling, melodic sense of pleasurable calm that saturated her insides, even as she marveled openly at the vibrant mishmash of colorful combinations spiraling within her marble. Oddly enough, while she was so thoroughly, unabashedly entranced with all the renewed hues and lights that composed her surroundings, she allowed her attention to be drawn away from the marble and towards that beckoning sensation, where her eyes were guided to the door.
Was it hot, or something? No, actually, it was rather chilly. Perhaps from the rain, Keaton didn't know. Either way, without any logical explanation, she wanted to open the doors. Far away, pelting the window, she heard the roar of the rain and the thrumming of the thunder, the symphony of the storm, and it was all so fantastic. She wanted to be closer to it, so she could enjoy it even more, after years of colorblind oppression.
Could merely enhancing her hearing immerse her in such a fantastic state? Her hearing had always been fantastic, but now it just... it just...
Without complaint, Keaton stood up, stretching her arms over her head. Flipping the marble into her opposite hand, she pocketed it after making a temporary show of it, walking towards the door. Slowly, it creaked open, her head popping out first, eyes glowing with ethereal alabaster. Black encroached from her spiraling markings onto her fur, saffron succumbing to sable until she was completely enveloped by it. Then, crouching, she slipped out the door, an idle tendril looping from the shadows snapping it shut, and sunk deep inside the amber-hued darkness, body twisting and mind formatting to adjust to her new, ephemeral surroundings...
...and then she was gone.
In front of the towering set of doors that served as the entrance to the castle, the twisted shadows, painted empyreal bruise-black from the rain peppering the windows, suddenly began to distort subtly, at first rippling as a tremor raced across their atramentous surface, then bending and twisting as something large and mountainous began to rise in its heart. Twisted crowns of shadows spilled like misty, skittering spiders along the dusty tile floor as what was sealed inside of the shadow broke free, utterly silent, body stretching outward and dashing at the door, clawing it open and racing outside in the rain and wind before it was even detected.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ian unlatched the door and made his way down the hall. The casual observer would notice an entranced like rat shambeling in random directions muttering to himself. "No,no,no....can't go that way.....the door's hot. Look out Justin. Fire,fire. when's the department arriveing? fire."
**An orange Fae cat in a Fire helmet arrives flying in on a fire hose, **
"Fire fire ! What What?! Hey You just left the front Door open Or Somebody left the door, Any Dark thing could waltz in." Shouts Bam
With a twirl , she wears a police blue uniform and lookings at the rat hard and asks" Who are you and who are you trying to let in ?"
PBH
Ian, being a very sound sleeper haveing moved on to a diffrent memory in his dream, just kinda stood there still asleep.
"Well, Then Be quiet and go to sleep." says Bam as she closes Ian's door
Bam continues a ways down the hall to her own bedroom. She holds her hand on the wood of the door, a moment and thinks... Is Gina here? Does she want me near?... She knocks lightly on the closed door, and waits. The Fae hears rustling inside then paws steps on the floor, but will Gina open the door?
PBH
Haveing cycled back into a disturbing dream Ian was active again. He was loudly mumbleing abouts some school yard bully back in his elementary school days as he shuffled in a diffrent direction, away from the fae.
For a moment, everything was still, save the rain falling with a whispering patter. Then came the slow sound of steps out of the dark.
'Thank you kindly, girl,' a voice said, low and strong. The stranger's features were dark, still hidden among the shadows, but Keaton recognized the voice after only a few seconds, as well as the green coat. The panther stepped past her so unconcernedly that she just had to turn and watch him, then stopped before the doors and looked up at the stretching towers of the castle. 'Yes, excellent.' He turned to look behind him, smiling slightly. 'Let's get going. We don't want to be
too late...'
Emerging from the shadows under the trees, another familiar figure came into view, and it was this one that drew Keaton's attention the most, though for reasons that she couldn't understand at all. Not consciously. The dark-eyed, slender woman with her six arms and prominent fangs sidled up beside the jackal, and Keaton felt a sort of pleasure, and a great deal of dim puzzlement at her own feelings and response. She vaguely knew that the woman, Sal, had fought them before, that she was their enemy. But now, standing beside her, Keaton could not help but feel a warm, longing feeling toward her. She wanted, she
knew somewhere deep down that it was senseless, but most of her just wanted to obey the spider, to please her.
'Take it easy. I know the place looks empty, but those inside are not so easy to deal with as you might think,' she said. She did smile though, knowingly as her words were meant to say
it's tough, but if we do it right we can do it without trouble. 'Let's just make sure we kill Stygian and the dragon first. The rest will be easy after that...'
'So confident...' a third voice scraped, accompanied by dry steps past Sal's shoulder. A slightly shorter and more elderly-looking figure came into view, an old bat who nevertheless had an appearance as hard and unyielding as an ancient, gnarled tree. His already pale golden-brown fur graying in places, he was nevertheless handsome beyond his apparent age and had had black, glistening eyes and fangs that showed slightly between his lips, his lower one being split in a sharp, short slit. He was dressed in sleek black clothes and carried a short lacquered black staff, wrapped in gray cloth to form a handle near the top. The bridge of his point-tipped muzzle was crowned by a pair of round, silver-framed pince-néz.
'"Confident, cocky, lazy, dead," I believe was the saying,' the old bat recited. His voice was coarse but powerful, and like his hard-lined appearance it exuded power. 'And shouldn't you be more careful around that one? Letting her know too much...' He frowned as his dark eyes turned toward Keaton. The spider-woman only smiled at him.
'Don't worry, old master. She's as good as ours,' she said, smirking even more devilishly and petted Keaton's head, and the jackal blushed confusedly as she felt a shiver of odd pleasure and joy run through her. 'Though if you want to...'
Before she knew it herself, Keaton had turned around to look up at the castle, still and unthinking as if in a daze. She was aware of the conversation taking place behind her back, but didn't pay any mind to it at all. After all, she was only a little jackal, and didn't need to hear what was being said, did she? She stood there, simply looking, until a clawed hand brushed over her shoulder, and another warm wave of contentment washed through her as the spider-woman spoke to her.
'Come, sweetie. Let's go kill your friends,' she purred.
Keaton grinned. It seemed like such a good idea.
Bambi barely had a moment to respond as the door unlocked with a loud clack and opened, and with a swift tug and a strength that belied her size, the white ferret pulled her into the room. She closed the door behind them just as swiftly, her hair standing and her movements tense.
'They're here! It's just... But it's them!' she said, worry making her voice almost jagged. 'We can't be seen!'
"Ow ow ow These leaves are attached you know" whispers Bam as she smooth her dress down.
"We need to Hide?" asks Bam in a low voice.. with a look of cunfusion on her face.... "Gina we need to warning with others at least, Mel. If not Aisha and the healer. Even Cog the wolf. Oh I can't say much but I can send a silent alarm to a few people. Please We have to alert the others?" asks Bam
Four small green glowing butterflies appear in her hands.
" Awake adventurer, the enemy is near. Awake for the battle, we fear" she whispers into them, but has not release them yet.
"Do I warn the others Gina?" asks Bam again, "Each of these will find the ones I named and whisper my message into each of their ears until they wake"
PBH
Everything felt so delightfully enhanced.
Whether it was the moonlight on her back or the grass crunching beneath her feet, the prickling, bristly sensation somehow penetrating the thick soles of her boots to reach her flesh, Keaton felt everything, no matter how ostensibly insignificant or inconspicuous each beloved emotion was. Somehow, each step was magnified, glorious, sending billowing chimes ringing like church bells through her cloud-infested head; body guiding her unconsciously, as though inanimately possessed by some intangible force, all the way to the entrance of the Castle Caerule. Sight was effortless with the internal illumination of her new eye, piercing, mismatched brown-gold gaze staring straight through the darkness to latch onto the door.
With Sal and the others following behind, Keaton gently pushed open the doors, keeping her movements taut, inspected, so to not attract any unwanted attention or create any incriminating noise. Specifically, Stygian. Lord knew what he was capable of detecting within the darkness. Bastard could probably hunt her down easily if he were alerted to anything abnormal, and then everything would be ruined. Ruined! She couldn't compromise that, she couldn't--couldn't let Sal and everyone else down. She had no idea why she felt so dedicated towards these strangers, but they made her feel, and that was what mattered, so she listened to what they told her, no matter how outrageous.
As though appropriate to the situation, Sal turned around to face her, a condescending, mad grin on her arachnid features. "Very good. Very good girl. You're just a deceitful little bitch, aren't you, cute stuffs?" she asked sibilantly. All Keaton could do was stare at her wistfully, that familiar sensation of longing need welling up in her as she dreamily nodded her head. Satisfied, Sal turned away, murmuring to herself as she skittered up the stairs. "I wonder what to do with your friends once we're finished... we shall have so much fun, don't you think?"
Keaton merely trailed behind devotedly. Again, she found an entranced look of happiness befall her features with surprising serenity, ears deaf to the demeaning and degrading things Sal was saying to her. Under normal circumstances she would have snapped, would have called her every foul word in her vocabulary and torn her limb from limb, but instead just smiled stupidly. Keaton led Sal to the door to Stygian and Cogidubnus's room, hand resting on the doorknob. It was open slightly, just slightly, enough for her to peek in and notice the two resting peacefully together, bodies entwined, on the bed.
Asleep.
Keaton turned around, still smiling dutifully at Sal, her brown, organic eye holding that misty, faraway look, the other glowing with that dull, palpitating pulse.
Mission accomplished.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Gina seemed on the very edge with panicky fear. 'Yes! Send them! Just... don't leave me!' she exclaimed to Bam. 'What can we do?! Help, yes, but... I can't just...!' She ran her fingers through her hair and breathed deeply, closing her eyes and concentrating. She knew that panicking would not help the least, but still it seemed that things were bad enough to upset her to that degree.
'I can't go down there. It's
too soon! We don't have any help...'
Sal smiled wickedly at Keaton as they arrived at the room, silently stepping up next to her and gracing the jackal with a scritch to the neck as if she were a pet, before slowly sitting down on her haunches, careful not to make any noise. Her black and red clothes, mostly loose and made of satin, did not even make a whisper of a sound.
At first it was hard for Keaton to see what the spider was doing. She simply sat there, two arms on the doorframe, two others on the floor and the last two working within her jacket-like robe's folds. It was only when she slowly brought out a little wriggling, white thing made of web that the jackal realized. She carefully placed the thing down on the floor, picking strands of cobweb from her clawed fingers, as the thing began to rupture.
The little creature that emerged, Keaton immediately recognized. Chitinous and sleek, it seemed fully developed, straight out of the cocoon. And it seemed to know at once what to do. Stretching its legs even as its carapace darkened, it skittered slowly over the floor toward the sleeping pair, slipping under the bed. For half a minute, it seemed as if nothing happened. Then, Cog's resting shape slowly stirred. Still half-drunk with sleep, the wolf carefully removed the bat's arm and slid toward the edge. As Stygian made a sleepy mumble and rolled into a more comfortable position, Cog stood up by the side of the bed, watching with puzzled awareness.
Sal only made a satisfied nod. Her smile had slipped from her features now, and her formerly so fiendish expression had been replaced by one of tense focus. She slipped something else out from within her clothes, and strode, tensely but silently against the bed.
The dagger gleamed in the spider's grip as she twirled it between her fingers, its blade wet with something else than just moonlight. She rounded the foot of the large bed, passing Cog as she gripped the blade firmly, hissing silently through her teeth. For a second, the wolf, even with his mind captive, thought he could hear her say something, almost inaudibly, as she raised it next to her shoulder.
'This is for Leonard...!'
Something twinged in Cog's already tense mind, a sudden burst of clarity, red-hot and bloody. Fighting for control, both he and the wolf growled as they strained to fight the thing that had invaded them...
The Wolf and Cogidubnus were not friends. Under the best of circumstances, they were simply uneasy with each other, each knowing which one had proved itself superior. The Wolf was always waiting for Cog to slip up - Cog was always ready for the Wolf to make a move. During moonlit nights, Cog's mind was one of an uneasy truce, with Cog constantly resisting the impulses brought on by his more feral side.
This new presence, however, didn't quite expect what it found - as it controlled the one, the other seemed to fill the void the other left, and neither could be...subdued, like it was used to.
Cog felt the mindspider reaching into his brain, again, the subtle and seductive impulses of the arachnid settling on his mind. He looked at Sal, his face blank, and watched softly as she raised a wetly sparkling knife above her head, whispering fiercely at the bat beneath her. Cog's eye did not even twitch. He -wanted- the spider to have her revenge, to see her rage satisfied...
The Wolf, however, never sleeps.
The mind-spider, no matter how well it did it's job, simply wasn't made to handle two minds at once. Confusing, contradictory sensory information overloaded the little thing, and Cog felt a spark of awareness flower within his mind again. Shaking, and suddenly choking, he felt his mind become a battlefield in a three-way fight, and as he leant over he saw the glittering knife in Sal's hand. The Wolf, lashing out at both Cog and the mindspinder equally, was eager to take any opening it could get, and as Cog snarled, he felt the Rage of the Wolf flood through him. A red haze dropped and clouded his mind, and suddenly, he didn't care. He was drowning, and it felt -good-.
A wet, vicious snarl escaped the twitching wolf's throat, Cog's form -twisting- with his lychanthropic curse.
The Moon was full. The Wolf could almost taste the coppery tang of freedom.
Twitching and slavering, the feral wolf lunged forward, springing off the bed and into the spider's face, it's long fangs burying themselves deep into her head. They landed hard, slamming into the wall, and the wolf ripped and tore as it twitched with the mindspider's desperate attempts to somehow control that which it was never meant to compel.
Cog buried his fangs into her flesh again, a red light glinting within his yellow eyes.
With lightening speed, and desperate need
Bam's Butterfly messagers do their deeds
Through ceiling and walls
but not down halls
they go on to delieve their calls
To each ear, a ball light does near
message comes out
as whisper, but inside soft shout
"Awake!, Awake!
Wolf, Kitties, and Drake
To arms to arms
Sword, Spell and charms
An evil comes to more than Harm
Do you hear, Do you hear, the Battle is here
For the monsters do creep
To take back the Keep
All is stake
You must awake!" Said PBH message.
These to messages are heard by Mel, Aisha, and Rynkura, and Jeremiah.
A black blue butterfly silently wing its way into Cog ear under his pillow. Only a dark blue glow is seen for a second by his ear. And then he ears the Message too.
***
Bam Hugs Gina for a second, "Now where must we go to defend your duty?" smiles Bam
Ian woke up with all the commotion. He was still walking the halls when Kaeton brought the "Legion of Doom". "Ay! Who are you? and what the FIZZNUCK you doin sneakin around!" Ian hadn't realized yet that they were enimies, nor had he his guns on him. Luckily he was right next to his room.
Ketefe woke up to the sounds of battle.
Her door was shut, so she didn't know what was going on, but she knew that it was bad. Shouting, growling, and general chaos - that was all she needed to know. She pondered for a moment whether staying in bed or going out in the hall would be a better idea.
If I stay here, I won't get hurt and I won't hurt anybody else. Not to mentiont that if the attacker(s) come in my room, they're cornered. But if I don't go out there, someone else might get hurt, and then how will I feel?
She hesitated, then silently got out of bed. She pulled her favorite outfit out of her bag - a black tank top, ripped at the hem, and a pair of black shorts, ripped at the cuffs. She tied her mask on and unsheathed her sword.
She opened the door just a little, then stood against the wall, watching and waiting.
In response to the degrading scratch to her neck, Keaton purred, inclining her head just right so that way she could receive more of the massaging claw. Sadly, such condescending caresses didn't last for long, as Sal withdrew her hand a moment later and crouched down, openly searching for something. Keaton watched without any perturbing revelations as Sal released the spider, gaze slipping deliberately from the arachnid woman to her little brethren scampering across the floor, its tiny body waltzing up the bed and mechanically latching itself to Cogidubnus's body. Responsively, Cog unconsciously leaned up, the spider having succeeded its mission in possessing his body and keeping his movements curbed. With the danger subsided, Sal entered the room, drawing a blade from the folds of her robe and flexing it over Stygian's sleeping form.
Then Cogidubnus attacked.
It was quick, violent, and all-too horrifying, the transformation seizing Cogidubnus's formerly anthromorphic features and bending his body into the terrifying shape of the Wolf itself. Muscles rippled beneath lank gray fur as he sprung off of the bed, launching himself at Sal and instantly locking teeth onto her head, ripping and tearing at her right before Keaton's very eyes. Watery, atramentous blood splattered in gruesome gouts on the floor, forming a twisted halo around the writhing, struggling pair as both arachnid and canid fought against each other, teeth and claws rending flesh and hair and--
She couldn't stare any longer. Without hesitation, Keaton whirled around and dashed away, rushing as fast as she could, pushing so much energy into her body her legs ached and her muscles screamed in protest. Ultimately she found herself dissatisfied with the speed she was moving at, so she employed the use of her tentacles, materializing them from her spine (as her wings emerging would rip at her clothing) and using them to brace the ground, carrying her like a spider's legs. Catapulting herself down the stairs, she reached her new companions--the aging bat and the panther--gesturing wildly to them.
"Things have gone wrong!" she exclaimed, "The wolf's awake, and he's attacking Sal, and--shit shit SHIT, you have to hurry before she DIES and the bat wakes up!" Keaton was openly panicking at this point, finding herself aghast at the prospect of failing these people, especially the possibly-deceased and mangled spider-woman. She couldn't let her die. Couldn't let these people down. Couldn't...
Couldn't fail.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The metallic taste of blood mingled with the dry and sandy feeling of hair in the Wolf's mouth as its jaws closed on the spider-woman's head. She shrieked as she was torn off her feet and hurled over the bed, the dagger being wrenched from her hand. The two shapes ripped the sheets with them and hit the side of the bed, tumbling onto the floor, a thrashing chaos of too many limbs and fur.
Startled into this extremely rude awakening, Stygian cried out and growled, backing up against the head and side of the bed, black eyes following the wrestling shapes on the floor. Confusion and anger mixing in her sleep-drunken head, she spat a furious hiss and threw herself over the bed toward them. Cog, or whatever he had turned into, had taken a deep bite into the spider's skull, but found her surprisingly tough to chew. She in turn had begun raking him with her multitude of claws and kicking with her powerful legs to throw the raging wolf off. Both of them were horrendously strong, and it was hard to see who had the upper edge. Stygian had no way of throwing herself into the fight.
It seemed like minutes went on, though it could only have been a few seconds, before a sharp crack and a wet, tearing noise split the chaos, followed by a terrible shriek. The two shapes tossed violently, before the wolf was hurled into and crushed a cabinet against a wall, and Sal threw herself, crying with pain and breathing raggedly, out through the door and down the corridor in an adrenalin-spiked rush, holding one hand over the gaping wound left where one of her arms had been.
The wolf was ready to pursue. Despite its flayed hide and a broken rib, it had gotten off easier than the spider had in the fight, and rose to its feet without trouble from the wreckage of the cabinet. Huge paws padded against the door and wiry muscle quivered with tension, the scent of blood filling the beast's nostrils until the rush was strong enough to turn the world a snarling red. Stygian watched the ragged, dark creature, thoughts rushing. Already her own head was swirling with the metallic scent, and her mouthflesh and fangs had turned black, as had her fingers whose tips were now long, knife-like claws. But though she wanted to hunt down the spider just as badly, the sight and state of Cog drew her mind more strongly.
He's in a rage. What is he going to do? The thoughts were hazy and quick, and terribly unfocused. This was not the sort of situation she liked handling. If Sal is back... She can't be here alone. She wouldn't just come back without help. Another thought struck her, hard as a bullet from a gun. If Cog goes out there, he's not in control! He's going to get killed! She gritted her teeth. Somehow, she had to stop him.
Just before the Wolf went out the door, something stopped it. A weight landed on its shoulder and an arm laid across its back, a comparatively small but strong grip that tugged at it and held it back. A quick stab signaled the death and removal of the spider from its neck.
'Stop! Don't...' a voice pleaded, close to its ear.
Ian rushed into his room and neglecting the holsters or the belt they're attached to he drew his guns and bolted back out the door intime to see the stange spiderlady pass him. He put a gun to the back of her head and an arm around her throat. "Now, you're going to tell me who you are any why you're attacking people! And no, you don't have a choice."
The Wolf snarled as a weight dropped onto its back, turning its head as far as it could to glare at the thing suddenly atop it. The mindspider, distressed and panicking, was doing it's utmost to reign the beast in - and the Wolf constantly twitched and shuddered, as though afflicted with some sort of palsy or chill. A low growl escaped its throat, one gleaming yellow eye regarding the bat. Deep in its mind, a single voice seemed to be buried underneath the wrestling giants, desperately trying to break to the surface. The Curse had already taken into effect, but neither the curse nor the mindspider were really operating as they should have. The lychanthropy had yet to completely dominate the wolf's mind, courtesy the struggles of the spider, and all was not yet set in stone.
A jolt of pain shivered up the Wolf's spine, and suddenly the spider was silenced, sharp pain receding in its head - the Wolf stilled for a moment, confused. The tiniest crack was left in it's defenses. At that moment, the bat chose to whisper in his ear, igniting something distant and dim within the Wolf's brain - and with everything left to him, Cogidubnus struck, the walls in his mind splintering and shattering as he fought to free himself.
Sebastian reared back for a moment, the wolf under her suddenly convulsing and snarling, yelps and whines interspersed with snarls. He looked almost like he'd gone into a seizure, and for a moment the bat was afraid perhaps the spider was still alive somehow, malfunctioning in his head. The Wolf thrashed for a moment, white, bloodstained teeth dripping, when it finally settled for a moment, the writhing body stilling and closing its eyes.
When they opened again, Cogidubnus was staring out. The body underneath him suddenly seemed to liquefy, twisting and snapping back into the form the werewolf normally took, the feral wolf becoming once again the swordsman.
Cog groaned for a moment, putting a hand on his head, and breathing raggedly he looked back at the bat sitting atop him. He looked at her wincing, as though in pain, and he exhaled slowly, brushing a bit of hair out of his eyes. He looked as though a torturous headache had just settled on him.
"Get off. We still need to kill her." he said, looking up at Sebastian. He paused, blanching, and seemed to soften for a moment. "I'm...thank you. I've never..." he sighed, and nodded out towards the window, and the setting moon. "Thank you." he said, waiting for the bat to let him up.
Jeremiah, as expected when he sets himself a deadline, had ignored it and fallen asleep amidst his books. Bambi's little butterfly spell was at first barely able to make a dent in the amphibian's lethargy. However, having nothing better to do, the spell was persistent and continued pestering at the frog until it was rewarded with his shaggy, orange and black head slowly rising from its makeshift pillow of notes.
A couple seconds later comprehension spread across Jeremiah's face. His first impulse was to run screaming, but thankfully managed to stop himself. The spider. Oh gods, the spider. She was fairly scary in her own right, what with being a gigantic arachnid with the power to control one's mind. He remembered how invasive it was, how horrible being controlled in that way could be, the touch of one of her little spider's upon his mind being akin to tar pouring down ones throat. Worst of all though, was that the first time the Lunacy had actually harmed those around him was when it was using what her spiders brought out in him.
I can't let her catch me. Oh GODS I can't let her @!$%ing catch me!
Your capture would be to our benefit. It would keep you alive.
I'm not having anyone usurp MY control! It would probably be a better sign if that last one had been Jeremiah, rather than Bal, but that was all beside the point. Every instinct was telling Jeremiah to hide, to panic, to run-
But it would be shameful, wouldn't it? the frog considered this last thought, and was horrified to find that it was his own. Oh gods, have I finally lost it? She'd slaughter me!
But if I left the others, I'd be ashamed of myself. With more reason than I already have. At least with the curse I can't claim that it wasn't my fault, but if I abandon them...
What good can I do here!?
... What good can I do elsewhere?
Don't try to argue a point with yourself, readers. It's never a fair fight.
Still shaking in his tweed coat, casting an illusion to hide himself from sight and clutching a book of spells probably too powerful for him to use, Jeremiah slipped down the hallway to find his way toward the rooms where the others were. Regardless of moral obligations, he sure as hell wasn't going it alone!
During the drama that had started unfolding in other parts of the castle, Rynkura hadn't drifted too far into sleep, only enough to have a curious dream with realistic-sounding words of caution...the healer never really did sleep deeply when she was somewhere other than the safety of her monastery. Such was the case this time as she would soon find her diligent caution to be justified...
The tigress's ear twitched...though her room was one floor down, the sensitive hearing of an Angel in disguise could quite well pick up the suddenly curious sounds passing through aged stone, soluble to noise waves. She hadn't moved an inch in the sheets, but one eye opened curiously to scan the darkness. It was all coming up from above...a bit of struggling, snarling...and finally, screaming, which made both eyes snap open quickly and her body start to rise from the bed. This was a noise with a tendency to carry. In her experience, she could immediately note the intonation behind the sound.
Pain.
What in all the blazes? Rynkura wondered. She was staring upward for a moment or two, reaching for her staff as it emitted a soft white glow. But just as soon, the noise had all but calmed down.
Ears pinned against her head, she hummed quietly while she strapped the sword she had brought around her shoulder and carried her staff so that it wouldn't clack against the ground. The felid closed the door behind her quietly and, after another brief look, took off in a quiet, loping run...as quiet as a tiger could make it, up the stairs toward the disturbance. Whatever is amiss...
* * *
The. Night. IS. NOT. OVER. YET!
Aisha opened her eyes with a hiss through her teeth, eyes narrowed dangerously...all patience having been drained from her system. For a while it seemed that she was finally about to be lost to her dreams...but for the curse of being the light sleeper that she was, the panther awoke with an angry shudder. Not to the fading, but lingering pain in her head...not to the noises that unknowingly was three floors up...
No, what woke her up this time was as gentle as could be...a slight tickling on her ear, followed by a familiar "caw" noise, the sound of the raven's curiosity at having spotted something, still perched above her on the headstand. Please don't make me kill you, cuervito...She paused to calm her seething down and flickered her ear to get whatever it was off, then swiped the air to grab the insect and brought it to her face.
...A butterfly? She sneered, and so too did the raven, it seemed. The little thing looked quite strange...and it couldn't have come from the window, as it was closed. But what got her attention was the sudden warning it gave...more like words in one's head than an actual voice, but it had an urgency to it.
Aisha was about to figure that she was still dreaming, but all of a sudden, she heard what seemed like hastily-running feet through the halls of the first floor. Her hearing not as developed as her mentor's, she nevertheless was curious enough to get up and get dressed, regardless of all tired nerves telling her not to. This time, something told her to bring her weapons...perhaps it was the sudden vibration while sleeping, what seemed like a violent scream...
Boomerang clenched within her tensed and trigger-ready fingers, the huntress put her ear to the door, and then threw it open, ready to confront whatever was disturbing the peace this time...
Mel, asleep with the book fallen across her chest, awoke from her doze with a start at the combination of Bam's whispering voice and the faint sounds of a fight drifting under the door. She wondered if the wolf and bat were arguing once again but Bam's message spoke of monsters. Quickly dressing she moved to the door and listened for a moment to see if she could figure out what was happening.
Ragged and bloody and injured though she were, the spider was still definitely not the sort of opponent that Ian probably expected, judging from his approach. His attempt at capturing her startled her, but she was much too high on pain and rushed to respond as he would have liked. And even more significantly, she was not unused to attackers, even ones with guns. She threw herself forward at the same time as she knocked the gun out of his hand and numbed his arm with a lightning-fast strike, then threw him into the wall as she shook him off, sprinting down the corridor.
Just when she caught sight of the jackal, Sal stumbled and turned, blood spattering the floor around her. With a deep hiss she forced her four unoccupied arms to start working. Untangling long strands of web from underneath the flap that covered her abdomen, she hastily wove a thick web to block the corridor behind her, and then dragged herself up to her feet to move over to Keaton.
'We're... compromised, master...' she hissed, leaning on the railing upstairs and looking down at the other two, standing down in the entry hall. 'Will we... just kill them now?'
The aged bat scowled up at the spideress, hand clenching on his staff. He turned to the green-coated man. 'What did I tell you?' he said simply, before walking over to the stairs and up them toward Keaton and Sal. 'Let's make this quick and bloody then instead. Sal, make sure to heal.' He tossed her a vial of some dark liquid from out of his jacket. 'I don't want you
completely useless...' he snarled. The spider bowed her head in shame, yet for a second she gritted her teeth, and a flare of anger almost seemed to well up in her eyes before she could quell it.
Downstairs, the panther in the green coat simply shook his head, before joining the others.
Stygian let Cog go slowly, backing off and looking down. '
Don't mention it,' she said, ears laid slightly back. '
Though right now, we need to warn the others and regroup.' For a second she looked down at her still naked form. '
And I think I'd like to...'
Before she had time to finish the sentence, she looked up in realization. '
I should get my guns.'
How are we supposed to alert the others in time? Where should we meet? She darted her eyes to Cog. '
Can you make your way to the others? I'll be back once I know who we're up against.'
The sound of ragged breathing alerted Keaton to Sal's arrival, a horrified, stricken expression engraving itself along Keaton's angular features once she witnessed the arachnid-woman's bedraggled, bloodied state. Desperately, she felt the need to run over and bandage her wounds, to apologize profusely for a failure she did not commit, but curbed this inexplicable impulse--there would be time for begging for forgiveness. Now was not that time.
Now was the time for retribution.
Reaching up, Keaton grasped the handle of her unattended mace from where it was strapped to her back, the tentacles which she used to catapult herself down the stairs lurching back to life. The anubis-esque heads signature of the Jyraneth clan molded themselves from each tentacle's lengths, muzzles stretching and shaping, bladed teeth budding like tiny thorns within their mouths, encrusting them like barbed wire. Dozens of brown, owlish eyes all blinked, then narrowed, as their owner whipped Catastrophe from its holster, running after the aging bat up the stairs.
Deep within the pit of her pupil, something sanguine stirred and seethed where it rested, twisting like the core of a flame as a wicked, insane smile spread across Keaton's muzzle.
Those bastards were all going to die.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog stood up slowly, tired from the ordeals of the previous day, as well as his rapid transformation to and from the Wolf. His head pounded with both mental distress and lack of blood, and as he stood the world seemed to fuzz for a moment before clearing. He sighed, nodding at the bat, and walked over to the chair with his clothing.
"Yes. I can." he said, slipping into his pants quickly. They were still a little damp from his foray in the rain, but not nearly as bad as they were. The shirt was quick to follow, and Cog spoke as he dressed himself. "I'll find the others, and head downstairs." he said, narrowing his eyes as he buttoned his shirt. "Where there's one mindspider, there may be more." he said bluntly. "Mel is safe. I don't know about the rest. We'll have to check." he said, pulling on his boots and then throwing his coat about him, the jacket whipping for a moment before settling. Kneeling, he picked up his sword slowly, and then set the pair of glasses he'd set on the mantle back on his nose. He nodded.
"Come back soon." he said, slipping the sword into his belt, and as he walked out he began arranging his various charms around his body, the air curdling around him for a moment as he exited the room.
"Come On Gina, The others are awake by now, if not by my butterflies then by the noise out there. Just what or where would else guys want to be in the castle? You need to ensure that they don't get it, but I will help.. Gina you need not tell what it is? But we can defend the entrance to its hiding place." says Bam
Bam gets up to go to the door to the hall, but Gina shake her head NO No and goes to the wardrode and opens a hidden door brhind it. She leads the way between the walls with Bam come behind.
Hearing a thud outside Mel opened the door a crack to see Ian laying on the floor alongside a wall, the plaster overlay broken away to show the sturdy stone wall underneath. The only other thing she saw was a dark sticky blood trail going down the hall heading towards the stairs. She moved quickly to where the rat lay unconscious. "What the heck did you tangle with?" she asked the air as she used her magic to check if he had broken anything.
The bat didn't wait. As soon as Cog left the room, she gathered up her clothes and opened the lone window in the room, scrambling out and scaling the wall upwards, toward the fifth floor, her form turning dark and shadowlike as she did. She had left the guns in the master bedroom, rather than the tower.
The creature that seeped into the bedroom through the shadows was just recognizable as humanoid, a haze of blackness with gleaming eyes. It part walked, part slithered over to the table beside the bed, opening a bag and taking out what it had sought for with long, clawlike fingers.
Two metallic clacks, and then the thing was on the move again.
More discernable sounds could be heard as Rynkura traversed from the second to the third floor, following the inconsistencies with her ears like a bloodhound to a scent. Her staff illuminated every step she took through the ominous passages like a beacon, flickering between bright and dim as she made her way through. It was like it had detected something escaping or fleeing from the scene.
One could probably argue that the trouble was none of the tiger's business...she had begun to feel like an intruder in the castle despite the welcome she had gotten after healing the dragon. But what she had heard was a cry of pain, for certain...thus, it was the healer's business.
Rynkura wasn't even winded as soon as she made it to the top of the stairs in a loping run, clutching her staff with both hands in a defense posture. She could pinpoint the sound of someone coming her way towards the stairs. It didn't take long though for her eyes to get used to the darkness ahead with another dimming of her staff, and to make out the shape of Cogidubnus.
"Sir Mithlome?" she queried with a tilted head, but her voice had turned quite serious as she gripped the staff, ready to use it if need be. "I've heard something horrid. What's happened?"
* * *
"Who's there?" Aisha demanded in a harsh whisper...she was sure that whatever was running had come near her door. She crept quietly through the first-floor hallway on bare and padded feet, her dark fur blending in well with the shadows in the night-drenched building. She was even careful as to put her tail ring into a pocket, to keep it from glowing too brightly...in case the cause was of the demon persuasion.
The panthress was also sure that she could hear voices up ahead, somewhat quiet, but not trying to be...past the library, somewhere. Was one of them...? It was hard to tell, but one of them was perhaps familiar. How, she couldn't recall, but...it was different. Intruders.
She lingered near the library for a moment, wondering where the others were. If nobody shows up, I'm making a break for the stairs... she thought, gripping the amulet that she remembered was around her neck. A very quick break.
Cog walked softly through the darkened hallways, his senses set on a razor-edge. His arms felt weak, and his head light, but moving about seemed to be helping somewhat. He took deep breaths, his headache subsiding, and held on steadily to the little silver cross in his left hand. Magic flowed from it into Cogidubnus, healing and restoring what it could to him. He needed rest and food, but this would have to suffice.
Rain pattered against the iron-veined windows, lightning occasionally flashing through the glass to light up the hallways, casting a strange chiaroscuro on the interior. He listened past the rain and kept moving, listening for the sounds of Sal's pained movements, or the telltale skitter of another mindspider.
As he approached the stairs, however, he could hear a regular thump ascending the stairs, and a pale, blue glow ascending with it. He made out the form of Ms. Msh'Taan, her staff hitting the carpeted floor and glowing with the blue light. Cog paused, taking a slow breath, and surreptitiously placed a hand on his sword hilt.
He nodded as she spoke. "Yes. Sal is here." he said, approaching the tigress slowly, almost passing her. He made a show of looking down the stairs behind her. "I think she's injured. There may be more." he said slowly, suddenly grabbing the tigresses hair, bending backwards to look at her neck. He dropped it again instantly, turning and bowing.
"My apologies. I don't know who might be controlled." he said, his face apologetic. "We need to gather the others. Stay close."
Cog turned again, descending the stairs and heading forward into the darkness.
"Mel, zat you? What the FUCK whas that?" Ian moaned and looked over just in time to see Kaeton running up the stairs. He used his good hand to shoot a few shots at her "Why are you helping them!?" He wheezed out.
With a soft click and creak, Gina and Bam appear from behind a bookcase into the Library, If the others could make it, they should show up at the library.... Beside the secret door, the only other door in was the double doors at the entrance.
"Come on We have to make this place defensable" says Bam as she move the chairs and sofas back or near front of the door.
PBH
Ketefe stepped slowly out the door, sword ready. There was blood on the floor, and Cog and Stygian had been there, but were gone. Mel and Ian were a little farther down the hallway, and Ian looked hurt. She walked a little closer, not saying anything yet, but she jumped back when Ian started shooting.
When Cogidubnus reached her, Rynkura noticed that he looked a little weakened, though she wondered if that had something to do with the disturbances...she supposed it did, by the way he spoke when he came past her and started to the stairs. He also spoke slowly, as if cautious.
Sal? Sal... The name was somewhat familiar to the tigress, but it didn't hit her until the wolf had said that there may be more around. Her emerald eyes widened, remembering the summary of their adventures in the castle that she was told. Sal! The one responsible for the spiders.
But Rynkura hadn't time to elaborate on the subject before she snarled in surprise, having the braid of her hair grabbed. It was only for a second, but when she took the long strand back from the wolf and whirled to glare at him, he had bowed in apology, reminding her of the reason for his suspicion.
"Hmph," she dismissed and tossed her head, taking her staff in both hands again. "Understandable, sir Mithlome. I assure you though, one of those things would have a lot of trouble trying to take me." The healer gave the wolf a slight grin, and then proceeded to follow quickly down the stairs. It was only moments after walking that she heard the explosion of gunshots somewhere on the floor...but the tigress couldn't turn back, if these things were as dangerous as Aisha had made them out to be.
Please watch yourself, my girl.
Ian startled Mel by coming out of his daze in a violent mood, shooting wildly at everything nearby and screaming. Moving quickly before he could shoot her or Ketefe she clamped one hand down over the rat's shooting hand, long claws burying themselves in the marble floor. He wasn't getting that hand back easily. Her other hand came down on his opposite shoulder, pushing him flat to the floor. She had no idea who was attacking whom or where the blood on the floor came from but the first guess was that the armed and violent "college student" who had arrived only a few hours ago was the one up to no good. "Calm down and explain yourself," she demanded.
"The bitch...working for.....spider..." He trailed off finnaly being overcome from his concusion he passed out.
The trio were making their way through the castle, the bitter-faced Sal trailing the stern bat and the relatively calm panther. As the spider had cut off their closest way back to the guest rooms, and they were to prepare, they chose another path, deeper into the castle, heading for the central stairway.
'This place still has darkness clinging to it,' the bat said, looking around. 'A "bulwark", they used to call it.' He snorted, a bitter smile tinging his features. 'Fools.'
'Well, the closer to Hell, the easier for us,' the panther replied. He regarded the bat with a sort of bemused skepticism for a moment. 'I hope you can call on some good aid, Don'Chel.
I however am not about to stand around and wait for my minions to do the job,
summoner.'
The other man snarled under his breath, but did nothing else to show his discontent at the insult to his pride. 'Perhaps the most valuable commodity of all in a battle is time. And often you lose more than you gain by rushing headlong into things. Think about it,
Be'Laan.' The feline only chuckled in response, as they kept walking into the darkness.
When they came to the great round shaft that held the central stairway, the three figures paused at the bottom. Shortly after, the spider moved away. And far above them, a shadow slowly, carefully backed out of sight, slipping fast away between columns and down a hallway, making its way downward.
As Cog headed carefully down the night-darkened corridor, past an intersection, a sudden movement of something in the dark made him tense and coil like a spring. It was only when his blade was already out of the sheath and halfway through the strike that he stopped, seeing the face of the one pointing the gun at his face.
'
Ah, it's you,' Stygian said, obviously relieved, and relaxed as much as he could, though that wasn't very far considering how he looked. The bat's fur was standing, his hair slightly messy as if he had ran, and there was a big patch of dust on his black pants. For him, that was a serious mess. He stepped forward and took a look to the side, seeing Rynkura approaching behind the wolf, and only then let his firearm drop to his side. The thing was huge, an eight inch metal cannon made in dark, polished steel, its twin in his other clawed hand.
'
I know who we are up against now,' the bat stated, as soon as Rynkura was with them. '
And it's bad. Where are the others? We will have to stick together. For everyone that gets taken by a spider, this gets much harder.' The first thing they had to do, in fact, was liberate Keaton. She could shapeshift, and use the darkness of the castle. She would have an easy time infecting the others.
The wolf exhaled slowly at the bat, glittering blade lowering, and took a step back as he swung it to his side, the thing seeming to glow in the low light as he drew it across and then sheathed it. He paused for a moment, his eyes sliding over the guns the bat had brought, and nodded as he turned.
"I haven't found the others yet. Ms. Msh'taan heard the...noise, earlier, so perhaps the others have too. They shouldn't be too far ahead." he said, nodding down the darkened hallway. He looked down the hallway silently, listening, before turning back to the bat. "What do you mean, 'who were dealing with?'" Cog's narrowed one eye, and began moving forward down the hall. "There's more here than the spider?"
He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the place, and tried to sort out where the others might have gotten to. He caught the dragon's scent floating up at him - reptilian scents were usually very faint. She was close, then. He moved forward into the darkness, eyes peering through his magic-seeing glasses.
Spells of protection and seals around the Library, Bam makes it invader spoof from the tiniest bug to a largest troll-bear. Now, she sweeps and scans the two-story room quick, and finds that only she and Gina are in it. No other creature or bugs, not even a small mouse did she find inside the library With the secret door locked to open at her touch alone, and the main dooor the only way in. Time to call the others.
"Now, Guard the door, Gina. I will call the others, " say Bambi as she calls up somemore butterflies messenger. She must sit still with eyes close...as she sends off butterflies..through wall and ceiling.
"Find the Nook, with a good Book, Come here is right, together we fight" says a glowing butterflies in the face of Mel, Cog and Stygain, Ketefe, Jeremiah and Aisha and Rynkura.
The one for Keaton stops in front of the sucubus, fly around her confused at the small smile on her face. Then it sees Sal, and the old bat.... "EEEP" it crys and starts to fly away.
Charging up the stairs, Keaton was nearly unstoppable in her approach, feet leaping from step to step. Hand tensed around the length of Catastrophe's pommel, clenching it in its pallid, death-like grip. Once or twice the urge to make it come alive with lightning and strike at random at the slightest movement or tension lurking in the shadows tempted Keaton, but she knew that speed and stealth was of the utmost importance. Destruction and bloodshed would come at its opportune time, and as desperate as Keaton was to engage in it, it would have to wait.
One of the corridors--the primary shortcut--was entirely sealed off with layer upon layer of opaque, mucilaginous webbing, most likely Sal's work. A single glance confirmed that touching it would likely end up with Keaton becoming entrapped in it, so any efforts at breaking down the web would result in disaster. Sighing impatiently, Keaton turned to the side, weaving down another exit. Probably a longer one than her other route, but if it helped her reach her targets, there were no complaints.
Along the way, Keaton briefly studied her strategy. The last time she attempted to use the shadows to traverse unseen, she had been detected and stopped by Stygian. Experimentation had no place here--it was now or never, do or die. She didn't know if they would hesitate to use force on their old "friend," but if they did it would be their final mistake. Up ahead, just around a corner, Keaton noticed something akin to a grey smudge and an alabaster-gold blur. Ducking out of sight, Keaton used a tentacle-head to crane around the corner, using its eyes to observe the two. One brown ocular stirred in hue, gold light circulating in its center, then spreading, encompassing the iris and the rest of the cornea in opalescent orange.
It had happened on impulse, mostly. Strangely enough, with Keaton's enhanced senses came the flexibility to control the advantages of her eye, such as using it to augment the vision in her tentacle if she concentrated just the right amount. Blur focused and tensed around the vortex formed in her mind's eye, locking intently on Stygian and Cogidubnus's shapes. Satisfied, Keaton withdrew the tentacle before it was noticed, then opened her eyes, feeling herself slip out of her trance. That was strange, but if it worked to her advantage, she wasn't going to complain.
All she needed to do was wait for the right moment to attack...
Ripples coalesced and shuddered along the length of four of Keaton's tentacles, liquefying their jackal-like heads and withdrawing them into strange, bulbous appendages, then lengthening and curving them into bizarre, crescent-like shapes, reminiscent of the blades of a scythe. Silvery metal outlined the very edges of the acute sickles, glimmering subtly, then muting as they turned into an obsidian, lusterless black.
...then they would all die.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura's breath had caught in her throat at the sudden flash of shadow and a gun muzzle at the wolf's face, only for them to figure out quickly that it was Sebastian. The thought of which gave her a bit of relief, but the tigress hadn't spared more than a nod of greeting to the bat when he appeared...believing in part that he had something to do with it, whether or not he meant for it to happen.
She nodded in agreement with Cogidubnus. "I would assume that the others, if they are smart, would not have dismissed the disturbance and will be found easily."
Though there was relief that a few of the others were indeed nearby, Rynkura inclined her head in thought as she followed quickly, narrowing her eyes and clutching the staff with a sudden and harsh grip. The orb on it glowed brighter. But yes, what others? There's just something in the air that's...wrong doesn't seem the right word.
* * *
Aisha quietly growled to herself. She had her back firmly pressed against the wall near to the library and her body stock still, looking as if she was one of the statues that adorned some of the hallways; the only difference being that she had distinguishable red eyes.
The jaguaress just listened to the voices until they started to fade, her lungs filled in quick intervals of breathing in between the time. Still the footsteps that had passed her room never heeded her voice...and the others...she had no idea where they were. She would have heard their own voices on the first floor. So perhaps they were upstairs.
With a sigh of relief after the silence, Aisha made up her mind. Clutching the amulet, she activated the enchantment of speed and felt the power flowing through her legs, picking a known direction towards a staircase...anywhere but the direction that the intruders headed...and found herself dashing across the halls in a blur as soon as the command to run had crossed her mind.
Corner after corner came and went in a flash, as she quickly crossed paths with the library doors and somewhere past the entryway...and yet she could just be seen by the observant or heard by the extra-sensitive. The panther almost literally flew up a set of stairs...
And braked quickly. The stairs she was climbing on had suddenly just stopped, her head very nearly caught on some strange substance. The panther froze, wondering what had blocked the hallway, before going back to the previous floor to regain her bearings with a very disturbed scowl on her features.
What floor am I on...? Oh, this must be the second, Aisha deduced as she tried to shake the dizziness that came from high speed. The corridors were dark and harrowing...and silent. Empty. She slapped her forehead in frustration, almost tempted to let her claws dig into her scalp where the headache still lingered. Where the hell IS everyone?
But here were voices...short, but clear. One more to go. She dashed across the hall to find a clear set of stairs and soon found herself within hearing range of someone.
"Mel?" Aisha called out with caution, keeping her boomerang drawn. Her nose caught a strange scent...the web-like barrier was near, covering an entire portion...and with their recent luck with spiders, the panthress felt her spine crawl, and she kept the boomerang drawn in front of her. "Mel! Donde está?" she called again, her eyes scanning every bit of shadow...side, front, side, quick head turn back...and the ceiling again. She had to find someone...!
Jeremiah headed for the guest rooms the long way, on the basis that taking a longer and more convoluted path would keep him the hell away from that spider woman. On the way up he stopped, looked around the stairs he was ascending, and looked down at the book he'd grabbed.
Spells of Defense for Vagrants, it said, the flowing cursive of the title staring up at Jeremiah as if it too was willing him to figure it out.
Finally giving in to narrative expectation, the frog whisked out a brush and the little bottle of ink he'd picked up in town and got to work. It took him a few minutes, but finally the artist finished what could be called one of his few functional pieces. It was an interesting spell, woven amidst the ink and channeled through a symbol that was almost, but not exactly, a circle with a triangle in the center and words around the lines of the triangle. The way it worked was rather clever. It was technically an illusion with elements of hypnosis so that it would effect senses other than sight. In terms of the illusion itself... It was a bit of an experiment in surrealism for him. He wasn't too satisfied with the results, it would be nice to tweak it some more, but...
A noise, down the hall. Jeremiah fumbled for his brush and double checked that he had everyone's name around the circle. Cogidubnus, Gareeku, Aisha, Bambi, Ketefe, yadda yadda... Right, Keaton. Adding the Jackal to the list with a flourish, he hurried upstairs. He didn't have to worry about the spell being too weak to hold someone all that long. He knew he didn't have much power to use, so the spell would use that of the victim.
--
And soon after reaching the others, almost tripped over Ian and Mel. "Wha-?" He staggered around them clumsily just in time, "Whatappened? What's going on?"
Mel released the unconscious rat's hand slowly, staring suspiciously as he might be faking unconciousness as the frog approached. She responded to his question, "Ian went berserk and began shooting up the hall. But something put him headfirst into the wall. I think he has a brain injury." She was about to say more when she heard a voice calling her. "Aisha?" She looked down the hallway into the darkness. "Where are you Aisha?" The voice was faint. "I am going to look down the hall. Keep an eye on the sharpshooter. If he starts to wake up call out."
Mel moved into darker part of the hall, darkening her white scales to a dull shade that matched her long grey coat to keep from standing out too much. "Aisha? Is that you?" She crept forward until she saw familiar red eyes peering through webbing. Spider web. That could explain Ian's bizarre behavior. "What is going on Aisha?"
Ian was fadeing in and out at irregular intervals. "Who? Who's there? Ugh....Kaeton...she's working for...the spider." And like that Ian was back out if it and was some where picking daisys in lala land.
"Mel?" Aisha called once more as she crept carefully down the hall, trying to keep herself as alert as possible, until finally the source of the scent was found: A thick barrier of strong, elastic silk wove across her path like a crude and messy spider's web. To her ever-fearful thoughts, that's just what it could have been, and the thought only made her snarl while trying to find a way through. If SHE is back, so help me...
That's when she heard the dragon's familiar voice, on the other side of the webbing. She could make out her form through a slit or two in the barrier. She wondered as to the extent of the webbing...how much of it had been in that hallway, and just how strong was it? She had to repress the urge to slice, burn, or claw through it. But at least the dragon was safe.
"Thank goodness I found you," Aisha breathed, shaking her head. "I got woken up, told there was trouble. I heard voices downstairs...strangers, amiga. Rushed up here. I have no idea as to where they're headed, but...but this can't be good," she waved a hand across the web barrier, denoting it...her eyes were wide now with a mix of different things: fear, fury, concern. There she was...now the others...
"You see what happened?"
Stygian looked between Cogidubnus and Rynkura, and nodded as well. 'Yes, but can they make it here? The spider and Keaton are both on the loose. What is our...' he said. He didn't have time to finish the sentence though, before Bambi's glowing butterflies made their interruption, and the bat was startled into silence.
Halfway through the butterflies' semi-cryptic message, Stygian waved the ones in his face away with a careless hand, turning them into wispy trails of fading light. 'Ignore her. The library's got too many exits. We need some place that's open, but that we can still bottleneck. If we...'
Stygian stopped, and blinked. For a moment he held absolutely still, the calm that he had previously lacked seeming to wash over him in full. He turned his head and eyes to the side, slowly, looking at the dark end of the corridor. After a second, he spoke.
'Pain.'
The bat swept his arm out, leaving his gun in its holster. As he did, his shirt changed shape, darkening, and with a gust of wind a large wing, black as night, tore out of his back, stretching down the hallway before erupting into fiendish shapes, swarming in Keaton's direction.
'Come here!' the bat snarled, his voice on fire.
Off to the side, just as Keaton was preparing her body to pounce, she felt an irreversible tremor race through her muscles, followed quickly by an equally uncontrollable series of quakes and shudders, originating from something almost ephemeral, almost imperceptible. Despite how physically unnoticeable they were, the quivers brought on something horrible: something neglected, making Keaton's mind reel and her heart skip a beat, making it pound like a drum in her ribcage. Sweat started to bead on her forehead as her eyes dashed along the length of the tentacle-scythes, brandished so threateningly as a juxtaposition to the inexplicable shock and terror and... pain of their owner.
Do it.
Keaton shut her eyes tightly, ears lying flat. Her heart was pounding in her ears, something was screaming at her from the darkness. Same darkness which had bestowed her such augmented senses, but had smothered her mind and reasoning and free will in the process. Bloody lightning ran like jagged streaks through her head, leaving behind livid, infuriated agony.
DO IT.
"I..." Keaton whispered, pupil pinpricked, the glow of her opposite, artificial eye having died down to a spark. Eyes squeezed shut. "I do--I j--"
"Pain."
Keaton's eyes snapped open. In the pit of her mind, she felt something swell, then rip forward from the abyss as darkness manifested from darkness, taking the form of distant shapes and twisted monstrosities. And they were headed right for her, swarming forth in a rushing stream of barbaric abominations and writhing shadows.
He was going to kill her.
There was no other explanation--he was going to--shit, he was going to KILL HER--
"Come here!"
Pupil pinpricked again, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, until they were invisible in the whites of her eyes. Cold sweat trickled down Keaton's forehead, something welled up in her organic eye, and she felt something screaming, screaming, SCREAMING in her head...
But as red flared in the pit of Keaton's pupil and crimson encompassed the once golden-saffron glow of her artificial eye-stone, it went completely unregarded. Keaton dashed forward, pushing her body into motion, feeling all resistance fade and her anger at the people who hurt her dark mistress overflow those protesting, weak emotions, beating them down until they crumpled in a bloodied heap at the bottom of her subconscious. Catapulting herself through the air, she whirled over the heads of one of the malignant heads, sweeping the tentacle-scythes about as purple-violet electricity and red sparks leaped along their lengths.
"YOU WANT ME, BASTARD?!" Keaton shrieked at the top of her lungs. Saffron-sable scythes spiraled through the air, intending to hack and slash at Stygian's body until he was nothing but a bisected, pulpy mess left to coagulate on the ground. "HERE I AM! DIE, YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Just as Keaton was about to strike, the jackal felt her heart skip another beat. Stygian's dark eyes were focused straight at her, his face composed and hard as stone. He's ready for it...! The thought passed in the flicker of an eye. Then something dark swept out before her and obscured her view. Her scything tentacles bit something hard and cold, and the next instant she felt her fur and skin rip in a few places. Stygian's wing hit her square on, flattened her against it, and sent her sprawling back in the direction from where she came. She tumbled along the hard floor, the air painfully beaten out of her lungs.
Standing straight again and closing his feet after having braced for Keaton's attack with his side, Stygian growled under his breath as he swung back his other wing and took a step, beginning to walk toward her, slowly and cautiously watching. 'I'll hold her,' he said. 'Then you deal with it, Cog.'
Mel shook her head at Aisha. "I was awakened by Bam's voice talking about monsters. Then I heard noises in the corridor, like a fight. I went out to find blood on the floor and Ian unconscious. He woke up and started shooting wildly, nearly hitting Ketefe and myself. I left Ketefe and Jeremiah watching him. Now we need to get you over here with us and go find the others." The dragon began looking at the web barrier strung across the hallway. "I do not see any particular magic on this. I believe it is only a physical barrier." She cautiously scraped at the point it attached to the wall with one claw. "Strong and sticky. It would be horrid to cut. Please step back a bit, Aisha. The area is going to get unpleasantly cold." The spell took a minute, but she soon had the center of the web frozen to the point where it became brittle. A quick hit and the web shattered as if it had been spun of glass. The slightly warmer bits at the edges stood like jagged metalwork decorations.
Ketefe walked up to Ian shortly after Mel left. She stooped next to him and examined his injures. "Who am I kidding... I don't know what to do for this kind of thing. Where's Rynkura when you need her?" Before she could get a response to her rhetorical question, a little butterfly flew in front of her and a voice in her head (that sounded a little like Bam) told her in riddle-speak to go to the library. She decided to wait and see if Jeremiah would get one before going.
Shortly after her view was obscured and Keaton felt her flesh and fur lacerate, Keaton felt her heart inflate unpleasantly, to the point she could nearly feel it touch her ribcage. Wind and air was evacuated from her lungs as she was slapped to the ground by Stygian's wing, her back slamming against the ground with a subtle crack. Nothing too severe, but Keaton assumed that the joint of her tail had been fractured, according to the rocky pain rocketing up her spine. Keaton twitched and groaned on the ground, thrashing about, tentacles fluctuating in-between their scythe-like forms.
On the floor, Keaton stared off into space, head lolling to the side as a strange, trance-like state came over her. Unconsciously, her eyes locked onto one of the places where her skin had been torn, just on the sinewy muscle of her arm.
Her pupil dilated.
She was bleeding. Just subtly, a thin maroon line of syrupy blood dripping from the shallow wound. One would normally be clinical, examining it and claiming it as no more than a superficial injury, but in Keaton's agitated state of mind, this only confirmed her paranoid belief that Stygian was going to kill her.
Especially when he was approaching her.
Keaton's pupils were merely pinpricks as she watched him advance on her, staring with an absolute sense of horror akin to that of a frightened, cornered dog's. Her scythe-tentacles tensed, muscles clenching, and the hand still, instinctually clutching Catastrophe's pommel gripped to the point her knuckles ached and she swore she felt a vessel in her blood pop. She wanted desperately to flee, to scramble onto her feet and run for her life, but she knew that they'd stop her somehow. He would pin her down, and they would kill her, by strangling her or cutting open her throat and watching her choke on her own blood or or or--
Keaton screamed. In a last-ditch effort for self-preservation, she swung the largest scythe she had conjured at Stygian, the crescent-shaped blade lengthening and turning pitch black with concentrated energy, sable spidering across the saffron until its entire body was a lusterless, atramentous shade. "BURN IN HELL!" Keaton screeched, clenching her eyes shut, "GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY--"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Bam has been pacing in the Library, and worrying about the others...
"Gina, Come on I think I hear Aisha earlier in the Hall. The sounds of battle have been too quiet for a while, and no one else has come around here. Beside with these windows, This may not be a good place to hold up." states the Fae.
Bam checks the Hallway outside of the Library. She thinks she can see Aisha way up the passageway toward the bedrooms. But it seem that just the wind..
PBH
"Bam...yeah, that sounds about right," Aisha replied to Mel with a sigh, trying to quell her frustration at the situation by scratching the back of her neck. Her ears pinned to the back of her skull, disapproving of Ian's actions with a snarl at her lip. "And I thought I heard gunshots too...messy and loud weapons. At least those two are accounted for. But there's still..."
The panthress cringed suddenly, as soon as a new disturbance seemed to rattle the walls and floor; as far as she could sense. But she hadn't time to think on it, while Mel spoke of the webbing that was keeping her away from her comrades; away from the fighting. At one point she thought of just burning a way through the webbing, but the ice dragon had thought of a better plan. She quickly obeyed and stepped back, watching intently as the strands quickly crystallized in the intense cold that she could feel flowing from beyond.
As some of it shattered, the panther smiled and brought out her Dragonblade...her most trustworthy sword would do for the rest of this job. Mindful of the cold, she stepped in. A quick flash of metal put an end to more of the icy silk, and also to that portion of the barrier. "Brilliant," she smiled to Mel with a slight shiver and walked past to where she could hear the others talking, replacing the blade in its sheath for the time being. "I'm certainly all for getting everyone gathered again. Dammit, I'm worried."
* * *
Meanwhile, on the same floor in another passage, Rynkura stopped alongside Cogidubnus and Sebastian as he paused to wave off the messenger butterflies of the Fae girl. The tigress shook her head with a slight chuckle while thinking of where it was appropriate to go. Certainly nobody wanted to risk breaking more of the library's shelves, anyway...
Then the next word uttered by the bat caught her ear, after a quick and silent search of their surroundings. Rynkura had probably sensed something too, but it wasn't apparent until it was brought to bear. Pain.
And then, an attack! The healer nearly jumped away when Stygian's back erupted into a wing...a tendril of shadows, rocketing down the hallway to capture a familiar face, having leaped from her place of hiding. Keaton's voice and face were twisted with malice and taint, which left Rynkura quite surprised and had herself quickly put up a shield of light while the bat had her tangled and thrown...the tiger could help with injuries, but first, an enemy had to be purged from a friend. That, I will be most glad to help with, her eyes narrowed.
Cog stood behind the bat, watching the strange interplay of glowing blue and shadow from behind his glasses, hardly moving at all. Both his hands rested on his sword, however, and underneath his shirt a white light seemed to project upwards, the glow penetrating just slightly through his shirt. He nodded quietly to the bat, one hand slipping into his jacket.
"Of course." he said, removing a little silver wolf's tooth. He rolled it in his hand for a moment before touching it to the pommel of his sword, a bit of smoke suddenly rolling of the endcap, and a bit of frost forming on the handguard further down. He took a tentative step forward, his movements so smooth as to be slow. He stayed behind the bat, his eyes never leaving the Jackal.
As the Jackal struck, Cog simply stood still - he wasn't close enough yet, and he couldn't try and crush it for fear of hitting the bat in front of him. He sucked in a breath, and reached into his jacket pocket yet again, searching for a little yellow coin...
As Aisha passed her, heading down the hall towards Ketefe, Jeremiah, and Ian, Mel reached out, placing her still frigid hand on the back of Aisha's neck. The panther let out an involuntary yelp, but Mel quickly apologized before she could do more, "Pardon, Aisha. But if the spider has returned we ca not make assumptions on who is an ally."
Stygian tensed as Keaton got to her feet again, and then nearly cringed when she screamed, ears flipping back immediately. His wings swept straight out and back as he dashed for the black blade coming for him. Claws flashed, and for a moment, there was stillness.
Keaton was thrust back into the wall to her side, another impact that stole more air from her lungs, before she could hear the hissing. The bat's hand, blackened and with claws like knives, held her scythe-tentacle in a solid grip, the darkness around it oozing and sending shivers of pain up Keaton's back. Stygian's fur was unnaturally pale, almost glowing with light in the darkness of the corridor, and his sharp-nosed face, with its gleaming black fangs and dark spheres for eyes, was pressed close to hers.
'
I already have,' he said, his voice a seething whisper. His other hand inched closer to her neck, and the jackal twitched with tension and terror as her tentacles wriggled and whipped futilely behind her.
The next second, Stygian was jerked to the side with a muffled cry, his wings spreading and his hands clutching at his face as something white snapped out and attached itself to it and tugged him back to the side hard. Out of the shadows a many-limbed figure leaped, bounding off the walls and stringing web behind her.
'Get them!' Sal cried out, extending her claws and pouncing toward Rynkura.
Just as Jeremiah was about to reply, Ketefe thought she could see something padding across the wall behind him, something that sent shivers up her spine, almost but not perfectly blending into the wall's coloration. Small but frighteningly large for a creature of its kind, if it truly was what she thought, it silently inched closer behind the frog, before stopping and rearing up a bit, its eight legs tensing...
Pinned to the wall, Keaton found herself utterly petrified by fear once more, her eyes locked inescapably on Stygian's shadowy visage. Pure terror engraved itself once more in Keaton's frantic features, her chest rising and falling intermittently with labored, uneven breaths, heaving oxygen sinking in and out of her throat as she heaved and felt what she assumed was an incoming panic attack lurking around her subconscious. As much as she knew it wasn't the time to succumb to crying and screaming and feeling herself seized by uncontrollable fear, she found it increasingly impossible to resist such animalistic urges. Keaton's hands tensed into fists, her tentacles flailed and writhed uselessly, the immense scythe captured in Stygian's hand attempted to thrash its way free, but failed, as it was overpowered--
--and as Stygian's throat neared her neck, Keaton shut her eyes tightly, felt the color disappear from her face, and prepared herself for inevitable death.
It did not come.
Instead, Stygian was swept off to the side, his grip loosening as he was knocked away from her. Keaton's eyes snapped open as she saw Sal--dash forward, commanding her once more. Admittedly, Keaton felt undeniably adrift without any orders to follow, having lost her sense of self-reliance with her newly-invading subservience. Feeling herself emboldened by this new command, she once more transformed her tentacles into blades and threw herself at the nearest target: Cogidubnus.
"You're the one who hurt her," Keaton snarled, a malicious smile etching itself along her toothy grin. "You'll be the FIRST TO DIE, you FUCKING WASTE!"
And with that, she spun around, swinging her bladed tentacles in a whirling dervish, aiming to sever Cog's upper torso from the rest of his body. Simultaneously, she gripped Catastrophe, preparing to swing it as a secondary attack if the assault failed.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"Hrah!" Aisha snarled, for she wasn't too far ahead in the hallway before she felt something akin to having fresh freezer-ice poured onto her neck. With her fur all on end, a hand instantly whipped up to cover the spot as she glanced back to Mel, hearing her quick apology. Of course, the confirmation that it was suspected the spiders were back only made the matter more dire.
Still, the panther spared a short laugh. "I'm not going to be able to turn my back on you guys, am I? But trust me..." The expression on her face turned serious, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she reached for something on her belt. "I'm not going to fall under that bruja's influence again, and under my watch, nor will anyone else."
The others could hear Aisha's voice as they came back down the hallway, the familiar light-enchanted bracer now locked on her right wrist. With the healing magic in its disposal, she could feel her headache instantly become masked as if vanishing...and it would hopefully prove useful in what she could feel was to come. Now why in the world didn't I think of that before?
"Greetin's," the panther waved as soon as she was within eye-distance of the trio in the hallway, with a bit of a bloody heap of a rat among them...and something else, as well, on the wall behind Jeremiah. She froze. "Ahm, muchacho? Behind you."
* * *
Rynkura kept the light barrier in front of her, inching back a bit as she watched the struggle between Stygian and Keaton, while the wolf quickly tried to prepare for helping to rid the succubus of the curse. A pity, she thought, Keaton had proven a good one to have introduced herself to...nobody deserving of such a fate, at least from the tiger's perspective.
And then the tide suddenly seemed to shift...no sooner had Sebastian about had her pinned, than in a flash something flung him away from the jackal. Her ears pinned, Rynkura caught the shape in an instant, zipping through the darkness and shouting the command "get them!" at the top of her lungs.
She had no time to look around...the spider woman was coming upon her...or would have been, if the tigress had more vigor than she looked to have. She swerved out of her path on one foot and with the momentum swung the brightly-glowing staff with the expertise of the swordswoman that she was, straight at Sal, likely landing a quick strike.
Whether or not it had hit, she stood out of her way and held her favored talisman in front of her with a defensive stance, her feet splayed and coiled muscles bunched, ready to be utilized again. "How rude, attacking an old healer," Rynkura drew out with an almost unimpressed tone...and then her stern features took on a more dangerous look, fangs nearly bared. In the right hand, the staff flared. In the left, a crafted spell formed between her claws. Old, yes...helpless, hell no.
"How am I an enemy? Any of the innocents?"
Cog was still standing behind the bat, golden coin in hand, when Sal returned and struck at Sebastian, dragging him towards her and springing for the healer. Cog grimaced, and when Keaton suddenly rushed at -him-, scythed tentacle arcing for his midsection and the Jackal screaming for his blood.
Cog sucked in a breath, oddly loud, and narrowed his eyes as he took a step forward, towards the Jackal cubi. His movements seemed oddly slow, and his eyes, though never seeming to look right at Keaton, seemed instead to look straight through her, and without wasting a single movement he flipped the coin in his hand into the air and grabbed at his sword.
In the darkness of the hallway, the sudden flare of the sun in miniature was blinding, and those not facing away or closing their eyes would be blinded by such a sudden illumination. Keaton hissed, turning her face away, and with the scythe a mere foot away from his body Cog broke the seal on his sword.
Smoking, frosted sliver arced upwards, Cog turning his hips and catching the scythe on the edge of his sword, and guiding it up and over and letting it slide off the edge. Flowing with the block, he twisted the sword over his head and cut forward, a silver arc passing through the tentacle attached to the scythe. The severed blade flopped for a moment before laying still.
Not taking a moment to pause, Cog rushed at the Jackal, hoping that the light and the pain would stun her long enough for him to remove the spider.
Rynkura's strike hit the spider squarely in the face, a loud crack signifying Sal's nose breaking. The spider didn't stop though, tumbling to her feet and merely snarling at the tigress for her comments. A strand of white shot up into the ceiling behind her as she bent her abdomen back and spun webbing quickly, and then she stretched four hands out against the tigress. Rynkura had only a moment's warning before four thick strings of web whipped out against her. The spider wove her hands around in a semicircle, tangling the things into a net that sprung at the tigress as she let them go, before hoisting herself up into the roof and scrambling against her.
On the other end of the fight, Stygian had finally ripped the tangle of web from his face, and snarled fiercely at Keaton as she battled Cog. His wings, easily filling out the corridor from side to side, swept forward as he moved closer, arcing his back and bending his knees, standing with his feet wide apart. But before he could do anything, the room erupted into blinding light.
In the burst of the holy flare, Stygian reflexively shut his eyes and threw his arms up before his face to shield himself, but he was still not quick enough to hinder the light from hitting his eyes for a few critical instants. He screamed at the burning sensation, a fiendish and inhuman sound, and felt it sting the rest of him like needles. His wings rippled violently before settling back in shape, drawing in as he hunched over and held his hands to his face, snarling. Sal was almost as stunned by the flare, yelping out and blinking intensely as her eyes blurred.
With her vision momentarily blinded by the unexpected flash of light, Keaton reeled back, hissing like a vampire affronted by a cross and using her unoccupied hand to shield her eyes. Judging by Stygian's scream, he had been affected in a similar way. Taking advantage of her vulnerability, Cogidubnus had moved swiftly, drawing his sword from its scabbard and swiping it through the air, severing the incoming blade from one of her tentacles with a loud, messy squelch and an even louder shriek from Keaton. The decapitated tentacle slumped, the scythe clattering to the ground. Instantly, it dissipated into nothing but nebulous, wispy energy, its once-tangible form oozing away until it was completely gone. The injured tentacle quickly withdrew into Keaton's body, leaking black ichor.
While one of her tentacles was wounded, it didn't entirely mean that the rest of Keaton's tentacles were useless. Just temporarily disabled until the other one recovered, which would take a little bit of recuperation. Controlling all of them would be difficult while her mind was still reeling from that one being disarmed. That was fine. While her tentacles were disarmed, leaving out the advantage of her overwhelming Cog with swiping dervishes of spiraling hacks and slashes, she still had Catastrophe.
A pained grimace still on her face, Keaton whipped forward the aforementioned mace, erubescent electricity and livid lightning crackling in preparation across the club's pommel. Concentrating, Keaton pinwheeled the mace around like a baton as though it were entirely weightless, fresh sparks of energy and lightning leaping and cracking like halos about its form, growing and growing in power. Keaton spun about, swinging the weapon, intending to attack Cog right in the chest. With him hopefully incapacitated, she would seize the opportunity to attack a stunned Stygian while her mistress was concerned with the old healer.
How proud she would be of her.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The way that the spider woman had acted to her questions--avoiding them altogether and simply concentrating her efforts on getting the tigress out of the way--added fuel to Rynkura's rising anger and gave her some insight to this creature. She cared nothing for the innocents. Manipulative, cruel, malicious, too confident. Spurned the chance for understanding.
Demon.
The tiger's expression hadn't softened at all from this revelation, but her fangs bared in a snarl thought to be too vicious on an old woman's face. The spell that was in her hand grew, a bright blue glow with the sound of humming coursing across the surface of her palm, as she kept a quick eye on the spider and the webbing that she started to spin. She held the staff outward, bringing up the shield of light again, and let loose the spell.
Small darts of light like thorns, each fast as an arrow, flew after the creature as it leaped into the ceiling and shot wove a net of webbing in return. Rynkura looked as if she was out of touch with the offensive magic, but she hoped with so many bolts to at least get one of the limbs and slice through the webbing...as the net flew at her, one more well-aimed shot was sent against...
And that was when the bright flash encompassed the room, momentarily blinding all of those present. The tigress too was caught in the light, and could hear as the others were in suit. The bat's scream, among various vocalizations of discontent from the others, was heard easily as she tried to jump away from the web's path, only for her leg to be caught in the net, teetering her off-balance just a moment...the rest of it could have been blocked by the shield. "What in blazes?" Rynkura snarled in frustration, trying to get her sight back, her magic still burning fierce and ready. The spider had been caught too, she knew it...!
Mel followed behind Aisha as they returned to where she had left the other three. She almost bumped into the panther as Aisha came to a sudden stop. Looking at the spot the two felines were staring at she saw the danger Jeremiah was in. She reacted with a freeze spell. It brushed Jeremiah's cheek before splashing across the wall behind him. The spider became a frozen sculpture glittering in an icy shell. "I will guess that means you are free of spiders, Jeremiah. Ketefe, please turn around so I can see your neck." Mel figured that the feline was dressed so minimally that a spider would have a hard time hiding.
Rushing at Keaton, Cog hadn't expected the Jackal to be so quick in recovering, and found himself charging straight into a haymaker-style swing. Her enchanted mace was sparking, and if it hit it was likely to break a couple of his ribs. Blocking was out of the question - Cog's sword, chilled as it was, would conduct electricity very well, likely with spectacular results. His face soured.
Best to simply not be there, then. Cog canceled his momentum as much as he could, and even as he moved forward he dropped to his knees, hitting the carpet with a thunk and sliding just slightly as he leant backwards. Castastrophe swung just in front of his nose, Cog feeling the wind and getting just a little bit of a shock as it passed. He grimaced at the shock, and wasting no time he simply stood in place and leapt forward again, tacking the Jackal cubi.
It was somewhat eerie being this close to the mind-controlled Keaton. The same face that had stared at him with a modicum of compassion not a few hours ago now looked at him with the purest hatred he had ever seen, her eyes fairly glowing with a zealous fervor to exterminate all of them.
They hit the wall and rolled, Cog struggling to reach the spider on the back of Keaton's neck, even as Keaton tried to bite and claw and kick him. Cog's sword rolled out of his reach, and Keaton's teeth were rather well planted in his shoulder. He growled, and grabbing the Jackal's neck he incanted a rhyming syllable under his breath - a moment later Keaton seized, electricity arcing through her body. Cog smelled something burning, and letting go he pushed the Jackal away.
He'd put quite a few amps through her. Enough to kill the spider, perhaps, or at least disrupt it's control for a moment. Cog stumbled over to his sword and grabbed it, turning back to the Jackal.
As Catastrophe grazed Cogidubnus's nose, Keaton let out a triumphant, howling laugh, feeling insanity seize her for that instant, satisfying moment. She had not succeeded in smashing his face in, yet, but she would, she would! She would, and it would be so wonderful! In the midst of these demented mental-ramblings, Keaton barely noticed Cog launch himself at her until it was too late, her laugh severing prematurely. Keaton felt Catastrophe tumble from her grip as the lycanthrope's body barreled into hers, both canines tumbling to the ground, Cog on top of her. The mace clattered to the ground, bouncing off of its pommel and landing heavily on its spiked head, one of its barbed protrusions embedding firmly in the floor.
Keaton cursed loudly, screaming her displeasure at the top of her lungs, and wasted no time in fighting back, thrashing and kicking and trying to force her tentacles to move. In response, her midsection and spine merely rippled erratically as they attempted to obey her mental commands, sending pain sparking and stabbing along her back. When she got no response other than that, she resorted to more barbaric methods, and sunk her teeth into Cog's shoulder once he had the audacity to lean forward, tangy blood spraying into her mouth.
As satisfying as this connection was, as well as the taste of Cog's blood, Keaton's victorious sensation didn't last for long. She felt his palm press to the nape of her neck and heard him chant a rhyming mantra under his breath, and, before she could do anything to intervene, something searing hot surged against her flesh. Unlatching her teeth from Cog's shoulder, Keaton let out a screeching scream as she felt the burning feeling lick away at her skin, almost believing that fire was eating away at her. Using that opportunity, Cog had pushed her away, leaving Keaton to roll away. She would've tried to do a backflip some distance away, but the hallway had limited space, and she simply felt too... sluggish to do so.
But it lasted for only a minute, as she forced it away and rose to her feet. Teeth and lips were stained with sanguinary red and her eyes were blazing with crimson fire, winding away in the abysmal black of her organic pupil and flickering away in the shell of her artificial eye, the glow of her fake eye-stone illuminating the slick blood subtly splattered on her lips. "That's it? That's all?!" she demanded, grinning maniacally. "That's your fucking trump card?! You really ARE pathetic!"
She took a step forward, baring teeth and fangs. If she couldn't use Catastrophe, she would rip the wolf-freak bastard limb from limb with her fangs alone. "Now, why don't you be a good boy, wolfie, and stay still and don't scream wh..." Uncontrollably, Keaton felt herself trail off, energy slipping from her reserves. Her foot stopped in the middle of its movement, almost as though every muscle in her leg had been petrified instantaneously. "Whi... while I..."
She never got to finish that. The sluggishness she had so unceremoniously ejected from her body before had returned triumphantly, smothering her remaining energy until it petered out of existence. Gripping her head, Keaton let out a pained, delirious groan, eyes, both real and fake, rolling in the back of her head...
...and collapsed, face-first, on the ground.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Jeremiah flinched as Mel's spell whizzed past, freezing the spider behind him. He turned and saw...
Mindspider, frozen in mid-lunge. I would've had me again in an instant, and I'd have turned on the others right before. And here this thing is, almost obscene, frozen in mid-attack forever...
In one swift motion he shattered the ice sculpture, face twisted into an ugly grimace as his hand slammed into the wall it had been on. Not happening again. Not ever. His face was back to normal when he looked back at Mel and Ketefe, however. Just good old Jeremiah, nothing to see here.
"Thanks Ketefe, Mel. I owe ya," the frog's attention finally returned to Ian, "Man, he's really out huh? We should get him into one of the rooms and out of the line of fire."
Still blinded by the former flash, Stygian scrambled to his feet, eyes closed in pain but his ears now tilted right forward. He might not have been able to see, but his ears were nearly as accurate as his eyes. With another growl, he swept his wings out, pitch-black tips sharpening, and advanced on the wrestling shapes. He soon regretted listening though, as another screech almost made him clasp his hands over his ears.
'
Get her down!' he snarled. '
Hold her! I can't see shit!' He staggered forward, dizzy but tense as a spring, ready to lash out aggressively at the slightest notion of retaliation from the spider or the jackal. When she spoke, he twitched, one wing rippling in its shape and almost striking out. She was that close. But he didn't get the chance to grab her before she fell, a dull thump signifying her defeat.
'
No!' The cry from behind Cogidubnus was almost unintelligible, wrenched with pain as it was. The next second the wolf was hurled against the wall as something struck him haphazardly in the shoulder and half ran, half stumbled past. Web stuck to him and anchored his arm to the wall. Sal threw herself over Keaton and against Stygian, claws fully extended and fangs bared wide, dripping poison.
Another sweep of air and a dull thump with a muffled crack in it, and the spider flew back and hit the floor in a messy pile, arms around her and her fur cut into a bloody mess of lacerations from Rynkura's attack. Drawing his dark wings in, Stygian exhaled and steadied himself against a wall with his hand, placing his other over his face. He couldn't see it, but both the tigress and Cog were somewhat strung and struggling with web.
'
Helldamnit... Get... Get that thing off Keaton... I can't see...' he said, sighing.
The very moment after Jeremiah had finished his sentence, a movement at the corner of his eye drew his attention, and something skittered across the floor. Mel felt something touch her frills, and on Ketefe's trousers...
Cog struggled with the webbing for a moment before seeing Sal hit the ground next to him, unmoving, and bleeding out onto the floor. He raised an eyebrow and looked to the bat, Sebastian's wings raised high and leaking darkness. He was holding his face, hand covering his eyes. Cog sucked in a breath, cursing softly, and then sighing as he took his free hand and began to cut himself down. The web crumbled more than cut underneath his chilled blade, and fairly quickly he was able to simply rip himself from the wall. He called out to the bat.
"I'll take care of it." he said, walking over to Keaton. He looked up at the bat, concern in his eyes. "Are you going to be alright?"
He flipped the Jackal over gently, and moved her hair out of the way to expose the spider stuck to her neck. Using the sword more like a match than a knife, he froze the spider slowly, breaking off the limbs as they solidified before finally and deftly removing the creature from Keat's neck.
He stood, dropping the mindspider on the floor, and then stabbing it, then leveraging the blade to crisp it in two. He kicked the pieces away, and then swung the sword in a tight arc, trying to sluice the blood off the blade. The blood mostly hung off in icicles.
Cog scowled, and instead merely left it in his hand, bending over to pick up a coin before turning to again regard the bat.
Jeremiah whirled toward whatever it was he saw and took one smart step forward. His shoe landed on three of the little beasts legs with a crunch, pinning it where it was. He regarded it for a moment, considering it as though it were a piece in a museum. Really, it says a lot about the maker. Probably started with a normal spider, and changed it for the purposes of mind control. Manipulated so that others may be manipulated. The least she could do is let the spider get something out of it, he twisted his heel a little, watching the arachnid writhe silently, I mean, it's body must be under constant strain anyway. Exoskeletons work for small things, but at a certain size the thickness of skeleton required would be too much weight to move around. It would either collapse or, if the exoskeleton wasn't that thick, actually fall apart over the course of a month, tops. If it's lucky. I almost feel bad for it, it's like-
Like the spider woman, on that couch in the library, sobbing her eyes out.
He raised his foot and stomped on the spider's abdomen, finishing it off. Luckily, he got distracted before he could continue that morbid line of thought.
"Ketefe! Mel! Look out!"
Aisha sighed with relief, sending a congratulatory nod to Mel at her quick work on the apparent mind-spider...though seeing the familiar thing again sent a shiver up the panther's spine. She reached to the sheath strapped to her back where the pommel of the holy blade met her cautious grip. So they had returned, along with their master...there was going to be hell to pay.
Sighing, she listened to Jeremiah's observation and glanced down at the unconscious rat, shaking her head. "The best thing would actually be to get him off the floor first," Aisha started, kneeling down to get a closer look...but then, she froze as something else caught her eye. Familiar and fleeting. Perhaps it was too much caution, but it was justified...and more so at Boog's sudden commotion, his foot finding the body of another one sneaking up on the group...
"And fast, guys," her voice had risen about a level, tired eyes with an amount of sleep still stuck in them wide open, looking around the floor for more of them and patting herself down. And she couldn't bear it if the friends that haven't been found were...also...
"Out of here. Now!"
* * *
A frustrated Rynkura had started to struggle through her webbing after her sight started to return somewhat, and after she could hear her darts finally impaling the skin of the spider woman and throw her away...leaving for the time being a very tense but agreeable moment to gather their breath. With her ears turned behind to hear the goings on with the succubus, the tiger patiently chipped away the bonds holding her leg to the floor with the short blade she had carried...yet it still left webbing clinging to her fur. That would be removed easily later.
Once done, the healer released a sigh and squinted, waiting for the afterimages the flash caused to completely vanish. "Everyone is alright?" she inquired, stepping carefully over to them, noting the position of Sal's body, and Keaton's disleveled state. "...And what to do with her?" The word was spat almost like a curse, gesturing with her staff to the arachnid.
Somewhere far away, in the very back of Keaton's mind, she thought she heard someone talking.
The sounds were garbled, every syllable nearly muffled and muted, something eerily dissimilar to what the jackal had experienced prior to her incapacitation. Distantly, she formed a semblance of remorse and desire, wanting desperately to return to that state of enhanced senses. Twitching, Keaton's fingers curled 'round in a fist, clenching in the ground as she obscurely felt fingers touch the nape of her neck after moving her hair out of the way. Something similar to glass shattering filled her head, piercing through the foggy silence clouding her mind.
Then, much to Keaton's terror, she found her head filled with, for that split second, an agitating, horrendous voice, shrieking and shrilling away, begging for its slave to come and rescue it just before its agonizing disintegration. It was not answered. Instead, with that tiny mental voice's pleading came terrible realization, realization which manifested in the hours of mind-enslavement she had felt, including all the words and events which had gone unchallenged which had happened.
"You really are a deceitful little bitch, aren't you?"
Bloodied teeth grit together, a gravelly snarl building up in the back of her throat. The hand which had been gripping the ground curled up into a tense, pallid fist, the opposite hand bracing the ground as Keaton tried to force her body into motion. Her eyelids slowly cracked open, remnants of dying red light fading out of existence from the pit of her pupil, while her new eye automatically restarted itself, flooding its insides with suffusing gold. Rage, terrible, burning rage, swept through Keaton's veins like scathing hot fire, painting her vision a seething scarlet.
I'm NO ONE'S bitch.
Without realizing it, Keaton had forced her upper body up, bracing herself with her arms, struggling to move her aching, trembling, semi-trapped body into full momentum. Again she snarled, louder than before, a look of pure anger engraved on Keaton's black-streaked maw. It almost made the look of insanity which once held dominion over her features unintimidating in comparison, maybe even making some believe that she was still possessed. Such an assumption, however, would be dispelled with the next words Keaton spoke, each word forced out, saturated with fury.
"Who... IS THE WHORE... who DID THIS TO ME?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
'Yeah. I'll be fine. Just give me a while to recover...' Stygian said, pinching the top of his muzzle and rubbing his eyes. He stood straight, and slowly walked over toward the others, stopping a few steps from Keaton. His wings furled to his back, somehow seemingly decreasing in size while still taking on a much more tangible quality, just as the unearthly glow to his fur and the demonic quality of his voice had slowly faded. He couldn't see much but a blur, and his other sight was still quite jarred, but he easily understood who Rynkura was referring to. 'She's no use as hostage. Not with the old man.' He considered for a moment. 'But we shouldn't kill her. We have to secure her somehow.' That would be easier said than done though, given the spider's strength. And they still had to find the others. Fortunately, at least to Stygian restraining Sal and carrying her along wouldn't be too much of a problem.
Keaton stirred, and for a second Stygian tensed again, before twisting his ears back at her furious voice. His eyes narrowed. 'Could you say that again, a little louder, please?' he said, scathing sarcasm in his voice, before walking over and putting his back to a wall. 'From the way you fought one could almost have thought you liked it.' His tone was only half joking, and though his eyes were unfocused his face still held a tangible look of cold disapproval as he gazed down at the jackal. There was something quite unsettling about the whole thing, in his opinion.
There was no use in standing around though, and as Keaton looked ready to pounce and throttle the spider any second, Stygian felt the stress even more. 'We have to find the others. I think I felt something downstairs. Their rooms?' he said. If they could all gather up, then perhaps they could engage the old man and his companion before they had a chance to do something.
With the spiders foremost in her mind the brief touch excited an immediate response in the dragon. A rapid temperature drop had wisps of fog dancing around her, glittering ice crystals sparking the cottony curls. Mel reached up to where she felt the tickling touch atop her head and grabbed the sluggish and dying spider. Another moment's work had it frozen enough to crush to dust.
Aisha's suggestion to get moving was an excellent idea. Mel reached down and took Ian by one shoulder, "Someone get his other arm." The frigid air around her would be unpleasant to the others, but should keep the spiders at a distance. "Do you have a destination in mind, Aisha?"
At the sarcasm in Stygian's voice Keaton bristled, noticeable shock blazing across her face before rage settled back in, teeth gritting and fists clenching as she forced herself to her feet, fueled and motivated only by fury and the sheer indignation of everything that had been said. "You--YOU--WHAT!?!" she shouted, looking seriously affronted.
She didn't even stop to consider any of the damage she had done during her possession. According to Stygian she had, indeed, fought, and in the past she had been remorseful once she was released from control, but this time... this time it was too much. This indignity was not going to be ignored. She would not stand for this. The spider bitch had gone too far this time. Too infuriated to come up with a decent retort to Stygian's statement, she merely stormed past him, furiously neglecting to inspect the expressions or reactions of everyone else. Sal had to be here somewhere--
Bingo. She saw the spider-woman slumped against the wall, looking battered and bedraggled. Victoriously, a vicious smirk lurked across Keaton's bloodstained lips, and she clenched her fists even tighter, to the point she felt her fingernails pierce her skin and blood spill from around the punctures. There was no hesitation. With a roar Keaton pulled back her fist and swung it forward, intending to smash her knuckles right into Sal's bruised face.
And she would keep going. And she would not stop.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog's face softened somewhat at Keaton's sudden tirade, the wolf looking away from her for a moment to the spider-girl bleeding out on the carpet. He watched Sal for a moment, musing, and turned back to the bat, raising an eyebrow.
"Don't kill her?" he said, pausing for a moment. He raised one eyebrow. "Last time we didn't kill her, it bit us in the ass. She's no good as a hostage, and she wants..." Cog sighed, and simply shook his head. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Cog turned to regard the spider woman again, and Sebastian began speaking to the Jackal, inflaming her further. Cog sighed, spending a moment trying to fling the frozen, bloody icicles off his sword, and Keaton suddenly lurched upright and flung herself at Sal, the rage in her eyes leaving no questions as to her intentions.
Cog stood there for a second, debating the merits of stopper her, and sighed. Before Keaton reached the injured spider, Cog grabbed her shoulder.
"Keaton." Cog said, trying to keep his voice steady. In his mind, he knew Keats had been controlled, but not two moments ago the same body had been doing it's best to try and kill him. It tended to make one nervous.
He spoke softly. "I'd like to see her dead too, Keats. But not now." Cog nodded his head back at Sebastian. "Sebastian wants her alive. You want her dead. We can debate the merits of killing her later. We need to move. There's more than just her crawling around here."
Still frantically searching about, relieved when Mel and Jeremiah managed to get rid of their own spiders, Aisha tried to calm herself down long enough to help the dragon lift the rat from the floor. For all of this trouble, he had better be grateful for the help... the panthress thought grumpily. At most, they could all walk away from the castle with quite the paranoia of spiders. The adventurer wondered if she'd live that down.
"Destination? Hum..." Aisha murmured in reply to Mel, her mind frantically dashing through the stored memories of the castle's rooms. She had just come from downstairs...the library was out of the picture perhaps, as was many of the other rooms, but they couldn't stay there...but she had come up to search for the others...and then there was the disturbances from one floor above. If anyone were to be there...but the injured rat...it would be easier to carry him downstairs...but the strangers...
The panthress growled with frustration and halted the arguing between choices. There were too many openings, too many chances. "I can't think. But...let's just go, quickly, and hope that we don't run into any more webbing..."
And then, the noises seemed to stop again. It felt like it kept coming and going at intervals. But if they could find an ally...and, too little beneath her notice, Aisha's tail ring had a slow and steady glow to it...if only her tracker could detect identities as well as dark energy within someone. She could only hope that it was Stygian, somewhere near.
The bat sighed again. 'Yes, I know it's a hassle, but bear with it, okay? She's not our primary source of worry. Finding the others are, before the...'
Something shook the castle. Not a tremor, or a sound, but rather something else, something that made the already faint lighting of candles flicker and the thick shadows shift. The atmosphere, already heavy and livid, almost pulsated. And for a moment everyone, both those upstairs and the party beneath, felt as if a shadow cast over their souls.
When the lighting settled and the world didn't seem so distant anymore, what was left was an almost silent darkness, just as before, but now with a growing sensation of presence to it, as if something were watching them all from out of the shadows.
'Oh, shit...' Stygian said, eyes wide and his gaze far away. He, more than anyone, was familiar with the phenomenon. 'Too late for that then.' He looked up at Cogidubnus and Rynkura. 'We're running out of time. We have to move.'
Before Keaton could find twisted satisfaction in the first, inevitable blow she had prepared for Sal's face, she found a tense hand rest on her shoulder, gripping it slightly. Agitated, Keaton whirled her head 'round, staring at Cog from over her shoulder. That borderline insane look of anger still remained planted on her features, exacerbated by the combination of not only Sal's actions and her possession, but Stygian's scathing words as well. Both of them would fucking pay for it. Both of them. She didn't care if Stygian was stronger than her or if he could strike her down easily, she just wanted to kill something.
As tempted as she was to lash out at Cogidubnus, she did not. Somehow she found herself strangely hurt that he was apprehensive of her and how easily all the uncharacteristically compassionate exchanges between them had been discarded in the midst of their skirmish, and it was that which kept her from whirling on Cog and chewing him out. Instead, she let her shoulders sink in their sockets, a look of resignation on her face as she stared angrily at Sal.
One day, that whore was going to pay.
"I'm no one's whore," Keaton repeated numbly under her breath, voice devoid of passion. Quiet, but still loud enough to hear, numb and dead. "I'm... I'm nobody's bitch. Fuck you, Sebastian. JUST FUCK YOU. I didn't fucking... I didn't..."
He didn't seem terribly concerned with her, however, because he was staring off into the distance, looking nothing short of shocked. He stared at Rynkura and Cogidubnus, Keaton brusquely noting that he seemed to be deliberately ignoring her. At the moment Keaton was too enraged to give a damn, but in the near future the aftershock would come to emotionally kill her. Especially since she couldn't shake the feeling that she had been nothing but a detriment since she arrived at the Castle. Before they left, Keaton threw a callous glance at Sal from over her shoulder and then spoke under her breath:
"I'm going to rip that bitch's soul out of her fucking body."
And then she left with the rest of them.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
This is wait was getting to the Fae, the others were not come to the library, and something else came to her.
"Gina? Where is the most defendable large room in the castle? The Grandball room or The Cathedral?
***Wait*** This battle maybe meant to distract us for the really objective. What would our evil friends want? Will the portal painting be Okay? " Asks Bam when the whole castle shakes under her feet.
"Oh Pixelate Protons, Gina, who would reopen the Hellgate?" says a wide eye Bambi as she starts to run to the door on her way to the gate painting
As of this moment, I freaking HATE spiders.
Just when she had thought maybe they'd be safe for a little while, a spider had tried to attack Jeremiah. Thank goodness Mel had come back, with Aisha. That spider had been frozen by the dragon. Ketefe stood agreeably and lifted her hair when Mel asked to see if her neck was spider-free.
And then even more of them had come. Mel killed one, and Jeremiah too. But then Ketefe was distracted by the feel of eight skittery little legs on her shorts...
"Yeek!" she screamed, jumping about a foot when she saw yet another little monster crawling around on her leg. She snatched it off with her left hand, pulled out her sword with her right, and sliced the stupid thing in half.
"Ughh. I hope that's the last of them. How did they come back?" She walked over to help Mel lift up Ian. She was starting to regret her choice of attire, because Mel had made the air around herself very chilly.
"My g-guess is that we didn't finish the job last time. The queen bug got a-away," Jeremiah replied, his amphibious constitution already reacting badly to the cold, "Th-there's probably more. Let's get the hell out of h-here." He smeared his shoe along the floor once to get the remains of the spider off. "I c-covered my tracks with an illusionary trap on my w-way up here. It wont effect us, but we might bump into anyone who st-stumbled into it. Pr-probably b-b-be best to find another way down." He pulled his ragged tweed coat a bit closer around himself and blew into his cupped hands, "Aisha, y-you're what we m-might call the senior adventurer here. W-where would you suggest we g-go?"
Ian's head lulled back onto Mel's shoulder pcking him up brought him back....sorta. She could see just how jacked up he was in his eyes. thet looked tired and confused.
Keaton's glare was scalding, but Stygian was too worried to mind much. If their foes were doing what he felt as if they were doing, then they were all in danger indeed. Stygian himself was far better off than the others in the face of such a scenario, true. But there were other sorts of dangers too, and if anything he felt that finally defeating the old man would be useless, should his new companions be lost in the procedure. Frowning hard, the bat turned and walked over to the unconscious spider, crouching down and lifting her over his shoulders. Adjusting his burden, and trying not to mind the scent or feeling of fresh blood on him, though the sudden tension to his breaths betrayed that he was not doing it as easily as it might have seemed, he started walking behind Keaton who had taken point, her back stiff and her eyes unfalteringly forward, keeping close and as watchful as he could with his still shocked senses.
The sensation of darkness, of watchful evil and of thought-numbing terror slowly heightened as the group paced into the darkness. The silence of before still lay heavy, broken only by their own careful steps. But still, as they moved carefully forward, at intervals it seemed as if the tension in the air took on a different quality, almost forming...
sounds... where there should not have been any. Whispers that might have been the wind through windows and ventilation became other kinds of whispers in their ears.
As they entered a tall-roofed side-hall, a sudden wind that snuffed out the lit candles along the wall close to them and prickled their skin startled Keaton to a yelp and made the others snap their heads around, watching tensely. The breath-like sound of it more than anything was enough to make their fur stand on end. For a second, it sounded as if someone, far, far off, was crying.
'
We just need to go down those stairs and left, and we're practically at their rooms,' Stygian said a few moments later, to break the silence that had come over them more than anything.
They went on, but couldn't shrug the feeling that whatever had happened was only the hint of the real danger to come.
With the wavering, will-o-the-wisp-like light of Aisha's tailring for guidance, she and the others made their way through the darkness of the castle, broken intermittently by the amber, almost unearthly light of lamps and candles. Avoiding walking through the web and formerly blocked passage, they instead headed toward the west wing, intending to avoid who- or whatever Sal had brought back with her and which had probably set off the sudden, unnatural fear that had gripped the place. Shadows played along their way, the dark vaults of the ceilings looming above them and making them feel all the more exposed as they carried the rat along with them.
When they came to the end of the corridor, they found themselves in a round three-story hall, tall and narrow windows on the sides. They seemed to be at the base of one of the towers of the castle. The stone floor was smooth, save for a large trap door off to one side of it, and relatively undecorated.
A sudden creak caught them all off guard, but turned out to simply be a rough chandelier hanging above swinging slowly on its chain. The raven on Aisha's shoulder peered suspiciously at it, craning its neck and tilting its head, keeping still and silent as a statue when she stopped. The panthress could only regard it for a second though, before a short flare of emerald light brought her attention to her tailring again. The flare flickered and died down a bit, but for a second it had been almost as bright as when she was directly near Stygian.
'
...Cabre...'
The sudden whisper almost made Aisha gasp. Yet somehow, none of the others with her reacted.
Keaton stood where she was when Stygian lifted Sal and slung her over his broad shoulders, eyes narrowing darkly and the gold light pulsating within her seemingly translucent false eye sparking dangerously, a clear indication of her smoldering anger. As tempted as she was to shove Stygian off to the side and snap Sal's neck right then and there, or better yet, follow up her threat to rob the arachnid-woman of her soul, she curbed this desire and stormed after everyone else when they left, not bothering to conceal her rage. To hell with everyone else, she wanted them to know she hated this, that she didn't enjoy being used as that bitch's mental plaything.
Unconsciously, with Keaton's brooding, she seemed to have picked up speed due to the vehemence in her stride, placing her at the head of the group. Behind her she could vaguely feel Stygian's blistering presence, only instigating her ire further. As though to demonstrate her displeasure, Keaton's posture remained unkempt, exuding palpable waves of red rage. Deep down, she started to think, taking advantage of a sudden lapse in her seemingly unrelenting wrath to wonder what had scared him so much. Stygian didn't seem like the type who was easily frightened, so this must have been something of an enormous magnitude.
Simultaneous to the moment that ponderous thought crawled lethargically through her mind, she realized that there were eerie, ephemeral sounds beginning to surround them, originating intermittently from unknown sources--they seemed to bounce back and forth the instant Keaton determined where they were coming from, making their presence all the more unnerving. Only exacerbating this came the whistling gust of wind which swept through the hall, the flames of the candles dying on their wicks and the molten wax petrifying in their tracks.
Hypersensitive, Keaton released an unexpected yelp as the wind snapped at her skin, making it bristle beneath her pinpricked fur. She was quick to rectify this outburst, gripping her mouth with the palm of her hand and gazing around, uneasiness steadily seeping into her expression as she realized the distant, ghostlike echo of a weeping voice. Stygian gave them their orders, and Keaton begrudgingly obeyed them, finding it hard to abandon her indignation towards him, but driven mostly by knowing how impudent it would be to trail away during such tense times, and the unconscious sensation that something was dreadfully, dreadfully wrong.
Her hand tensed around the pommel of Catastrophe, which she had retrieved before she left.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Observing the way Keaton had reacted when she stood up, Rynkura only really kept to the background, quiet and watchful. It was more than understandable, the succubus's anger rising to a deadly level. But yet she agreed with the others; it was no time yet to take on revenge. For with Sal out of commission for the time being, the very castle...the air around them, the chill, the lights, the darkness...all were starting to converge slowly into a nightmarish feel. It didn't take any longer than the others for the tigress to notice it. The presence was undeniable.
She watched as Sebastian gathered the arachnoid up, the three of them starting out into the halls. The healer said nothing to Keaton, but once in a while she cast the jackal a look that seemed akin to apologetic for what she had to suffer. Rynkura through the trip just felt like being silent...but on the way the temptation for that to change was rising. The feeling of malice with each step was growing and trying to wrap their minds...along with the sounds and breeze it brought to chill their bones, and sounds that could disturb the ears of the sensible.
It was easy for the disguised Angel to suppress the feelings of fear; for she's had sensations like this before...and whenever the lights went down, there was still the soft glow from her staff to illuminate their footsteps. Her own worry was how the others would take it. In fact, though she had confidence in her student, even Aisha would be prone to doubt.
* * *
Aisha drew her cloak around herself as the group picked the rat up with a bit of ease, protecting herself from the sudden biting cold that Mel emitted from herself...even more so because she was very close to her. When they started, she glanced back to the shivering frog with a sigh, quirking her eyebrow. "Senior adventurer, huh? Thanks for that, muchacho...but like I've answered Mel, I don't really know where to go--"
Her thoughts were interrupted by the glow on her tail ring, which caught her eye and made her realize that it was reacting a little more as they kept to that direction. "Let's follow my tracker, it's the best thing we have to a lead. With the best of luck it may in fact lead us to Stygian."
But as they walked, the rising, encompassing feeling didn't escape her nerves either, nor any of the others. Aisha tried to ignore it, focusing on other distracting things like the intensified cold in the room, or whether the emerald brightness on the ring rose and fell. But even with distractions, it was still finding a way to gain her attention, with the shadows playing their mind games across their eyes. What once became as unnerving as getting caught in the dark became the fear that they would be swallowed in it.
Aisha in particular couldn't place what this kind of feeling meant. Mingling with the fact that the spiders had returned, it was like an untrained mind would be, on the verge of rushing to jump the nearest window if at all possible. But still her concentration, like the proverbial walk through Hell from before, was proving to be nigh unshakable.
And that was when her ring led them to what seemed like a dead end...a rounded chamber with tall windows overlooking the travelers in their scene. Where in the world...?
"Mierda..." she started to say, but the creaking of the old chandelier above interrupted her, as well as the fact that she hadn't noticed the raven perched on her shoulder until then...who knew when it had appeared. But she was used to the bird's strange nature by now, and was somewhat relieved of its presence. She reached up to stroke its feathered back and sighed to the others. "Right, maybe we should turn a..."
Aisha never finished the sentence, halting in her words and her tracks with a gasp. The others might have seen a very perplexed look in her eyes, ears pinned straight back. "Who...? What was that...?" she murmured, not noticing whether the others had heard it or not. She even glanced to the raven in questioning, as if it was he who had whispered.
She had noticed the flare in her tail ring, glowing brightly though nobody else was there.
And in her eyes, there also laid a sudden...fear. And how did it know my real last name...?
Cog walked along with the others quietly, his ears perked and his eyes constantly roving about the hallways they traversed. Soft, quiet sounds seemed to emanate all around them, and though Cog's ears were sharp, they seemed only within the edge of hearing. He kept his hands near his sheathed blade, his footfalls quiet.
He remembered this sensation quite well. The darkness seeming almost palpable, the distant sounds of pain and torment, not quite loud enough to be sure of...not too long ago, the entire castle had been such. Cog's faced soured, and he adjusted his glasses as he continued on, tapping his left ear once.
He watched Keaton as she stormed ahead of everyone, her distress and anger evident with her every move. Cog sighed, shaking his head slightly, his eyes a little sad. He felt bad for her - he hoped she realized none of them blamed her for acting as she did under magical domination. Although...that didn't really seem to be why she was upset. Being controlled didn't seem to sit well with the succubus. He blinked, looking softly at the succubus for a moment longer before scanning the halls again.
As they entered into the larger hall, however, the sudden wind had him sucking in a breath, both hands on his sword and one leg sliding back. The lights in the room suddenly dimmed, the glowing blue outlines of the others becoming more prominent in the sudden darkness. He paused for a moment, waiting for something to appear, or something to make itself apparent, when the distant sound of crying permeated the hall. Cog's expression turned dark, and he silently stood straight again and began walking up towards the others.
He nodded at Sebastian as he indicated the way to go, and followed the others towards the stairway to the left.
Mel wished they had time to see to Ian's head injury, but finding the others and keeping away from the spiders was a greater priority. It worried her that all their hands were occupied with moving the rat and they would be unable to defend themselves quickly. When Aisha decided they would follow the flashes of her tailring to find Sebastian Mel dimmed the ball of light she had following her to let the panther see the flashes more accurately. The darkness, lit only by the green glowing gem and the infrequent lamps, seemed to flow down to enclose them like swathes of black satin. She didn't have the strongest nerves at the best of times and was getting increasingly jumpy, which was hard on her companions as she tended to get colder the more nervous she became.
Eventually the corridor ended in a tall, bare room. It seemed out of place compared to the luxurious rooms they had left at the other end of the hall and seemed to contain far more of the ominous atmosphere. "Do we head back? Or down?"
...
The two men paced slowly down the tall-roofed corridor, neither an inch ahead or behind of one another. The bat's eyes glowed a dim red, while those of the panther next to him gleamed a putrid green.
'They destroyed the chamber that was here before, but that is of no consequence. The darkness is everywhere.' the older man said, his staff clacking slightly on the floor as he walked. 'It will be a pleasure to see this place finally desecrated beyond all saving.'
'Whatever you say, old man. I just want to finish this.' The feline looked sideways at the shorter man. 'And while I would appreciate more information, you don't have to tell me anything. So long as things go as you have said.' There was more than a little bit of scorn in his tone.
'They will,' the bat almost snapped back at him. 'You may leave now if you wish. I care not. But after having come this far, I would expect you to trust me just a little further than that.' At this, the panther only snorted, and returned to walking, keeping his measured stride and dark calm.
The two men arrived at a pair of large and heavy arched doors that had stood closed since their first opening in a century and a half only days before, and swung them open with ease, entering the ruined chapel of the castle. The cracked columns and toppled benches were still as they had been left after the fight, scattered and broken on the floor, the scarred statues still standing with arms missing and wings broken in a solemn guard, observing silently. As they entered, one by one, the candles throughout the great hall flickered to life as if to greet the two, casting dim light along the midship of the chapel but doing nothing to abate the shadows that encroached upon them on each side. The place seemed to tower far taller and broader than it had, even when the adventurers came there the first time.
Unconcerned, the two made their way up toward the altar, where the elder one walked up while the panther waited. Stretching out his hand as if to warm it above a fire for a moment.
'It is here,' the bat said, his eyes nearly aflame. 'Just below. But only hidden.' His face tensed, and his eyes contracted into fiery slits. 'I will open it up.'
Although noticeably unnerved by the gust of wind which had breezed through, Keaton found that the aftershock did not linger, only present in the slightest pinpricks bristling against her skin. It wasn't like her to let something so insignificant affect her so much, but it was just so... unpredicted. Out of place. Ethereal. As though something invisible were secretly chasing her down, dwelling privately in the shadows, and preparing itself for attack. Considering all that had occurred and the fact that there were apparently others accompanying Sal, this was quite a plausible paranoia.
Keaton followed the directions Stygian had given, managing to keep herself from falling behind. She remained at the front, a controversial decision, as part of her subconscious grappled with the other about how vulnerable she would be at either end of the gathering. Rounding a corner, Keaton craned her head to the side, staring numbly at the people behind her. Oddly enough, she felt strangely tense when her back was exposed to them, as though they could seize the opportunity and attack her at any moment.
Not everyone's like you, a harsh little voice in the back of her head reminded her. Keaton merely rolled her eyes to the side, purposely ignoring the gazes of everyone else as she continued trudging onwards.
Anger had subsided somewhat, or at least enough to allow some rational thought. Yes, she wanted Sal to die, still. Yes, she was still upset at this violation. And with her upset state came terrible thoughts, slithering their way into the back of her head. This was the third time she had been possessed by another creature. The first time she had been too stunned to properly react. The second time, by the Mythos, she had been too overwhelmed by shame and guilt to feel enraged. This time, however...
It really did confirm her suspicions that she was nothing more than a detriment, a lackluster and decadent fighter, a useless waste, especially if she bowed down to Sal so easily. Letting herself be enraptured by superficial sensations... what kind of warrior was she? For a split second, emotional pain flashed across Keaton's features once she recalled everything which had happened, and she felt fury rise up again, replacing the horrible guilt. Enough to make her charge back, grab Sal's head, and slam it face-first into the wall.
Everything--every emotion--turned to anger with Keaton in the end.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Mel realized Ian was shivering uncontrollably where she was holding him up. He'd be dead of hypothermia before his other injuries at this rate. There was also the problem of getting him down the ladder if they chose the path offered by the trapdoor. "Aisha. I think we should stop for a moment so I can see if I can heal Ian. We can not go forward with him like this." She guided the group toward the side of the room and lowered her part of the burden to the floor. Once he was laid out the dragon knelt at his head and began searching out and working to fix the rat's injuries, trusting the others to warn her if any danger was approaching.
Hearing Mel, Aisha shook herself out of her stupor and looked down at her feet, bringing her hands up and crossing them to lightly grasp the upper portion of her arms. Her observation had been correct; nobody else had heard what she did. But if they didn't...what was it? A trick caused by the paranoia that the shadows threatened to bring? Did she really hear someone whisper her name?
...I've almost lost it, she just realized, or told herself to realize. The castle hadn't felt like this since the angel had been destroyed and the influence dispelled; it was hard to get used to again. But she turned back to the group sitting around...Ketefe, Jeremiah, and Mel working on Ian's injuries in this crossroads. As good a place as any to pause, the base of a tower. The frog's commentary had been a little on the side of humor, but it was right. As an adventurer, she felt suddenly like an unofficial leader...and she wasn't acting like it. At least she would see to help in protecting those who weren't well-versed in battle...that very thought helped to regain her composure.
"Alright, we'll rest a minute," she finally said and nodded to Mel, crossing her arms and pacing across the floor. "I'll help keep watch. And then, if he can walk...I think I know where we're going."
Aisha peered down the hall, and back again, testing the glow of her tail ring...eyes narrowing. What irony.
* * *
They traversed between floors silently...the succubus's anger and hatred for the creature that Stygian was carrying practically reflected on the surroundings and the tension in the air. At least it helped to curb the emotion of fear and distress, keeping it from even thinking about surfacing in the determined group.
It was when they were finally at the second floor that Rynkura started to keep in step with them, her ears listening for familiar sounds and other senses tuned to search. There were rooms...presences, scents...but it all seemed empty and lingering. A trail. A tap of her staff sent a wave of light magic through the floor, quick and undetectable, save by her.
"I may be mistaken," her soft and deep voice cut the ethereal silence almost as well as it could, after a moment of analyzing what the magic sonar of sorts brought back. "But I don't think the others are here any more."
The presence of a lingering cold in the air, melting ice nearby, and...?
...What was left of a partially shattered, partially standing wall of webbing through much of the hallway, making for quite the features for the walls: decorative, jagged surfaces of glittering ice and crystallized string. What to make of this...?
The irritated quartet (quintet really, but none of them was prepared to count Sal among their own numbers) had reached the rooms formerly occupied by their companions, only to find them empty, and Stygian could do nothing but sigh. A faint smell of gunpowder lingered in the cool air, and the cracked and torn web down the hallway spoke of what had happened earlier. But there was no sign of where the others might have went.
'Alright...' Stygian said after a few moments' observation. 'So much for sticking together. Cog, can you smell where they've gone? I think someone shot a gun here, but I'm really not that sure if I can follow the trail.' His sight was getting better, but he could still not make out things as clearly as he should have been able to. Makes one consider sacrificing sight altogether sometimes... he thought. Maybe I'd enjoy complete clairsentience, who knows? 'Or does anyone here know any communication spells? Keaton, you're cubi. Try and hear their thoughts. If everything else fails, I can try and sense them through the dark-'
Suddenly, the light in the corridor faded, until even Stygian's eyes could make out nothing but black.
'-ness...' he finished, after a second's pause.
Cog twitched as the lights simply went out, standing stock-still as his hand draped across his sword hilt. A soft glow cast from behind his glasses onto his nose, the blue glow of his companions emanating out from the magic-seeing lenses and illuminating a bit of his nose. In the sudden, total darkness, their outlines were all he -could- see.
Besides that, he saw nothing else. Rynkura's staff, Sebastian's entire body, save what was blocked out by Sal's unconscious body, and Keaton's wavering outline, complete with a shining, beaconing glow from one of her eyes. Unless their opponent wasn't magical at all, Cog didn't see anyone else with them. Sniffing the air, he found it unlikely they were simply natural either. Neither sight nor scent revealed anything but the four of them. And the spider.
Navigating forward carefully, he passed the bat and knelt down to the floor. "Yes." he said, moving to where their scents were strongest. "Just follow the little white light." Cog murmured, smelling past the acrid scent of gunpowder and fear to the other, lighter smells that permeated the area. Mel's somehow cold scent, along with the smell of the panthress and Jeremiah, and another smell he didn't recognize had turned away from the torn webbing up ahead to pass through another hallway, headed deeper into the Castle. Cog sighed, stood, and began walking over to the hall, fishing a small glowing piece of silver out from the front of his shirt.
"Unless someone can make a light, of course. This isn't a lantern, after all..." Cog said, and waited for the outline of the others to start following.
A short, ragged sound, almost like a gasp, was all the warning they had before it broke loose. The castle seemed to draw breath, and when it finally exhaled, a rattling and hollow sound, the air flared, as if twilight had returned to the place to haunt the night. The ground trembled under their feet, and the next second they bathed in fiery light as symbols and lines rippled past over the walls and disappeared in waves, scribed in fire. Strings of unreal flame lashed through the walls as if they were no more material than the air around them. And amid the flames, ghastly... shapes... appeared. Voices hissed and whispered everywhere close by and screamed in the distance. Even as the initial shockwave subsided, some of the light and fire still remained.
'Holy shit!' Stygian snarled, ducking out of the way of something closely resembling a skull of faint fire, passing his head. On his back, the spider was mumbling. 'Rynkura! Protect us!' he shouted, backing up against the others. 'I have my hands full for the moment!'
The sudden worsening of their situation was even more apparent to the other party. Even closer to the source of the evil, they were nearly swept off their feet by the shockwave. When things started taking shape around them, the terror that came welling up was enough to make them want to bolt straight out, to turn and not look back and run until their legs gave out. Worst of all was the shapes that seemed to manifest partially in the fire, rushing through the stone walls as if it were nothing. One of the things, a horrid thing nearly resembling the rib cage, skull and arms of a skeleton, passed through Aisha's leg, and the sudden burning and twitching made her stumble and drop to the floor. The voices tugged at their minds even stronger now, whispers and crying in all kinds of languages, a cacophony of distant howls, all just as pained or malicious.
Want... lost... There can't...! Must... Want out...! We are here... Oh God...! Help... please... Hurts...!
Feeling rather resigned, Keaton stared blankly at the empty room which was once occupied by their friends, sighing and rolling her eyes in defeat. She pressed her fingers to her temple, trying to fight away the immense headache that was starting to envelope her brain, palpitating waves of red coalescing irritably through her mind's eye. Great, she grumbled internally, just great. Now what are we going to do?
Stygian answered that mental question a moment later, instructing that she use her mind-reading powers to detect her companions' nearby presences. Although she rarely ever resorted to mind-reading, so her abilities were very neglected and possibly flawed, she decided that it was for a worthy cause and reluctantly began to feel her mental powers flourish in her head. Just as she felt the mushrooming energy blossom and unfurl like tendrilous vines, the light extinguished, suffusing the room--and atmosphere--in baleful blackness.
For Keaton it was of no consequence--her new eye could see dully through the dark, barely illuminating her vision. Apparently this darkness was of such an intensity that it smothered even her enhanced sight--regardless of the augmentation of her eye, Keaton could still barely see anything, forcing her to gaze numbly about the chamber. Wonderful. As if things couldn't get worse.
And they did. There was a great shuddering, the air flared, and the ground quivered, and with a sudden flash of flame and a tensing shake of the atmosphere, writhing tongues of fire climbed up the walls, the ceiling, materializing everywhere, setting the room ablaze. Hissing, whispering, apparitional voices echoed and resonated over the sizzling roar of the flames, shapes and ghostly figures flickering into existence, hovering over the wildfire. Keaton withdrew sharply, letting out a defensive hiss--the muffled vestige of a barely-restrained scream--as she swiftly swiped Catastrophe from its holster. Lightning flickered around its pommel once more, dancing and twisting briefly in the scorched air before vanishing in a wisp of nebulous smoke.
You're useless here, that same voice from before told her, You will do nothing but get in their way. Shadows are worth nothing.
Keaton cursed. It was right. Her primary abilities lasted in magic and unarmed combat, and both seemed undoubtedly useless. They would either have no effect, or exacerbate the situation at hand.
But that didn't mean she would stand idly by while these things attacked them.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe was still shivering when they set Ian down for a moment, and not just from the cold. The dark hallways had seemed...conscious somehow. She had never been scared of the dark, but now, she was wishing there was more light than just the glint of Aisha's tailring. She was almost hoping someone would jump out and attack them just so her fear would have a face. If I was scared of something real, at least I could slice it, she thought.
She rubbed her hands together quickly, then rubbed her arms once her hands were less cold. She noticed that Aisha seemed troubled about something more than the dark, but she couldn't figure out what. I would've heard if anyone was coming...right?
Then, without any warning, a shockwave hit the group so hard Ketefe had to use her sword for balance. Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow as they began to take shape, becoming creatures that made Stygian's attacks look tame. Fiery symbols appeared on the walls, and tongues of flame climbed to the ceiling. Ketefe heard Aisha scream, but as she whirled around to help her, a sudden uproar of voices exploded in her mind, desperate, furious, afraid, and insane all flurrying together in horrific chorus. She had to keep from grabbing her skull and screaming.
For what seemed like the longest five seconds of her life, Ketefe was rooted to the spot in shock, looking from Aisha to Ian to the monsters, holding out her sword to attack ... she didn't even know. Eyes still trying to comprehend this new terror, she sidestepped over to Aisha, leaning down to pull her up. "Can you walk?"
The shockwave bowled Jeremiah off his feet in an instant. He scrambled upright again, trying to get an idea as to what was happening. It was cold. That was the main thing he noticed. Mel, the draft of the castle, and even now with light everywhere he was so very, very, very COLD. Strange and threatening shapes moved amongst the havoc, and judging by the way Aisha fell when one touched her they were dangerous. He reached out, straining his senses to the utmost. Weak in terms of power though he was, he was still a spellcaster and knew how to evaluate magical occurrences.
It took him a second to notice the voices. He was, after all, used to them.
"I really... Really... REALLY hope that s-someone knows what these are..." Jeremiah stammered through the cold and fear.
Rynkura had hummed when it was confirmed that the others were nowhere to be seen...the rooms devoid of life, all energy instead seemingly emitted by the castle itself, and the slowly ebbing cold of the icy webbing at their feet. At least there was an idea of where they weren't.
One of the tiger's ears swiveled to hear Sebastian's inquiry about possessing a communication spell, while she kept observing their surroundings, and the feeling that kept wanting to make her fur stand on end. Perhaps something could be put together...a stronger version of my tracking wave could be used, but it would take time...
However, just as the minds of the two others were brought to a screeching halt by the onset of a burst of darkness--even dousing the glow of her staff as easily as one would snuff out the candles--her thoughts too were halted in favor of making her eyes adjust to the dark. Despite having been blinded mere moments ago, a harsh adjustment, nevertheless it was easy for the felid. But it was the suddenness of it that struck her startled. She and uttered an unintelligible curse. "Well now what...?"
But before much could be done, the wolf's sight starting to prove useful for tracking while Rynkura worked to restore the light to the orb her staff carried, things halted once again.
The presence of the castle became so much more unsettling, like a curse befell the walls...the healer's staff slammed into the floor to fight the imbalance that came with the tremors...and then the symbols flashed around them on the walls. They summoned what felt like more than an unholy presence to the tigress: flames and spirits and voices...all designed to degrade the mind with fear.
"Madre santa!" Rynkura hissed, speaking out of habit from having to learn the Cabres' natural tongue. She didn't need to hear Sebastian's order to help protect them. Already a glimmering dome of protection held over their heads as far as she could make the spell, to ward most of the conjured beasts aiming for them, while any coming past it could be kept away by being shot with a handful of light.
"What's going on?" she demanded, rushing and working to keep them warded.
* * *
Below the feet of the party above, Aisha and the others weren't faring much better. The sudden shockwave came as hard and fast as if they were in the path of an earthquake, standing only a mile away from the fault. The panthress gripped the side of the doorway for balance, grunting as her tail ring flared with urgency. In one of her ears could be heard the screeching of her small avian follower; in the other, the frightened voices of her friends.
But when the flames appeared...the shadows took shape...the ghastly voices rung in their ears, threatening to turn every last bit of their courage on its head...her eyes widened and her heart threatened to pound out of her ribcage.
The panthress couldn't draw her blade before the first apparition flew through herself, shooting the nerves with pain and the sensation that her lower body was on fire. She was kneeling, digging her claws into her head to keep from crying out. It was insanity, and if they hadn't found their friends now, they were in dire trouble. They had to move!
She heard Ketefe next to her, and took the masked cat's help with gratefulness. "I think so," Aisha hissed, and reached for the handle of her magic-resistant sword, swiping the blade at whatever was closest. "Get away from us! Malditos!"
When the crying failed to cease, she turned to the others, getting up on wobbling legs. The dangerous look in her eyes confirmed a decision, harsh but perhaps more than necessary. "Either gather the rat or leave him, but let's MOVE!" She pointed down the corridor. "I'll cover you guys!"
As Mel knelt over Ian she managed to push the nerve-wracking atmosphere far enough to the back of her mind to concentrate on the healing magic. That was until the lights went out. The creepy aura slammed back into her doubled. She threw healing magic at the rat, willing him to get up so they could get out of there. Then the room erupted in flame. The ice dragon let out one frightened yelp before hiding her face. She understood that it was far worse than fire, but her deepest instinct was screaming about the flames. It was only the order from Aisha that pulled her out of her panic. She gave Ian a hard shake. "Get up and move if you want to survive." Throwing herself to her feet she conjured a bright light, attempting to illuminate the path the panther had pointed out.
Ian woke for the most part. Still dizzy, confused, and after the nightmares created by everything going on afraid. "Mel where? I don't want to die." Still a bit weak he scrabbled in the direction he last heard Mel go. He had never before felt this vulnerable, and if one were to look at him he never had looked as vulnerable.
Cog turned form the others to again stare down the hall, the trinket he held at his side glowing softly in the shadow. The darkness around them seemed to immediately swallow what little light it produced, the trinket illuminating no more than a foot or so away from itself. One could barely make out Cog's side, at the furthest reaches of the blurred light.
Cog flinched. His glasses, previously black as he stared down the hall, suddenly flashed an opaque white, half-blinding the wolf for a moment. He reflexively brought a hand up, but just as soon as it happened, it was gone, the light replaced instead by a sudden, ominous groan. At the edges of his vision, his glasses suddenly seemed to spiderweb with a blue light, his glasses going haywire as blue light rippled across them, and Cog closed his eyes and took a step back.
A moment later, he opened his eyes again, the glasses now registering blue waves of flames, corresponding with the red ones he saw flowing down the hallways, drawing in an obscure script upon the stone walls. Ripples passed from one wall to another, conic reflections bouncing from wall to wall as all of it rushed down the corridors straight at them. Cog wrapped his charm around his wrist, grabbing at his sword.
Shapes began to emerge from the flames, and at the edges of Cog's hearing he could hear wailing and crying, the eerie voices hauntingly despairing. They cried out in pain, and whispered in fear as the skeletons of fire began approaching the four...five, of them, and Cog reached inside his Jacket yet again as Sebastian barked out an order.
Cog murmured in reply to the bat and produced a small charm, made of a thousand pieces of a silver, broken moon. A whisper, and them a touch of the thing on the pommel of his sword made the endcap glow white - as he backed away from the corners of darkness, he found himself suddenly surrounded by a shield of white. He looked at Mistress Msh'taan appraisingly, gazing out of the corner of his eye, and turning his attention back to the shadows he took a deep, slow breath.
A floating, flaming skull flew past his head, the little thing bouncing around inside of the white bubble, and seemingly without movement Cog stood a step away, his white-glowing sword having already struck, the silvery arc only barely visible. The glow of his blade seemed poisonous to the creature, and it fluttered about weakly before simply popping out of existence.
Cog sheathed the blade instantly, and turned his attention to the edges of their little circle, his field of vision swimming with blue.
'
The gate! They've opened it!' Stygian shouted. He had swung the semiconscious spider over his shoulder and into his arms, and was now doing something halfway in between holding her up and restraining as many of her arms as he could. The ghastly pallor to his appearance had returned, and he had swept out his deep black wings around him to shield off the demonic attackers. '
They've opened up a passage to Hell!' More of the skeletal apparitions screeched past, touching the halo of light or flying past it, and the castle shuddered silently under their feet.
There was nothing to do except to run. As little as it would do them, moving swifter and in the general direction of their comrades was the only right thing. Stygian backed up, two of Sal's arms held back by each of his. '
We can't stay here! We have to find the others before we do something,' he snarled. '
Follow me!' Before they had a chance to protest, he rushed past Keaton and in the other direction, away from the frosted web, trailing dark tentacles, one of which grabbed the jackal and tugged her along. He knew his sight was not all back yet, but he had a better chance at guiding them right than the others. '
And don't touch them!' By them, it was pretty clear just what he meant.
The pain and burning in Aisha's leg subsided, but it still throbbed as she scrambled to her feet and moved. It was hard to even notice for that long though, over the screaming terror of the things around them. The fiery waves had all but subsided, and the shaking wasn't steady but seemed to come in short, irregular intervals now. Whether that was really good or bad was hard to see, but it certainly made moving around easier. The specters seemed to be breaking up, because there were fewer immediately close to them, and many were simply howling past in what seemed like pain and terror themselves rather than trying to pursue the adventurers. But equally many seemed to be paying frightening attention to them, and the almost human voices and screams they could understand haunted them just as fiercely.
Warm...! Near... Venga aquí ...! Fear... waiting for... diesem moment...! Forever... pain...! Suddenly, one of the things, a screaming, skull-like vision, came flying out through a wall and straight through Ketefe. The cat's breath caught and she fell to her knees, feeling as if her insides were cramping, her stomach convulsing until she thought she would vomit it out. The voices called even louder in her ears as the terrible thing rounded her, and she could feel a sensation of pain along the back of her neck, as if her skin was on fire or freezing, or both at the same time.
Must... have...! The voice that whispered in Ketefe's ear was lower but somehow much clearer than the others. Her terror rose to a peak as she felt the thing move into the back of her head, almost as if it were taking a bite out of her, and blood-red, searing hot images and thoughts flooded her panicking mind.
"They've opened up a passage to Hell!"
Attention triggered by the sound of Stygian's panicked voice, Keaton's head snapped to the side, ocher-orb gaze landing squarely on the white-blond bat as he rushed past her. Instantly the rest of Keaton's body followed the gesture of her head, spinning her form around so she could stare directly at his retreating form, the coattails of rippling darkness cascading off of his body.
Despite the escalating panic of the situation Keaton found herself growing irrationally angry, even moreso than she was before, perhaps exacerbated by her previous, smoldering ire, but now directed towards how confused she was about what was going on and how useless she felt.
"They opened a gate to WHAT?!" Keaton demanded, screaming over the shrill shriek of the flames and the cacophonous screeching of the apparitions assailing them. "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING O--"
Before she could continue that enraged, partially-delirious exclamation, one of the tentacles trailing behind Stygian's form hooked behind her and looped around her waist, snatching her up and dragging her along with him. At first she instinctually resisted, not appreciating the presence of something so vile on her body, but halfway through her thrashing she realized how unwise it would be to reject something which was only here to accelerate her. Instead, she moved along with it, feet grazing the ground as she propelled herself forward, hand still clutching Catastrophe.
"What the FLYING FUCK is GOING ON!?" Keaton shouted again, unable to keep the rising panic from her voice.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Pausing just long enough to haul the now conscious rat to his feet and push him towards the corridor Mel ran. As she ran Mel went over her spells but couldn't think of anything that seemed likely to work. She was an elementalist and illusionist, neither of which would be effective against spirits. She heard the others running as well. The hallway gave no choices of direction so forward they went, dodging the flaming skulls until they got to an area that seemed familiar.
Cog's eyes widened at the bat's sudden proclamation, taking a step back. His face darkened, and he muttered a string of curses under his breath. It wasn't too long ago they had just bottled hell up. Now some idiots had undone everything they had nearly died for.
Cog watched as Sebastian scooped up the protesting Keaton, and with his glowing sword in hand he ran after the two, sheathing his blade as he started forward. Multiple points about the wolf's body glowed, hidden charms working their magic, and the darkness seemed to recede just slightly to the wolf's presence. Keeping clear of the walls, he ran quickly down the halls, one hand on his sword, the other on his hat.
Diving around a corner, Stygian let go of Keaton and unholstered his right-hand gun. It would hardly do anything to stave off the ghost-like things around them, but he knew worse things were probably on their way. Not to mention that the spider's protesting was becoming increasingly difficult. She moaned and struggled in his grip.
'You heard me! Eyes open!' the bat shouted back over his shoulder. His moment of inattention earned him a whack on the side of his face, which made him growl and wrench his grip on the woman in his arms around. A more human-like spirit stared in puzzlement at the troupe as they ran past.
'Put me down, you idiot!' Sal cried out, before striking out again and gracing her captor with a swipe of claws across the face. Another one of her hands was gripping his shoulder, digging into the pallid fur. 'Let me g-'
Stygian whirled around, and for a second the spider cried out as she was slung like the water in a bucket on a rope in a lab demonstration of centripetal force. The next second that force was turned into a bone-jarring impact as she was pinned against the stone wall, the bat's hand around her throat. 'What is wrong with you, bitch?!' he snarled.
Cog nearly stumbled to a halt, their sudden brisk pace interrupted as the Bat slammed Sal into a wall, his hand wrapped around her throat as he nearly growled at her. Cog stood still, his eyes scanning, and sighing he paused, refraining from leaning against the hellfire-lit walls. Now really wasn't the time...
Sebastian's face inched in close the spiders, his eyes glowing like coals as the Sal writhed in his grasp. She stared daggers back up at him, her fangs bared and her face twisted in anger.
"If you...do-ack! If you don't let me go..." She began, fury rising up from her voice. She opened her mouth to speak again when it clacked shut, her jaw pushed up from below.
The barrel of a very large pistol rested against her chin, Sebastian's face now twisted in distaste. He turned the barrel a little bit, making sure the spider felt the cold steel digging into her chin.
Cog's eyes widened. Although he -was- all in favor of killing Sal as quickly as possible, he hadn't expected the bat to merely be waiting for her to wake up. That didn't really...no. Cog kept his mouth shut and waited, yellow eyes watching the exchange carefully.
"Those things might kill you." the bat began, embered eyes boring into the spider's black. "But this will go through your head and take a third of your brains with it!"
He pressed up just slightly with the barrel. Now. I know you've been ordered to kill us. But if you can't wait... Sebastian said, his voice dripping with menace. He didn't smile - he didn't seem to enjoy it at all. It was simply business.
That was perhaps more terrifying than any grin, or any laughter could ever have made it.
Sal stared hard at the bat, calculating. She seemed to hang there forever, although it couldn't have been more than ten seconds. She swallowed, the sound audible even through the strange dissonance that now enveloped the castle, and nodded once.
Cog looked at her, his face blank, and turned back to the hallway, eldritch flames filling his vision.
Ian stumbled along the halls assured Mel was behind him. As he entered the room the walls he was useing for balance ended and he fell and hit the floor with his left sholder. "Mel? What the fuck is going ON?" He had never had to deal with anything like this.
Wandering a little lost, Bambi finds her way to Chapel without Gina's help. The Poor girl has grown more more quiet as they near the chapel.
Bam sees the two males entering the chapel. But she must stop and stay with Gina down the hall in a nook as she trying to calm the girl down after seeing the old bat.
"Come on Gina, we have to stop them, for once the hellgate is open again, it will be too late...." Bam finishes as the blast of the shockwave hits Bam and Gina. The Fae instinctively raises a shield around Gina and herself as they huddle in the corner. and the Spirits flys past them.
PBH
Just after Ketefe had helped Aisha to her feet and was tensed to run down the hallway, a ghoulish apparition flew right through her.
She started to gasp, and then fell to the ground, dropping her sword with a loud clang. She dug her claws into her arms as she clasped her stomach and clenched her teeth shut; her insides were churning so violently she thought she might vomit them out. If she didn't, she'd be forced to slice herself open to get rid of the awful feeling. The creatures surrounded her, and the nape of her neck was suddenly burning, freezing, it didn't matter, she just wanted it to stop.
Must...have...! A low, horribly clear voice was whispering to her, but the agony and fear prevented her from answering. She felt it move into her head somehow, and then the pain and terror rose as white-hot, piercing images and thoughts rushed into her already overwhelmed mind. Memories, voices, and panic blended together in a somehow palpable pain that she had never known could be real. Her hands shot from her stomach to her head as she clawed at the back of her skull, arched forward and screamed at last.
"GET IT OUT OF ME!!!" she howled, eyes squeezed shut in a tortured, panicked grimace as tears trickled out of them. "MAKE IT STOP!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!"
Jeremiah had no idea what to do. Ghouls, panicking people, and so damn COLD...
"Warned ya this place got interesting. Get those guns out in case something angry and tangible shows up!" The frog shouted after Ian, before going over to Ketefe. Those screams...
A ferret woman, on the floor of the chapel, trying to scream out whatever was trying to posess her.
So Jeremiah did what somewhat worked on Gina.
"Ketefe? Ketefe! Can you hear me?" The teacher took off his glasses and looked the young woman in the eyes, "Everything's going to be fine, Ketefe." His voice dropping to that low, softly hypnotic tone as he mustered what little magical power he had to work with. He was still so drained, from when the Lunacy had him... "Do you hear me? Everything will be fine. Can you walk, Ketefe?"
"The guns the guns! Where the fuck are my gu-- FUCK! They're probably still in that hall!" Ian said exaserbatedly. The guns wern't his only line of defence though. He leaned over Jerimaiah. "O.k. I know something's been f.u.b.a.r. how do we fix it?" Ian had fully recovered by this point, though he was still disoriented and confused but atleast he had his wits back.
Realizing she had lost everyone else, Mel stopped running. She was at a joining of multiple hallways and recognized where they were, or where they had been driven perhaps. The corridor leading off in a 90 degree angle from the one they were in was half-blocked with the bodies of dead spiders the size of dogs, the walls painted with their blood. The hallway to the chapel that they had fought their way to only two days before. "The hell gate," she whispered, realizing why this seemed so familiar. "Someone reopened the gateThat is the only explanation. We need to find the others, or find a safe spot to wait for them to come looking for the trouble."
The two men stood like statues, dark against the church walls that were illuminated by the brass light emanating from glyphs and symbols. An eerie glow was flickering behind the stained glass windows, tainting their colors in the fiery glow. Already the face of the chapel had changed. The broken columns had somehow mended themselves, though the cracks still remained in the stone. The statues had changed somehow, growing fiercer and darker in expression and appearance.
'It should do,' a voice grated, audible even through the chorus of soft and horrible moans that echoed throughout the chapel. 'Go. I will send you aid.'
The floor shook again, and the rasping of heavy stone on stone immersed the place, almost concealing the tapping footsteps heading in the direction of the entrance. A cold, hard clattering of claws followed them, and ragged breaths seemed almost at the neck of the two women hiding. Next to Bam, Gina cringed and backed up, hiding her face and making herself as small as she could.
Satisfied with the spider's answer, Stygian slowly removed his pistol, the cold metal gleaming darkly in the murky light. '
Good,' he said, retreating carefully, wary of any sort of retribution from her. As much as she seemed reasonable, he knew quite well that Sal was more like an animal than any of them, more subject to her instincts. She had been made that way. '
Now, you will help us find our friends and ma...'
A rattling hiss interrupted him, and in a moment Stygian's concern with Sal was as good as washed away. A snarl from the deepest shadows at the end of the corridor was turned into a scream, and something crawled down from the ceiling, eyes glowing like fire as it peered at them with malice. Whipping a barbed tail behind it, it crouched low, and then lunged out at them, a dark mottled red-brown shape made of hideous sinew and muscle. Stygian swung his arm out and fired away, his gun roaring at the incoming monstrum.
It was horrid. Thoughts and feelings that were not hers flooded her head until she thought it would burst. Her eyes stung from the tears and her spine felt as if it were trying to escape her body. But most frightening to Ketefe was the voice that called in her head, hissing words in a garble between English and some other language she couldn't understand. It was clinging to her, she realized, gripping her mind like a clawed hand fighting for a grip from falling back into whatever hellish pit it had come from.
Jeremiah's attempts at soothing the girl were only met with what seemed like worsening symptoms. Ketefe started shuddering, wracked with more than just her own sobs, and the frog could almost see her skin bristling with the seizures overcoming her.
Then, against her will, the cat's shuddering hands sprang forward, mercurially quick, seizing Jeremiah by the throat. Her trembling fingers clenched, and her eyes sprang open. They were red and lit as if with fire from within.
'
Leave me alone!' The words that passed Ketefe's lips were not her own, and neither was the rasping voice that turned into a screech her own throat could never have mustered. Her face contorted in senseless fury and something else, before the real Ketefe surfaced again in tears. She was fighting to pry her hands from the frog, but it was as if something else was holding them from within, and it was frighteningly strong.
When Sal began to writhe and thrash wildly on Stygian's back, struggling to break free from his protective grasp, Keaton nearly stopped where she was running, automatically lifting Catastrophe and allowing her gaze to snag onto Sal's twisting form. "YOU!" she ejaculated in a loud, grating snarl, her fists clenching around the handle of her mace. "I'LL K--"
Alas, neither bat nor arachnid had heard the beginning of Keaton's threat over the tempestuous screaming of the flailing flames. Before she could resume her rant, Keaton felt herself trail off as the cold barrel of Stygian's shotgun was jabbed into Sal's chin, pushing her jaw upright. For a split second, something akin to fiery satisfaction coursed through Keaton's veins, trailed behind by coattails of sparking shock. Against the flaming glow suffusing the room the gun looked nearly like it was coated in liquid metal, its whole bulky body beaming with erubescent orange, giving it an almost devilish radiance far too harsh and seething to be considered anything close to benevolent.
While she was initially internally goading Stygian on to pull the trigger and blow the bitch's brains out, this attitude soon faded to make way for cold, numb surprise. She wasn't sure why--it was probably the fatalistic calm in which Stygian handled threatening Sal, maybe something as minuscule as the subtle tension in his trigger finger or the ominous luminescence radiated in his grey-black eyes, but either way, her sadistic joy was soon robbed from her. She didn't even feel the slightest twinge of disappointment when Stygian removed the gun from under Sal's chin and returned it to its resting place, the resplendent flash of acrid light flickering off of the weapon's edge signifying its departure.
Instead, Keaton felt slightly appreciative that his ire hadn't been directed towards her.
This lasted only momentarily. They needed to move. A hoarse, hollow hiss whistled over the eldritch scream of the fire as a sinewy figure was catapulted over the gnarled halos of flame, the wretched creature itself landing in a heap of muscled tissue and moist innards before them as its whip-like tail unfurled behind it. Keaton unconsciously released a snarl of revulsion as she took a preparatory step back, but the reminding presence of Catastrophe in her hands restored her courage.
Even as the voices in her head mocked and reprimanded her efforts she reared back, preparing herself for any assaults in her direction from the sinuous creature, outline illuminated in the rapid gunfire.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Jeremiah scrabbled at Ketefe's hands locked around his throat. He'd forgotten that Gina had been like this too, the only difference being that he'd had Cog to pin her down.
Wait, what had Cog done. That thing that had helped keep her down...
"Kyrie, fons bonitatis..." The frog choked out, not taking his eyes away from the girl's for a second.
"Hell...?" Rynkura asked with an intense bit of incredulity in her voice, disbelief her ruling emotion while the rest of her energy was focused on keeping the malevolent and pained spirits from penetrating their defenses. The cries still came to her ears like screeches and howls, loud enough to stick in her mind even when she tried to curb her hearing by pinning her ears. It was shot after shot and attack after attack, while behind she could hear Keaton trying to make sense of the whole thing.
But it was hard to ignore. Adventurers, Creatures, and a bunch of unmindful explorers against the essences of the tortured and malevolent...if they weren't going to be found soon...
That was when she halted for the moment, eyes settling on the disturbance that had come from among them. In a flurry of curses the spider woman had suddenly awakened, struggling with futility against the bat's grip and instantaneously tossed against the wall. Rynkura had almost reacted as Keaton did, her hand already glowing with that electric blue tinge that signaled the start of her dart spell. But Sal was already being threatened in a more crude method: with the barrel of a gun to her head. Like the jackal's anger, the spell was diffused and the tiger's attention simply returned to protecting the group's flank.
She had her doubts about the woman. More than likely, she would have several sets of eyes watching her actions from there on forth. The group had more pressing business to get to...until the appearance of the beast before them.
"Damn this!" Rynkura spat and leaped out of the way as the monstrosity approached, its body being met by the oncoming and rapid barrage of gunfire. While that was dealt with, the tigress whipped her head in the other direction, and then her hand rose to slam another presence in the face with a flare of light, moving her feet to meet anything else that could come at them.
Time to clear a path.
* * *
The bracer blocked the pain enough that had come from the ghastly encounter. But even then, that left Aisha with little choice but to remain in that tower base alcove; where she least wanted to remain, to fend off the creatures while the others tried to run to the hopeful and temporary sanctuary of the chapel. Mel had already gotten Ian to his feet and heeded her words...but before Ketefe could, she had been struck down and was now on her knees, screaming and attempting to literally banish the demon from her head.
"This is no good," the panther snarled, observing as Jeremiah tried to help while the spirits just kept moving around them, their voices rising in a chorus of discord, lacking all harmony. Voices in different tongues, and scarily even including that of her ancestors, swept and threatened to scare the souls of the mortals before them. They weren't going to be scared away by her own trusted blade. That was slid back into the sheath at her belt...and from the sheath on her back, she grabbed the handle of the holy sword.
As she drew it, she could feel the stinging spark that flew through her hand. In the very presence of the energy around them, the blade took on a hot red glow, flames licking and snaking along the steel surface. Strangely, Aisha didn't feel the heat from those flames...the fireproofing on her new amulet saw to that. Even when they were close enough to touch her hands, all she felt was a tingle on her skin.
She held the sword up like a shield, and the light from the flames caused a circular orange light at their feet. Ketefe continued to scream...Jeremiah continued to reassure...Aisha continued to prevent the loss of her composure. The raven clung to her shoulder, wings flaring outward and adding to the noise of the surroundings.
And then, the thing that held the masked feline in its powerful grip had taken control of her body...the next instant, the frog's throat was in her unwilling, clenched fingers. How the hell were they going to run now...?
Aisha didn't have time to think. With a quick word, she tried the hopefully next best thing and unlocked the bracer on her wrist, snapping it on Ketefe's outstretched arm while she tried to help pry the frog from her hold. The influence of the light magic would hopefully be coursing through her system within moments, doing its job to liberate her from the impurity within.
"You guys better be ready to RUN!" Aisha snarled in command as the blade in her other hand took on a brighter glow. To the screeching mass of black feathers, she quickly brushed it off her shoulder. "No place for you either, cuervo. Get out of here or find a way to the others, guide them maybe. Either way, get!"
It was clear that she was getting more impatient, angry...and thus, scared...by the moment.
Ian was watching waiting to see if she had the willpower. Things didn't look good, so he got into a muy thai stance ready to drop on her if things got worse.
Mel wondered where she had lost everyone. She hadn't run that quickly. Looking back down the hall she only caught the movement in the chapel out of the corner of her eye. Caught flat-footed in the middle of the hallway she was as visible to the bat, panther, and things as they were to her. For one panicked second she could only stare, before taking back off at a run the way she came, hoping the others had found a safe bolt-hole. Things just got a whole lot worse.
The cracking and scrapping sound of stone and rock over the hollows of tortured spirits, Bam pulled the quaking ferret farther out of sight into the side hallway and beneath a wooden bench. Using the wood to mask their presence from the main hallway,as the clawed thing barrel its way up to the main castle.
After a few moments of not any sound, even the ghostly whails were far off, that Bam dares to open her eyes to see. a puppy yes a three headed puppy... that did licks Gina and Bam. But Gina pulls back, she know what it is. Bam throws a stick down the hallway as a distraction, but the puppy as big as a Great Dane, has no trouble at all bring back an oak bench. Bam and Gina trying get away, find their way block by the puppy and the dropped bench and awaiting for another throw. Yet, Bambi can only shake her head "no", and the puppy growls and grows to full height. His shoulders reaches near the ceiling and his heads the width of the side hallway as he growlings at the girls and gives a bark. The old bat laughes at the girls to see their fright.
PBH
It was the worst moment of her life, and if she didn't die, she'd be amazed and terrified.
Ketefe's body felt like it was going to rip apart at any second, her brain overflowing with foreign thoughts, her spine strained against her skin, and her eyes and cheeks burning from hot tears and shame. A subtle warmth was near her, and she opened her eyes a little to see Aisha standing nearby, and Jeremiah right in front of her, staring at her calmly. She could hear the frog's voice trying to placate her, felt a warm trickle of magic try to invade her mind. But it was all in vain. Whatever had invaded her was clinging to her brain for dear life, it wouldn't allow Jeremiah to take control. She felt her muscles spasm against her will. It felt like she was being pulled out of her conscious mind, but she couldn't fight it, and sweet Lord where was this pain coming from...
Then she watched her own arms shoot forward and her unwilling fingers lock around Jeremiah's throat.
"Leave me alone!" A raspy voice - no doubt the voice of her parasite - growled out of Ketefe's throat, and she heard herself screech well outside her voice's range. As if to tease her, the creature let Ketefe come out again. She tried to pry her fingers off of her friend's neck, but it was teasing her again; they wouldn't come undone, and the frog was starting to choke. Fresh tears spilled down her face as she pleaded with her body: Let him go, he's a friend, he's helping me, why won't you let go? Stop this! STOP! Her eyes begged Jeremiah to forgive her; she didn't want to kill the first person who'd been nice to her...
Sudden squawking distracted her thoughts. She moved her eyes to see Aisha, and her crow, move forward suddenly and snap her bracer onto Ketefe's wrist. The panthress snapped at the others to prepare to run, but Jeremiah couldn't move, and Ian was now standing in some sort of karate stance. All eyes were on the masked cat.
Something in her head hissed, and she felt the shadow back away from the bracer and into her mind again - still present, but unable to do anything more... for now. She released Jeremiah's throat at last, and her crying gradually quieted to a few hiccuping sobs. She looked up at the others - ashamed and frightened, but shaking with relief that the pain had stopped and her friends were safe.
The moment Aisha's bracer snapped on her, Ketefe felt the pain recede. It didn't vanish, but it mildened enough that it seemed at least partially bearable, a mere itching compared to the burning before. Her trembling stopped as the voice in her head screamed out in pain and faded into a mere whisper, and though she still shivered she had little problem removing her hands from Jeremiah. Still, though her darkened features had returned to normal, there was still an unnatural glow to her eyes behind the tears.
The few moments of peace that Ketefe's recovery led to were rudely interrupted by a bestial growl from down the corridor they had come from. A dark shape, four eyes low to the floor visible at its head and a ridge of spines along its back, was hurdling down it toward them. It looked like a huge, mutilated wolf of some kind, and it was raging, foaming at the mouth and its claws scraping the floor raw as it ran for them.
As the muscular thing fell upon him and the spider, Stygian leapt back to get out of its way. It landed between him and Sal, and grabbed his leg before he could get away. Fortunately it managed to do little more than claw him before a bullet tore through its head. A hard kick from the spider sent the thing flying. It screeched and flailed wildly as if it didn't know it was dead already.
'
Shit!' Stygian spat, pulling his second gun. His head swiveled around while his gaze searched the dark. Then his eyes found Mel. She was standing down at the end of the hallway, not fifty metres from them. '
Get moving!' he shouted, and leapt back up, squeezing the triggers of his guns and sending a hail of bullets into the dark that strobed with the muzzle flashes, revealing crawling forms on the walls. He ran backwards, firing at the creatures even as they leapt down for the others, hoping that he could nail at least a few before they had a chance to drag the others with them. Looking over his shoulder, he screamed at Mel. '
Get the others! Run! We're coming!'
The shuddering started again, and dust fell from the ceiling as the walls began moving.
Jeremiah backed away from Ketefe, coughing and clutching his throat. It ain't fair. It ain't damn fair. You shouldn't feel like your not as young as you used to be when you're barely thirty.
Because, you know, fair's been a big part of your life up until now.
His head swam, his senses drowned... But the girl young enough to be one of his students was safe.
He saw the look on her face and tried to smile. Didn't exactly succeed, but he made the attempt, "Hey, kid, don't worry. Hell, I'm sure as hell not about to accuse you of anyth-"
And then things were awful again.
A monstrous thing that looked as though it were once canine, storming down the hall. Elsewhere, he thought he heard Sebastion yelling. He saw dust flutter from the ceiling, a twitch at the end of Ian's tail, heard gunfire...
Nope. Ignoring it didn't work. The monster was still there.
With a curse that could blister paint Jeremiah threw a pair of illusion traps between the beast and the group. They weren't complex things that had to be drawn out in symbols like the previous one, just illusions of more people, with spells for searing flame and smoke inside. Given the amount of power he had to work with, it wasn't exactly a LARGE amount of fire and smoke, but he was hoping that, like a canine, the thing would attack with its teeth first.
"Aisha!?" the frog yelped, trying to look at everything that was going wrong at once, "Getting the distinct impression that any weapons you're not using better go to someone who will! Ian, got anything?!"
Fortunately for Keaton, the sinewy creature which had launched itself at them did not have the opportunity to redirect its bloodstained gaze towards her--for its efforts it was rewarded with a bullet wound through the skull and a harsh kick from Sal, sending its writhing form sprawling on the ground. Keaton let out a relative sigh of relief, but knew this reprieve was short-lived--sooner or later this abomination would be replaced with a swarm of several more, or maybe even worse.
Never before had she been so unhappy to be right. Rapid-fire flashes of gunshots rocketed through the air, tearing through the flesh and bone of dozens of other mutated monstrosities clinging like wretched arachnids to the walls.
"Holy shi--" was all Keaton could get in before this profane exclamation severed away into a loud cry as one of the creatures hurled itself bodily at her.
It soared overhead, one of its meaty claws grazing her forehead with the serrated edges of its wicked nails, opening a shallow, but nevertheless acute slash of red. Snarling in pain, Keaton drew back, shielding her eyes from the fresh torrent of blood which poured from the wound--since it was on her forehead, the bleeding was copious, the trickling red streams easily traversing past her chin and rolling down the length of her neck. Shrieking vengefully, Keaton whirled around to face the creature as it ran at her, left-eye vision dyed with crimson. Gratefully, her artificial eye-stone had been mercifully spared from the encroaching mask of ichorous blood. One eye was all she needed for her to target her approaching adversary--she swung Catastrophe with all the force her body could muster as she rushed past, the barbed head smashing right into the beast's mutilated face. Pulpy blood spurted around the puncture wounds created by Keaton's mace, the creature slumping onto the weapon before its body was discarded by a sling of Catastrophe.
Even with her would-be attacker destroyed and blood clouding her right eye (she kept it shut to avoid more from spilling into it), Keaton kept running after Stygian and the others, Catastrophe held in a preparatory stance beside her. Around them, great plumes of dust billowed from the ceiling, the walls shifting and shuddering.
She was not in a happy mood.
Anyone who attacked her would witness that.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog's blade flickered a strange, white-red in the hellfire covering the hallway, the flames reflecting off the metal even as his sword glowed a holy white. His glasses flashed bright and opaque for just a moment as he walked forward, blood dripping from the tip of his sword. Without looking or breaking stride, he whipped the blade in in front of him in a tight arc, the blood sluicing off the steel to spatter along the wall. A second later he walked with both hands free, the blade resting at his side. Two halves of a demon poured blood onto the marble floor behind him, black blood making the stone slick.
A demon crawling along the ceiling barked something harsh at the wolf, and dropped straight down on him, intent on simply holding Cog down as he bit and tore at his throat. It let go of the ceiling above the wolf, arms and mouth stretched wide. A droplet of saliva fell past the brim of Cog's hat.
Hand pulling back on the sheath of his blade, Cog grabbed at the hilt with his other hand and almost dropped to a knee, using his momentum to slide forward even as he turned on his heels, using the sudden rotation of his hips and the backwards motion of his hands to free the blade. The sword rose instantly, swinging into position over his head. His eyes rose upwards, and he could count the number of teeth the demon was showing him. Taking a sliding step forward, he struck, his sword turning into an arc of silver above his head.
The demon fell on his shoulders in two halves, nearly knocking the wolf down, precariously positioned on the top of one foot, and the other in line with it. He stumbled, the two halves sliding off him and slicking him in gore, matting down his hair obscenely and painting two sides of him a deep scarlet.
He stepped out of the entrails surrounding his feet, stopping a moment to spit blood on the floor, and turned again, looking down the hallway. More demons greeted his eyes.
He twisted his face in disgust and began to walk towards them, his feet leaving little bloody footprints on the marble.
In Aisha's mind, she frantically prayed for the bracer to have an effect. And whether or not a prayer worked in this furiously hellish house-scape, becoming more hellish by the minute, at least she noticed it had worked. Ketefe had a little more control over herself, but the fact that the spirit hadn't left her body entirely had worried the panthress...never before had the relic failed in this sort of thing before. But then again, they had never faced a horde of malevolence of this magnitude.
"Get up, chica," she helped the masked feline to her feet, shaking with fear and still in tears while the apparition still dwelt with her. The situation had just become more difficult...with Mel suddenly lost, having not come back with Ian, Aisha (while not the only one with weapons) was the only true and fit adventurer left with this group. She was only glad that Gareeku had stayed down in the town when all of this started.
The holy blade seemed to flare brighter with her sense of urgency. So I'm left with a punk kid, a girl who'll need an exorcism, and a strange frog.
But then they heard something horrific enough to cut through the screams and howls from the spirits still lingering around and past them: following a soul-trembling growl was the sound of scraping claws and of running, getting louder and closer.
The panther swerved upon hearing Jeremiah's panicked voice, following his gaze to the creature coming toward them. Reminiscent of the Fenris, a crazed wolfen-like canid eyed them with intense hunger in its fearsome gaze and power behind its legs. As the demonic creature advanced, Aisha growled and quirked an eyebrow at the frog. "You think that thing will mind Ian in the condition he's in? He'll be torn apart, and I'm not about to let anyone get torn apart. Just keep an eye on Ketefe."
Just don't let ME be torn apart.
She stood in the creature's path, the sword held high in the air with both hands gripping the handle fiercely. The fire from the blade, now that she no longer feared being burned, seemed to travel to her hands...and she felt the grip tighten and strengthen, arms eagerly ready and on a hair-trigger to release its power. The beast kept running, undeterred at the appearance, waiting to get one of the helpless in its grasp. The panther's eyes, as red as the blood they always saw, were equally as dangerous.
And then, she swung the blade through the air hard and fast, the flames whiplashing towards the creature in a bright and luminous arc, hungry to touch and consume the flesh of the beast. And if it would resist that, she had leaped forth, ready to impale it in the neck...
More screams ensued as they fought their way back toward the others. Stygian was making good way, but unlike him the others had to fight their way clear, and couldn't make nearly as speedy an exit. Closest was Keaton, but even she was a good dozen meters behind, and time was running short.
The first sign was a single stone moving out of place, being pulled halfway out of the wall as if it had been pushed by a hand from behind it. Then the entire walls began breaking apart, the perfectly rectangle stones moving as if by their own volition and rearranging themselves gradually, closing more and more of the passage off. Clearly, someone or something was trying its hardest to make sure they kept separated.
There was no time. Cursing loudly, Stygian turned and sprinted toward the opening, the darkness of his wings morphing and billowing out around him, stretching into clawed tentacles that grappled with the stones. But the tiles slipped between the darkness, or forced it aside. He couldn't get a grip. Sprinting forward, he threw himself through the remaining opening, and then tried to put his hands between them, but the section of wall was too thick for him to succeed. He tried to tear the wall asunder with his darkness, a feat which normally would have been a relatively easy task for him, but nothing worked. Fingers numbing, he drew back from the wall, watching the last few stones slipping perfectly into place, a sight which no doubt must have been replicated on the other side. More monstrous screeches ensued.
'
Fuck! Keaton!' He banged his hands on the wall, cold and hard and standing as impeccably solid as if it had always been that way. '
Cog! Go back and around! We'll come to you!'
The monstrous thing didn't even hesitate as Aisha faced it. Its mouth frothed some sort of cindery ash as it tore through Jeremiah's illusions and rumbled past. In the illumination of the windows, the panthress could see its twisted form clearly, the spines and spikes along its back jutting through the flesh that had been scraped raw of fur at many places as if they had been pushed through it like studs. Bellowing in rage, it threw itself into the oncoming whiplash, which took it in the face and elicited another roar of agony through the crazed thing. Its momentum still carried it forward, though blindly, swinging jaws that could have ripped a car apart around for its attacker.
Jeremiah swore as whatever it was went through his illusion traps like they were made of smoke. They were, but that's neither here nor there. He was scared, but it was a cold sort of fear, the kind one can use. It gnawed and burrowed rather than throttled and burned.
A laugh bubbled up in his damaged throat.
Jeremiah clamped his teeth down and held it in, trying another spell to simply cover over the monsters eyes and confound its hearing with a ventriloquism spell.
To command such a beast... What prestige!
It has nothing to take!
Run, you fool!
Because, as you all know, it's not a full day without something going wrong.
Keaton only noticed the erratic shifting of the rocky walls when it was too late--the loss of her depth perception had hindered her vision, not to mention the additional distractions of the blood caking her face and the shrieking of the demons--a sizable rectangle of stone thrust outward from the rumbling wall, erupting a few millimeters from the taut muscles of Keaton's stomach. Involuntarily, Keaton let out a loud curse as she withdrew, then attempted to follow, but was stopped by yet another rectangle shooting out in front of her. This time it was accompanied. Shortly afterwards the rest of the wall followed, utterly obscuring the distance between her and Stygian and severing her way of escape. The bat himself had tried valiantly to prevent it from doing so, but even that had resisted him, forcing him to withdraw before he was pulverized.
Keaton screamed out another curse, mostly released in frustration and anger. "GOD DAMMIT!" she wailed, clawing at the relentless stone with one hand while she readied Catastrophe with the other. No! This could not be happening!
Backing up, she swung the mace around in a sweeping, horizontal arc, hoping to smash the wall to pieces. The spherical head resonated against the wall, its many spikes grating along the stone just before it bounced off, Keaton's arm instinctively jerking as an irreversible tremor raced up the pommel and along her arm. Despite Keaton's effort and the force contained in the swing, the wall was undamaged, not even a mark marring its surface. Keaton screamed again, swinging and swinging away, each attempt rewarded with the same result. Swing after swing seemed to increase in strength as Keaton's rage escalated, but not a single one affected the barricade--every last one was repelled instantly, almost as though it was unbreakable.
One last scream punctuated the collision of the mace to the unyielding wall. Keaton stood where she was, panting and heaving, Catastrophe's head resting against the ground. Her muscles trembled, her heart pounded in her shaking chest, and for once, reality started to swim back into her. For the first time, she tasted the sour blood in her mouth and felt the aching pain sting at her exhausted muscles, and most especially the raging frustration which flared in the depths of her stomach.
It was only set ablaze when the slightest of cracks appeared in the wall, snaking like trickling ink across its surface, then stopping. Too superficial, too shallow, to make any difference.
The mace clattered to the ground as it slipped from Keaton's formerly petrified grip. Tangling her fingers in her hair, Keaton flung back her head and let out a loud, prolonged shriek, a single exclamation of anguished fury and defeat as every single failure and inadequacy came crashing down on her in that one, fucking, second. It was unbearable. It really was true. She was a detriment, useless, nothing more than an obstacle for her companions. Regardless of her earnest efforts, that was all she was ever going to be. Couldn't fight back the Mythos which invaded her head, couldn't push away the spider which twice possessed her, and couldn't even get past a fucking wall. With that penultimate, devastating thought fresh in her head, Keaton allowed the remnants of her din to perish, her teeth clamping onto her lower lip with such ferocity that her flesh split around her fangs and fresh blood added to the mask coating her face.
Scabrous scales scraping against the floor alerted Keaton to the woman behind her. Slowly, the jackal's head lifted from where it hung, ocher-orb gaze shifted to the silhouette she saw surreptitiously slinking away.
Sal.
She had been trapped with her.
Teeth grit, eyes narrowed, and a vicious, thunderous bellow erupted in the pit of Keaton's mind as rage exploded within her once more, replacing the defeated devastation with nothing more than simplistic, animalistic, murderous rage. Rage and bloodlust for the woman who had ensnared her mind and used her like a tool. For the fucking bitch who had exacerbated that hideous doubt and hesitation which had wretchedly crept onto her volatile ego.
She would kill her.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
Scooping up her mace, Keaton rushed at Sal, feet pounding against the floor in rapid-rhythm beats, pulsating against the tune of Keaton's pulse oscillating wildly in her ears. Legs buckling, Keaton launched herself at her, teeth bared and looking nothing short of a screaming hellhound with her face masked with blood, both congealing and fresh from her injured lip, hair disheveled, and an insane expression etched in vibrant scarlet across her bloodcoated features.
"BITCH!" Keaton screamed, "It's all your FAULT! IT'S ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT!"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura's staff flared along with her hand; her crafted dart spell found more ethereal, unliving faces and bodies to pierce as she tried to move across the hall. The very stone walls of the castle themselves seemed to be screaming, and sweating puddles of hellish darkness around the unfortunately caught. The beast that had charged towards them had been dealt with...but there still left more; an unending force that they could not hope to just stand and push out of existence as they were doing.
But just as the tigress turned back to check on her comrades, she felt the dust shaking and stirring from the stones as the walls shifted and moved. The others soon noticed; the bricks and foundations, floating, rearranging, all in a very discernible pattern. Forced, intentional...she could sense it briefly from touching on the energies; and the action that she touched parts of Hell sickened her.
"Oh no you don't!" she snarled and tried to cast a barrier against the rapidly-closing walls, against the partitions that walled off Keaton and the spider from Stygian as well as herself and Cogidubnus. But the stones were unbearably strong, resisting even her efforts. The more she tried, the more they pressed, and the more she tired. "Ah!" the Healer exclaimed when she could take no more and nearly fell to her knees. The sounds of scraping stone and the incessant cackling of the spirits were in no way helping the mood.
Her fist still flaring with magic, she just placed it against the wall and rested it there almost tiredly, as if it would help. So they were separate, but hopefully, not for long.
She glanced at the wolf, who had been beside her, barely hearing the bat's voice directed at him...and suddenly, the jackal's roaring and cursing in another direction, but this sounded more clear...unsealed and close. Not that she verily blamed Keaton, but...
"We'd better get to them, quickly," she stated, looking around. Rather blatant, but her deep voice had a level of irritation that should never have been reached.
* * *
Aisha growled with frustration, leaping quickly away from the hound-creature's outstretched maw as it came for her with blinded, burnt eyes. The fire had hurt it, surely, but it was proving more than resilient for its rage.
"That's right, you focus on me, perrito!" the panther mocked, baring her fangs in a hissing grimace. If the dog wanted a chew toy, best it have been a cat who fought back rather than ran.
Then, she smirked, a grin almost as ready and dangerous as the hideously malformed wolf's was. Her hand gripped the amulet.
And she had just about vanished, but for a blindingly glowing line that came at it suddenly from its right flank. SLASH! FLARE! PASS! SLASH! SLASH! Aisha came at it with harrowing speed, wielding the sword in a deadly and quick dance, and slashing gouges in its flesh...over and over again, flames left behind in the wounds...hopefully, all before it could try to act when pinpointing her.
Snapping at her, the hideous hound-like creature tore a long seam in her robe, and managed to throw its fangs around so as to cut her leg. The wound burned with something more than just the pain of her skin and flesh ripping, but it was just a shallow gash. The thing thrashed and roared in crazed fury, but finally one of Aisha's cuts managed to split its hardened skin and sear into its exposed neck. Even as it broke, the thing's head snapping loose and dangling off the tendons of its lower neck muscles, it kept on thrashing and struggling in unconscious pain. Its flesh began to sear and burn, disintegrating into ash and fumes before the panther's very eyes.
One of the horrid humanoid things thrashing on the floor before her and already starting to seethe and burn, Sal snapped her head around and stared at Keaton with shock as the jackal charged at her, screaming her fury. The spider spun, and launched herself onto the wall, scrabbling a hold with her many hands and her feet, and then arced back, picking web from her spinnerets and stringing it out in front of her, moving to put distance between herself and the raging woman. She wove fast, but even if she could keep that mace away easily, that would not stop Keaton from frying her with a bigger spell.
'
Stop! How is this...?!' Sal shouted. Pupils contracting within her red irises, she shot a flaring, thick strand of silk right at Keaton that stuck to her mace, and pulled, trying to throw the other woman off balance. But instead, it was she who was thrown, as another demon leaped onto her back and slammed her against the wall. Panicking, the spider lost her foothold, first with all but two arms and then with those as well as the monster pulled at her, and then they both tumbled against Keaton.
Fairly dripping with gore, Cog cursed at the newly made wall in front of them and turned, nodding at the Bat's muffled words as he walked back down the hallway. The floor was slick with demon-blood, almost to the point of making it difficult to walk.
"Hellgate..." Cog murmured, deftly stepping over the body of yet another cloven demon.
Just then, Keaton screamed out, making Cog's head whirl around and his sword come on guard. She was holding her head and yelling by the wall, and Cog thought for a moment she might have been hurt again, or maybe lost another eye. He took a tentative step back towards the Jackal when she turned, and screamed out at the Spider before lunging for her.
"KEATON!"
Cog ran towards the both of them, being careful not to fall on the blood-slick floor. They were, however, much to far for him to get there nearly fast enough. Sal retreated onto the wall, using webs to try and slow the enraged Jackal down. Stalling tactic, but...
A demon jumped onto Sal's back, knocking her off the wall and into the Jackal, the three of them suddenly entangled by the webs that the spider had been weaving. All three of them thrashed and rolled about on the floor, the demon in particular biting and tearing.
"Dammit!" Cog said, a hint of irritation in his voice. He finished crossing the distance, and being careful not to get caught in the sticky web or get tripped by the rolling and biting combatants, he stomped down on the demon's body, holding the thing still. For a long, terrifying moment, the demon swiveled its head and stared at Cog, small, black eyes twisted in hate as it hissed at him. It's teeth were thin, and rotted yellow. Cog grimaced and ran it through, his blade burying itself through its eyeball and into its brain, stopping just short of exiting the skull. He pulled it back out with a wet squelch.
That left the other two.
Cog was a swordsman. He was not largely trained in submission holds, delaying moves, or really anything designed to incapacitate in any nonlethal fashion. He was a swordsman - he knew how to kill. It was what he did. One thing he did remember, however. The last time he had gotten Keaton to stop attacking something.
Ignoring the vicious, feral sounds coming from both the spider and the jackal, Cog murmured a few lilting phrases under his breath, and aimed a hand at the wall. The sky outside grew just slightly darker, and with a deafening, almost painful crack a thunderbolt struck the wall, tearing out a bit of stone and nearly making Cog drop his sword to cover his ears. In the enclosed space, the sound was incredible.
"Keaton!" he yelled again, hoping the sudden thundercrack would be enough to stun both of theminto listening.
Keaton was only vaguely aware of Cog shouting from across the room, but even that minor concern vanished beneath the thundering oscillation of Keaton's thrumming pulse, its beating racing across her nerves until electricity filled her head and muted her to the sounds of Cogidubnus running toward her and Sal yelling. The webs she fired immediately snagged onto Keaton's mace, yet even as she pulled Keaton could only feel the muffled, straining tension of her muscles as her grip automatically resisted, yanking with all her might in return. Anything to get Sal off that damn wall, or rip a limb off, or--or--
As her mind deteriorated into a writhing swarm of vicious, bloodthirsty thoughts and strategies, Keaton's concentration slipped almost simultaneous to the moment another demon catapulted itself onto Sal's back and sent them all toppling to the ground, entangled in the ichorous webbing. Even with the presence of the squirming demon sandwiched between them Keaton was relentless, abandoning her mace and transferring all attention and effort into simply clawing Sal's eyes out. Altogether they rolled and tumbled along the ground as she kicked, bit, punched, clawed, and tore, attempting to grab onto or pummel whatever had the misfortune to come into her line of vision. All the writhing and frantic movement Keaton did only agitated the webbing entrapping them even more, laboring her gestures and slowing her considerably as it further glued onto her clothing and fur. The demon managed to sink its teeth into her arm at one point, its claw seizing Keaton's hair, but a swift punch to the face dislodged its fangs, although at the expense of a small chunk of flesh. In spite of the pain she didn't care; all that mattered was killing Sal and making her pay for everything she had done.
Then the demon stopped moving, for some reason. Keaton no longer viewed him as a threat; just a deadweight obstacle. Using her elbow, she shoved his corpse to the side and threw herself at Sal, ignoring the bleeding of her upper arm. The flesh which had been taken out had removed the scar tissue of one of her Jyraneth Raider "military stripes," something which would likely have to be re-carved later once she recovered.
"BITCH!" Keaton roared at Sal, preparing herself for another, powerful punch to the face. Fingers began to crackle with unbridled wreaths of silver-violet electricity--Keaton was capable of conducting dark magic without Catastrophe, but it was difficult, very difficult. "You'll PAY! You'll fucking PAY! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"
But before she could follow through with her threat, an alarming thunderclap echoed loudly through the chamber, resonating endlessly throughout the room with such an earsplitting volume that it was impossible for Keaton to ignore, even with her anger-clouded senses. The palpitating pulse faded down to a numb thrumming before it disappeared altogether, gold light flashed briefly in Keaton's eye before she glared up at Cog, distracted from her goal of killing Sal, but only for her ire to attach to him, instead.
"FUCK OFF!" she screamed, clearly delirious at this point. "Just FUCK OFF! Leave me ALONE! I'll make her fucking pay!"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ian Lobbed a flashbang grenade he had been saveing. "LOOK AWAY! he directed at the rageing adventurer sliceing up the dog. The beast stupid as it was looked down at it after it bounced off it's muzzle. As it thrashed aout blindly Ian noticed quite a few huminoid demons gathering around the frog. He retreated to Jerimaiah's side. Ian was amazeing as he pounded them with elbows and knees and low kicks from especially powerful legs. Even with this the things were too much for him. "Jerimahia! I'm going to use another one! When I tell you look up then RUN!"
Mel heard Sebastian yell as she was starting to run. Startled, she slowed a bit, looking back over her shoulder in time to see the walls start moving. But it was the horrid sounds and smells in front of her that brought her back to attention. Her head snapped around to see a hideous thing before her. Luckily she wasn't running fast enough for the momentum to carry her straight into it's jaws. Unluckily the beast itself was charging. Throwing herself sideways despite her terror of the fire limned walls she just managed to fire ice blades directly into the monster's side as it passed her.
The distance sounds of the others cries and clashes with monsters could heard by Bam and Gina. The old bat looks down the hall. as Bambi conjures up a big red ball and throws it at the bat. The Bull size demon dog pounces after the ball and toward the old bat.
Bam grabs Gina and they flying over the dog and bat and down the hall away from the chapel. She sees that the ceiling was getting lower and then the whole passage way was quickly becoming block. She spots another Dog like creature attacking Mel far down the hallway.
PBH
Cog hadn't expected the Jackal to be happy or cheerful, perhaps, but the sudden stream of curses and rage suddenly directed at him took the wolf aback. Keaton was coarse, he knew but...
This wasn't normal.
Cog looked at Keaton warily, his head tilted just a bit to the side. This sort of rage wasn't reasonable. He narrowed one eye. Something wasn't quite right. There was something he was missing here, that was making Keaton act the way she was. She stared at him, her eyes feral, and Cog sighed.
This wasn't making things any easier.
Demons were crawling around, and he was certain that Rynkura, wherever she was, couldn't hold them off by herself until fighting was convenient for them. And although his trust for the spider was proportionate to the distance between himself and her fangs, he knew that they rather needed all the help they could get. He couldn't just let Keaton kill her.
He wasn't sure if he could stop her without rendering her unconscious, either, which would be almost as bad. Still...
There was one option.
"Fuck me?" the wolf snarled, leaning in close to the Jackal. "No, my dear. Fuck you!" Cog did his best to make his voice drip venom. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"
The wolf wasn't really sure what to say to keep Keaton's attention - he wasn't quite sure what Keaton was so angry about either – well, no. He knew what had set Keaton off, but he wasn't quite sure why it had set her off so badly. But if she just kept her attention on him...
Hopefully the damn spider would have half a brain and realize what he was doing. Surely Sal could escape from her own webs.
If not, well, they'd still have Keaton, at least.
Even more taken aback was Keaton when Cogidubnus snapped back a retort to her unreasonable rambling, not only out of surprise and outrage that he had dared to intercept her ire, but because she hadn't expected such a provoked response from philosophical, velvet-smooth Cogidubnus. Come to think of it this whole experience in the Castle was bringing out the worst in everyone, but such a revelation didn't come easily to Keaton, who was still half-delirious with rage. Rage which was only exacerbated once the shock in her face died down and she felt the fire billow back to its formerly raging state, blinding her with crimson. At first she wasn't quite sure if it was the remnants of blood still in her eye or her fury, but at this point, it just didn't matter.
"Fuck ME?! FUCK ME?!" Keaton howled indignantly in his face, thrashing about in the quagmire of webbing which still kept her glued to Sal. Pressing her hands on either side of Sal's head, she pushed her body back, still attempting to angrily extricate herself from the net clinging to her. "Asshole! I'm not doing shit! I'm giving her what she deserves! THIS IS ALL HER FAULT!"
Rearing back the best she could, she pointed accusingly at Sal, her finger dangerously sparking and flaring with blackened lightning and shadows. "It's her fault these bastards 'opened the gate to Hell,' it's her fault we got possessed before, it's her fault we got cursed, it's her fault that I'M SO FUCKING USELESS AND THAT I HAVE BEEN EVER SINCE I GOT HERE!"
Releasing an inhuman shriek, Keaton slammed her hand back to the ground, her attention no longer focused on Sal. By this point she probably wasn't making any sense whatsoever, her mind spiraling away as she gave in to her unrestrained rage. "It's her FAULT! HER fault her fault HER FAULT! ALL OF IT IS HER FUCKING FAULT!"
She needed to rip into something. She needed to tear something to pieces. She needed to smash something's skull open and let the blood stain the ground. But right now, all she was focused on was caterwauling away, no longer caring about the pretense of maturity or how insane she must appear, no longer caring about the injuries she had sustained to her arm and forehead, no longer caring about Sal.
All she cared about was how angry she was, how miserable she was, and how useless she was.
'I guess they were right after all.'
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian threw a last punch into the wall, shaking it but not managing to do much more than make his knuckles start to ache. Leaning against it, his forehead touching the cold stone, he took a long deep breath, and then turned quickly on the spot. His steps quick and snapping on the floor as he walked toward where Mel stood, he holstered one gun and reloading the other, slapping a full magazine into place and pulling the mantle with a hard movement. The darkened 'wings' on his back seethed and flowed as if made of black fire.
'Come. We will go around and find them,' he said when he walked past the dragon. His eyes didn't even veer toward her.
More games just to torture me, old man, he thought grimly.
I really hope you are getting something out of it, because I am going to rip you apart when I get to you.Four sets of eyes darting, Sal pressed her clawed, three-fingered hands back against the webbing still connecting her and the jackal. The lupine was making it so much harder with her thrashing, but thanks to her excessive amount of limbs the spider managed to finally untangle herself reasonably well. She spat into one of her palms and smeared the thick strands between her and Keaton with the fluid, and then pulled. The web came loose with an audible rip. She worked more of it with frantic hands, shriveling pieces of silk falling to the floor.
Keaton's screaming had stunned her into silence at first, but Cog's reaction and Keaton's explosion thereafter finally made Sal lose it. 'WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!' she screamed, eyes landing on Keaton. Or, at least the two big ones, whose red irises were clearly discernible. 'Both of you!' she shouted, a bit lower when she had their attention, and looked back and forth between the wolf and the jackal, anger and fear mixing in her face. 'There are things trying to kill us and you're not making
any fucking sense!' She backed up, eyes still like those of a caged animal. 'What the fuck does it matter?!'
Cog's heart broke as he listened to Keaton, the jackal crying out in rage and frustration. He saw Sal working at the threads from out of the corner of his eye, and his mind began thinking on a grim double path. One the one hand, the spider –did- have half a brain, and was extricating herself quickly.
On the other hand, perhaps Cog had chosen his words too well at that. His face fell as he regarded Keaton, the jackal suddenly seeming very small as she lay on the marble floor.
The spider removed herself, scuttling backwards quickly, and Cog dropped down by the jackal, grabbing her arm as if to help her up.
"C'mon, Keats... no one thinks you're useless. I'm sorry, but we have to go..." he said softly, suddenly stopping as Sal interrupted him. Cog turned and narrowed his eyes at the spider, and standing he walked two quick steps over to her, trailing little bloodstained footprints.
"Grow a brain-!" he said softly, trying to keep Keaton from hearing. "Maybe next time I'll just let her kill you, mm?"
He narrowed his eyes meaningfully. "She's stronger than she looks. And I'm all for you dying, so don't get me wrong. But if she's cursing at me she isn't trying to strangle you. So..."
He showed some teeth. "Keep your mouth shut!"
Cog motioned absently with one hand to the rest of the hallway. "Hell saved your ass, not I." he muttered, turning and walking back to the jackal.
"C'mon, Keats." He said, almost apologetic in tone. "There will be time later." Cog paused for a moment, reflecting for a moment before turning back to the hallway.
"We need you." he said, sword dripping blood.
Admittedly, Keaton had expected for Cogidubnus to agree with her about her being useless in his ostensibly returned anger, her judgment obviously obscured by her irrational rage. So when he told her otherwise, she was clearly surprised, her ears pricking upright and her mad eyes flickering in his direction as bloodstained hands wrapped around her forearm. Inky blood had streamed down the length of her arm from the divot carved in her abused upper arm, staining the fur of her limb with slick crimson. Allowing Cog to help her to her feet, Keaton let out an indistinct choking sound which was impossible to identify, then used the back of her clean forearm to wipe away the blood marring her face. Other than smearing it slightly and matting the fur on her forearm with blood, she accomplished little in terms of cleaning herself.
"I--wh--" was all Keaton managed to get out before Sal started again, screaming at her.
Fire-licked eyes narrowed dangerously, Keaton's upper lip hiking up to expose her glistening ivory fangs. It was nearly enough to ignite her fury again and launch her into another attack, either physical or verbal, but intrigue over what Cog had said curbed any impulsive actions. Cog seemed to be mouthing something to Sal, but she couldn't hear him over the sound of her own strangled breathing, which had become more labored as the aftermath of her nonstop assault and all that screaming started to press down on her. Limitations had become increasingly apparent to her, which nearly started to make her break down again, but instead once Cog finished and turned to her, voice sentimental, she remained silent.
Keaton stared at the ground for a while, deliberately evading Sal. She knew merely looking at her or reflecting on her previous transgressions would only serve to fuel her rage and send her into chaos all over again. Already she was still angry, still hurt, but mostly confused and upset. Fury was subsiding, gradually, but still flickering at the surface.
Sighing, Keaton wiped away at her eye, clearing her blood-soaked eye just enough to allow her more visibility. "F-Fucking... sh-shit..." she choked out, somehow feeling slightly sick. Cog was right. There was another time, if they all didn't end up dying. She could rant and rampage later. Silently, broodingly, Keaton walked past Cog, moving to retrieve Catastrophe, which lay unattended on the ground.
She picked it up, allowing it to hang limply from her grip. Fingers tightened around the pommel, squeezing to the point Keaton could no longer feel in that hand and she felt the blood retreat from her veins. Whipping her head to the side, she threw a loud, threatening snarl in Sal's direction, then walked back to Cog.
"...shit..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
I just can't get a break today...
Right when Ketefe had started to relax a little, Jeremiah forgiving her and Aisha helping her stand up, the castle had decided that it didn't want her to be calm for more than five seconds at a time. So it sent a hellhound to attack them. She was still dazed with partial relief from the pain, so she didn't panic at the fearsome sight of the wolf-beast. Aisha took care of it quickly, to everyone's content.
The blue cat glanced down the hallway, wondering if everyone else was all right. They must've felt the shockwave, if they weren't already being attacked... Hope no-one's worse off than I am.
A weary, terrified, quiet frog exhaled and rubbed his eyes, "Alright Ian, unconventional. I'll give you that. Where the hell did you g- y'know what? Gift horses." He looked around, shaking on his feet. "Aisha, I'm guessing you want to... take point. Ketefe, if you're not hurt, you're probably our next best fighter."
Like that will keep things away from you.
Bal was loving this situation. He always liked it when Jeremiah was in trouble, regardless of what could happen to him as well. It was like having your worst enemy share your head, constantly muttering in your ear and applauding your woes. Of course, Jeremiah wouldn't put it in nearly so many words, and none of the words he would use would be permitted in a forum like this one.
A man whose greatest responsibility in his day to day life was to teach about art to high school students who didn't know why they were learning it reached down and picked up an edged piece of rock that the hellhound had knocked out of the walls and held it like a cross between a knife and an old fashioned shaving razor. Bal's commentary degraded into full blown, manic laughter that made the Lunacy sound like a merely jolly fellow.
"Aisha, which way do we go?"
Aisha braked on the floor, regaining her shape from a motion-ridden blur to jaguaress as her blade finally found the sinew that had separated the dog's head from the rest of his body. The flesh ignited in a satisfyingly bright bonfire of hideous, pungent ashes before her eyes...only made brighter by the rat's quick flash bomb.
For a moment her face had quite the fanged grin, the feeling of exhilaration flowing through her veins at successfully slaying something that shouldn't have been released in the first place. Her breathing was harsh, taken several times through her mouth. This fight was the power she needed to repair all of the tiredness her body had from lack of sleep. Aisha hadn't noticed that her shirt was ripped nearly in half and that one leg of her trousers dripped with blood from a shallow cut from the beast's jaws, tingling with unholy energy...not until the panther finally exhaled calmly. Then she hissed, feeling it in her nerves.
The blade was still ablaze with the holy fire, some of it coursing up her arms. Almost as if unconsciously, she took one of her hands and placed it down on her injured leg, where the flames seemed to quell the pain...healing the girl of her own volition and banishing the malicious sting. The damage did leave quite the scar however, something that couldn't be banished as the fire left her body and crept back to the blade.
"What a rush..." she sighed and stood up, looking down at her shirt, two ends of it connected at the bottom and the separated portions hanging from her shoulders. At least the wrappings that bound her chest under the fabric still protected her from any worries about modesty. And at any rate, there were other things to worry about.
After a second, Aisha glanced back to Jeremiah as he inquired where to go. Her eyes narrowed, seemingly having a glow as dangerous and determined as her sword...they reflected two sides; illusory Hellfire, and very real holy fire. "We go down this corridor, as intended," she stated. "Where Mel ran to. Everyone stay close, and watch each other. Ketefe, don't lose us. Nobody's getting lost again, hear me? Vamos! Go!"
The panthress started in a trot down into the darkness, past the torched corpse of the hell hound. Fast enough to be in a confident hurry past the screaming apparitions, but slow enough for the other three to keep up with her. A ragged, accented voice echoed down the corridor.
"Mel!"
* * *
Rynkura hadn't received any reply from Cogidubnus as he rushed to find the source of the empowered cursing...the tigress instead had decided to stay in that portion of the corridor and protect their backs from the demonic spirits rushing upon them.
She could very well hold her own barrier, a shimmering and almost invisible dome of light that served to divert most of the creatures. But still there were some who could claw through the magic, those which were either taken care of by blinding light, stinging darts, or a simple slam in the body with her staff. She wouldn't let them pass. She simply listened to the exchange of voices, loud enough to be a hammer blow to the spirit and the heart...until finally, she sent a flurry of arrow-length darts against another horde of demons and turned around to look for them.
Rynkura stopped when she found the wolf and the jackal, along with the spider...their bodies covered in webbing and dripping blood, faces as solemn as all could get.
"I trust no one is hurt," the tiger inquired calmly...and then as a second thought, held her hand up. "Physically, hurt."
Ian was jogging down the hall easily keeping pace with Aisha.
Flying inside the hallway was getting harder for Bambi. The walls and ceiling jet out stone and brick in her way that she had to bob and weave around. She was also flying double, carrying Gina. She was getting tried fast.
"Gina Gina, you need to start flying, I'm losing my hold on you, EEEEK!" screams Bam as she loses Gina as dives to avoids a flaming skull ghost in her face.
Bam's scream, which is heard by Stygain and Mel, shakes Gina out of her frozen state. Gina shoots her wings out to break her fall and quick runs towards Mel. Bambi also flys toward the others too. She fires light spell blast at ghost and demons covering Gina's escape. The girls breathlessly arrive where Mel and Stygain are.
PBH
For a moment as Cog addressed her, Sal only stood looking with incredulous shock. But as Cog turned his back on her, her expression slowly changed into dark indignity, and she mumbled, looking at him and Keaton balefully. 'Yeah, it's my fault that the old bastard and his in-law showed up. So, screw me over then. You won't be the first,' she said, voice bitter and cold. 'Not like I have a choice anyway.'
Snorting, Sal turned her back on the both of them and walked over to Rynkura, moving up beside her and casting the darkness a grim look, idly flexing her many fingers.
The corridor that lay before them was open and completely still, the turn that would probably bring them within sight of Mel not two dozen meters ahead. The jog almost seemed unnecessary, considering the sudden stillness of the place and the way the noise of their footsteps and breathing must have been quite audible to whatever might have been out there to pursue them. Still, even through the sudden cold stillness of the hallway, there seemed to remain that all too familiar feeling of eyes, maliciously watching from out of the darkness.
They heard a screech, and before she had time to react, something that had almost blended into the wall of an alcove struck Aisha and sent her back into Ketefe. The humanoid shape wasted no time, its hide seeming to shift and ripple to a darker shade and more organic structure as it removed itself from the stony wall and rushed for the group. It leaped, maw open and leaking poisonous fumes.
Suddenly, a shudder passed through the demon's tense body and it let out a howling shriek, caught mid-air. For a moment it hung there, some sort of black, blade-like protrusion jutting out of its chest. Then the sharp thing flexed and threw the monster away, discarding its already disintegrating, twitching body.
Walking quickly against the adventurers, Stygian didn't even spare the horrid thing a glance as he passed it, the blade-like extension of his right wing morphing back into shape. '
There will be more of those,' he said, deceptively calmly. '
Soon. And worse.'
Ketefe walked as quickly as she could after the others. What she really wanted to do was lie down and sleep, but from what she'd seen tonight, that would probably get her killed. She heeded Aisha's advice and kept her eyes on the others as she moved forward.
Suddenly, a humanoid demon that had been hiding in the wall (just how much could these things do, anyway?!) lashed out at Aisha and knocked her into Ketefe. They both fell to the ground and skidded along the floor as the demon leapt out of the wall and rushed for the group. Ketefe started to push Aisha off her so she could get up and help.
But before it could do any damage, it screamed in pain, and hung on a blade for a moment before getting tossed away. Its killer was Stygian. Ketefe stared as the bat explained that things would be much worse than the current situation very soon. She got out from under the panthress and stood, her eyes becoming more alert. "Can we stop them?" she asked Stygian. I don't want ANYONE else getting possessed. I wouldn't even wish this on Gareth, or Khimara.
Jeremiah's eyes followed the humanoid demon as it was quickly excriviated, paralyzed on the spot. Later, he'd probably be berating himself for just standing there rather than, presumably on the basis that he had the odds of a snowball and was aparantly already in hell, doing something.
"Sebastion," the frog simply said, laughing in relief that nobody just got eaten, "You've got to be the most convenient scary person I've ever met."
Mel quietly followed Sebastian back down the hall. He didn't seem to require any answers and the faint sound of Aisha calling out told that the rest of the group were probably close. If they could join up quickly they could try finding the others. She was finding the lack of attacks was straining on her nerves and was looking nervously around so she almost missed Sebastian killing a monster that had confronted their small company. She was relieved to see they were all there. Bambi and Gina were coming up the hall from behind. Mel had actually forgotten about them, having not seen either since coming back from town. Nodding at Ketefe and her intelligent question the dragon asked the bat, "Do you know of them? Do they have any weaknesses we might exploit?"
"I....." Ian started. "Want to hug you." He laughed at styg. "It's good to have more of the group here. I feel safer even if I am a bit naked at the moment." He gripped the area at the small of his back where he normally kept his guns holstered.
With only a few pauses to make sure the others were indeed behind her, Aisha kept her pace through the darkened corridor, shrugging off the feeling of having many sets of eyes upon her back. Demons and apparitions screeched past, attempting to grab at them, only to meet her ferocious blade.
But then, before she could see it...WHAM! The air had been taken out of the panther, causing her to lose balance and topple straight into Ketefe before she could see what was going on. She had quickly tumbled off of the masked felid with a quick apology, almost ready to face the monstrous thing...then at the right moment, it was struck through the chest. The sudden flare of her tail ring gave her the possibility of who it was, before relief came at his appearance. And of the one next to him.
"Sebastian," Aisha released a sigh of relief, finally dispelling the flames on her blade. "And Mel, you're alright too, thank goodness. And I've managed to keep these three alive." She glanced back at them, first looking at Ketefe, who may have to keep the bracer on unless the spirit had left already. And then her eyes wandered over Jeremiah and Ian with a slightly darker look. "You're welcome, by the way," she muttered, shaking her head, turning back to the bat with a slight bow. "And for that last maneuver, gracias."
However, the panthress was tense. "Worse to come..." Her eyes wandered down to the sword she gripped. "Perfect. How worse?"
* * *
Meanwhile, Rynkura awaited the wolf and jackal to start catching up. As Sal wandered up to her, the tigress kept a weary, but neutral eye on her. The healer really only would hurt her if there was a reason to do so, and it looked like she was willing to cooperate.
But she quirked a curious eyebrow at what she had said, regarding two other newcomers to the castle...her intonation had suggested that really, the arachnid "mother" wasn't the worst threat within the walls. "Hm. I wonder what would come of meeting these fellows, then."
Rynkura chuckled lowly, though she kept her ears pinned in a position of seriousness while starting in a direction that would hopefully get them around the other side of the wall.
"What?" Ian said incredulously. "What did I do to get your panties in a bunch!?" It wasn't that big of a deal but now seemed as good a time as any to break the tension in the air.
Stygian's look shifted a bit between them all. '
It's not a problem. Just be careful next time,' he said. '
And, to answer your question, I don't really know. Just worse, that's rather certain.' He walked past them on the left side, heading back toward the room at the base of the tower. It seemed they would have to take the long way around to get to the others.
'
They are demons,' he said, his tone detached and explanatory, almost as if he were giving a lecture. '
The negative planar kind. Not like what you usually call demons, but connected in a way, I guess.' There were a whole lot of theories and no certain explanations he could offer there, not that it really mattered right then. '
And they don't have any apparent weaknesses other than one; they hate light and holy energy. Other than that, they are a bit disorganized and they don't take cold as well as heat. That's about it.' He walked for a bit, his large wings folded and moving just slightly with his steps. Then he looked over his shoulder. '
Oh, and it's Sebastian, by the way. Though I'd rather you call me Stygian like everyone else.'
Casting Rynkura a sidelong glance, the spider folded her arms under her breasts, something that resulted in a rather complicated braided structure. She looked down, then started walking and caught up with the tiger.
'Only bad things, I think. They will turn this place inside out to kill us. Or you, at least. I will be lucky to get off so easily,' Sal said coldly, looking around.
Ketefe was relieved to see Mel was all right too, and she noted that Bam and Gina were close by and a little out of breath; she guessed they'd meet up with the rest of the group soon. At Aisha's quick glance to her bracer on Ketefe's wrist, then to Jeremiah and Ian, the feline suddenly remembered what she should've said earlier.
"Whoops, forgot. Thanks for saving my life, and then all our lives, in less than fifteen minutes." She smiled at the panthress before turning her attention to Stygian as she followed the others down the hall. She gave Ian a look and mouthed "bad timing" when he made his comment to Aisha.
When the bat began speaking of weaknesses in the demons, Ketefe realized that she may be more capable than she thought at stopping them. She glanced down at the lightning bracelet she'd gotten from Mel. It was right next to the bracer, which might not be very convenient if it was really powerful. I'll tie it around my other wrist if we stop at some point. But it's lightning magic, so if I figure out how to use it...
Mel followed quickly behind Stygian as he traveled back to the room at the tower base. She couldn't manage holy energy but light and cold were amongst her strongest spells. Not that it made her any less fearful, just less mindlessly fearful. As she passed Aisha she noticed the state of the panther's shirt and stopped by her long enough to offer the brooch from her jacket lapel as a temporary fix. "You might want to button up. If cold slows the beasts it might be getting chilly soon."
Ian stifeled a snicker. Any of my other friends would go the other direction with that he thought.
'That would be convenient. Though if you want to really hurt them, I suggest you bring some light magic to bear,' Stygian said, slowing his pace so that the others could catch up. 'Just make sure you alert me before you do anything. I don't like light any more than they do.'
The tower room was still as empty, though there was a clinking and whining sound coming from the top of it, the source invisible in the shadows. Alternating his gaze between the ceiling and the door to their left, Stygian walked in, squeezing the grips of his guns in his hands. 'We need to get in touch with the others. Could you see to that, Mel?' he asked. 'We'll have to find them quickly before they're lost completely.'
'We are all lost, kelev! You will all die!'
Stygian's eyebrows rose and he peered surprisedly back over his shoulders. It was only when he stopped and his gaze landed on her that Ketefe realized that everyone else was looking at her too. She had suddenly felt so distant, and the voice had been so unlike her own, that she had not realized that it was she who had spoken.
'Is there something I should know here?' Stygian said, warily. His eyes examined her very closely, and the feline almost felt as if something was drawing nearer from his direction, a presence that made her shiver. Before he could get an answer though, hisses echoed through the room and his eyes darted upward. 'Heads up!' he shouted, raising his guns.
Deliberately ignoring Sal, Keaton walked over to Rynkura, looking very shamefaced and more than slightly crestfallen, a clear betrayal of the swiftness in her stride. Grateful that Rynkura was apparently unaware of the calamity that had occurred, she again reached up and attempted to smear away the blood in her face, this time succeeding in getting the thicker gouts away from the outlines of her eyes. Unconsciously, she sniffed, though that could've been easily attributed to the red which had trickled down the bridge of her muzzle and into her nose.
"Everything's fine, Ryn," she said, running her hand through her hair. "Just got beat up a bit."
Keaton cared nothing for what Sal said--if the spider was expecting for her to be compassionate and understanding after everything, she was horribly wrong. She didn't care if her family had died and had driven her to madness or that she was adopted by monsters or that she wasn't doing anything of her free will (something very hypocritical, since Keaton had been possessed), she was still going to be angry at her. Folding her arms, she stared around, then sighed.
"I tried to break down the wall on my end. Didn't work... only got a scratch," she attempted to contribute, if only to bolster her deteriorating self-esteem. "Do you think there's another way around?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"Demons...right," Aisha said with an understanding nod as she followed along with the others, a slight grin on her face. Negative planar or not, the creatures were a race that she took pleasure in never holding back from a fight. She was quite willing to go in for the sake of protecting...to rend more flesh and spill more acrid blood. "Good then, I've got some holy firepower and the my are mostly of light influence," the panther assured, though she was relieved to have much more than what firepower they had on their side now that the bat and Mel had returned.
As the dragon addressed her, Aisha smiled gratefully and took the brooch, pinning the two halves of her shirt together with it. "Many thanks," she assented, and turned to keep walking. However, an ear quirked to hear Ian's snickering. She had ignored his statement before, in favor of Ketefe showing her gratefulness for the group's safety. So the panther kept ignoring the rat...after walking past him with an indignant narrowing of the eyes, and landing a slap to the back of his head. "Manners."
But then when they reached the tower base, she heard Ketefe's voice and also turned to regard her with a surprised look at her outburst. The cat still had partial control over herself it seemed, from the feared look on her face. That's when Aisha tapped her forehead. "Oh yes, right...she's been--"
Then, Stygian interrupted with a quick warning, her sentence unfinished. Looking up and listening to the hisses from above, she swiftly held the blade over her head. "What now?" she growled.
* * *
Rynkura kept a curious ear on Sal as she spoke, walking along and hoping that where they were going wasn't going to lead them to a dead end. At her remark about being killed, the old tigress kept a slight grin on her face. "In my age, there are very few things about that could still kill me. As for the rest of us, there is no cause for killing a bunch of curious adventurers but for unneeded blood on one's hands."
However, she kept quite thoughtful even as Keaton came near her as well. She gave the ragged-looking succubus a smile and a light nod, satisfied with her answer that things were fine for the time being. Her emerald gaze turned to the ceiling for a moment. "Well...if we hear no message from the others, I may try to send one of my own."
Cog turned to Rynkura, nodding his head, and turned his eyes to the hallway, his gaze passing over the darkness. "A message may be a good idea, Ms. Msh'taan." Cog said, looking at the wavering blue outlines circling them from the darkness. "But then..."
Cog stood and dripped blood for a moment longer. "I don't think now may be the best time..."
He sighed. "There's a way to get there from the library." he said, indicating with his head a side hall to the right. "Which is that way. Of course, we have to get there." He shifted from one foot to another, and took a deep breath.
He spared a sidelong glance at Keaton, nodding just a bit to himself. She seemed a little better, now, although she wasn't even acknowledging Sal in any way. Better than trying to kill her, he supposed.
There would be time later. He'd have to remember to talk to her or...something. He felt bad for acting as he had. Especially to someone who had been so understanding before.
He took a deep breath, turning to the tigress. "If you would be so kind?" Cog said to Rynkura, indicating the darkness ahead of them. They were going to have to fight through at some point. Rather in the light than in the darkness.
From above the adventurers a stream of seething, flapping and humming things descended, each one large as the raven on Aisha's shoulder and trailing a cloud of ash and cinders. Malicious eyes above half-insectoid mouthparts filled with yellowish teeth flew at them, and the room filled with a sulphurous, diseased stench.
'
Carrion!' Stygian snarled, his guns already blazing and his wings turning into scything blades as he moved back from the group to get more room to maneuver. '
Close your mouths! Breathe through cloth if you can!' The things tore into and at the adventurers, flailing and screeching, the horrid creatures' voices slimy and rasping as if whatever lungs or passages were employed to make the sounds were wounded or decaying. '
And don't let them grab you!' Stygian warned as he tore a pair of the things into singeing pieces, firing a hole through a third, which ruptured and burst into several dirty pieces as it hit the floor. The creatures' claws and teeth, dirty and sharp, burned as hot iron brands as they tore fur, skin and flesh.
Still firing and striking wildly, Stygian looked around and backed toward the exit from the tower room. If they could bottleneck the things, they would be easily dealt with. And he did not have a bit as much control and space as he wanted to use his powers to their full extent. None of the Carrion came even close to him, but the others were not so lucky. They had to move quickly.
'
Follow me!' he shouted, hoping the others could hear him above the calamity. '
And contact the others, Mel!'
A rattling, breath-like sound echoed through the hallway, making heads turn and letting Cog and the others know that there were still more horrors about. It did not seem as if this Hell was intent on giving them much pause.
'You do know that I was just a distraction, right?' Sal said absently, turning around and slowly gazing up into the darkness. 'Throwaway. It's Stygian they want. And that panther woman. You can still make it if you just find somewhere safe enough and stand your ground.' She didn't really sound as if she were trying to dupe them. Oddly enough, she seemed perfectly honest, though perhaps a bit too tense for one to try and judge from her tone and manner right then.
Everything was going just fine until Ketefe's demon spoke up again. The cat didn't even realize that "she" had spoken until she saw the confused looks of the others. She went completely pale, embarrassed and more than a little afraid. Stygian seemed most curious about just what was going on, and Ketefe swore she could feel something pulling towards her from his gaze. Chills ran down her spine; why hadn't she just told him when they met up again...
The awkward moment was broken by yet another attack, this time by ash-producing, insectoid monsters. A sulfuric smell filled the room, but Ketefe closed her mouth and covered her muzzle the second Stygian yelled not to breathe straight air. Yanking her mask off without even bothering to untie it, she held it folded over her mouth as she slashed away at any bugs that came near her. The creatures weren't as bad as the demons, but they were fearsome, with teeth like rusted daggers and claws that burned with each scratch.
She caught Stygian's voice above the noise, and followed it as quickly as she could. A few of the creatures scratched her, but none of them got close enough to hurt her that badly; almost all the bugs ended up either cut in half or escaping to try and get the others. Hopefully, everyone's capable enough to get rid of these things. She started glancing back every few moments to make sure the others were all right as she continued to head towards the bat's voice.
The demonic beasts fell upon them like rain, and with them, Aisha could easily smell the foul stench of cinders long before they filled the room with their bodies. These Carrion, as Stygian had called them, swarmed into the room faster than the plagues they must have carried. The panthress was quick to cover her nose with a part of her cape, while she leaped in and around her comrades and slashed some of the insect-like flying jaws out of the air, charring their bodies with holy flame. At one point she halted her breath to reach for her boomerang. Letting it lose, the sawblade saw to the deaths of any beast in its path and filled her hand with entrails upon its return.
And yet, they kept coming. She heard the raven's calls as it had refused to heed her command to fly off before, staying on her shoulder and burying its beak within a wing while its claws dug into her shoulder as she moved and swerved about...apparently, no bird was used to an insect that was about its own size. She hoped the others heard his command as well...especially Ketefe, who seemed to be in a worse condition than she thought.
But there seemed to be no end to them...through the gunshots and the slashing, their numbers were only beginning to fill at their feet. "You heard him!" she called in a muffled voice through the fabric of her cape, and tried to follow in retreat...only hoping that indeed, Mel could get a message to the others; or vice-versa.
* * *
Rynkura nodded in Cogidubnus's direction, glancing down the hall to regard the darkness across. The night itself created its natural shadows...but in this hellish environment, with spirits trying to bleed the group's ears dry with their unnatural cries, the hall before them seemed not like a corridor, but a maw; eager to draw the unwary and the frightened into its depths, crawling with nightmarish tendencies.
"It seems like a perfect direction to start then, Sir Mithlome," the tigress agreed and tapped her staff hard on the floor, allowing it to glow even brighter with its unending source of light energy from within. The Healer's hand rested upon its orbed surface, before it took on that same glow. Then, she took the gathered light and hurled it down the hallway, an illumination trailing from it and sticking to the walls, striking any smaller creatures that awaited them.
"That along with the barriers I cast for you should be able to deter some of the beasts," Rynkura reassured and started down the hall, hoping to remember the often confusing pathway. As she walked, her ear was kept on Sal speaking about the newcomers with a manner that she judged somewhat honest, if not still hard-pressed on being with them. It wasn't too much of a surprise that it was Stygian they were after...
But then, she paused in mid-step at the other point. "...Panther woman?" Rynkura echoed, her voice almost silenced. She prided herself about being calm in any situation...but this development suddenly hit something within her. They couldn't have meant her student...could they? A shudder passed her heart just once. It couldn't...! But something told her that it was surely her. No other panther was with them.
Rynkura started walking again, but turned her head to regard Sal, slowly, her eyes suddenly narrowed in that dangerous way again, this time holding an emotion behind it that echoed of concern...worry...and her hard tone of voice matched it.
"What do they want with Aisha?" she demanded.
Jeremiah considered his options as Stygian explained how to handle whatever the hell (hurr hurr) they were up against. Light magic... Lots of visual illusions involve the manipulation of light...
'We are all lost, kelev! You will all die!'
The frog turned slowly in the direction of the shout, shocked and horrified. Oh no... He thought...
Not you too... the teacher mouthed. And then monsters dropped from the ceiling. Hearing Styg's advice, he pulled the edge of his shirt up over his mouth. Time to see if his theory about illusion magic and these things was correct. With a yell that a quick spell morphed into a barbaric bellow (hoping against hope that these things could be intimidated), he quickly sketched an illusion of a large scorpion, made of light. His hands constantly moved like a cross between a painter and a puppeteer as he manuvered his creation like a shell around himself, its tail and claws lashing out at the flying things.
Please let this work.
The illusion did seem to work well enough, keeping the pests a good distance away from Jeremiah. However, the way they slashed and tore even at the illusory carapace was enough to make one deduce that whatever intelligence these creatures possessed was not afraid of such a thing.
Ducking in through the door, Stygian leaned on his shoulder to look at the swarming insect-like attackers. He stopped firing though, holstering his guns and freeing his hands, his fingertips already lengthening into black, knife-like claws. The bullets were much too valuable to waste on the lowly Carrion. He didn't want to devour or engulf the things in any way. They were filthy even by the standards of Hell. But he could still shred them to pieces.
Aisha ducked in through the doorway after him, then Ketefe, slicing a head that was much too mammalian in appearance off the body of something clinging to her arm with her sword. When the other two were still trapped in the swarm, Stygian quickly darted out into the room again, grabbing Ian and tugging him along, and stretching his hand into the arachnid illusion to drag Jeremiah away as well. Throwing all three of them in through the door, he quickly turned and with a growl swept his wings forward, lifting from the floor. In a moment, the black appendages dissolved into a haze of sliver-like shadows and swirled out around his arms. He thrust his hands forward, and the darkness tore forth like a hurricane, a stream of ripping dark maws and corrosive blackness that shredded the incoming pests. A few pieces of sizzling, disintegrating carapace flew in on the sides of the black stream, but when Stygian finally let up and drew back his hands, putting his feet back on the floor as the darkness withdrew around him to form his wings again, not a single Carrion was left in sight, and only a few receding buzzes could be heard from the tower.
'
That should be enough,' Stygian said, a bit tensely but with no apparent exhaustion, standing back from the doorway. '
We still need to find the others though.'
Sal gave the tigress another glance. The spider didn't seem
too irritated, but all things considered, was probably pretty stressed. And it was hard to know what was in her interest. The simple resignation she showed at her task of killing them, and the readiness with which she had accepted
not killing them for the time being were both...
strange. Strange and telling. But whether she wanted to hurt them or not, she was still the enemy. And yet...
'Aisha? Yes, that was her name, wasn't it,' Sal said, almost pensively. 'They were interested in her. Or at least Asal was. I think he wants to kill her.' As everything else she had said to the tigress, she explained this in a most detached, uncaring way.
Mel turned at Ketefe's shout, confused at the strange voice coming out of the young girl. What sort of mischief had occurred while they had been separated? But before she could inquire the stinking horde descended upon them. Grabbing a handkerchief from her pocket to cover her face she lashed out at some of the flying monsters with light. Mindful of Stygian's weakness against light they were tight little arrows and not blasts. With the little bit of her attention still free she sent out a tendril of thought to search out Keaton. She should be able to identify the cubi easily enough, she had walked through Keaton's mind trying to find the mythos. "Keaton. Can you hear me? Where are you?"
The Fae sweep her hands above her head and firing light darts against the eight winged shadows. Each creature explode into a puff of black smoke. With a beating of her wings, she tryings sending the sulfur away from the party. It works only so long as she had a supply of fresh air to her back, but the creatures were beginning to encircle them. Gina ends up give her a piece of her dress to breath through. Both girls keep close to Mel, as they follow the bat's path down the hall.
PBH
Although Keaton was making quite a visible effort to ignore Sal, her selective hearing informed her about the mentioning of Aisha, especially when Rynkura appropriately reacted to knowing her beloved student was endangered. Ears swiveled upright as Keaton spun around to face them, eyebrows arched and a whole tirade of curses ready to burst forth at any given provocation. Fortunately such an event did not occur, but she was nevertheless horrified. Stygian wasn't the only person who these intruders were "interested" in? This was complete news to her... and it wasn't pleasant in the least bit.
Before she could voice her concerns or interrogate Sal, however, a strangely familiar voice piped up in the back of her head, echoing eerily as it swiftly spread to the rest of her mind. "Keaton? Can you hear me? Wh" - a burst of hissing static - "ere are you?" As weary and bruised as Keaton was from her outburst and rampage, it was nigh impossible not to notice that sudden voice as it materialized behind a shrieking cloud of static.
She had never communicated telepathically before. Nobody had really attempted to, as that required infiltration past her nearly impenetrable mind-shields. But Mel, who had familiarized herself with the navigation past those barriers, was capable of doing so. After all, she had entered her mind before. Forgetting her shock, Keaton decided to be nevertheless grateful the dragon was safe... well, relatively. Safety was never guaranteed when you were under attack by demons from every angle.
'Mel?' Keaton thought, clumsily attempting to project a message back to her. 'Can... can you hear me? Holy shit. Mel, you're alright. Me, Ryn, Cog, and... the spider are behind the wall. We were separated from Stygian when it appeared...'
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"...Asal...?"
Rynkura did not know at that point whether or not to believe what the spider had been saying. The name was a dagger that struck into her subconscious, and pulled out some very specific...and very horrid...memories. From the way one could observe of her demeanor now, the tigress was frozen, nearly dumbfounded, a glazed look in her deep green gaze. She now seemed to look the age that she appeared.
It was hard to believe the spider, in the tone of voice she had, so uncaring, yet still the possibility stung at her fiercely. But...I thought we were rid of them! I thought they believed they had killed the last of the Cabres! I thought I could keep her...I thought she could be safe!
Still as a statue, those thoughts and more flooded her mind. She only moved with a slight shudder after a moment, gripping her staff and trying not to break down. "Asal. Of the Be'Laan demon clan." The tigress assented, perhaps to the surprise of the spider, eyes narrowing dangerously while her head inclined. "How did he know where to find...?"
That was when she glanced up at Keaton after a moment, noticing her staunch and concentrative appearance, and stood up again, watching questioningly...she quite recognized when a telepathic message was received, though she could not hear it. Hopefully, it was no bad news. As long as Aisha was still alive, that was what she wished for.
Then, perhaps, if all of this was true, the panthress could have a portion of her long-sought revenge back...
* * *
As Aisha ducked into the corridor, she covered her head against any of those sulfurous beasts who dove at the group, an instinctive motion while she replaced the boomerang back at her belt. The others followed easily soon after, either by their volition or by the bat's. And then, he began his own assault against them. Impressive, dangerous, and effective.
"Oh man," the panthress sighed and leaned against the wall, almost wanting to sit down while she caught her breath. "Yeah, we do..." She glanced back at the dragon, who seemed to be in deep concentration. "I hope the message got someone."
The spider kept her eyes on the hallway, answering after a brief pause. 'Yes. How? He's Asodan's son-in-law now. It's been quite some time since they were joined. Not that the old man likes it.' She snorted, and a grim smile hinted in her face for a second. 'He'd rather never have seen his face in his life, really. But they had to rely on the Be'Laan strength. Don'Chel isn't a strong house anymore. All thanks to Stygian...'
A slight clicking sound caused the spider to stop and drew her eyes. It had been almost inaudible, even to Rynkura, and it was hard to put a direction to. But somehow the spider had sensed it even before the tigress, and had even located its source. Backing a step, she flexed her fingers.
'Three of them,' Sal whispered, very quietly. 'Big.'
Stygian gave Mel a long hard glance, wondering just how well it would go to establish contact with the others. The living darkness that permeated the castle was going to make certain spells and abilities much harder. He and Keaton would be the only ones whose abilities benefited from it all, and even then it was a two-edged sword. His senses much less blurry now that he had been given some time to recuperate from the flash before, he could sense the place's energy in the aether clearly again. And this brought other things to mind.
Turning his head, the bat regarded Ketefe for a moment, his dark eyes and studying her profoundly. Then he walked over and bent forward a bit, eyes narrowing as he furrowed his brow and put a hand on her cheek, making her look at him. That close, she could see the thin scar over the right side of his lips, and the fiery glow of his pupils. It was unsettling to say the least.
'
That's not good,' he said, after a couple of very uncomfortable seconds. He cast a glance toward the bracer on her wrist. '
Sorry I didn't notice before. This is bad though.' Just as suddenly as he had turned to the feline, he looked back over his shoulder at Mel. '
Are we getting through?' he asked.
Bambi has been studying the wall between them and the others..."I can't tell if it was just stones or is there any wooden beams in the wall anywhere. Can you tell how thick is it, Sebastian?" Asks the Fae. She looks around at some of the broke benchs and pieces of beams that littered the hall.
PBH
Mel nodded her head in response to Stygian's inquiry but didn't give him an immediate answer. She had to concentrate to pick up the thread from Keaton. There was an energy storm inside the castle even wilder than the storm raging outside and it was just as difficult to hold a normal conversation through. "It is hard to pick up the thoughts, but I think that Cog, Rynkura, and Keaton are together and still near the wall. There was something about a spider that I could not make out. I believe they are okay for the moment. Where do you want to try to meet up?"
Jeremiah was yanked out of his illusion, mildly discomforted but in good spirits otherwise. Even if it hadn't exactly been unstoppable, visual illusions were able to influence these things. He brushed off his shirt and let the scorpion behind him crumble. Now, to worry about the other things...
"So, Ketefe," Jeremiah said quietly as Mel worked on contacting Keaton, "You feel any different? The stuff around here that gets into you..." the frog bit his lip, trying to figure out how to put this without horrifying the girl, "It messes you up pretty bad. Like that thing I got turned into before. Any symptoms you've felt since Aisha loaned you her bracer?"
Beheading one last creature, Ketefe lunged into the doorway, then watched as Stygian saved Jeremiah and Ian before taking care of the rest of the Carrion in his typical fashion. By now watching it had become a bit less scary. She was more impressed at the bat's power now - or at least, that was the dominating emotion. Her hand holding the mask dropped from her face as she crossed her arms and waited.
After he came back into the hall, Stygian turned his attention to Ketefe again. She shivered involuntarily when he walked towards her, analyzing her with his eyes. She suddenly really wanted to put her mask on again. When he stopped and looked down at her, she wanted to turn her head away, but he put his hand on the side of her face so she had no choice but to look into his eyes. She noticed a scar on his lip she'd never seen before, and his eyes seemed to glow from within.
Once he figured out what was wrong with her, he turned to Mel, allowing Ketefe to draw in a shuddering breath. I wonder how he figured it out just by looking at me, she mused. She hadn't seen her own glowing eyes yet.
When Jeremiah asked his question, the ex-vigilante turned and responded. "Nothing really. I mean, I'm still in a little pain, but it isn't as bad as it was." She tried her hardest not to remember that. "And I can feel it back there ... whatever it is. It's still there, but with the bracer on, it can't do much, I guess."
The question was very pertinent, but Stygian had no immediate answer. Looking down, he racked his mind for memories of the castle and its rooms, for a memory of the best place available. It had to be defensible, with few exits, but not too cramped, and somewhere in between the two groups. There was really only one choice.
'
Tell them to go to the upper social hall,' Stygian said, looking at Mel. '
It should be just off the main stairway, right to the northwest. There are only two doors, and they'll be closest to the service entry.' His eyes went distant for a second as he thought things through. '
To the end of the corridor, straight through the music hall and then a right, then a left into the biggest room down the hallway. I think it should be the second or third door.' That was about as accurate as he could give them. Usually, his memory was very accurate, but time wore down everything.
More whispering half-voices emanated behind them from the end of the hall, and there was an unpleasant, crackling sound coming from nearby. The air that blew down the hall was hot and dry.
Stygian sighed and turned his gaze toward Bam for a second. '
It's stone and armoring right through. There's no wood nearby, not that I can see.' Again, he looked toward the dark end of the corridor. '
I'll go first. When you think you can, get ready to move. Fast.'
When Ketefe uttered those last words, she could feel, almost as if she were thinking them herself but not quite, words welling up within her mind, malicious and spiteful.
Not yet, little girl. But soon... You will be mine...A ragged, almost inaudible breath rippled through the near-complete silence of the hallway, reaching the ears of them all before fading away into emptiness again, and Sal stood tense as a violin string. 'We... we might have to run,' she said, voice trembling but only half with fright.
Cog cracked his neck, staring at the three blue shapes walking towards them in the darkness, and simply took in a deep breath. The sword in his hand glowed a bit brighter, and he began to slowly walk forward, keeping himself within the distance of Rynkura's light.
"I don't think we have anywhere to run, Sal." Cog said, dripping blood. He spared a glace to the hallway to the right. "Maybe there. But then, I don't think we could move fast enough to outrun anything here."
He smiled a half-smile. "Besides. It's only three, after all."
*sign* Bam placed two glowing hands on the dividing wall, screams and cries for the some demon or another in the wall could be heard on both sides of the wall, as they felt Bambi's light magic. Yet, the Fae could not find any embedded wood in the wall for her to effect. The wall look normal for a moment and then return to its possessed state once the cat girl removed her hands.
"I had hope to force open a doorway in this wall to the others, if I could have found enough wood. Lead on Stygain, Do you think, the enemies will seek us?" asks the Fae cat
Aisha watched from her sitting spot, happy for everyone to regain their breath as Mel attempted the message and Stygian inspected Ketefe. "Took on a spirit. I'm almost afraid to take the bracer off, she may start screaming again," the panthress commented with a concerned sigh. It was going to be quite the transition into morning. If this ended with nobody dead, she was going to sleep until the afternoon, regardless of Rynkura's habit to awaken herself and everyone else early.
Thinking of her mentor, Aisha was relieved to hear from Mel that she along with Keaton and Cogidubnus were safe. Her eyes narrowed when a spider was mentioned as well...Rynkura knew the story, so she believed that the tiger wouldn't let anyone else get controlled, much less herself. That only meant that the puppet master was there. Good, she thought, darkly. She's got some things to face.
Watching Ketefe, as well as Bam and Gina wander around their vicinity, Aisha stood up again while Mel prepared to relay the bat's message to the other group. "I'm sure we're all ready to run," the huntress muttered.
* * *
Rynkura's concentration faltered slightly. As she watched Keaton's frozen and concentrative state, her ear couldn't help but swivel back to hear Sal give a short speech on what the Don'Chels were doing together with the Be'Laans. But the tigress only snorted slightly in reply.
"I care nothing for the history...I'd have liked to know how he knew Aisha was here." She turned to look at Sal, an accusing look on her features. "Of course the answer could be in front of me. At any rate, she won't allow herself to be killed, nor will I allow it either..."
She stopped speaking, however, noticing that Sal's attention was focused on the hallway. Rynkura looked up, perking her ears to listen through the vaguely light-strewn corridor before them, though she strangely hadn't heard anything until the harsh, ragged breath reached them.
With a nod to Cogidubnus, she kept the light ahead of him while preparing a spell of her own. "Indeed it might be quite hard to run, and however large, they only fall harder."
Hoping that Keaton would be able to make out enough of the instructions to get the other party to the upper social hall Mel resumed contact. "Everyone else is here, including Stygian. Meet us in the upper social hall. Go to the main stairway, then right towards the northwest. To the end of the corridor, straight through the music hall and then a right, then a left into the biggest room down the hallway." She repeated the information twice more, hoping that enough would be understandable. "I have told them where we are heading. Hopefully they understood." With a big breath and a drawing up of power she prepared herself to run.
Ketefe gasped as quietly as she could, her eyes widening when she heard the parasite speak to her. She mentally snarled at it to shut up before tensing to run herself. "It just talked to me," she mentioned to Jeremiah. Can't be too careful.
Jeremiah raised an eyebrow. That probably meant nothing good. The closest that the Lunacy had done to talking was this curious buzzing noise he'd kept hearing since being scratched. However, that could probably be put down to intelligence; the Lunacy wasn't really all that bright.
"Protect that bracer," he replied quietly, not sure of what else to say.
Keaton remained where she was, eyes narrowed, attempting to decipher the words which were garbled and distorted behind the seething fog of static that clouded each, mentally-uttered syllable projected in her mind. A headache was starting to brew from the frustration that came with trying to understand such incoherent speech, but fortunately, she was able to analyze the majority of what was said: Go tO tHE maIn sTAIRwaY, thEN a RiGHT, thEn a LEft iNto tHe BiGgeST rOOm dOwN tHe hALLway...
She received this message just as Sal murmured something--Keaton normally would've ignored this, but the tension in her voice attracted her attention at first to her, then to Rynkura and Cogidubnus, both of which were staring at the warbling figures approaching them. Despite being capable of penetrating the darkness with her renewed vision, Keaton was unable to identify the silhouettes for some reason...
Keaton hissed urgently to Cogidubnus, her hand twisting around the pommel of Catastrophe. "Mel says that we should go to the main stairway, then a right, then a left into the biggest room down the hallway," she said, reciting everything the dragon had sent her. "If we decide to run, we should go that way, if it's accessible..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian's look was something in between worried and annoyed, but he nodded to Aisha and then set off forward at a quick but silent walk, watching the dark. The feeling of closeness and heat was gradually growing stronger, the humidity seeming to drain from the air and the dark stealing the breath from their lungs. As they advanced, a slight tinge of orange, a flickering glow, began to reflect through the corridors.
'
Well, at least it's not humid...' Stygian growled silently. '
Though my smell is going...' The air was drifting with something ashy and fumy, and picking up scents was getting harder and harder.
It was when they made the final turn toward the main stairway that Stygian suddenly stopped, his ears perking up and his head swiveling slowly. As the mild sound of their steps ceased, a very, very faint rasp could be heard, dry and slow.
Backing up a bit toward the others, Sal whispered hissing to them. 'If we dash past, I can string some web.' She flicked her fingers, and then put her hands together. The ripped sleeve of the one Cog had taken off stood out, gaping open but not bleeding any longer at all, it seemed. 'Hit them when they are held.'
'
Liiiiiiiiiiiife...' The sudden, direction-less rasp, more of a snarl than a voice, overcame their hearing and sent shivers up their spines. Sal twitched.
Cog nodded in response to Keaton. "If you can, tell Ms. Icewing we'll be there shortly, then."
Cog's ears quirked at the sudden noise from the approaching demons. Words that were almost human, and yet...he shook his head, and took another step forward, his pace increasing. As he got closer to the demons he could almost feel the floor underneath him vibrating as he got closer.
He called back to Sal. "Now is better than later." he said shortly. Mistress Rynkura's light kept pace with him, and it wasn't long before all three of the demons were bathed in light.
Abominations, all three. Some sort of hellspawed amalgamation of boar and man, with something else dark and hulking thrown in, just for the sake of evil. Blind, eyeless faces, emaciated like skulls and framed by two huge tusks set in a snapping, horribly fanged maw stared out at them. Cog coughed, taking a single step backwards and bringing up his sword in a low guard.
"Now is most certainly better than later!" he said, his eyes roving over the twisted demons. Cog began to chant in a low voice, the storm outside darkening as he called to it...
As they moved forward Mel felt her heartrate nervously speed up. The increasing heat was preying on her nerves, although thanks to the heat resistance spells on her clothing she wasn't suffering too much yet. When the flickering orange glow became evident every instinct told her to run in the other direction, but she squashed the urge, knowing that staying together held their only chance. When Stygian stopped and everything became silent she caught what he had heard. Scales against stone. A dragon could recognize the sound of scales.
Picking up the pace and making sure the others walked along, Aisha gathered herself and followed behind the bat, wrinkling her nose. She was quite eager to get away from the dead smell of the creatures that littered the base of the tower and whose ashen remains covered the walls...and also more than eager to get moving again. Always the huntress kept the sword at her side, her grip keeping tightly to the handle so that the crossguard was going to leave an indent on the side of her thumb.
But as they moved, the atmosphere of the castle turned more to the actual feeling of Hell...of encompassing heat (though with her amulet she got used to that too fast for her to notice), with a dwindling moisture and a rising dryness...ashen in composition, sulfurous in feel. The dark before them was still empowered, a barrier of intangibility to grip their minds and to still make an attempt to make them writhe in fear.
A shudder still crept up Aisha's spine...and she wondered how they were going to be able to find the others. Something gave her the distinct impression that for each moment wasted it will be all the more difficult.
But when Stygian stopped and looked around, she froze as well, her muscles tensing up. Around them, a rasping sound seethed against them. Aisha expressed her incredulity at the new event, but not surprise, as she looked around for the source, ready to spring if necessary. The raven, still like a guardian clinging to her shoulder and his piercing red gaze sweeping their surroundings, also seemed to tense. "Now what...?" her voice murmured against the stale backdrop, looking at the faces of the others for their reactions.
* * *
Rynkura had only nodded once in reply to Keaton's directions, her eyes intense and focused squarely on the new occurrence that made their way towards them. The monsters were ghastly things, huge and fanged, made of all strength and sinew and ravenous hunger. The tigress backed up a few steps, holding the intense and luminous staff in front of her before hearing Sal's suggestion.
She nodded in agreement with Cogidubnus. "If you can, then do. They will be slowed down if not held completely at least." As the storm outside darkened in what seemed to be the wolf's command, she seemed to gain the same idea. White bands of electricity crackled over Rynkura's palm and across her arm, and her emerald gaze took on a sort of lighter glow amidst the light that she created around the group. The edge of the light spell cast on the hall now framed the faces of the eyeless abominations. "Slowed enough."
A few, shuddering instants. Then Sal's feet tapped the floor and long strings of web flew out, whipping and twining even as they attached to the walls around and in front of the beasts. Before he had time to argue, Cog felt a hand jerk him forward and two arms grabbing around his back, tugging him along, and then the ground was pulled swiftly away underneath him. He did a slow flip that threatened to turn his stomach the wrong way, and then hit the floor, not quite gracefully but not too clumsily. Sal let the wolf go, almost throwing him around as she twisted to sling more silk.
'Go over!' the spider shouted, even as the things roared out in fury and dug their heavy, meaty, handlike paws into the floor, massive flanks and shoulders rippling with muscle. Stretching the webs, one snapped its horrible jaws just inches from her face, and she started back with a yelp that devolved into a hiss. 'I can't hold them like this!'
'
We will snap your tasty limbs!' the horridity nearest Sal roared. '
Meat and bone!' The words were
just intelligible. Silk snapped with a sound like violin strings breaking.
'You'll want to move left...' Stygian said, holding up a hand. 'Now!' He gave Aisha a moderate shove in the said direction, just before a black something whipped out and shot like a dart through the place her neck had been. The thing lashed back, sputtering cinders and ash, and with a flash of ebon claws, Stygian cut it. Fire erupted, and something burning and liquid spilled across the floor, sizzling loudly. A roar shook the hallway, and next a torrent of flame and hot gases burst out at them. Stygian swept up his right wing, forming a shield of darkness that while rippling and flaring at the edges held most of the storm back for the short while it lasted.
'
A firewyrm!' the bat growled, his face a snarl and his teeth gritted. '
Shit! We need ice! I can't smother this!'
The first thing Keaton was aware of was the wretched visages of the triad of creatures, their jaws slack as they stretched wide to expose their dripping canines, gangrenous breath pealing in malodorous clouds from the depths of their throats. Keaton unconsciously withdrew, overcome by their ravenous viciousness, her face twisted into something akin to both a grimace and a snarl as the hand clenching the elongated staff of Catastrophe's pommel wringing. Upon the moment Sal dashed and wove together a thick web of gooey ichor, she followed, Catastrophe whipping around in sweeping circles for protection as she plowed right through.
Like hell she cared for Sal's safety. But if she was going to help them, that was just fine. Better not to refuse that assistance, though why she was acquiescing to their survival was beyond Keaton's comprehension. Running past those bloodthirsty beasts was a tense and horrible moment, mercifully short but nevertheless awful. Ungracefully she scrambled, eventually catching up to Cog after that hellish moment.
"G-God," she snarled, whirling around to face the trapped beasts. One of them shrieked something she couldn't make out, but it likely wasn't very pleasant.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Edit { Okay I will be back here until I have time to see what is what}
Stumbling for only just a moment, Cog whirled around to face the monsters, his coat flying back for just a moment as he brought his sword up. Ludicrous as it seemed to keep the sword between himself and foes of that sort, old habits died hard. Cutting them down seemed impossible - he would practically have to almost climb on one of them to get any sort of attack in.
His sword wasn't his only fang, however.
He continued to chant as Sal attempted to tie the demons up, the beasts prodigious strength proving too much for even those steel-like cords. They broke painfully, with a sound almost like the twanging of a snapping violin. Cog stepped aside as Keaton slid next to him, raising his eyebrow at the Jackal as he intoned yet further, his rolling chant beginning to speed up. He wondered at the wisdom of rushing through a throng of demons such as that, but then, he supposed Keats knew what she was doing. The storm outside intensified again, darkening almost to the extent it had when he and Sebastian had been fighting.
"Let clouds of the mourning, gray-dark day, with glistening blades, strip away." Cog finished, his hands gesturing towards the demons with a flourish. Thunder pealed from the outside, lightning suddenly stabbing the ground multiple times - blue, crawling energy sprouted from the points of impact, magical energy taking and moving the sky's anger from the ground to Cog's feet, the thunderous power flowing out from the floor beneath him and into the wolf. His sword suddenly crackled with electricity, snaking blue wisps of lightning crawling along the blade. Cog flourished his hand again, and the wisps suddenly died, Cog's hand glowing a bright, dazzling blue, before erupting with the stored power of a dozen lightning bolts. A bolt as thick as his arm lanced into the demons, the thunderous peal deafeningly loud in the hallway. The entire hall lit up for a few long moments, the thunder jumping between the demons before dying out.
Cog stumbled, suddenly, and leant on the wall beside him. His head felt dangerously light, and he fumbled in his jacket for the little cross as he struggled to keep his vision from fuzzing. Despite his efforts thus far, he really needed rest from Sebastian's...meal.
He found the little thing, and let the cooling energies wash into him even as he began backing away. If that didn't finish them, someone else was going to have to take a shot before he could get in the fight again...
If the artist hadn't been too busy yelling in fright he would have sighed. Well, at least I was able to do something for a little while. While he had light in abundant quantities, as one needed very little power to manipulate it, ice was another matter entirely. Jeremiah fell back, using the time that Stygian had his wings up to take cover behind the turn in the corridor.
Ian was more annoied than scared. "Anotherone?!" he shouted. "I'm getting sick of these things!"
For a brief instant the stream of lightning seemed to bounce off the creature's skin, impacting and spraying light throughout the corridor like a high-pressure water jet hitting concrete. Then, with a ripping, sizzling sound the electricity shredded the fiend's tissue, and flames engulfed the horrid thing. Its death cry was unlike anything Cog had ever heard. The bolt tore its shoulder open, parting its body in two, and passed on through the thing that was trying to scramble over it from behind, reducing its head and neck to little but ashes. Residual sparks and arcs of electricity lasted among the cindery remains of the beasts as they disintegrated.
The last monster was still alive though, and while twitching with the residue of Cog's attack, it was largely unharmed. And with Sal's web reduced to charred pieces of string, it had already broken its bonds. Chewing foam, it stormed for Cog and Sal.
Stygian reeled back as he took another hit, the darkness that formed his wings morphing into a shield and covering him as well as he could manage while his fur singed at the edges. '
Then do something or get lost, asswipe!' he shouted back at Ian between the fiery blasts and the floor shaking as the abyssal thing drew closer. The corridor wasn't broad enough for him
and Mel to fight the thing at once.
A sudden shudder rocked Stygian's foothold, and then the bat was slammed against the wall as a huge, dragonlike maw snapped around his guard and ripped the skin off his arm. Growling, he pushed back, forming stabbing blades of his wings to pin the thing, shooting through its neck, but another head twisted forth from under the other and breathed more flames on him, burning the shadow and finding its way around his guard, setting fire to his fur. The bat howled in pain.
'
Mel! I've got it!' he finally managed to scream through the fire. The horrid thing was scrabbling all over the place, spined heads squirming about and claws raking the walls, but it was still held in place by the spikes through its one neck, though the other was arcing even as it tried closing its huge, charcoal fangs on Stygian's legs.
Mel let out a very undignified squeak of fear when the fiery goo splashed across the floor, sticking wherever it touched. But Stygian's call for ice focused her attention to action rather than panic. Unfortunately she couldn't see where the ice was needed; Stygian was filling the hall with his shadowy wings. Then the building shook and a very toothy snout snapped onto the bat's arm, tossing him to the other side of the hall. A second head tried to slither past in the relatively narrow hall. She sent a hail of sharp ice daggers directly at the second head, followed closely by a thick coating of freezing rain. If Stygian hadn't been so close she might have tried lacing the hail with light.
Now that she had safely skidded up beside Cogidubnus, Keaton let her body fall relatively slack, shoulders slumping and chest heaving with unrestrained gasps. Normally her breath wouldn't come so quickly, but when she was running beside those hideous beasts, barely caged beneath thick, entangled nets of syrupy webbing, grabbing at her with gnashing teeth and gyrating jaws and groping claws, it was hard not to be unnerved, or even ungrateful to be alive. One would have to be ridiculously suicidal to not be either one of those two, and taking past circumstances into consideration, Keaton certainly was not.
Crackling bolts lanced outward from Cog's sword, twined and laced with silvery streaks of blinding blue, wispy trails of repugnant smoke twisting like somersaulting, misty bullets off of the racing, electrical body of composed lightning. Arcing through the air, it hit its mark--fluctuating for a wretched moment, where it seemed that its catastrophic collision had affected nothing--seething and eating away at the monstrosities' scabrous skins. Keaton vaguely heard one of them shrilly shriek before its life petered agonizingly away, its second brethren dilapidating into festering chunks of steaming ash. Palpitating waves resonated off of each vestigial spark, turning the atmosphere surrounding the disintegrated bodies into the interior of a storm cloud.
Yet despite that, the third one was still alive, much to Keaton's horror, and had been freed. As it dashed at the lycanthrope Keaton reacted instinctually, whipping around Catastrophe like a staff and whirling it in spinning, sweeping circles, its heavy head barely grazing the floor as she effortlessly wielded it. Legs worked like uncoiling springs as she launched herself into the air, bringing Catastrophe back--
--and swung it back forward as she plummeted, blackened flame blistering in pealing waves off of the spiked globe, aiming straight for the creature's monstrous head.
There was a crepitating crunch, something similar to thousands of stones being pulverized all at the same time. Its thick skull had shielded its barbaric brain just enough, but the flame searing at the spikes of Catastrophe exacerbated the swing, swirling through the elongated barbs and swiftly sweeping to the rest of the skin as, inch by inch, the spikes penetrated its skull, sinking in deeper, and deeper, and deeper--
--until with a final, sweeping pillar of flame bursting upward from Catastrophe's head, the creature toppled over, its cranium smashing the ground with a rattling pound first, then the rest falling after it, vile ichor dribbling from the smoldering lacerations marked by Catastrophe. Keaton twisted the handle, then, setting the heel of her boot against an undamaged part of its head, pulled the mace loose, caustic, lavalike blood rushing in a torrential flow out from the mutilated mass. The beast's body twitched, spasmed, convulsed, then, as though a sudden burst of fire had been ignited in its body, its entire form dissolved into a smoking pile of ashes and chunks of roasted flesh. Keaton let out a triumphant, but exhausted sigh, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
"Holy shit..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Hell-beasts were impressive foes, from what Ketefe had seen. The firewyrm was amazingly silent for a creature its size, and had only made its presence known to her when everyone else went so uncomfortably quiet. It was lightning-quick; it had missed Aisha by about a millisecond. And the burning strength of the monster was almost too much for even Stygian to handle.
If only she was powerful or stupid enough to fight it, she'd have been a little more excited about the monster showing up. As it was, she felt only dull fear and frustration.
She hated being useless, but trying to attack a creature of Satan with no magic and a demon influencing her was the best way to commit suicide she'd ever thought up. She danced back from the searing fluids on the ground, her shock evident when Stygian got slammed against the wall by the firewyrm. She took refuge about two feet from Jeremiah. Her eyes glinted from the shadows that hid her as she watched Stygian subdue the creature, in spite of the creature's jaws closing on his leg.
"Now is really not the time to say it, but ... this is kinda cool to watch," she muttered as Mel fired ice magic at the firewyrm. It was still frightening to watch, but Ketefe suspected she was getting a little used to the countless monsters attacking them.
Ian slightly even more annoied by the bat's snide comment rushed headlong down the hall at the third worm. He was careful not to step where the firey gunk was.
When he finnally reached the worm he threw himself onto it's back and was rideing it like a wild horse that needed to be broken. The worm thrashed about slamming Ian periodicly into walls and the ceiling. "Kill it!" he yelled "Don't worry I'll be all right!" he added as though it would make them act any faster. He knew the bat wouldn't be all that concerned.
As soon as Aisha suddenly felt herself pushed in one direction, things couldn't have gone any faster. She saw out of the corner of one eye the lashing black whip coming toward her with lightning speed. For a moment the panther stood stunned as the thing was sliced, spilling a burning and acrid mix on the floor...soon after, having a whirling blast of heat cast at them as the creature called the firewyrm made its appearance almost on Stygian's mention of it.
Due to all of this, the panthress only made a grunt as she was shoved; no other scene of annoyance, but rather a quick nod of gratitude. As the bat's shadowed wings spread like a barrier against the blazing heat, reminiscent to the fires of the wyrm that had guarded the chapel,'s undercroft, Aisha could only stay back and keep in front of the others who could not even get so close...except of course for a very stubborn Ian. True to Ketefe's words, the battle was somewhat interesting to watch, clearly a reminder of how formidable Stygian himself was as well as with Mel's help.
But interesting or not, she too was getting tired of all these distractions. She was more than ready to just run, and to catch up with the others...
* * *
Rynkura, meanwhile, had her own time on the sidelines for the moment. She almost went after Sal as she took Cogidubnus on the other side of the captured demons. But the healer kept her feet there...best that they surround the creatures rather than the other way around. Keaton's choice was to join the other three...that left her, still amidst the lightning that already lanced through the halls and the flesh of the beasts, courtesy of the wolf...and efficiently caused them to burst in flame.
Quite impressive, that one, Rynkura thought, discharging the spell that she had conjured so that none of the lightning bits flowing across the wall would be attracted to her as well, instead bringing up her light barrier and those still cast around the others to protect them. And in a blaze of fury, the remaining creature found itself face-to-face with the end of the jackal's impressive morning star with an admittedly satisfying, bone-trembling sound.
As soon as things seemed to settle, the tigress carefully stepped up with a chuckle. "Well. After so many years away from adventuring, I can honestly say that I still haven't gotten used to things like that."
One of the thing's massive forefeet now on his chest, Stygian dug his claws in and pressed forward, folding his legs up and pushing off the wall. Swinging his arm out, he roared and manifested an additional wing of shadow, which turned into a series of blades that scythed asunder the arm pushing against him. At the same time, Mel's jagged icicles stabbed into the thing's hide, though the scales seemed too thick as the ones that didn't lodge themselves superficially splintered and fell to the floor. The icy hail hit the head gripping Stygian in the eyes and caused it to let go, screeching in pain, but the sizzling and fizzing sound and the mist that came from the thing showed that it hadn't hurt the thing more than annoy it.
'Oh, for Hell's sake!' Stygian snarled, and then struck out again. A wet sound of ripping muscle and something dry and hard, and then there was a crash as one of the thing's heads toppled to the floor. Corrosive, fiery blood spattered everywhere. The bestial thing tossed and thrashed like a crazed alligator, and for a moment, amid all the charcoal black and burning, spattering red, there was no sight of Stygian. Then dark spikes dug into and cracked the walls, and he came into view, straddling the neck of the remaining head, gripping its upper jaw and bending it backward even as it spewed more fire. The bottom of its gullet looked like the heart of a furnace.
'Kill it! Kill the bloody thing!' Stygian screamed, his face half scorched black.
Her previous efforts too little Mel prepared a spell she had never actually tried before, believing it beyond her. She just hoped it wasn't. A ray of pure cold, supposedly strong enough to kill a fire dragon. As she called upon the spell the temperature around her dropped, drastically. The little moisture left in the air turned to frozen rain, falling to the ground and turning the marble slick. The ray prepared Mel wished that for once she could have a bit of success and fired it at a spot just below the point where the two heads joined the body.
The ray passed quickly through the chest wall and into the internal organs, freezing flesh to the point of brittleness. The action of the final pump of the heart, the final gasp of the lungs were enough movement to shatter the now friable tissue. Scales hit the floor with the sound of glass bells breaking as the skin underneath dessicated until the monster collapsed, it's body disintegrating.
The unholy screams of the beast's dying breaths fresh in his ear, Cog panted heavily as he leaned against the wall and watched Keaton leap at the last remaining demon. He shivered, an aftereffect of the noise and lightheadedness, and managed to keep the Jackal in focus long enough to see her finish off the final demon.
The Jackal's attack was spectacular and big, in her usual fashion. Her mace Catastrophe fairly drove the beast's head into the ground, its body following shortly as the demon's skull crunched sickeningly into the marble floor, a gout of black flame sprouting from the mace's head. Despite the dizziness, Cog's eyes widened.
Keaton was a -lot- stronger than she looked.
Already, the thing was dissolving into a nauseating mix of ash and smoke. Cog pushed himself off the wall, the silver cross dangling in one hand, and his sword held in the other. Too tired to sluice the blood off, he wiped the blade on his pants before returning it to his sheath. One hand rested on the hilt as he walked towards Keaton and Rynkura, stopped halfway between them and Sal.
"That could have gone worse, I guess." Cog said, leaning back onto a wall. He sighed, nodding to Keaton, and let the cooling energies of the charm course through him a moment longer before pushing himself off the wall again. "That's some kinda mace you have there, Keats." he grinned, and turned back to the side-hall, his eyes brushing past the spider.
"You too." he said, making a weak bow, and without further comment began walking down the adjoining hallway, making for the rendezvous point with the rest of the party.
In spite of her former behavior, Sal only stood, looking a bit shellshocked and stunned at the last of the beasts as it died. 'Yeah. Uh...' she began, almost on the verge of praising Cog's attack. She shook her head and shut her mouth before she did though, and turned, pacing after the wolf as the party set out for the meeting point.
Rolling off the creature's neck as it died under him, Stygian morphed his wings back and walked over to the side, absentmindedly steadying himself a bit against the wall with a hand, while his other felt his burned face. '
Took you long enough,' he said, black claws examining the melted fur and scorched skin. The damage extended down his neck a bit, and his right leg was rather shredded. But it looked far worse than it actually was, at least for someone like him. '
Thanks anyway. Better than what I could have done,' he added after a couple of seconds when he saw Mel's expression.
They still had to move. '
The stairwell should be just up ahead,' Stygian said, looking up. Even as he did, the wound on his face and neck slowly began healing itself, the black flesh re-knitting and smoothing out before their very eyes. '
Is everyone...?' A sweep of his gaze over them all answered his question, so he just bit his lip and turned, the edges of his wound beginning to grow skin and fur. Something made a ripping sound, and he looked down.
Through the leathery front of his boot, two long, curved black claws were sticking out, and the rest of the footwear didn't look too good either. Stygian snarled something unintelligible. He then bent down and ripped out the strings and quickly discarded the boot, along with his other one, placing his large, wrapped feet on the floor. His claws made audible clicks, and he tensed to draw them in as far as he could.
'
Bloody stupid things...' he said at something which might have been either the claws or his boots, before walking on ahead.
Mel almost didn't catch Stygian's critique of her performance; she was standing in almost slack-jawed amazement that the one of the most powerful spells she knew had worked both correctly and powerfully. The comment brought her back to reality with a thud. No chance of getting an artificially inflated self-worth around here. One fluke with a powerful spell did not make the caster powerful. She quietly followed past the remains of the wyrm to the staircase, preparing both light and ice spells for whatever would come next.
Bambi hurrys the girls, Gina and Ketefe pass the spreading goo from the dead worm on the floor.
"Stay to the right side, Jeremiah" says the Fae as the group quickly goes to the foot of the stairwell. As Mel and Stygain reach the stairs, Bam thinks she can smell something else behind them. Something else besides the sulfur and ash. Is Something is sneak up behind them? wonders Bam but she only sees the dark Or is there nothing there?
PBH
While initially revolted by the copious dollops and puddles of steaming blood snaking through the grooves and cracks in the ancient and abused floor, Keaton managed to neglect this revulsion enough to throw her head back, tossing some dirty blonde locks from her eyes and off to the side of her head. Triumphantly, she hefted Catastrophe and rested it on her shoulder, unaffected by its bulk--after all, it was charmed to alleviate its once unbearable weight upon being grasped by its appropriate wielder. Craning her head around, she flashed Cogidubnus a toothy, malicious smirk, teeth gleaming in the acrid light reflected by her eye-stone.
"Ain't he?" she asked proudly, giving Catastrophe a congratulatory pat on its handle, almost as though she were treating it like a well-behaved dog rather than a dangerous weapon. Even after spending hundreds of years with it as her irreplaceable tool it was nearly flawless, not a single mark tarnishing its ebony-alabaster form. Ah, magic. It could be used in so many ways. She wanted to treat her mother's weapon with the utmost dignity, even if it housed the most despicable soul she had ever encountered.
Tilting it just right, she allowed the blood marring its black-ivory spikes to slide off, the surface of the weapon rippling and seeming to devour the blood as it vanished beneath its seemingly liquefied skin, almost as though it were assimilated with it. Still keeping Catastrophe hefted, she whirled around on her heels, turning her back to the smoldering mound of blistering ashes culminated on the bloodied floor.
"Anyway," she said, gladly following Cog. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ian followed behind Mel without a word except for the sounds he made as his bruised muscles went about thir normal functions. He had a very slight limp and his pants were torn a bit. He did his best to hide exactly how much he was hurting.
Following directions, the quartet made their way to the huge, round stairwell at the heart of the castle. There was a flickering, amber light from down below, and the air that drifted upward throughout the room itched their noses with its sulphurous scent and dry, heated quality. Fortunately, they did not have to get closer to whatever it was that burned and scraped down there, as they passed down another hallway in search for the largest room.
If it had been the second or third room that was the largest, then it wasn't very large for the castle. Rather, it seemed to be a small gallery of some sort, perhaps twenty steps long and ten across, with glass cabinets with all manner of trinkets in them and various items standing around, hung on the walls between the murky pictures or stacked against racks. Most were of obviously high quality, though it varied. And they came in all sizes, from small things like rings up to the ornate armor shining both silvery and golden in one corner of the room. Some were just remarkable, like the strange silvered chains with jeweled shackles rolled up on a satin pillow on a chair, or the gold and black, ornate hoop-like barbed ring resting against a wall under a portrait of a dark-eyed angelic woman. Cog was the only one who saw more than felt the one common quality of all the objects though. Every single one of them was a glowing outline on the inside of his glasses.
When the group reached the stairs, they found the smooth floor cracked in places, a frightening sort of fiery light drifting up through the narrow crevices somehow formed, smaller lines spiderwebbing out under their feet. Contrasting the darkness of the tall windows high, high above, the bottom of the stairwell bathed in the dim, reflected light of flames and candles, glinting off the flawless marble and carefully smoothed and sculpted walls and arches. The dark corridors emanating out into the castle seemed like the hollow eyesockets of skulls, openings that threatened to spill out more of the abominations that the place had seen at any moment. Distant, almost silent whispers and moans filled the air.
Not wanting to waste a second, Stygian paced quickly across the floor on his large, bare feet, his head swiveling and the dark points of his eyes seeking out the shadows around. '
Keep silent,' he whispered back over his shoulders. '
If we make any noise here it will echo throughout half the castle.' Reaching the foot of the stairway at the far side of the room, he began climbing.
Footsteps were soft and silent, no more than mute whispers against the floor each time Keaton's heels grazed its fire-licked surface, not a single sound betraying the approach of the group to the ears of any lurking hellbeasts that could've been nesting in the shadows. Fortunately their journey was met without resistance or interference from one of those demonic barbarians, although Keaton still felt ridiculously tense after they defeated the triad of monsters before, almost as though every nerve resting in her body had been electrified.
She managed to keep herself silent by shielding her nose from the sulfurous stench wafting into the air. The entire Castle was polluted with this foul presence, apparently. No matter where they went, there was simply no sanctuary from the swarms of monsters or demons. There was no other choice but to hunt down the source and eliminate it.
Keaton gazed around the gallery, absorbing every ostentatious detail. Opulent ornaments and jewelry were nestled under ancient glass cases or used to bedeck the aging walls, such as an interesting specimen hanging beneath a portrait depicting an angelic woman. Fascinated, Keaton walked apprehensively over to the immense ring, studying it from afar, as though she were concerned that entering a certain radius would trigger a trap door which would drop her into the Castle torture chamber. Eventually she determined that it was safe enough, and strode in closer to fully admire the hoop.
What was it, some sort of weapon? It certainly appeared sharp enough around its frilled, gold-black barbs to be used as such, though how it could be conventionally wielded was beyond her. The inner surface of the ring was smooth enough to be properly gripped, but Keaton couldn't imagine an appropriate battle stance which would prevent the user from being scratched by its lethal edges. She finally concluded with a slight amount of disappointment that it was probably some strange decorative item, or maybe a failed experiment at designing a new weapon. But if it was a failure, then why was it hung here, among such esoteric masterpieces?
Keaton sighed, then hefted Catastrophe again, staring over her shoulder at the others. They weren't reaching Mel any time soon. Had they been given the wrong directions? Or had she misinterpreted them? Oh god, that was unfathomable. No more incidents would be her fault. She wasn't a detriment, she wasn't.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Aisha had watched Mel dispose of the creature in its finality with an impressed gaze, however the sudden cold snap in the room tried to be a distraction. Drawing her cloak about herself and the parts of her shirt that were still in two, the panthress along with the others seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief when the serpentine fire breather fell to a stronger element.
"Close," she muttered with a shiver as things calmed down and one more distraction had gone out of their way. She glanced toward the others to make sure they were well enough. Ketefe looked a little sullen with her recent event; the capable warrior though she was, it was easy to feel sorry for the fact that she was nearly out of commission there. Jeremiah kept wisely to the back, Bam hovered along, and Ian was trying to stand, however easily it could be seen that he was injured.
Aisha chuckled, turning her head while following the others as she commented. "It'll be good for everyone to be healed up once this is all over, ser claro." Silently, her mind added, If everyone lives.
So thus they continued on through the stairwell, hopefully on a path toward the others. But still the atmosphere was less than anything that they could very well ignore. Unearthly cries and groans pierced the air, and apparitions still haunted the corners of their eyes, even as they managed to find the stairs. It was a good walk upward, and with those...things at their backs, it was hard to see what could possibly come next. She only heeded Stygian's warning with a nod, keeping the raven on her shoulder as calm as possible with a few strokes on its wing, and silently followed.
Aisha just hoped this, with monsters jumping out of corners and mind-gripping terrors making the walls shudder, was as eventful as things would get.
* * *
"The both of you were impressive," Rynkura commented among the compliments given between the wolf and jackal, while brushing some of the ashes of the battle's remains away with the tip of her staff as she walked. The tigress kept a careful eye especially on Sal, who had decided to be rather quiet after their endeavor.
Nevertheless, her head was as much in turmoil as the feeling of the castle around them. She could not stop thinking of the presence of the newcomers within the very walls, one of them out for Aisha's head. It frustrated Rynkura so, as her caretaker, to know this and be nowhere near the panther. However skilled an adventurer she turned out to be...how would it be handled?
But eventually her attention was turned for the moment to where they were headed. Following Keaton's directions from the other group, they came across the room that it was thought to have been their destination. The gallery caught her eye as impressive, with a collection of artifacts and treasures that her treasure-hunter student would have much loved to lay her eyes on, or for herself to have for her own collection...were it only an abandoned place, truly.
She watched as Keaton expressed an interest in one weapon in particular, beneath a portrait that actually went very well with the hellish atmosphere about the castle...despite it being of an angel. Her eyes wandered about the gallery once or twice, and then with a tilt of her head, she wondered. She had expected the room to be quite a bit bigger. "Have we gone the right way?"
Cog walked through the room slowly, his steps strangely loud in the gallery-esque room. Marvelous weapons and strange artifacts, ranging from the seemingly mundane cups and jeweled chains that decorated the interior of the padded glass cases, to strangely pristine weaponry and armor, also dotted the room. Portraits hung above some of the cases, perhaps indicating former owners of the said items.
The castle had been occupied right up until it's haunting. These were artifacts, every one, protected throughout the years from grave robbers and fellow adventurers by the dangers dwelling in the castle.
Each one glowed a eldritch blue to Cog's eyes, from the most mundane to the most amazing item lining the gallery. He took a moment to pause and admire a gleaming suit of armor when he saw Keats standing beneath the portrait of an Angel-woman with black eyes. She was looking at some sort of ring, set carefully beneath the painted woman's watchful, gleaming eyes.
Cog walked up next to Keaton, looking at the ring appraisingly. Weapons fascinated him. Always had. This one too glowed with an azure light, although it looked almost foolhardy to even think of taking into battle. Still...craftsmanship and care was evident in the design. Either someone had the money to waste on good smiths, metal, and enchantment, or there was some sort of method to its madness...
He looked to the side as Ms. Rynkura spoke, raising an eyebrow and returning his gaze to the ring in front of them. "This is the way they said to go..." Cog murmured, still staring at the gold and obsidian hoop of metal.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked back up at the portrait above him, wondering what the possible creator of this weapon had been thinking...
Cog shook his head and turned, walking amongst the lines of items again, pausing every now and again to admire a particularly nice piece. He turned his head to Keats. "Right, Keats?"
Carefully ascending as quickly as they could, the troupe from below was led by Stygian into a hallway on the third floor. From the broad stairs they came into an even broader corridor, and two doors ahead the bat stopped, placing his hand on the handle of the third. Opening it carefully, he looked in, gun at the ready, and then slid in through the crack.
The hall, with ornate windows from floor to ceiling before tables, sofas and armchairs at the far end, fine carpets of enormous size on the floor, a large and long table with matching chairs at the center and the largest grandfather clock that anyone in the group had probably ever seen against the close wall, was about half the size of the ballroom down below. And no one was there.
'I... think there's been a mistake,' Stygian said lamely. 'I'm not about to suggest we split up to search though.' He looked back to Mel, frowning. 'Where are they? Was I unclear?'
Mel shook her head. "The directions seemed clear, but the bale magic is clouding our connection. I will try to see where they are." She reached out to the cubi but the evil atmosphere had grown since the last time. At first all she could hear was a crackle, like fire popping. Finally she caught hold of something that seemed to be the jackal. "Keaton. Have you run into trouble? We are in the upper social hall. How close are you?"
Ian walked over and sat in a very comfy sofa. "Oh wow! Is it too late to change my room?" He joked.
Ketefe nodded at Mel when the battle finished, impressed by the dragon's power. She cast her eyes over the others once to make sure they were all okay. She smiled at Aisha when she saw the panthress doing the same. Once the azure feline was satisfied that everyone was all right (except for Stygian, but apparently he could heal himself), she followed the others, glancing with concern at Ian's injuries. The darkness in the castle still seemed alive, but now she knew why, at least. Her demon was being quiet, for the moment. She still heard a few whispers every now and again, and the mild pain was still present, but she was getting used to it now.
When they got to the stairwell, Ketefe breathed quietly and made each step as calculating and silent as possible. Once they reached the room, she sighed in relief and sank into one of the sofas near Ian. "You gonna be okay?" she asked him, a little drained from recent events.
Bam looks worried around the social hall.. She makes a one person to person message butterfly and modifies it, for it travel by normal hallways and doors. Her butterflies could not going through these hellish walls.
"Cog, where are you? Please follow the green butterfly." whispers Bambi to her spell and send it off to Cog.
The Fae hopes it gets to the wolf...
PBH
"I'm fine. I've lived through worse." He laughed, but it made him doubble over slightly and wimper lightly. "Alright maybe i am a little beat up." Ian looked around then went back to talking to her. "You think they'll let me take the test late, or do you think going through hell isn't a good enough excuse?"
Near to where Aisha was stood was one particular door, where muffled sounds could be heard coming from the other side. The sounds were difficult to make out at first, but slowly they began to become clearer. They were the sounds of some sort of battle. Every so often, the wet sound of a blade slicing through flesh could be heard, followed the shrieking cry of pain that could only have come from a hellbeast.
It was then that suddenly, with a loud crash, something smashed through the door, tearing the wood to pieces thanks to the sheer force that the object was travelling. A split second later, there was a sickening splat sound as the object hit the nearby wall, before slumping on the floor below in a bloody heap; it was the headless corpse of a hellbeast.
If one were to look through the door, they would be able to see a familiar white furred wolf, albeit now splattered in a mixture of hellbeast slime and his own blood, engaged in battle with another hellbeast, dodging the creatures strikes as he looked for a way in to make an attack. Eventually he found one, ducking under one of the hellbeast's strikes before bringing his sword in at the waist, cutting the creature clean in half, before bringing the sword back in again and beheading the shrieking creature.
"....Isn't there ANYTHING normal about this place?!" Ian said shifting to a laying position.
Aisha's footfalls were probably one of the more quiet as the group had finally made their way up into their destination. Through a couple of floors and high up from the illusory flames that covered the walls in a dim glow below them, the area hadn't looked better than the others, but it was as good as any. Few sounds seemed to emanate from around the corridor, which was quite large and imposing.
She also took a few cautionary glances before entering the room, eyes wandering about the space with some awe. It looked like a comfortable place of pause, for the adventurers to catch their breath. But hearing Stygian, she also had some worry. Didn't the others have the right message? Were they perhaps nearby?
While Mel tried to make contact once more, and Ketefe and Ian took a rest and spoke, the panthress decided to take a quiet look around for herself. Out of the windows there still lingered the darkness of night and the storm's unrelenting path...making it too dark even to tell what hour it was. The immense clock caught her eye as well.
However, before her attention could be lost to admiring the scenery or resting, there came some hideous sounds from a side doorway. Her ears perked while she remained standing. They became louder. The sound of familiar bestial growls thundered on the other side of the door, as well as that of a distinctive flashing blade. Her eyebrows quirked and her hand gripped the holy sword's handle. Is that one of the others...?
She got her answer as, suddenly, the door splintered and made her quickly jump out of the path of a flying corpse...the Hellbeast looked much like it belonged to another canine-like creature they had fought earlier, or something similar. She stared at the thing as it landed for a moment, incredulous, and then turned to peek through the doorway. There to her surprise was a familiar white wolf locked in combat with another one, covered in entrails. However, he easily dispatched of that one in a few quick swipes.
Would he turn to the door, he would find Aisha with quite the relieved look on her face. That was one more comrade that could be counted with them. "Dios mio, Gareeku, I thought you were lost!" She exclaimed, tilting her head as she walked up to him, her nose wrinkling just slightly as she stepped around the fallen beast. She was cautious, however...she had her sword drawn, just in case there were more, and it was hard to tell just how many spiders were left in the castle.
"Thank goodness...you aren't hurt, are you? Stygian, Mel, and a few of the others are back here."
Drawing her piqued attention away from the fascinating, ornamented ring to face Cogidubnus, Keaton's hands wrung away at Catastrophe's pommel, channeling as much of her dormant frustration and nervousness as she possibly could. Upon hearing Cog's question it only exacerbated, her hands clenching to the point she felt the knuckles go numb beneath her skin. Not even bothering to preserve a positive facade, Keaton looked at Cog, fighting vainly to keep her guilt and anxiety out of her expression.
"Y-Yeah, I followed Mel's directions..." she murmured. "Exactly, actually. I-I mean, it was kind of garbled, but..."
Maybe she wasn't the one at fault, here? Perhaps the instructions had been inaccurate. Either way, she couldn't bear another mistake which she was associated with. Just as that thought materialized, once more, Mel's distorted voice generated in the back of her head, eerily garbled. This time it was even worse than before; she could barely hear Mel's voice over the screeching of the static, only furthering her worries. Grappling this back, Keaton listened attentively, attempting to decipher as much as she could while at the same time trying to send back a message.
Mel? It's me... I... we didn't run into any trouble. There were three monsters, but we took care of them really quickly... we followed the directions you gave us, but we're in this gallery and I don't think we're really close to you...
~Keaton the Black Jackal
His leg was giving him a rather bad time, contrary to the wounds on his face. The caustic nature of the demons' blood was at odds even with his own, and his fur was burning now that the blood had started dissolving as well. Stygian cursed as he reached down and raked and scraped his leg with his claws, trying to get as much of the substance out as he could, and hissed as the scrape tore a bit of his pants along with it, the fabric already ruined. '
Fuck. And I liked these...' the bat muttered before looking up. '
Are we making pro... where's Aisha?'
Before anyone could say anything, crashing noise answered Stygian's question. Gritting his teeth and growling, the bat stood up and walked hard and fast over toward the doorway.
Ketefe thought she heard a laugh inside her head.
They were really silent for their size, the monsters. Each one as large as a good-sized horse and looking something like a crossing between a man and a huge black hyena, they trailed him closely as if following their pack leader as he walked calmly down the hallway. He had his sights set. The old man was concerned with his own safety, and well that he should be, considering the state of things. But Asal really didn't care. The old man himself was an asset, if for nothing else than his sheer age and power, but for his house the young demon had nothing but pity and scorn. And he had something far more important to tend to. A matter of his own pride.
Had it not been for that one promise, he might never have come here. Clearly the old geezer had overestimated his grandson's power if they had not seen any sort of retribution or danger yet. Even if he was weakened, in a situation like this he should have been like a trapped beast, trying as hard as he could to kill them. Or maybe he was just a coward. Either thought amused the panther, though it wasn't what was on his mind. What was, was the thought of finally getting to finish off what they had started so many years ago, to erase the last smudge on his honor and to finally kill the last of his brother's legacy. To get his hands on her throat and squeeze the life out of it, literally.
'
I feel them! They are just ahead.' The words brought Asal's gaze to the
other creature, pacing just beside him almost as if on a leash. Had she had one for the spiked collar she wore, he might actually have considered holding it. Comely and grim at the same time, muscled yet shapely and with dark fur that matched the spiky wings on her back, the thing that the old man had let through had a style he liked very much. The panther didn't know whether if she was a succubus or a demon, but it mattered not. She had proven
most useful.
He gave the woman-thing his best smile with just a slight condescending tinge to it. 'Then let's go to them. What's left of their souls are for you,' he said, his voice as pleasant and charming as ever, and the succubus grinned at him. 'But do not touch the girl. She is mine.'
Mel could barely make out Keaton's reply. Mel? ... run into trouble... ere were three monste... took care... quickly... the directions you g... we're in this galler ... don't think we're close... " She looked to Stygian, "They were attacked. They are not near us." Returning her thoughts to Keaton she repeated the instructions again, "Third floor. From the main stairway, go northwest to the end of the corridor, straight through the music hall and then a right, then a left into the biggest room down the hallway."
With nothing more she could do for their missing comrades Mel stepped over to where Ian was curled up on the sofa. She put one cold hand on his shoulder and used her healing magic.
"....Tingely....thanks Mel." Ian replied as he was watching the door. "What's the din all about? I can't see from here?"
Cog nodded at Keaton and continued down the line of glass cases, murmuring in assent. "They're probably just late, or..." Cog trailed off, looking at a particularly interesting little golden cross, framed by two bayonets crossing each other. Cog quirked an eyebrow - under the lenses of his glasses, the items were...different, somehow. They glowed an unsteady, wavering blue, almost as though invisible flames coated them. Cog grew silent and watched the eldritch fires burn, the blue fire reflecting off of his eyes.
He looked up suddenly, broken out of his reverie, and giving the items one last, longing look, and returned to Jackal, stumbling just a second as he walked closer. He shrugged, feeling a slight itch where his hair met his neck, and turned to Keaton.
"Keats? Do you think..."
He stopped, noticing the Jackal's eyes glazed over. Frowning, he took a step back and grabbed the hilt of his blade. Hopefully, she was just speaking to Mel. If not...
Cog sighed, and waited.
'
Come! They are here!' the voice called out, and Ketefe felt like shouting out. But somehow she just could not force herself to. It was as if something were holding the air back, keeping it from passing past her lips.
Stygian slowly stopped, his hand hovering above the doorknob, and turned. Ketefe almost felt relieved for a second when his gaze swept back toward him, but when she saw the look of realization on his face, as if he had just discovered some horrible truth, that relief was immediately swept away. She heard the voice in her head cackle, and his black eyes landed straight on her.
His face frozen, Stygian said one thing. '
Fuck.'
He shook the doorknob. The door didn't move. Cursing loudly, he made a step back and then spun, whipping his foot out in a blurry-fast kick. The door flew off its hinges and hit something. The next second, a huge black shape rushed the bat, tearing open the too small frame and bringing pieces of wall along with it. Stygian and the thing tumbled back over the floor, growls and slashes all about them.
'
Oh, how fun! Playthings!' a voice called out from the door. Two more black shapes sprang in before its source came into sight, a vixen with a somehow demonic appearance, graceful and darkly beautiful even in spite of the dark wings sprouting from her back, and certainly dressed to impress if anything, with knee-high boots and a spike-collared outfit that managed to only barely maintain her decency. Strolling in as if on a fashion show catwalk, she grinned at them and assayed them with fiery eyes. '
What say we dance a bit?'
From somewhere not too far off, a crash sounded, and both drew Cog's attention and snapped Keaton out of her meditative state. It hadn't shaken the floor like the incidental tremors before, and it had a clear direction to it. Thus, it wasn't hard to deduce what it must have been.
The two doglike shapes that paced out of the dark of the corridor, black as night, were eerily silent save for the faint clatter of their claws and their slow, ragged, deep breathing, a sound like two large bellows blowing on a furnace. Yet there was something strange about them. For all the glow-eyed stares they gave Aisha and Gareeku, they paced slowly and purposefully, not as if they were stalking the wolf and panther, but rather as if they were simply moving up behind them because they wished. The way the both of them stopped and stood, still and silent as statues, only increased the impression. They seemed like... dogs, somehow. Trained guard dogs, each the size of a large racehorse.
'Disappointing.' The voice from out of the shadows was smooth and eloquent, and unnervingly brutal and superior. 'Here I thought you would be hard to catch.' For an instant, Aisha thought she could see two flaring points of green in the dark, before the figure stepped out into the light emanating from the main stairwell.
He was tall, large, handsome and rough-edged, a powerful man in appearance and manner, and surely otherwise as well, and clearly knew it. Dressed in a luxurious green coat and somber but fancy clothes, he looked like he were about to pay an honorary visit to some society party, or hold a speech, and yet gave off the impression that he were perfectly used to looking that way, always. Perhaps most remarkable though was the fact that he was a panther, like Aisha, with the same jet black fur and quite similar lines, though far harder.
'Well, it's not as if you didn't elude me for more than a decade. Still, this is a bit anticlimactic,' he continued, walking past the monstrous hounds and stopping just so that he could look down upon her. His grin was like acid. 'You take after your father, I see.'
While she awaited Gareeku's reply, she looked him over a bit. Except for his very blood-ridden appearance, the wolf looked as well as she had expected him to be. There wasn't even a spider on the back of his neck, as far as she could see, which granted another sigh of relief. But before any more could be said, her ears caught a sudden loud slam from behind.
"Crap, let's get..." she started, whirling around on her feet, only to suddenly freeze in her expression at the sight before them. Darkness. The door didn't seem to be there any more, or it was closed, she could hardly tell. But there were sounds, drifting...what happened? Where was the room? Their comrades?
And then the new ones came. Perhaps the largest feral dogs she had ever seen came pacing through the darkness, eyes glowing, their steps purposeful and slow. Her tail ring was sending off a powerful glow in their presence, steadily becoming a little more prominent as they came for the two adventurers without pausing nor watching. She had the sword drawn, the flames beginning to lick at the surface again, expecting another attack. But they just...circled. Like carnivores, like scavengers, like nightmares, they just stood and watched. Waiting. As if they were...trained?
Aisha's eyebrows quirked, and flames started to lick her sword's surface...the two warriors stood ready and expecting an attack that hadn't come yet. But then came the voice, behind the dogs, emerging out of the shadows and his appearance nearly as black as any of them. The panthress stood facing him suddenly, listening to the stranger whose countenance told her something of nobility, not like the others that had come out of Hell. But no doubt, he wasn't unlike them, either...
As his venom-green eyes fell on them...on her...some part of Aisha's blood seemed to suddenly freeze. His voice was calm and eloquent, with a tinge of spite. And with his words, she was struck silent. Just holding her ground, as if a part of her was forced to listen as he spoke...suggested of some familiarity to herself alone. "Wha...?" she started to mutter, but stopped herself.
Eluded him? For a decade...was this stranger--his voice recognized as one of those she heard back downstairs--after her?
The words spurned sudden memories in her head then; those memories that she had tried so hard to suppress. Flames. Screaming. A dark figure. Her father telling her to run...
Father...
And then, as if he pulled the word from her head at that instant, he said it. "You take after your father." There was a pause. And...and then, that was what made Aisha snap straight out of her self-induced torpor, eyes blazing as she looked at the other panther--melanistic as herself. The sword she held up before her, and her fangs were bared in a snarling grimace. He knew her?!
"Alright. Who the hell are you, and how could you know me, or my father?" she spat in a voice so dark, level, and ferocious, that it would have come even as a surprise to Gareeku.
But it was understandable. Her heart was burning after remembering that night. And more than ready to fight for the answer as to who this stranger was who confronted her with such purpose.
* * *
Rynkura hummed while watching Keaton, frozen in concentration while trying to re-contact the second group the next time. At least it looked that she had succeeded, which only warranted just a bit of time left to regain their breath and look around. She started to do so, just letting anything of interest catch her eye.
And then, just like Cogidubnus and Keaton had heard, the tigress caught a noise, like something crashing and slamming...perhaps they had heard it more clearly, but suddenly, they had brought themselves on alert. The healer walked back to the others. "That would probably be our direction," she deduced and started off that way, watching for the other three to come.
But her demeanor wasn't at all very calm any more.
Jeremiah had collapsed into one of the armchairs. It was like how soldiers described war, he decided, only in reverse. Brief stints of relaxation followed by long, drawn out periods of bowel-knotting terror. Was their worst worry a bunch of tiny little spiders just yesterday afternoon.
He'd let his hat fall over his eyes. Crashing sounds in the distance reminded him that was unwise. He lifted the brim of his fishing hat and took in the scene.
Mel and Ian, on the sofa.
Aisha, where?
And Stygian, looking at Ketefe for just that one instant, that one thing that you notice because nobody ever notices it.
There was a crash. Plic howled in fear mentally, her panic finally reaching a boiling point, Nothing to steal! All these ugly things with nothing in them to steal! No beauty, only a few senses I know, no thoughts, the barest memories! Nothing! Nothing to steal!
Nothing to command!
Nothing that can be held at bay!
Breakbreakbreakbreakbreakbreakbreak-!?
Oh man, this is rich! I love it! Such power! Such ARTISTRY! More! More!
BzzzZZZzzzzzZzZZZ-
Well, Jeremiah thought, scrambling around to put the chair between him and the vixen, Back to Terror.
Two blazing stars of pure light magic hit the vixen in her chest and stomach area. She goes to her knees in pain, but she seem recover quickly as she turn to the Fae.
With two more glowing star in her hands, Bam remakes "I like To Tango... But Deary if you are going to wear that why wear anything?"
PBH
Ian directed his attention to the succubus. "Ma always said never fall for the lookers." He began to rush her.
Noticing Aisha approach as he resheathed his sword after wiping it clean with his cloak, Gareeku smiled.
"Yeah I'm fine. Just a couple of cuts and bruises, that's all." the wolf replied. It was then, however, that he noticed the rashes starting to appear on the skin under his fur. Funnily enough, they were appearing the same places that the beasts' blood had landed on him. Raising his eyebrow somewhat at this, Gareeku turned to Aisha once more, about to ask what exactly was going on. He had not long got back from the town, having decided to explore the surrounding landscape somewhat, as was his nature. However, as soon as he re-entered the mansion, something had felt VERY wrong. Having decided to try and find the others, it was then that he was set upon by those hellish beasts.
It was then, however, that a very loud slamming noise rang out behind him and Aisha. Whirling round to see what it was, Gareeku grimaced as the door seemed to be enveloped in darkness, before disappearing altogether.
"Shit..." the wolf muttered in a low snarl, gripping the hilt of his katana tightly, ready for anything that would try to attack. The grip would then relax a bit, though it wasn't out of relief or calmness. It was of disbelief.
"What the hell..." was the only thing that Gareeku could mutter as he observed what approach. With slightly widened eyes, the wolf watched as they came; quite possibly the largest feral canines he had ever seen. Imposing was an understatement, as they slowly and purposefully stepped forward, their eyes glowing like burning coals inside their monstrous heads. It was then, however, that they suddenly stopped and stood still, almost as if they were something like...trained guard dogs...
Then that voice spoke out. That smooth and calm, yet sinister voice. Unsheathing his katana, Gareeku slowly shifte himself into position as the stranger approach, the wolf's eyes switching between where the voice was coming from and those huge dogs. As the stranger made his appearence, Gareeku stared at him with narrowed eyes. Like Aisha, he was a black panther; something which threw Gareeku off guard for a second. Sharply dressed and powerful-looking, the stranger slowly came closer to them, staring in particular at Aisha. From what he was saying, it seemed that this stranger knew Aisha, though it was not a friendly intent that he had.
It was then, however, that the panther spoke of Aisha's father.
Her father...? the wolf thought to himself in surprise. It seemed that, unsurprisingly, Aisha was just as shocked, if not more so, than he was at this mentioning. Aisha was now, it seemed, livid, and rightfully so. Gareeku too could feel the anger within him beginning to rise. Something about this had struck a chord with the wolf. He knew of Aisha's tragedy, as he had been told of it herself a long time ago. He too, had lost his own father through murder. As Aisha demanded to know who the stranger was, Gareeku continued to glare at the panther, his fangs showing slightly in an angry grimace.
Took the words right out of my mouth... the wolf thought to himself, his anger continuing to slowly rise as he eyes stayed locked onto the panther, awaiting the stranger's answer...
The sudden tremor rolling up from the marble rattled the glass cases surrounding the four of them, and Cog's eyes broke away from Keaton, sliding over to the open doorway to peer into the hall. He looked back to the Jackal, Keaton now snapped out of her reverie.
There was little time for asking questions, however. Rynkura had turned and walked back out into the hall. Looking around the room one last time Cogidubnus paced across the stone floor and back into the hall proper.
He called back to the Jackal as he walked out. "Was that Mel, Keats?" Cog said, looking over his shoulder as he passed through the doorway
Smashing into a wall, Stygian seemed pinned by the horrid dog-thing on top of him. Yet, for all the thing's size, the bat seemed to give it more than a run for its money. The beast's huge paw-like hands, endowed with claws that seemed like nothing a natural creature would possess, struck the wall repeatedly as its heavy blows missed the agile bat. From having been hid behind its frame, Stygian then made his re-entry with a pair of deep stabs with his claws to his chest, and then a jump, bracing his hands against the wall and kicking the thing square in the throat. His wings morphed as he clung to the wall and then dove on the creature, ripping fangs and claws overcoming it.
Or so they would have, had not one of its companions rushed over by its side and given Stygian a broad-armed sweep that sent him flying back, the shadows spilling out and disintegrating. The bat absorbed the shock with his arms and made a slow somersault, landing crouched and re-shaping wings up behind his back, wiping black blood from his mouth.
'
Get these things off me!' the bat snarled, his gaze suddenly turned toward the demonic woman. To the others, this spoke clearly, as if he wanted to say;
and get away from her! She's the real danger! He was rushed again the next moment, and leaped into action, dancing between hamfisted blows and snapping jaws while slashing out with his darkness.
The demoness, in turn, only giggled. '
Don't you even think of ignoring me, sweeties!' With a delicate, subtly flourishing move she raised her hand, and wispy flames twined around it. Flames very reminiscent of the ones that had ripped through the corridors before. She spread her palm toward them, and it was as if an intangible wind passed through the place, setting candles flickering and the chandelier over the central table rocking with a chiming sound. Distant screams were heard, and the voice in Ketefe's head laughed wildly.
The panther sniffed at Aisha's query, his face slowly taking on hints of both bemusement and irritation. If there was anything that he seemed to exude strongly other than power, it was scorn. Or disgust. Probably both.
'You don't have the benefit of questions, Cabre bitch,' he said after a short pause. 'If you don't know as little as
that I certainly won't humor you with answers.' Another pause, during which the amused quality to his grin grew stronger, hard as it was to tell in the dark. 'Unless, of course, you give yourself over. Then I think you shall have far more answers than you will find pleasant.' He took another step toward her, the green points of his eyes glowing almost exactly the same shade of green as the intensifying light of her tailring.
Ian hadn't caught the signal. He threw an elbow to her chest. It lander knocking her back just a bit. She tried to rake his face off with her calw like finger nails. He paried it but neglected to see her wing tentacles swinging at him. She sent him fling halfway across the room. He slowly got back up. "Styg! I'll bet you can handle her." So Ian proceded to free up his best chance at survival.
With two of the brutish monsters focusing on Stygian Mel chose to aim an ice bolt at the third. The glittering white ray hit, she saw it hit, but the monster's hide merely rippled at the effort, like a horse shooing a fly. Then it turned its awful head in her direction. She muttered a curse in her native language. Then her brain kicked in and reminded her that Stygian had told them to focus on light spells. As the beast began its charge she aimed a second spell at its chest, still ice, but wrapped in a casing of prismatic light.
Ian threw a few punches at the creature stygian was focusing on at the moment. "Come on ugly, you don't want him lookit me!"
Waiting for Mel's reply, as short as it was, seemed like absolute hell to Keaton's anxious and incensed mind. For the most part, Keaton kept her agitation channeled through staring at the reflective, gold-black hoop reminiscent of her own coloration. Staring at it was oddly soothing, but Keaton kept her guard up--for all she knew it could be an enchanted weapon used to mind-control people (God forbid!) or kill puppies or something equally vile. Deliberately ignoring Cog out of the worry that any direct eye contact would expose her escalating nervousness, and thus reveal any inner vulnerability that she was desperately attempting to smother. Never show your weaknesses. Never be vulnerable. Never.
Soon as that resolution reached her, Keaton overheard the transmitted instructions projected into her mind, once more in Mel's voice, but garbled and every syllable hissing with bursting static. Ears lay flat as Keaton struggled to decipher the directions, visibly straining to understand everything verbatim so that way there would be no misunderstandings, no blame, no nothing. Nothing that she could feel guilty for. When Mel finished and disconnected their mental link, she turned to everyone and nodded affirmatively, ruminating on every word spoken until she had pieced together what she assumed was the answer.
"Alright guys," she said, "They're on the third floor. We're supposed to go from the main stairway, then go northwest to the end of the corridor, straight through the music hall and then a right...." Keaton struggled to recall the next words, they had been difficult to understand. She came to a conclusion, "... then a left into the biggest room down the hallway. Let--."
WHAM.
Keaton's ears shuddered, then perked upright, the jackal gazing back and forth in shock. Stunned by this noise, she turned to Rynkura. The tiger, fortunately, was indicating the direction Mel had given them. "Fuck!" Keaton muttered, assuming the worst. The origin of that sound could not have been pleasant. Not at all. They had to hurry. Keaton broke into a run. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here."
Behind her, the hoop briefly caught her reflection like a mirror, her wavering outline captured in its surface steadily vanishing as she walked further and further away, until it was gone.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Whatever it was, the thing that looked like a vixen, waved her hand and sent a chill and otherworldly wind down the hallway. She was powerful, she acted manic, she was beautiful in a way so horrible it chilled Jeremiah more than any other beast encountered in these halls had. The narrative's waxing Lovecraftian aside, however, it had already done something to embolden Jeremiah.
It had said 'me'.
Me. I. A sense of self. Not some rampaging brute, but a coherent and intelligent creature. Intelligent creatures can be fooled.
Cowering behind the chair the terror in Jeremiah's gut quieted infindecimely. It wasn't much, barely anything, but it was enough to let him think.
The others were weak to light...
Trembling, blocking out the jeers and panicked advice thrown at him by his Inexplicable Condition, the frog reached around the chair to aim one open, trembling palm at the powerful creature.
Light...
He muttered a quick incantation and, hoping that he hadn't just doomed himself by attracting the vixen's attention, cast a spell he'd learned from a friend of his who got invited to better parties. A blast of colored glimmers, a laser show. A burst of simple, colored light aimed at whatever the hell it was.
Whatever from hell...
BzzzZzzzZZZZZzzZZZzZ!
Sal's suspicious look at Rynkura became a somewhat stressed one when she started out and Cogidubnus followed shortly. When finally Keaton set off as well, she jogged up next to her. 'Bloody confusing, all this,' she growled under her breath, and looked quickly at the jackal. 'Just don't mistake me for one of the monsters.'
Punching the thing was like punching water. Or maybe not. It was really hard to explain, but it felt a lot worse than that to Ian. The creature's side was hard as rock, and yet somehow fluid as water or gas. Black as it was, it seemed not at all unlike the shadows with which Stygian was lashing out even as he attacked the thing.
For a couple of seconds it seemed that the monster had not even noticed him. Then the vile thing's face, wolf-like and huge, swung down. It roared, inches from Ian's snout, and spattered the rat with some black liquid. As its jaws neared him, the rat was certain he was going to die.
The next second the thing's head tore off, and flew high in the air. Leaping over the stumbling body, Stygian landed behind Ian and trailing darkness. He had just the time to get to his feet, before the one still with a head swept out and sent them both tumbling. They hit the floor next to a table. Up at his feet quickly enough, Stygian watched half-crouched as the staggering monstrum re-grew its head and went down on all fours, moving against them.
Realization hit the bat again. 'Of course. That's why it was so weird. Fuck!' His arm darted, and he grabbed the table, throwing it up and in front of them like a shield. 'Flashbang! You had them, didn't you? Use them!'
Unfettered by the rat's attempts at harming her, the succubus flung the rodent across the room and proceeded against the others. Her eyes glittered wickedly as she took sight on Ketefe and Jeremiah. '
Interesting...' She smiled acerbically and looked at the frog. '
You seem very curious,' she said. '
So many. Would you like me to pull them out for you? Painfully?' She laughed maliciously, only a few steps from him. It felt as if she could already reach out and grab him.
The frog's sudden resistance made the vixen squint and throw up her hands to shield her face, contorting with rage. She hissed and took a step back. And then she looked at Ketefe. The glow of her eyes intensified. '
Give him to me!' she snarled.
It took a moment, and then it was as if something jumped inside her, fighting its way out with renewed strength. Before Ketefe knew what she was doing, that pain and those emotions of rage and sadistic pleasure flooded her again, and the bracer around her wrist stung as she felt herself manipulated like a glove puppet, unwillingly moving for Jeremiah and grabbing hold of him hard, bending his arm shakily yet with a strength she herself could not have mustered.
Mel's success was noticeable but brief. The thing advancing on her shook as her blast hit it, stopping and shuddering as it grit its teeth and growled. The light burned a deep hole into its form, and when the spell let up it limped insecurely to the side, icy vapor and crystals falling from it. But its weakness did not seem to last. It stopped and steadied itself, the wound she had opened revealing no real flesh or bone but beginning to heal itself with a speed that made Stygian's regeneration before pale in comparison. Lowering its head, it growled loudly, fumes drifting through its teeth, and then leaped for her.
Ketefe didn't smile at Ian, but the potential was there. She was slipping into a condition she ordinarily wouldn't have allowed in these circumstances - relaxation. Mel was trying to contact the others, and Stygian was trying to get something out of his wounds, she wasn't sure what. But she had forgotten how tired she was...
Then Stygian noticed aloud that Aisha wasn't there. Ketefe sat up, scanning the room quickly. He was right. Hadn't she followed them in?
A splintering, crashing noise got everyone's attention. Stygian went over to examine it, looking none too happy about any of this.
And then a voice in Ketefe's head laughed. "Come! They are here!" Her occupant's role in all this suddenly became clear to her. She had to warn the others, but something was preventing her from speaking a word. Stygian stopped, and looked back at her, but his expression killed any hope she'd had. Her demon laughed delightedly, its purpose fulfilled.
They were going to die.
She looked on in fear, and then shock, as Stygian kicked the door off its hinges, only to be attacked by a monstrous black creature. Ketefe sprang off the couch, yanking her mask on and ripping her sword out of its sheath, but before she could go help the bat, a mocking voice called from the door. She watched as a beautiful, clearly demonic vixen strode into the room as if she were about to get waited on by several handsome men in white jackets. Her outfit was showstopping, even though she was almost more minimally clad than Ketefe.
She snarled at the fox, but her instinct and common sense blended in a rare moment of true clarity: She's trying to get your focus off your friend so he'll die. She whipped around to check on Stygian, and saw that although he had subdued one of the creatures that attacked them, its brother prevented the bat from killing it. His glance at the vixen was all the affirmation Ketefe needed.
But before she could do anything, the demoness giggled and raised one palm. Flames bloomed on the woman's hand. and a strange wind went through the room, far-off screams suddenly audible. Her demon was cackling wildly, and her breath caught in her throat as another realization struck her. She barely noticed the fights going on around her now, dizzy with comprehension.
The vixen averted an attempted strike from Ian, then focused on Ketefe and Jeremiah. She purred a few threats, but Jeremiah was quicker with a blast of light. For a moment, it worked - the masked feline was pleased to see her canine features distort with pain. But the moment was short-lived once the demoness looked at her.
The command resounded in Ketefe's ears and mind. Give him to me!
After one second, the pain flooded into Ketefe again, along with terrible emotions, rage and twisted pleasure. She felt herself go to Jeremiah and watched in horror as she bent his arm backwards, the bracer stinging on her own arm as her demon fought against its power. She tried with every fiber in her body to release her friend, screaming at her body's current master:
No, NO, NO, stop this! I'm not your damned puppet! LET HIM GO!
Without fully realizing it, she spoke her next thought aloud. "Why-are-you-doing-this?!" she hissed through clenched teeth as she fought her own body for control.
For a moment it seemed that Rynkura's pace could hardly be matched as she walked swiftly in the direction that had indeed been right, confirmed by Keaton. There was a fight going on, they were on the same floor as the other group...it was only a matter of putting two and two together. The tigress couldn't prevent things from getting out of hand. But preventing death, yes. It was her creed and the association she had for this group of adventurers that drove the Healer to hurry so. On the way the noises were getting louder. It was only the due course of following...
That's when at one point she paused. Down a passageway the smell of blood and dead, ashen flesh came to her nostrils. Followed by faint voices. One dark and too familiar. Her eyes widened. Oh by gods, no...
"All of you should keep following the directions. Don't stop, even if I do." she said with finality as she turned back to Cogidubnus, Keaton, and Sal, her voice commanding and hands gripping the glowing staff with a sudden surge of ferocity that betrayed her usually calm nature, emerald eyes taking on a glow.
And then she faced forward and broke out into a run.
* * *
Demon... Aisha snarled in her mind's eye, and the hatred was plainly shown on her face; unable to ignore her tail ring's insistent flash as it sensed the darkness in the beast before her. Even without the trinket she could tell of the malicious intent flowing from his gaze, eyes an unnatural hue of poisonous green drilling into her mind. And again more memories came, all from this other jaguar who looked so much a part of the shadows as she certainly must have looked herself, but bathed in light from the flames of the blade she held.
The panthress snapped upright upon hearing his words, a gasp reaching through a quivering throat. Her last name was uttered on his tongue in curse towards her. So he did know...her family, at least. The gesture of hatred towards the name was easily present on his tongue. And that was already a warrant of death on his head. Her crimson eyes locked onto his gaze with defiance, and she took a step back. Still the memories rushed, wondering on this familiarity. It can't be one of them...so soon...
"I'm not giving myself over to anyone. Especially not a demon, and especially not one who would dare spit out the Cabre name like that." She assumed a stance again, sword raised threateningly. "Now you will answer me, maldito, or I swear..."
"Be'Laan!" A hard voice growled suddenly from a ways behind the demonic panther. He, the dogs he commanded, Gareeku, and Aisha would all see the shape of Rynkura standing in the way, her pearlescent white fur easily contrasting the shadows around them. She simply stood with a staunch gait and narrowed eyes, framing only a slightly snarling face. "You really shouldn't have tried to find her."
Her eyes caught Aisha's, which where now suddenly very wide. The panthress saw a slow nod given, the tiger's eyes closing. A look of confirmation.
Things outside stopped. Things inside rushed. The name. The flames. The screaming. The dark figure that she watched slay her father. A rush of memories, all coalescing into one point in her mind.
Her heart was frozen. And when it beat again, it wanted to break out of her ribs. That small gesture from Rynkura was all the answer she needed. More than needed. She almost dropped the sword, afraid of what it meant that she was facing this.
She turned back to the panther, harboring a look of shock. Slowly, shock turned to anger. Boiling hatred. Unrelenting vengeance. So soon, it was happening...she was facing one of them. They had found her. And they would suffer. As per her vow, they would suffer.
The sword flared, and the flames encompassed her hand as her body shook with rage, adrenaline taking over her veins and her mind. "You." She stepped forward again. "Will pay in blood for what you and your kind did to my home, my family, and our name."
His brief brilliant burst seemed to slow the Vixenthing temporarily, and he inwardly crowed with success. And then she called upon Ketefe. The one just young enough to be one of his students. The cat stepped forward, the slight shudder to her movements the only visible signs of the girl's resistance.
"Ketefe, wha-?!" And Jeremiah saw her eyes. He wondered if that was what he looked like, when his Condition worked up the power to compel him to do things. Whatever was in there, looking out from stolen eyes, it wasn't a person. Not truly. Maybe it had been, but whatever controlled Ketefe was no rational furrae with an intellect to be fooled.
Jeremiah thought he was going to die.
"K-Ketefe...? Are you in there? Listen to me, Ketefe! Fight it! Don't let it u-use y-y-you..." He didn't know anything about fighting, but he knew what hurt if you aimed for them. The solar plexus, the kidneys, the neck, the eyes...
She was young enough to be one of his students. You don't strike students. No matter the occasion, you don't strike them.
"Ketefe..." the frog looked up, and said what he always wished he could say to himself for certain, "It's not you! Whatever this thing uses you for, it's not your fault! Just remember, alright?! IT'S NOT YOUR FAU-!"
The vixenthing took one more step forward and backhanded the panicking, distracted frog. She must have had quite the arm, because it knocked him out.
"No words, lovely. They just get in the way of fun things."
Unconcious of his surroundings, gears turned in Jeremiah's head.
That hurt, oh pretty one, Bal set to work at something, pushing the corner of the artist's fevered brain that he'd staked out for himself to its limit, At least let me dance with you, just once...
Ehehehehehehehehehehhhhh...
Mel felt a moment of jubilation as she saw the size of the hole she tore in the side of the beast, but it only lasted a moment. She could see it didn't really have internal organs for the ice to damage and it's injury closed up as if she had merely drawn a spoon through pudding. As it sprung at her she delayed her leap away long enough to throw a spell in it's way. Light, but not a narrow ray, a geyser. When it touched the cool marble floor it burst upward, a column of light blasted straight upwards, too bright for the dragon to look straight at even with her third eyelid up. As it touched the ceiling it scattered in trailing sparks, like a fireworks display.
The demon turned, and looked straight at the tigress, eyes narrowing. 'Rynkura,' he said, his voice a low growl. Then, just behind her, Cogidubnus came into view, shortly followed by Keaton... and then Sal.
Asal grinned. 'Sal! Take them!' he barked, then spun against Aisha. Claws extending, he snarled something at the hound demons, which leapt growling into action right at Gareeku. The wolf was thrown back, and Aisha was left standing, facing the other panther directly. He sprang against her, a terrible grin on his face as he drew something from within his coat. Keaton and Cog could only watch as their enemy turned from them and raced toward his target.
Then Keaton noticed how Sal stiffened.
Rynkura was not about to let her protegé face someone like Asal alone. Already preparing one of her strongest spells to counter his dark magic, she mustered all the speed she could and dashed for the huge feline. But before she had taken two steps, something grabbed her and pulled her back. She flew off her feet and was dragged backward, something strong and elastic attached to her robes and entwining her arms. Cog was quick enough to cut the first two strings headed for him, but the silk was still sticky and trapped his sword, and then his face and arms were both tied down and he was jerked forward, trapped against the floor.
Keaton had barely the time to do something before Sal's furiously strong hand punched her right in the stomach, and a next one threw her against the wall. Catastrophe was still in her hand, but the spider was throwing silk like a maniac, and she had far too many hands to weave it around. One arm stuck to the wall, Keaton couldn't move out of the way before the spider pinned her, pressing her wings to the hard surface and locking her limbs in her own, many-appendaged grip. Keaton struggled furiously, the spider's fangs only inches from her face.
Then Keaton looked up. Sal's expression was sad, pained even. She was looking straight at her. 'I'm so sorry,' she said. She really sounded like she meant it.
And then a little eight-legged thing crawled up over her shoulder, and Keaton's sudden pity was blown away in an instant.
The vicious thing inside her snarled and laughed at the same time. When her hands gripped Jeremiah, Ketefe could almost feel it gritting its teeth somewhere deep within.
'
When this is over I will have you!' it hissed at her, half distracted with the frog. '
I will become
you! And then, I will be free!' Even as she heard the words, the true meaning of them flew through her thoughts, shared by the link this
thing had with her. It had been trapped and pained in Hell for so long it could barely remember anything else. And it had been set loose to take her and lead the demons to them, in exchange for the promise of her. If they succeeded - when they succeeded - it would swallow her whole. It would take her body and soul, her dreams and her memories, and trap her within itself, and then an entirely new Ketefe would leave the castle. A Ketefe free to pursue whatever devilish pleasures 'she' wanted.
The horrid revelation completely numbed the feline's senses. Ketefe barely noticed as the vixen knocked Jeremiah out cold and her fingers let up, the frog slumping to the ground. She could only stare at her trembling hands, even the pain of the bracer not reaching her distant mind.
The strike almost took Aisha off-guard, and sent her stumbling backward. He was so strong! She had just time enough to raise her blade before his next one hit, making her stagger back out toward the stairwell, dangerously fast.
'Your family is nothing!' the panther growled, drawing up his weapon. A curved blade, slim and wavelike, it looked like some middle-thing between a shamshir and a falchion, and its near-black blade gleamed with a poisonous luster. He lunged at her again, pressing her toward the edge, and it was all she could do to keep her balance. Speed-wise they were almost equal, but the demon had a physical power that she simply could not match.
A slip, an opening she thought she saw in his side. After all, he didn't have a shield, and so he could not protect himself except with that blade. She struck out, and almost felt joy for a second as her blade seemed to hit home, however glancing a blow it was.
The next second, she flew, a painful numbness in her chest the only sign that he had kicked her. His flaw had been a feint. Aisha felt weightless for a second, watching the rail of the stairs pass by just under her. Then she fell. The dark ceiling sped away from her, as she headed for the stone floor below.
Something grabbed her, and she had just a second to see that it was the demon, still smiling wickedly. Her ascent slowed, but it was still with considerable force that he slammed her into the cracked marble.
Taking a breath, the demon stepped off her, a most painful action, and turned his back toward Aisha, the huge green-black wings that had sprouted from his back furling together and shapeshifting back together to form his dark green coat.
'Not just yet,' he said. 'I want you to suffer.'
Ian was at a loss what to say to him. Still searching his pants and jacket pockets he said "I...I don't think i have any--FOUND ONE!" In a nervous motion he pulled the pin but dropped it. He threw himself on the ground to fling it away in time. He managed to pop it through Stygian's legs, but it didn't go too far past the table. When it went off Ian knew his shins would be in pain and he would not be happy. "Man, I'm sorry!"
Wolf, tiger, spider, and jackal rushed through the castle, religiously following the instructions Mel had sent to them, and this time reaching their target within minimal time. Rynkura had, enraged by the sound of her student's voice, dashed ahead of the group, leaving the others tailing behind. Keaton had Catastrophe drawn and leveled at the ready by the time the party had approached the room where Aisha and Asal were tenuously separated from one another, tension teeming from their bodies like wreathing waves of electricity. Snapping Catastrophe to the ground as she skidded to a halt behind the others, Keaton was totally unaware of Sal's presence behind her, as she was too concerned with watching the exchange between the monochromatic felines.
Next second, before she knew it, Asal was running towards Aisha with claws brandished and he had snarled something towards the demonic hellhounds accompanying him, apparently commanding them. Either way, his orders had been obeyed, as they were leaping at Gareeku--Keaton identified the distinctive white wolf with disbelief, having been concerned of his whereabouts--within the blink of an eye. Just barely, Keaton caught Sal's muscles stiffen as her gaze reflexively swept towards the anthromorphic arachnid, body petrifying instinctually.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise that Sal would turn on them.
But it did.
Mucilaginous webbing ensnared the corners of Rynkura's robes before she could interfere in the clash between panther and panther with a formidable spell, another net of gooey ichor caging Cogidubnus to the floor. Her reaction to seeing her allies and companions immobilized was painfully delayed--perhaps attributed to outright shock--until Sal was coming at her, and her fist sunk deep into the taut muscles of her stomach. Keaton let out a pained gasp as the punch connected, having the breath ejected straight from her body, leaving her panting and heaving unceremoniously--
--then she was sent flying with another blow administered by those deceptively Herculean fists, her body slamming back-first into the wall. Keaton groaned and scrambled upright, hoping to roll off to the side with a spell prepared. One great mound of webbing snagged onto her arm, splattering over the muscle and effortlessly entrapping her limb to the wall. Vainly, Keaton strained against the webs, lifting Catastrophe to defend herself from any further onslaughts, but before she could even blink Sal had lunged. Keaton released a shrill cry without even realizing it upon feeling her shoulder-blades piston uncomfortably close together, arachnid limbs and canine claws entangled. Heaving, the jackal stared at Sal, pure, unbridled hate burning and blistering in the flaming core of her eye-stone.
It defused when she saw how genuinely sorry Sal looked. How bizarrely apologetic. For a moment Keaton thought she meant it.
That thought vanished as quickly as it came when she heard wretched, scabrous legs scrape fabric and fur, heralding the appearance of a tiny spider perched upon Sal's shoulder. One look at it and Keaton's ears fell flat, jaw dropping only to tense up again and clench, gritting teeth and fury building up in the back of her throat. She would not be possessed again. She would not be violated like that again.
"You--you--" Keaton sputtered, but regained her composure just enough to screech at Sal, "YOU FUCKING BRAINLESS SHIT! You WHORE! You fucking WHORE!"
Curses were being fired off like bullets as Keaton writhed and squirmed, trying to wrench her arm free or kick Sal, or quite possibly muster the energy to summon her injured tentacles from her midsection. Only the barest of ripples were managed across Keaton's skin, but there was no other response. There still needed to be time to recover.
Keaton did not have that time.
And no matter how much she cursed, how much she screamed, how much she insulted, she wasn't going to get free.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Snarling an unintelligible curse in some grim language, which only he himself and the demoness knew was Aramaic, Stygian lifted the table and kicked the live grenade under the crack. He ducked behind it and closed his eyes a fraction of a second before the thing went off.
The phosphorous flare was blinding, and the shadow-creature right before them sizzled as it was burned beyond coherence, practically melting, being reduced to a puddle of blackness. Then Mel's spell added to the damage, flaring bright as a miniature star, and the beast advancing on her was burned to a crisp in a quite similar fashion. The succubus reeled back, covering her eyes and thrashing with her wings, making a half-seething and half-hissing sound.
When the fireworks were over, the succubus was still thrashing, and the final dark hound had half its form melted beyond recognition, rippling and twitching as it struggled to retain its form. It stumbled forward, driven by some blind power or unfeeling command. Two blazing eyes, featureless and horrid, glared at the adventurers with cold hate.
Stygian stood up, the table flying away as if tossed by a giant hand and cracking against a wall. Something like a rush of wind passed through the place, as shapeless darkness swirled around the bat. In the shadows of the room that seemed much deeper after the bursts of light, he was the one bright point, his fur glowing pallidly somehow, like moonlight. He charged the black hound, trailing darkness, and in a last bid to fight, it struck out against him. The bat's touch sent a shudder through the thing, and for a heartbeat it staggered back again. Then it threw its head back and howled in pain. The darkness it was made of slipped and rippled, and Stygian's own darkness tore into it. They really were made of the same thing.
The dog-thing was ripped apart into swirling tendrils and rushing shapes of tangible black, the light of its eyes flaring out and dying. Drawing together, it drew into the bat's fist like black smoke being sucked out through a vent. It shrunk, diminished and then, with a last burst of blackness, disappeared between his clenched fingers. Breathing deeply and growling, Stygian sunk to one knee, steadying himself on the floor.
Then he looked up. The succubus, still squinting and keeping her wings high, was looking right at him. He whipped his hand out, and from his wing formed a whipping black tentacle, thick as two men's arms. Its pointed tip impaled her.
The demoness gasped for breath, shock and terror on her face. Then she let out a horrid scream, one that was echoed by the spirit inside Ketefe's head as it lost all control. The succubus' flesh caught fire, and as Stygian's tentacle slipped from her, she fell to the floor, cracking and burning to ash.
Stygian stood up, a bit unsteadily, eyes wandering. '
Aisha,' he said. Then he started toward the door.
Keaton's struggling was met with nothing but failure. She could try and swing Catastrophe with her wrist, at risk of dropping it. But that was just about it. Even her tendrils and wings were blocked by the nearly viscous web.
'I'm sorry,' Sal repeated, bending slightly forward and turning her face away. For a second, Keaton thought she could see something faintly glowing within the collar of her peculiar outfit. Then the thing on her shoulder scrabbled over to Keaton. The touch of its spindly legs on her neck made her tremble. For a second, it seemed to have trouble finding its way in behind her for all the webbing. Then, Keaton felt a very slight sting, and something traveling like a shiver up her neck.
Sudden pleasure flooded the jackal's mind, and confusion and hesitance. She was very much aware that she was under control now. The distant, off feeling was clear sign of that. But even though some of the anger lingered, anger and resentment both at herself and Sal for the thing happening and her having to betray her friends, she could not completely explain all the contentment in her mind. Was it really so bad? Or was it simply some form of confusion or strange pleasure of her own? The distracting thoughts all made more and more wonderings rush through her captured mentality.
But it didn't matter. She had to help Sal now.
'Please, Katheryn...' the spider said, already loosening Keaton's bonds with impossibly clever fingers. 'I have to. I can't disobey.'
Ian was panting heavily with relif. He placed a hand on Stygian's shoulder. "Close one. Lucky too that was my last shiney." As he affectionately dubbed his flashbangs. "If we're going to have anymore touble I'll have to rely on ole' Charley." He said produceing a frag grenade.
The look that the tiger had seen on Asal's face confirmed it. Recognition and hatred from demon, to angel, to adventurer. There was going to be a fight...and someone would be dead whence it would finish. An orb of light already encompassing one palm, Rynkura was dashing on her feet. She would not let her student fight this creature on her own, however much the panthress wanted to. She hadn't heard the demon call out to Sal to take care of them. The thought didn't occur to her that the spider would actually obey as the adventurers outnumbered them.
But like the others, she thought wrong. In an instant, Rynkura was dragged back by her robe and her limbs...not even able to wrench her staff from the onslaught of webbing. "No!" she roared with frustration. She couldn't move...she could only watch as the bastard panther set his dogs upon Gareeku and himself charge the headstrong adventurer, throwing them both off the stairwell to plummet to the floor below.
Her hands flared, crackling with electricity. But now matter how strongly it emanated from her fingers, it only served to show the anger in her system. Before her eyes...her student, the supposed last of the Cabres and the one she swore to protect...now out of her sight.
"No! Aisha! Aisha!" She shouted, her last attempt taking the last bit of air out of her lungs before her glowing green eyes turned on the spider. They seemed almost tear-ridden. But...she couldn't hold her hatred to Sal, not now. Keaton was doing a better job of that for the time being, and would after the spider that now threatened to control her again could be removed. They had their own battle to fight. It was up to the panthress to continue with hers, if she yet survived this first blow.
"Buenas suerte, my student," she murmured after a moment of calming down, with all of the hope she had left put into the prayer. And then, Rynkura started trying to think of a way to get out of the mess they were caught in, already forming the dart spell in one hand...
* * *
Aisha's resolve burned fiercely from that moment on. She heard the dogs charge Gareeku, and Asal's command for Sal to dispatch of her comrades on the other side of the hall. But she knew that they could handle themselves well enough. The only thing on her mind right now was this creature, having quickly jumped into the battle that was issued.
The rush was like something out of a nightmare and a dream all at once. Aisha envisioned always how she would gain her retribution. This was no different a scenario. Blood would be spilled. She might come out of it alive...she might not...long ago she learned to never let fear for her own life drag her back. Fire was all that there'd be in her eyes.
She was however somewhat surprised when the force of his attack, as he drew the black scimitar-like blade, tossed her off the stairwell when she tried to block and take advantage of his weakness. The voices of Aisha's friends, the hideous growls and snarls of the large dogs, it all vanished from her hearing then. Is this how it ends? she wondered as the ceiling ascended too swiftly in her vision.
But then Asal, his wings outstretched, grabbed her to slow their fall down somewhat significantly. The anger was still boiling her blood as she tried to kick him off. "Filthy...!" she spat, moments before she was slammed into the floor, pain from the impact shooting through her nerves. The sword clattered out of her hand, just nearby.
She grunted as the demon pushed off of her. The panthress was alive still, and so was he. Getting up slowly, watching as his demonic wings fused back into his body, Aisha listened to his words with such disdain that she could just taste the battle that was coming...and smell the blood that would be spilled.
He had his back turned. The pain of the impact was forgotten now, pushed into her mind and ignored by her resilient nature. She had her hand right on her belt just after he spoke, gripping the boomerang handle. "Suffer," she spat in laughter. "I've suffered more than enough. There's nothing more you can do to me."
In a lightning instant, there was a silver flash in the corner of his eye as the bladed sawblade sped straight for his head through the air. While that caught his eye, the adventurer flipped herself from hands to feet and grabbed the holy blade, flames encompassing its glittering surface once more; as well as the outline of her entire body. She encircled her adversary with quick and fleet steps. Her mentor's instructions on swordfighting already played itself in her mind several times over like an unbroken habit.
"Para la familia Cabre," Aisha snarled. And then, she swiped the blade through the air, the whiplash of fire creating an x-shape towards the demon...the flames hid her form for a moment. And then she was suddenly at his flank, aiming an upward slash against his side...
Underneath a cocoon of sticky, thread-like silk, a low growl escaped the throat of Cogidubnus Mithlome. The wolf's sword lay to his side, out of reach, and his mouth was stuck shut and mute from the spider's treachery. Neither steel nor spell would aid him now - as it was, he could barely even breathe, let alone form a word. His nose just barely peeked out of the white wrapping.
Cog's eyes glowed like coals inside his prison.
He had told Sebastian to kill the spider - he should have -let- Keaton kill her. Instead, he had given Sal a chance - and the spider had bitten them when it might hurt the most. Aisha needed them - Sebastian needed them. Hell and all of its demons thirsted for their blood!
How could he have been so stupid?
Cog took a deep breath, letting the rage flow out with his exhalation, letting calm serenity overtake him, and slowly closing his eyes the wolf concentrated, his mind gaining the crystal focus of many years of practice. Almost out of the range of hearing, the wolf's body seemed to hum dimly. Cog took another deep breath, and exhaling slowly, clenched his fist suddenly.
The webbing fairly exploded off of him, destroyed by an orb of force, the energy cracking the marble around Cog in mockery of the spiderweb that had held him fast. Cog's eyes opened, and with remarkable quickness the wolf found his feet and his sword, the latter glittering in the low light.
Not a shred of web lay upon him - but before he jumped at the spider woman, he stopped, his face falling.
A little spider scrabbled over Keaton's shoulder, and just out of sight planted itself on the Jackal's neck. Cog could practically see the succubus's eyes glaze over.
How could he have been so stupid...
Hate, furious, furious hate, burned and flared within the writhing, flaming core of Keaton's eye-stone like a wreathing whirlwind of fire, curling and coiling like a sinuous serpent. Internally, it glared brighter and brighter as Keaton's gaze magnified, her glower so intense that it was amazing Sal and her little spider minion didn't disintegrate in a pile of smoldering ashes on the floor. Increasing her efforts to escape as Sal's on her, Keaton began to thrash and kick erratically, body bucking and flailing beneath the spider. None of it worked--nothing she screamed or screeched, hissed or howled, had any effect. Before she knew it the spider was latched onto her shoulder and climbing up the length of her neck, leaving Keaton to savor the last few moments of independent thought she would have left.
Fury was short-lived and collapsed into despair, but the hate still throbbed, still squirmed inside of that golden core, polluting it with bloody red. Dying with Keaton's increasing agony and self-hatred, but still
there but giving way into something stronger.
N-No, Keaton thought, horrified,
I can--I can't let her do that again! I can't--I can't--She couldn't, no.
She couldn't. Couldn't let someone hurt her like that again.
She could fight and she could scream. She could cry and she could beg.
But in the end, as the spider sunk its teeth into her neck and Keaton felt that shiver creep up her spine, she realized she was too weak. Just too weak. She had always been against mind-control, and always would be.
There was nothing she could do.
But was it so bad, really?
As that artificial, elated pleasure soared in Keaton's chest, she wondered if it was really so bad. Maybe she had misjudged being under someone's control. Maybe these people she had companioned herself with were worth nothing. No, they were worth nothing. Nothing in comparison to this wonderful spider-woman.
"Please, Katherine," Sal said, removing the webbing trapping her arm, "I have to. I can't disobey."
She didn't need to apologize. All of her feelings, inhibitions, loves, joys, and discomforts were worth
nothing.All that mattered was she needed to help Sal.
A cold, lifeless sheen had suffused her organic iris, turning the insides of the chocolate brown a petrified, icy gray, a dead juxtaposition to the amplified glow of her eye-stone. Keaton lurched where she stood, tossing Sal a wooden smile that she never would have given her on her own accord. Catastrophe was hefted, leveled, and flooded with bolts of dark energy, sparks of red and purple dancing along the pommel's length. A strangely serene look on her face, Keaton chose a target.
Her gaze landed on the despairing tiger woman on the ground.
And with that course chosen Keaton let out a loud shriek, features twisting into a horrible hellmask of its former self, emphasized by the blood that still caked the entirety of her face and the congealing red on her injured lip, and lunged, swinging Catastrophe back.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The monster immediately in front of her dealt with Mel watched the death throes of the succubus and Stygian rushing out the door. Looking around she saw Jeremiah on the floor and Ketefe looking a bit odd. Picking her way across yet another smashed up room she made her way to the downed frog. She leaned over and touched his neck to see if he was alive, "Jeremiah?"
Jeremiah was alive, but out cold. Even unconscious he flinched away from the cold of Mel's touch, and murmured something incoherent. Judging by the way his eyes were moving behind their lids, he was dreaming.
As Catastrophe reached the apex of its swing, Keaton suddenly cried out and clutched her hands, reflexively bringing them close to her body and hissing. The mace tumbled end over end, hitting the ground with a resounding ring before settling at the Jackal succubus's feet.
Cog lowered his hand, his eyes soft, and without a growl or preamble began walking towards Keaton, mumbling low under his breath.
"...angels of rain and thunder, hear! The skies a blade, the storm an edge..." he murmured, keeping his eyes carefully on Keaton and Sal behind her. He couldn't kill Keaton, and probably couldn't kill Sal without killing Keaton. That left nonleathal options. He had moments before one of the two made a move. Less, probably.
"The skies, they are ashen and sober." Cog finished, standing stock still, and tapped the ground with his sword tip. Blue, crackling energy flowed up from the ground and into the sword, and with a flick of his wrist, Cog suddenly -moved-.
Within the span of a moment, Cog was suddenly there, right in front of Keaton, and before she could bring her hands or focus herself enough to attack the wolf Cog touched the Jackal, the succubus suddenly going rigid.
Cog held on to her as he fed electricity into Keaton, all the muscles in her body contracting simultaneously.
It wasn't quite enough amperage to hurt the Jackal, as long as he didn't keep it up for more than...well. More than ten or so seconds, but...it should be enough to break the hold the mindspider had on the Jackal. Ignoring Sal for the moment, Cog reached around Keaton's neck, searching for the damn arachnid...
A sad Fae cat also coming to Jeremiah side. "Mel, I fear the Frog may live, but Kefete is losing her battle for her own mind. Is there nothing we can do to help her."
Bam turns places her hands on both sides of Kefete face and looks into the cat's eyes...
"Kefete Are you there? " asks Bam as she pours light magic into the fallen feline. Bam hoped the girl can hear her, and the light magic would help drive the mean spirit out of Ketefe. Still, Bam looked at the Feline as she felt herself in control again, but for how long?.
PBH
The next moment, Stygian was there, out of the shadows as always. Keaton was shaking in Cog's grip, Sal was standing, tense and on edge, looking between the jackal, wolf and tigress. And then up, at Stygian. He glared at her, eyes narrowing.
The spider reached out and grabbed Cog, bending his grip off of Keaton and using her furious strength to push both him and the jackal apart. At the exact same time, Stygian threw out his hand. A black rush shot between them and hit Sal head, and threw her straight back, smashing her unconscious against the wall and then dissipating.
She knew, the bitch, Stygian thought, already pacing past Cog and crouching down to free Rynkura. '
This is getting out of hand. Is she down there?' he asked, moving his hand over the web and sending razor-sharp, acidic tendrils of darkness out all over the tigress' form, freeing her from the web as quickly as he could. '
Cog! Get Keaton and guard Sal! We will aid Aisha.' They would be lucky to find that their foe hadn't brought more reinforcements with him.
Swerving to the side, the demon struck out, and a green blast of energy ripped through the incoming lashes of fire. Aisha closed the distance between them with rage-driven speed and struck at him with full power, but the man dodged with an upward kick that she only barely managed to avoid and then spun, coming at her again with his sword trailing green smoke.
'¡Su familia no era nada!
Le creamos!' he growled at her, and pressed her back so hard she flew again. '¡Y que la madre lamentable suya tuvo suerte de tener un
fragmento de nuestra sangre!' He opened his palm toward her, green flames flickering. She barely had time to make a rolling flip before the burst of dark magic blasted the floor where she had been black, bounding off the stone and hitting a wall with a series of ripping sounds.
The panther snorted and walked against her slowly, his sword falling to his side. 'Not to mention that idiot father of yours. Had it not been for him I would have considered the disgrace to our family settled once your mother was dead. But he just wouldn't stop, the scumbag. And then he had help.' He suddenly grinned again. 'If it weren't for that the bastard probably wouldn't even have been able to touch us. As it was...'
Slowly, the demon lifted the edge of his right sleeve, until his entire arm came into view. A large, reddish scar, smooth but jagged and ugly wrapped around the upper part of his rock-like bicep. It was plain to see what had happened. How he had managed to make the arm grow back was a mystery.
'A little present your dad left me. I didn't get to take his arm as payment, so I promised him I'd take yours instead,' he said, voice full of hatred. Slowly, he raised his sword at her. 'I'm not about to go back on my promise.'
Ian was left griping air. "Whuzzat?" He looked around the room with a puzzled face.
Halfway through the moment Catastrophe was about to reach Rynkura's vulnerable frame, something unexpectedly stung at her mind's insides and something forced her to instinctually cry out and her formerly vehement grip on the mace's elongated pommel to waver. Catastrophe was released from her spasming fingers as she clutched and wrung at her wrist, making a Herculean effort to wring some sort of reaction out from her frozen arm. Gritting her teeth, she opened her eyes and snarled at the wretched wolf, the fire issuing in the center of her eye-stone blazing. He was walking towards her, devoid of apprehension or contempt, something which normally would've jolted Sal's control on her and created a lapse in her resolve, but the possession was stronger this time, and she had no reaction other than an infuriated roar.
Cogidubnus was chanting under his breath, making the spider affixed to her neck squeal in agony. As though her bones were petrified, she couldn't bring herself to move. The wolf's efforts were working, up until Sal had launched herself at him and severing the connection. Keaton pulled back defensively, just as Sal was simultaneously thrown against the wall and knocked unconscious by a flare of dark energy, one Keaton, even in her delusion, clearly recognized.
Looking in horror at the fallen spider, Keaton glared back and forth between the incapacitated Sal and Stygian, then shrieked out a curse, "You BASTARDS!" Feet moved into motion as she broke the paralysis, Keaton scooping up Catastrophe and running at Cog. "You wanna play, bitches?! YOU WANNA FUCKING PLAY!?!" Then she flung herself at Cogidubnus, swinging Catastrophe back and sweeping it at his body, hoping to send him flying with a surge of dark magic and brute force combined. It was now too risky to use the shadows when Stygian was in the room, but at least he was distracted. Once the wolf was down, she could focus her efforts on Stygian.
If she died, that was of no concern to her. If they didn't kill her on the spot that would be their mistake. At least she would've died for something useful.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Listening to the Panther speak, Gareeku could feel the anger within him continue to rise. What he said...the way he said it...it brought back memories to when he fought the demons who had brutally murdered his father. The anger began to turn to hate; hate for the bastard who had taken everything away from someone he deeply cared for. His fangs bared in an angry snarl, the wolf's knuckles began to ache from gripping the hilt of his sword so hard.
It was then, however, that Rynkura appeared, her white fur making her shine like a beacon of light in the surrounding darkness. Gareeku would not have much time to dwell on this, however, as he was suddenly upon by the panther's monstrous guard dogs. It would seem that the battle had begun.
Grunting loudly as he was thrown to the side by one of the dogs, the wolf warrior then readjusted himself in mid air, the shimmering blade of his katana revealing itself as he removed the weapon from it's sheath. Landing on his feet, the wolf would be ready for the assaulting creatures, holding his blade in a defensive position. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Aisha had also begun to fight. Rynkura, however, was being prevented from aiding her student in battle. It looked like it was just Aisha and Gareeku for the time being.
Then, he saw it. Looking on with widened eyes, Gareeku watched in horror as Aisha was sent tumbling over the stairs; a three story drop.
"No...NO!" the wolf cried out, completely forgetting about the canine creatures as he started to run to where she had fallen from. "AISHA!"
However, he would be soon stopped in his tracks before he made it to the edge. Feeling a sharp pain in his back, Gareeku cried out as he was suddenly flung backwards. It seemed that one of the canine creatures had grabbed hold of him in it's teeth, before throwing him back. After cry of pain soon followed, as the wolf landed hard against a wall, before falling to his hands and knees on the floor.
Again the canines approached, stalking their downed prey, their razor sharp, dagger-like fangs, dripping with their saliva in an almost hungry-like fashion, beared in sinister snarls as they drew nearer to the down wolf.
"Two against one seems hardly fair..." the wolf muttered in a low, growling voice, his eyes closed as he coughed slightly from the blow to the wall. "But then neither is what I am going to do to...I will make you suffer!"
Climbing to his feet as he picked up his sword, Gareeku glared at the two canines in a snarl of anger and hatred. "If you want me...come and get me!"
As the fight continued, Aisha barely listened to his words. They were nothing to her but distractions, serving to try to break down her defense. She had been trained against that, too. Swerving away as the panther demon came at her again, throwing dark magic strikes against her, she didn't take her eyes at all away from her enemy. The panthress was pumped, energized, flowing with hatred, ready and able to dodge most anything thrown at her with the agility of any feline.
But of course, he was feline too. They were matched in natural speed, he having more in natural strength and firepower. Yet there was no room in Aisha's mind for doubt. The fires of the holy blade still outlined her form, the amulet protecting her from the heat that would otherwise consume her skin. Whether or not she'd live, she was still determined to paint the floor with his blood...
"Mi familia eran MAS honorable que suyo (My family was more honorable than yours)!" Aisha growled back as she righted herself from being pushed away, barely dodging the dark blast that had literally ripped against a portion of the stone wall. She stood watching as he came for her, one arm out to the side as she crouched defensively, like she was using it for balance. Her face was contorted into a fearsome grimace.
As she watched the demonstration of his arm, the scar across the base making her eyes widen, she stood up straight and uttered a short, dark laugh. "My arm, huh. Maybe there was a good reason for him to have done that, demonio." The fingers on the hand that was outstretched began to curl, claws easily seen unsheathed. Her voice was a venomous growl. "Instead of a limb, he should have taken out of you whatever passes for a heart."
And that's when she made a quick slashing motion with her arm, and instantaneously the boomerang, which had still been in the air, came down on command and slashed at the flesh he had exposed, before disappearing again in one fluid movement. The light magic energy that had been imbued within gave it a blinding glow.
"You'll get my arm if you can pry it from my dead body. And also..." another downward motion, from the other side, against his other shoulder. SLASH, and gone. It was hard to tell where the boomerang was going to come from again.
Her eyes narrowed as his previous words processed into her mind. Her body was quivering with untold amounts of anger that rose from it. Between each word of her next sentence, her hand cut through the air from several different directions...and at its command the boomerang came just as quickly, disappeared, and came again, perhaps shaving off a portion of air, and sometimes actually hitting the flesh. "Beast. Liar. Murderer. Don't. Ever. Call. My. Mother. One. Of. You. AGAIN!"
And then she made one last slashing motion downward, aiming the lightning-fast sawblade, aiming to embed it in his spine. And while it descended, she came at him again, her quick movements rushing in a zigzag pattern before she spun quickly on one foot and had the flaming blade rush against the hand that held his sword, hoping to slice it off or dislodge it from his grip...
* * *
Rynkura was struggling against the webbing that pinned her too the floor, trying to use her conjured dart spell to release the strands while a battle went on around her. She couldn't reach the blade on her back, so it would do, but all too slowly. Before she knew it, the tigress was staring up at a repossessed Keaton, who was coming for her with her mace in hand, ready to slam it down.
Were it not for Cogidubnus, Rynkura would have had to resort to her most drastic of measures...the last thing she wanted was to hurt the jackal. But the way things were going, it was almost impossible that anyone wouldn't be hurt. Sal suddenly then rushed the silver wolf, hoping to separate the struggle between him and the succubus. It was too hard for Rynkura to get free...she could release her wings if she could just reach the jewel-embedded sleeves on her upper arms...
And then came Stygian out into the hall, in one effortless sweep sending the arachnoid flying off. The tigress sighed with relief as he proceeded to cut away her bonds. "Thank you, Sebastian. Yes, Asal sent himself and Aisha over the edge," she said, trying to keep her voice from that frantic tone while she stood up, brushing the webbing off, and quickly turning toward the stairwell.
She won't die.
The slash tore open another gash under the scar on Asal's arm, but his flesh seemed hard and tough enough that it only pierced the skin and made a shallow cut, a flesh wound. The demon snarled and grabbed his arm, then spat some vile curse at her and bobbed on his feet, weaving between her attacks with practiced fluidity. He watched her with fiery intensity, waiting for the crucial moment...
She spun, a fiery whiplash heading for him as she sent her blade around, and that was all he needed. That close, she was in ideal range. The demon swept his hand out and down, and before Aisha's attack could land, a spherical shockwave of green energy and distorting air blasted out from him, smattering against the floor and hitting her head-on. She felt as the air was pushed right out of her and her skin stung as if for an instant glowing hot needles had passed in a ripple over it. Then she hit the floor again, hard.
Asal stood in place for a few moments, his open palm trembling slightly, directed down toward the floor. Then, his eyes narrowed, and he
moved.
It was it must have looked like when she activated her amulet. The other panther dashed toward her in a blur, so fast she had no time to dodge. His foot hit her in the side, hard, and she flew slightly off the floor before she landed and scraped along it in the direction of one of the many corridors emanating out from the stairwell. Her legs buckling under her, she couldn't get up quickly at all. And then he sped into her again, grabbing her and shoving his fist into her stomach and pushing her along a good bit before throwing her down the corridor.
'
I can't believe it. You have her blood, our blood, and you're still this weak!' His distorted snarl was distant in her throbbing ears. She lay half a dozen meters or so down the corridor from him. In the dark corridor he seemed to tower over her, a green-eyed statue come to life, a reaper with a venomous blade. Slowly, he paced against her. She tried bringing up her sword, but his boot sent it clattering along the floor.
'
No right, no power and no hope,' he said, his words like the sentence of a judge, his eyes flaring down at her from his almost entirely shadowed face. '
Just a pitiful being without a prayer.'
Standing up, Stygian looked down at the end of the corridor. Even as he did, Gareeku was fighting the horrid shadow-hounds, trying to hold his own but only succeeding moderately. A swift grab, and he was hurled back, trapped with the two approaching things between him and the others.
Quick thoughts. The wolf-things seemed to walk in slow motion for a second, a second that was much too long. Gareeku could use light magic, couldn't he? But exposing oneself to one hound while another came in from the flank...
Stygian's bare claws nearly dug into the hard floor as he sprinted, dark wings flaring behind his pallid, almost glowing form. He ran right for the thing closest to him, and just hoped that Gareeku would target the other.
'
Gareeku!' he roared. '
Light!'
Waiting for the shadow-hounds to attack, Gareeku then spotted something out of the corner of his eye; Sebastian. Hearing his words, the wolf said nothing, only resheathing his sword. As soon as he did so, white flames burst in life and enveloped his hands, shining brightly against the forboding darkness that surrounded him. Then, with a roar, Gareeku raised his hands up above his head, before bringing them down again, slamming them palms down onto the ground. As soon as his hands touched the floor, spectacular waves of light magic roared up from the ground like huge waves, looking to engulf the shadow-hound nearest him.
"Mel," Ian said just noticing Jerimaiah was down "What happened to Mr. brainypants here?" Ian carefully picked up the frog and carried him to a couch. "Here ya go man, better than the floor."
As she was freed, Rynkura had turned to the stairway...but she didn't approach it. Something--a notion, or a sense--kept her from her instinct on wanting to help Aisha. She knew that the panthress wouldn't forgive anyone who'd take the battle away from her. The honor was hers to win back. It was what Luc would have expected from one of his descendants, the healer assented to herself.
She was shaken out of her thoughts, however, as a great flash of light caught the corner of her eye. Gareeku was doing a job dispatching of the dog beasts with an awe-inspiring burst of light, with Stygian having rushed to help. That left the battle going on in the other side. Sal was out of commission at the moment, leaving Keaton facing the wolf. Rynkura wasn't about to stand on the sidelines any more than she had been.
As Keaton's attention set on the assault toward Cogidubnus, a blast of light suddenly surged toward her hands...nearly blasting Catastrophe from her grip, the magic went around the jackal's wrists like a pair of cuffs, halting her arm's movements. Rynkura's hands were glowing, her fist clenched as she tried to hold the succubus at bay with the magic restraints, which were crackling with the slightest bit of electricity. "I'll try to hold her, get the spider!" she shouted toward the silvery canid.
* * *
As soon as his blast of magic slammed into her midsection, Aisha was inwardly cursing herself. As she flew through the air, her mind was reeling, trembling with the frustration that her mind tried to expel while the pain dissipated through the fire that healed her body of the dark magic sting. She was fast. Resourceful. But...it...wasn't...enough! How is it that I can barely touch him?!
The panther felt her magic grip on the boomerang weaken, and could hear the audible clang as it was let glow and out of her reach, falling to the ground. And soon, she was about to feel the impact of the floor. She skidded and tried to stand...then all she could see was a blur as his fist found her aching stomach. The impact almost caused her to vomit, it was so strong...and before she could register it, she ended up on her back with a grunt. Too fast...too damn fast! I have to...
Then the flames around her body ceased as the holy blade was knocked straight from her grip...and suddenly the pain from each blow that she had received came thundering back. Her head throbbed, ears ached, stomach bruised...only the adrenaline still coursing like a river through her body kept the pain from making a faltering impact on her mind.
His words cut through as sharp and poisonous as the blade he carried, seething and drilling. But it only made her anger rise. She had their blood, he said. No power. No hope.
Pitiful being.
She looked up at his looming form, eyes like green pinpricks of light in the enveloping darkness. The memories surged back. Her heart raced. That night...
She drew the last weapon that was hiding on her belt as he stood, the magic-resistant Dragonblade held in a grip strong enough to turn her knuckles white, and came to her feet. "Shut up! Just shut up with the lies!" Aisha roared...and then her voice quieted to a hiss. "I'm not one of you, and I'm not weak. I've spent my life killing all of you to earn my honor."
Her crimson eyes seemed to flare, the pupils in her eyes small compared to the red that surrounded them. She unlatched the cape from around her neck, letting it fall to the floor so the fabric wouldn't hinder her. The look was fearsome, hate-crazed, enough to send any other demon into a shred of doubt that she could manipulate. That doubt was always their death. Always. She took her shaking hand and gripped the amulet.
"I am the RISEN!"
And then, suddenly with a dark bluish blur, Aisha wasn't there...she was behind him, having leaped into the air, the blade coming down toward his neck with the speed and force of a guillotine...
The dark corridor erupted into flaring light as Gareeku smashed his hands into the ground, and a shockwave of ripping white tore up against the dark, hound-like creatures. Stygian couldn't stop immediately, but threw his hands up and his wings before his face to shield himself from the light that scorched and reflected off hundreds of shiny surfaces. The blast was less fierce than the one Mel had discharged, but lasted longer and tore one of the hounds almost into nothingness, the other staggering back as its front end writhed and seethed. Neither of the two beasts had the chance to attack again. Stygian had skidded down on the floor, but once the light was gone he had the perfect opportunity and no problem of repeating the process with the dark thing he had encountered previously. He sped over and laid his alabaster fingers on the nearest monster, and with pained barks and howls the thing disintegrated, its darkness and the lingering shadowy puddle of the other hound drawn to him.
Again, the bat sank down and shuddered. But there was little for him to catch his breath. Grunting and pushing himself up, he broke off at a run again, leaving the others behind before he leaped off down the stairwell, sailing over the railing and flipping over forward. In an impossible leap he hit the massive marble floor at the bottom hard and stood shakily, turning around, searching. In moments, he saw them.
'Aisha!' He cried out and ran for the corridor.
A flash. There was no other way to describe it. A spinning blur, a whirlwind of blades and magic. The demon spun, ducking low to the floor and sliding backward, his blade fending off Aisha's. Sparks flew as the swords met, again and again, the two dancing around each other, faster and faster, driven by adrenaline and hate. Faster than Aisha had ever fought before.
Aisha heard a shout, and then a white and black shape was hurtling toward them. Neither Aisha nor Asal seemed to pay Stygian any heed, but the demon certainly noticed. Backing up, he smashed Aisha's blade way off with a burst of strength, and bought time to get away, kicking her back against the wall. Snapping his head around, he looked at Stygian, nearing them terribly fast, then at Aisha. And then he snorted. The demon grabbed her, shoving her in front of him and toward the end of the corridor. She managed to get in another slash at him before he punched her again, and she flew far back. With her out of the way, the demon raised his sword high, green light enveloping the weapon, and then slammed it down into the floor. A shudder like an explosion shook the corridor as green flames erupted and Asal ran back. Far too late, Stygian stopped, throwing his wings before him, then turning, his breath quick and his knees weak, shape blurring as he tried phasing back along the shadows of the hallway. Then, with a rumble like a splintering cliff, the roof came down over him and the walls broke, tumbling in and burying the bat in stone.
Dust and mortar blew out in a gray cloud against Aisha from what little was left of the hallway. Only the whisper of the tiny particles on the floor was heard. Then, a shadow formed amid the cloud, and she heard slow footsteps. A towering, dark form was approaching her, calm as a serpent who has already poisoned his kill.
'It doesn't matter what you say, girl.' His voice was dark and echoing among the pillairs of the hall they were now in, amber light reflecting from candles but his shadowy form somehow defying the light. His wings were spread now, she saw, back to their true shape, and his green eyes glowed in the dark as he approached. 'You are of our blood, a part of my weakling brother's legacy. And you are a stain on our honor that must be removed.' There was something in his hand now, something sharp and longer even than those horrible, black claws. He twirled it between his fingers as he walked over against her. 'You have killed us. Your father killed us. Your grandmother abandoned us and your mother spat on us. And for what?' he hissed. 'What do you think you have accomplished, other than destroy and steal? Did you think you were doing any good by demolishing our power, however dark it may be?' He scoffed, an almost rhythmic sound accompanied by his footsteps. '"The end does not justify the means". Isn't that what you people always say?'
It seemed like forever, in that bathing, orange light. But it was still much too quick. In a moment he was upon her, and she felt his heavy shape as he knelt down, pressing his knee into her midsection. Pain flared up, like a hot blade pressed into her side. At least one of her ribs was broken and poking into her lung. She had trouble feeling her legs and she was bleeding from the mouth. Her eyes blurred, so she probably had a concussion as well. But she could still not take them off his face, that vile, ivory snarl of a grin and those horrid, green eyes.
She heard a rip and felt every bruise on her body as he shredded the arm of her jacket and ripped out the buttons, simply tearing the cloth into pieces around her and then grabbing her arms, pushing her down under him. The shadows of his wings seemed to obscure the very world.
'This is the end that you have pursued. You wish to know? Very well then. I will answer your questions. And I hope that they will bring you pain!'
As Keaton attempted to bring down Catastrophe onto Cogidubnus's body in the midst of her catapulting charge, she barely noticed the flash of light which ignited out of the very corners of her peripheral vision up until the moment it rocketed toward her, ensnaring her wrists and holding them together like a set of ethereal shackles. Startled by this sudden fettering, Keaton's gaze darted to and fro, hands insistently clutching Catastrophe, refusing to release it even as she pulled and strained against the empyreal cuffs, feeling their lightning coalesce along her skin. Somehow, it didn't hurt, but whether or not this was her numbness or the actual effect of the spell was unknown to her.
No. No. She couldn't--she couldn't give in. Even when trapped, she couldn't give in. Snarling, Keaton's fists gripped Catastrophe's pommel, purple-red lightning surging along its ornately-designed length. Crawling downward, the writhing bands of electricity thrashed upon their golden counterpart, attempting to wrap around the cuffs entirely and smother them, but being driven back every time. Keaton concentrated, purple smoking from the flaming core of her eye-stone, reflective of the black energy which started to mingle with the light.
Hopefully--just hopefully--she could channel enough dark magic to combat the spell. Just hopefully. She just had to remain calm. She had to focus.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog struggled to wrap his hand around the shaking Jackal's neck, his fingers -just- closing on the arachnid's body when another cold, chitinous hand grabbed his wrist. He looked up from Keaton's neck to stare straight at Sal's face, the larger arachnid suddenly pulled and pushing the wolf and jackal apart.
Sal was far stronger than she looked. Despite the wolf's own struggles, and the eletricity that still coursed through his hands, the spider managed to practically make Cog stumble backwards in but a moment, pushing them apart quite easily. Cog cursed, and tightened his grip on his sword. He'd hoped to free Keaton first, but if the spider really wanted his attention right then...
With starling speed Cog flung his sword over his head and tilted it, the curve it made almost a flowing, watery opaque for a moment as the reflective metal obscured the air and with a silver arc. Cog tightned his grip, the work of a fraction of a second, and aimed his strike, the edge planned to stop right above Keaton's shoulder.
Before he could strike, however, a stream of darkness flashed between Cog and the Jackal. The velvet-smooth tendril of darkness snaked past them and into the spider, slamming Sal into the wall and knocking the arachnid unconscious. Sebastain's crouched form knelt near the spider, cursing, and the bat moved quickly to free Rynkura. Cog lowed his sword, and nodded his head as Sebastian spoke.
"Cog! Get Keaton and guard Sal! We will aid Aisha!"
Guard?, Cog thought, his face souring somewhat at the suggestion. He sighed, swallowing his apprehension, and nodded at the bat. The bat had his reasons for wanting Sal alive - Cog would be damned if he walked ahead of her again, however. Sebastian had Rynkura freed shortly, and Cog turned his attention back to Keaton.
His eyes widened, the sight of a mace looming in his vision.
At some point between being incapacitated and her sudden freedom at the hands of Sal, Keaton had managed to recover, scoop up her mace, and fire a very well-aimed swing at the wolf. Fire danced in Keaton's eyes, and very real flames glowered out of one of them, Cog noticed. The wolf narrowed his eyes and turned on his heels, backpedaling and slamming both hands into the hilt of his blade as he tried to get something between him and the massive, bludgeoning mace.
And then, Keaton stopped, nearly dropping the mace altogether as he wrists suddenly slammed together. Although she managed not to drop the huge weapon, such a position was very awkward for holding something like Catastrophe, and the jackal was struggling to keep the mace in her hands. She seemed almost fixed on it.
Cog narrowed his eyes.
His sword returned to his side in the blink of an eye, sheathing the blade with the almost instantaneous skill of a Iaidoka swordsman, and sliding up almost next to the Jackal he grabbed at the haft of her mace and her wrists, pushing up on the mace's end and pulling down on her hands.
Predictably, Keaton would not let go, and was forced into falling down and forwards, Catastrophe's hilt moving farther and farther down and away, the Jackal's hands dragged by Cog's manipulations.
The phrase was true - wherever the head goes, the body goes also, but the reverse can also be true. Wherever the body goes, the head must also go, and down and forward went Keaton's head. As it dipped past Cog the wolf dropped the mace and grabbed at the Jackal's neck, his hands instantly finding the little parasitic arachnid's body, and wrapping his fingers around it he incanted a short, three-syllable incantation. Power flowed through his hands, enough to cook flesh, and the mindspider deflated under his electricity-imbued hands.
He pulled on it gently, all resistance having left the thing, and pried it off Keaton's neck. Dropping it to the floor and letting go of Keaton, he gave it a single stomp before looking back up at the Jackal.
"Keats?"
The moves were quick...so quick. Blow for blow, step for step, Aisha's blade met Asal's with too much ferocity to be dizzy from the blinding clash...the naked eye would have only picked out blurs, growls, and flashes of steel. She too was dodging and parrying at every step, eyes burning with such ferocity...she showed no sign of giving up, nor he any sign of weakness. Resilient and determined, the panthress was going to have her retribution. It was no longer a fight for vengeance. It was for one's very honor. Straight on to death.
And then at one point, Aisha thought she had caught her name shouted...she couldn't make out the voice, though for just a split second she tried. That distraction was what would cost her. Before she knew it, the Dragonblade had been flung out of her grip...and she the other way to land hard against the far wall. "UGH!" she grunted, expelling so much air that it was hard to take a breath afterward as she slumped to her knees.
Trying to get up only earned her another fist to the ribs...having been flung like a ragdoll across the corridor, her claw slash having hit...but only in vain, the simple action of a feline scorned. She slammed into the floor, her nerves now nearly shocked into submission and all senses nearly obscured. All but her hearing.
What she thought she felt and heard was the world collapsing...
* * *
As Keaton struggled against her magic restraints, trying to forge a resistance from the mace she still held onto, Rynkura only kept up the magic as strongly as she could to fend it off. Cogidubnus heeded her instructions with swiftness, taking the mace that was in her grip and using it to help lever her hands...and thus her body and neck...into his reach. A moment, and the spider was flung to the floor near their feet, dead and all control of its host lost. It was then the tigress let go of the spell, freeing Keaton's wrists, the electricity dissipating altogether.
The tiger hadn't time to speak, however. Just before, she had spotted the bat flinging himself over the edge of the stairway. The tigress cast him an incredulous look, wondering what in the world he was doing. And it hit her. There was only one thing downstairs.
The battles were finished on their floor. There was only one thing left to do, and Rynkura couldn't disagree any longer...and there was no time to think of caution even for her nature. The tigress left her staff leaning on the wall and deactivated the spell that was on the enchanted jewels over her sleeves. There was a slight flash. And then, with a flare of two immense white and bold-black striped feathered wings, she took one step over the railing and another over the side...and dropped headlong after him.
The floors fell away one by one as the tigress descended with impressive flight speed...but she wasn't nearly as fast as Stygian fell, and he was ahead...and thus, it was too late when she arrived. The ground at her feet was shaking. She ran. And found the roof coming apart as if at the seams, right upon Stygian, before she could help. "Gods..." she muttered, as if in a desperate plea. Things had fallen apart, literally.
And what came as worse...Aisha and the demon were nowhere in sight. "Dammit. DAMMIT!" she cursed loudly.
* * *
Aisha could barely see through the dust blown towards her as the pieces stopped falling. She tried to get up, only to fall down again by sheer exhaustion trying to take over her body. Couldn't run, couldn't move. The adrenaline rush was now trying to recede, leaving her exhausted. The panthress heard the destruction...surely the demon was caught in it...?
...No such luck. Her heart raced again as his form crept across the corridor at her, a predator whose prey only needed finishing off. She gazed up at that form, claws unsheathing again with unbattered rage...her body quivering with a sudden, breathing and crawling too real fear... the light didn't even fall on him. Just like it didn't when she saw him through the fires that consumed their home. His gaze was the same murderous one that he had given her father. His demonic wings were now outstretched, and he carried a knife in one hand. No guess what he planned to do with it.
But still, as he talked...her mind reeled. What he said couldn't have been true...that she had the blood of a demon, that he who stood before her was related to her...there was a sudden onrush of sickness. Aisha shook her head fiercely and bared her teeth, spitting at him in defiance, her voice now ragged and malformed...but strong and unwavering. "We destroyed you because you destroyed us! You destroy lives! There is a right to fight ba--ACK!"
Her sentence was cut short. His knee suddenly jammed into her midsection, causing her to cough large droplets of blood, and pinned her back to the ground. Her bound fury went unheeded and unused, the girl rendered helpless.
"I don't want your answers!" she screamed. "I want your death!" But it was useless. Her weapons gone, arms bound to the floor, shirt ripped, and his knife poised...she couldn't stop the flow of tears from coming. Her eyes closed...and she saw the memory as vividly as always.
Her father, his heart having been ripped from his very body by this creature and lying in a puddle of blood. His vivid green gaze turning to her next. She ran in fear, thinking...believing that she'd be next. And now she was going to be. Twelve years later, her preparation was for nothing. She was as nothing. Her honor decimated...
No. NO!
Something overtook her mind right then. The horrid memory kept playing back. Over and over again until the cords snapped. Unbound energy took her. The pain was gone, even the recent, searing pain that caught the nerves in the base of one arm. Only the burning remained...the burning that surged through her blood, reached into the hand that she still felt, and made her entire body just FLASH...!
"Get...OFF!" Her voice roared, empowered like nothing before. The sudden burning freed her arm from Asal's grip, just long enough to push his chest and send him careening back with an intense, blazing, searing comet of red fire. The intensity of it masked the glow her eyes took, encompassing even her pupils.
And past the fire, suddenly, in one last effort of unmatched speed, she had her holy blade back from where it had dropped in the corridor...seeking to impale it through the demon's body.
The flash that followed was immense, so much so that it could very carefully be seen as a deep orange glow that lit up the stairwell.
Whether the blade hit or not, she couldn't feel...but as the fires died down, her eyes started to glaze over...she glanced down to see the bleeding stump that was all that was left of her right arm. "Bastard took it after all..." she murmured. And then, she fell, the sword falling from her other hand's grip...
Everything faded to black.
"Okay Ah Ian Can you help me get the frog on a sofa and we need to get Ketefe on one, too. I think.. Mel, If you can heal Jeremiah. I will see what we need to do and make this room secure. Stygain will need somewhere to fall back to once he rescues Aisha and the others." says Bambi.
Gina and Bam help non-reactive Ketefe to sit and lounge on a love seat on one wall. After Bam repairs the broken door from the vixen's attack with a wood mending spell, she goes to check the "Back" door to the Hall.
"Who is there?"asks Bam as she looks at some ripple of black against the dark... She goes to close this door..
PBH
In the midst of her frenzied struggling and her quickly-escalating sense of agonizing panic, Keaton barely noticed the presence of Cogidubnus smoothly lurking behind her until he was carefully anchoring her body backwards, manipulating her position to his advantage so he could snatch up the exposed and vulnerable spider and vaporize it. During this maneuver she had briefly struggled, but how he orchestrated her body and the restraints keeping her hands fettered, combined with the additional pressure of the energy she was investing in combating the light energy, had minimized her efforts to just some uncomfortable squirming and snarling.
Then the spider was gone, its presence swept off of her neck and quickly demolished. In that flickering instant, its corrupted influence had been pried off of Keaton's polluted mind, its devilish roots snaking away and disintegrating on the spot, crumbling into ashes. The light shackling her wrists was gone, as was the only support keeping Keaton's body suspended. Unceremoniously, the slumping, delirious-looking jackal hit the floor in an uncomfortable-looking heap, Catastrophe clattering nearby.
Instantaneous to that impact, the delirium-inflicted jackal was startled out of her stupor, her body thrashing back upright at the moment Rynkura had grown wings and was rushing past her, leaving her to rigidly register the fact that she was, ironically, an Angel, and for her to recollect herself. Initially, she didn't understand anything that was going on, post-possession weariness having gripped her. Disheveled-looking, the jackal's still slightly-hazed eyes stared up at Cogidubnus, the glow in her left eye having died down to its normal, harmonious flow, while her brown eye resumed its chocolate sheen, although considerably more fogged than before.
"Cog?" Keaton asked, voice slurred. "Wha's goin... wha..."
Then the resounding thunder of the roaring of the hellhounds caught Keaton's hearing. Using her feet, she propelled herself backwards, snatching up Catastrophe and holding it in a defensive angle before her. "FUCK! FUCKFUCKFUCK!" Keaton shrieked, then her eyes, as they skittered rapidly from event to event occurring in the room, landed on the unconscious form of Sal, and everything clicked. All those memories came flying back.
Again.
It had happened again.
Keaton would've screamed. She would've cried. She would've absolutely torn everything in that room to pieces, if they weren't in the middle of the crisis. But that didn't stop her pupil from dilating and her teeth from sinking into her lower lip again, tearing back open the once-congealed wound and dividing a rivulet of red down her thoroughly-matted chin, spilling like the water she wanted to release in her mad-looking eyes. Again, fire mushroomed in the heart of her eye-stone, and it looked like she was about to go berserk again, but no such thing happened.
Instead, she lowered Catastrophe in a dejected gesture and looked over to where Rynkura had escaped. Where the hell was she going, anyway? Why did she look so--
Aisha.
It all clicked.
Fuck.
"FUCK!" Keaton screamed. She ran for the edge of the stairway, abandoning all her agony for that moment as she ungracefully scrambled her way to the banister, which she grasped with her free hand. Eyes wide, she stared down at the abyss below them, struggling to make out everything. Certainly her new eye could penetrate through the darkness, but distance hindered the shapes she saw below. Cursing fitfully in a rapid mantra, Keaton looked back and forth, then proceeded to work her way around, hoping to find her way down.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Mel felt a great discharge of magic, magic that didn't feel like the stuff currently permeating the building. Bam was bustling about and bossing everyone. And the dragon was at the end of her patience. The castle was literally going to hell and she was not going to be kept safe like a pet. She had endured a lifetime of protection. "Ketefe is regaining control since the succubus died, give the bracer time. There is nothing physical wrong with Jeremiah, give him a minute to wake up." The dragon walked to the door Bam was messing with. "You are a fae, you can defend this area with help from Ian and Gina. The other two just need time, not a healer. But a healer might be needed out there. I will be back when I can." With that she took the door from Bam's hand, exited, and firmly closed it behind herself. It was easy enough to find her way to the others, Keaton was screaming obscenities.
Cogidubnus stared at the jackal with a mixture of concern and sadness, his eyes catching a brief glimpse of Keaton's own eyes, her chocolate and golden irises flashing in pain and rage. The wolf sighed, averting his gaze to the ground for a moment as Keaton screamed out, and Cog took a step back. He expected the Jackal to attack the floors, or the walls, or the unconscious body of Sal slumped behind him. Something. But, although Keaton seemed as tightly strung as a piano wire, she did none of that, simply moaning out a final "FUCK!" before hefting her mace again and running for the banister behind her.
Of course. Sebastian. Rynkura. That damned green-coated panther...
Cog cursed and began to follow, stopping suddenly to turn and stare at Sal lying on the floor behind him. Sebastian's words rang through his mind, and the wolf stood still for a moment with indecision before jogging back to Sal's unmoving body. Picking up various arms in an attempt to raise the body up, Cog shook his head and finally settled on an arm, pulling up on her and managing to get the spider-woman's body raised off the marble floor, just a bit.
"Damn..." Cog murmured, buckling for a moment under Sal's weight before he managed to get it fully on both legs. She was much, much heavier than she looked. Cog cursed softly again as he began to drag her along, one of her arms slung over his shoulders and Cog's free arm holding her up by her waist.
He had to guard the spider. Didn't mean he had to stay in the same spot with her.
Unable to make such a leap as Rynkura or Sebastian had made, Cog simply made his way to the stairwell, dragging the spider along with him...
*sigh* Bam stops bustling about and listen to Mel, and with *sigh*. "Thanks, Mel... I will hold the Fort..." Bam salutes Mel, but the Dragon was already out the door.
"Remember the secret knock!" yell the fae after Mel. Bambi continues to repair the broken door and waits for the others to awake or the Bat and other warriors to return. Standing listen to the distant sound of the battle, the fae grows worried for her friends out there.
PBH
It was dark. That couldn't be right. It was never dark to him. Not that way. And he was... numb, somehow. There were parts of his body that just felt wrong. He couldn't express or understand the odd feelings of these things, partly because he felt so shook up he just wanted to fall back to sleep. The problem was, he was still in pain, and while his thoughts were jarred his memory was not. He didn't even know what was going on, didn't know whether if he would be able to do anything at all. The confusion itself should have made him pause and consider for a while. But he just knew that was not an option.
He tried reaching out, stretching out through the dark and feeling his surroundings. For a second he couldn't, and he was truly afraid. How, when there was darkness, could he not feel? Then the sensations reached him, and he understood. Spiderwebbing cracks. Heavy, mute stone. His mind tired, just like his body. And beaten up. He was buried alive. That thought immediately made him despair. He was strong, yes. He could slide and phase through darkness. But in this situation? In this situation all his strength might just not be enough. It's like at the bottom of the ocean, or after an earthquake, he thought. And I'm broken. I'm bleeding...! He might be trapped, might be bleeding out his life even as he was thinking. He couldn't see his injuries, couldn't feel anything but blind pain. Black memories rushed through his mind, and he felt himself shiver. It might be just like...!
He almost thrashed, but stopped himself and slowed his breathing when he felt the pain. That was not an option. He had learned to deal with pain and misery and hindrances long ago. He knew how to work with what he had. And in time that power had grown far beyond puny things like physical restraints and perceived boundaries.
The shadow flows, he thought. And the darkness seeps. It waits, working its way forth as the light fades. The shadow is everywhere... He stretched out more, forced his mind to alertness and his darkness to spread, to take shape. He moved his arm, carefully, and felt the heavy burden shift. The darkness is, behind the light. Through air and stone and the depths of the ocean... He could feel the stone ending in front of him, feel the dark and its openness, feel the hall beyond, the currents of darkness and the smooth hardness of the pillars, the warm softness of the body on the floor...
Aisha...
Slowly, inch by inch, he began using his darkness, working a way out through the rubble.
The castle was labyrinthine. Apart from the main seven floors, there were expansions and outbuildings apart from the original structure, which even itself was a complicated, if beautiful layout. At least, it had been beautiful. Before darkness took the place.
Keaton was followed closely by Mel, reaching the bottom of the stairwell in a hurry. The gaping wound of an opening before what had previously been a hallway was telltale of what had happened, and quick, receding steps down another hallway to the side gave them a direction to follow as Rynkura rushed ahead of them. Catching up with the tigress would be hard, judging from her speed. But there was little else they could do.
They found themselves weaving and running through more hallways than seemed right. Moving only with only their general sense of direction to guide in this unfamiliar part of the Blue, they tried to keep as close to the corridor as they could, but had to go up and around, then down again before they made a turn and were going in the right direction. The tigress was just ahead of them, but it wasn't until on the last short stretch that they saw her. When her steps slowed, right in the middle of a corridor emanating out into a grand side hall. And she stopped. Someone was approaching.
He came limping out of the darkness, his moonlight white form barely concealed by ragged strips of black clothing that blended together with the gaping, dark wounds on his body, oozing smoky darkness. His wings, furled up on his back, were as amorphous and perfect in their blackness as ever, but his form was broken almost beyond recognition. His left leg was a mangled mess, more black than white, so destroyed that he shouldn't have been able to walk on it. The left side of his torso had also been scraped up, his ivory ribs showing through the gaping wound, just as the side of his face had been worn down to the bone, his skull grinning involuntarily through his cheek and much of his scalp peeled away. He had no left arm anymore, just a torn stump. On his right arm, comparatively unharmed, was Aisha, her clothes torn and her arm, like his, a gaping wound.
'T-take... her...' he said, stopping. His voice's cracked distortion had a slight gurgle to it. 'He's... dead... Scorched. Cinders.' He stumbled to the side and placed his back to the wall, slowly sinking down. 'Ma- make sure her arm is tied. S-she's... lost a lot of blood...' He turned his face toward them, and then smiled, a horrid sight with almost half his skull showing and those gleaming points he had for pupils.
'You don't mind... if I sleep a bit, do you...?' he said, and closed his eyes. 'I'm a little tired...'
It was that same dream again. Five-No, that's not right, there's a new one...- Six people, sitting at in a casino playing some card game. A demonic bull, a severe looking undead doberman woman, a gryphon who looked as though she hadn't eaten or slept in days, a well dressed angelic lion, a grinning mongoose cubi with half his face smashed in... And the new player, a masked frog with a skin pattern of black and orange blotches who wouldn't stop laughing.
Jeremiah shuffled the cards, tugged at the collar of his too-tight dealer's suit. The one in the mask didn't really know how to play yet, but the lion and the mongoose both were assembling powerful hands. He couldn't let that work. He carefully counted and rearranged cards as he shuffled. The house always had to win. Even when the players cheated back.
Finally, the hands were called. Jeremiah pulled a hand of five cards out of his sleeve and lay them on the table. The bull, the doberman, and the gryphon all folded, and the masked man fanned out his cards on the table with a flourish. The lion looked at his hand again, briefly, and put it down. So far, his was the high one. Finally, the mongoose placed his cards on the table with a chuckle, and tentatively flipped them each up one by one. Slow rolling, the bastard.
A bong over the casino loudspeaker wiped the smirk off the mongooses face, and Jeremiah breathed a sigh of relieve as he reached out to scoop up the pot with his green, webbed hands.
"I'm sorry sir, but we're closing. The house wins. Better luck tomorrow."
"Ey..." Oh gods, that voice. A welsh-with-tuberculosis accent. A dying thing that refuses to let the living alone, "I had a winning hand." The mongoose reached out and caught Jeremiah's wrist.
"Then why didn't you show it?"
"Oh yeah, smartass? You pathetic little whelp, just look at it," Bal's hand darted away to flip that last card.
--
Jeremiah's eyes snapped open. He was lying on a couch, in the hall... What had happened? His head...
"Wh-whuttappened?"
As though she couldn't bear being close to Cogidubnus or any of the people she believed she had betrayed again, Keaton kept a rapid pace at the head of the group, unaware of the fact the wolf had delayed in order to scoop up the unconscious body of Sal. In her shock, Keaton hadn't even the opportunity to throw herself at the spider and try to rip her limb from limb.
No matter how much preparation Keaton was brewing during their steady descent into the gaping maw of the abyss, somehow, she had the feeling that no matter how much she braced herself nothing would ever fully anticipate her for the hideous results. In a once frequently-neglected and spontaneous corner of her mind which had bloated over the duration of her stay in the Castle, Keaton was plagued repeatedly with rapidly increasing, droning voices, spawning from intermittent pockets and spaces seated throughout her brain, each one horrific, each one reminding her how much of an impairment she was.
Just a dead limb that needed to be amputated. At first it would be painful, but if it remained it would infect, and fester, and need to be destroyed.
Little did she know how eerily reflective that comparison was. By the time she skidded down the last of the stairs and onto the floor where Stygian and Aisha were, she had almost convinced herself that she was thoroughly prepared for what she was about to see. This had instantly shattered the moment she saw the maimed and mutilated Stygian sway to his ragged feet, his remaining, decomposing hand keeping the body of Aisha aloft.
A body which, garbed in torn clothing, was clearly missing one arm. At first glance, Keaton thought she was dead, but another stare confirmed that she was still alive. Damaged, but alive.
Keaton felt something inside of her break.
Everyone else was catching up. At this point Keaton felt her fingers go terribly stiff, her face perpetually frozen in an expression of blood-caked guilt, a cold contrast to the pallidness of her skin and the rigidness of her muscles. That same dead rigidness petrified her insides, turning her organs to stone and blood to ice, leaving them frozen in their veins. Stygian was leaning his head against the wall, looking as though he was going to collapse at any minute, and take Aisha with him.
She couldn't even articulate the amount of guilt she felt with a profanity. It was as though her lips had been sealed shut. So instead of speaking, Keaton acted, moving without her full permission towards the injured bat.
Keaton sheathed Catastrophe in the holster strapped to her back, and carefully took Aisha in her arms. Lower-body muscles rippled for a moment, pain stabbed furiously at her insides as retribution for daring to try to summon her tentacles when they weren't completely recovered, but ultimately, she was able to conjure up a set of tentacles to help carry Aisha's body with some amount of dignity. Not to mention the felid was taller than her, so she needed more physical assistance and couldn't request it from anyone else. It was of no consequence, as ostensibly it didn't affect her.
Worse things were hurting her.
"I'll take her," Keaton said in a voice which was very much unlike her normal one, turning away from Stygian.
Rigidly, she walked to Mel with the unconscious Aisha in her arms, keeping her body fully supported with the relatively stable lengths of the tentacles from her midsection. Once she reached Mel she indicated Aisha's body the best she could with her nestled in her arms, her expression and countenance ice cold.
"Heal her." It was said bluntly, not as a demand, not as a request, but just as a statement.
And then her mind formulated a plan.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Mel quickly caught sight of the yellow flash that was Keaton, and lost her almost as quickly as the jackal dashed down the stairs. Gareeku and Cog were there but the urgency of Keaton's movements caused Mel to follow her. Their descent was rapid, at a dash aided by the winged species lack of fear of falling. At the bottom Mel caught sight of Ryn running further ahead. With her lack of knowledge of what had gone on Mel could only obey her instincts and keep up with the marathon run.
So it was with shock that the dragon saw the horribly battered Stygian emerge from the darkness with the crushed panther in his arms. She took the moment that Keaton rescued Aisha from the slowly collapsing Stygian to shove her questions to the back of her mind and bring all her healing knowledge to the fore. Ryn was a more skilled healer but she wanted to spare the tiger as much as she could. When Keaton handed the dismayingly broken body to her Mel adjusted her size upward again, to the eight feet maximum where she could still walk upright. This enabled her to gently cradle Aisha rather than use a tighter hold against broken bones.
Moving quickly Mel applied a tourniquet spell to Aisha's arm, unknowingly a similar spell to the handcuff spell Rynkura had used earlier. There was barely enough blood left in the feline to keep her heart pumping. The dragon took the pendant off her own neck, the hated but useful reminder of her childhood. She laid the filigree and ruby item on Aisha's chest, it was very good at keeping oxygen levels up in the blood.
She turned to the tiger angel, "You seem to know your way around. Where is the nearest bed?"
Rynkura was almost frozen after witnessing what she had seen...the flash that illuminated the whole of the hall that she was in, the flare of absolute power flowing through everything...and finally the ominous, heart-rending smell of burned flesh, even through the engrossing and nasal-irritating presence of dust from the collapse. The Angel fanned her wings out to get rid of that scent, but she couldn't get rid of the ashen smell of the dead.
Aisha...no... Rynkura felt like staying there, sobbing. Her student...the girl who was like a daughter to her, dead...it was unimaginable. One passage was blocked off by the quiet rubble. Her feet started flying, a speedy move made almost literal by her wings. She had to find a way around...!
It was too hard. The castle was a labyrinth, its beauty marred by the darkness that consumed it. Rynkura banned all thoughts of leaving the castle just yet, that she had before. It was a mission now, after witnessing all of this. To help stop it. On the way, she could hear the others catching up with her...it was Mel and Keaton. The tigress kept up a good pace with the jackal, now freed and herself once more.
And when they finally stopped, their eyes came upon the figure...no, figures that emerged from the darkness. The pale white figure that she recognized as Sebastian, even when he appeared so injured and marred to the extent that rivaled anything that an Undead would look...and the there was the one cradled delicately on his working arm.
At first, Rynkura had to clench her teeth to keep from uttering a cry. Aisha looked no more like a disheveled and beaten heap of black fur...much like she had found her as a child. But her ears perked at Stygian's words, just slightly, despite the somber atmosphere. Asal was dead...the flash hadn't come from him...
And that could only have meant...
There was a slow smile on her face, hidden by a slight tear. So you've done it. Finally. She looked at the flowing blood that was left of her right arm. And have paid as spectacular a price.
It was Keaton, surprisingly, who stepped forth first and offered to take Aisha from him. The succubus, as delicately as she could manage, carried the panthress to where Mel stood. She cast a hopeful smile at the dragon. A good choice...Rynkura couldn't do the entire healing job alone, not without a chance of killing her.
"Thank you for retrieving her, Sebastian, many thanks," the tigress said in a solemn voice to the bat, who was now just wanting to rest, himself. She hummed thoughtfully and stood near Mel, watching the panther with still disbelief.
Alive...barely, but alive...her vengeance served. A day to be remarked upon, whenever she awoke. But her ear turned to Mel, followed by her eyes as she asked her question.
"I..." she started, shaking her head slightly. "Mh, well she can't stay here. This place is still far too dangerous. I say we can curb her bleeding here. And then I can perhaps carry her back upstairs, a well-guarded bedroom," the old Healer offered in a soft voice. "High is the best place, and quickly..." At this, her wings rested about her shoulders like a sort of feathered cape. "I've flown her while injured before...I can do it again," she assured.
After Aisha's body was passed into Mel's custody, Keaton unabashedly drew away, staring numbly at the shadows splayed and spiderwebbed across the floor. Under the darkened atmosphere and extinguished lights they were more plentiful than ever, making it an ample source of nests for demons and other manner of abominable monstrosities. Not that she was an expert at the habits of such hellish entities, but it seemed logical, in her mind, that they would be attracted to dark, shadow-suffused areas. Remaining distant, Keaton turned silently away from Rynkura and Mel, at first partially because she didn't want to look at the tigress's expression, but also because she noticed that the tattered alabaster frame that was Stygian was still slumped against the wall.
Still keeping quiet, Keaton walked over to him, inspecting her surroundings. As far as she could tell there were no remaining creatures to vanquish. Good enough for her. No competition. She edged over to Stygian, observing his injuries in full. Skin had been peeled and shed away to reveal the tainted muscle and enamel bones beneath on several parts of Stygian's body, and his leg was mangled beyond superficial repair. Assuming that she could still heal him after the transition of dark energy they had made earlier, Keaton let her hands surge with pulsating, jagged sparks of red and purple energy.
"Hey. Hey Sebastian," Keaton said, voice as cold as her face. She set her hands close to the lacerated flesh of Stygian's ribcage, feeling it was most prudent to start there. Reacting to her commands, the shadows surrounding Keaton began to writhe and form a wide, thorned nest around her, tendrils of wispy darkness shrouding her hands as she carefully attempted to weave together the flesh. "You... don't.... don't fall asleep, okay? Don't... just... stay. Stay awake. I--you're gonna be okay."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Although those below him were probably far too distracted to notice, a slow, rhythmic thump echoed down the staircase and into the hallways below, one dull thud followed by another as Cogidubnus dragged Sal down the stairs along with him, the spider's torso striking the marble stairs with each step they took. Cog was the last one to make it down the stairs, the heavy spider-woman slowing his progress dramatically.
As Cog finally made it all the way down the stairwell, he forced himself to move quicker, pumping his legs to a trot as he hauled Sal down the hall with him. He absently blew a strand of hair out of his eyes as he ran, his breath low and muttering with curses.
As he rounded a corner he saw Mel, transformed almost eight feet tall into her dragon form and seemingly bent over something in front of her. He dragged Sal the rest of the way down the hall, bending over and setting the spider down as he finally sidled up next to Mel. Blood covered the ground around them, and as he rose Cog blanched, his face falling as he stared at the form Mel cradled.
"Aisha..." Cog murmured, his voice pained. His face twisted a moment, the wolf closing his eyes and looking at the ground. He sighed, a forlorn, despairing sound. His face suddenly hardened, the wolf sparing a look at the spider behind him, and then back at the panthress laying in Mel's arms. He raised his hands, as if to touch her, and then dropped them, instead turning to Rynkura. "I'm sorry." Cog said softly.
That damned spider.
They shouldn't have let her go. Cog shouldn't have stopped Keaton from killing her, shouldn't have turned his back on the spider. Should have made Sebastian blow her brains out in the hall. Maybe then Aisha might...
Sebastian.
Cog's gaze fell on the bat, and the wolf's hardened demeanor broke instantly, brushing past the healer to run for the torn bat. Cog's face twisted with sorrow - the bat...he looked almost dead! He looked...
"Da-dammit! Sebastian..."
The darkness drew inward, melting and making Keaton's sensation of it tingle even as it touched the bat's black flesh, seeping into it and becoming part of it. The contrast between black and pallid white was deceptive and strange to their eyes. Keaton could almost swear she felt the glow, right through the darkness, as if it were entwined with it. It was and odd feeling, to say the least.
A shiver shook the bat, and he drew a quick, ragged breath and arced his back, teeth gritting in pain, yet his eyes remained closed. It was only after he sunk back down that Keaton noticed his hand holding her wrist. Mumbling, the bat's voice rose just a bit between his black teeth. 'Oscurum est undique... Occupo...' He went still again, for so long it almost seemed as if he had truly drifted off. Then he drew another breath, and spoke again.
'Help me stand...' he said. His lips didn't move, and his voice was faint, but clear. 'We must go...'
Mel almost objected to handing Aisha over. All this changing of hands was not good for the internal damage the panther had sustained. But one look at the tigress and she saw in her eyes that the woman needed the comfort of holding her student. With a nod she passed the limp body over and gestured for her to lead the way.
Out of the corner of her eye she was relieved to see Cog and Keaton helping Stygian to stand.
Jeremiah staggered down the hallway, one hand to his head. He felt so strange... Drunk, almost. Or ill. He didn't stop for those behind him, Ian or Ketefe. Somehow, it wasn't important. He just had to, had to...
Had to something. Who knows? It was the same sort of feeling that had sent him wandering to the castle in the first place. So tired, so confused, so he just walked...
Eventually, he found his way over to where the others were aiding the various wounded. He took in the scene, already large eyes even wider than usual.
"Wh-what? Aisha... What happened?"
Gareeku could feel the energy flowing from his body as the waves of light magic tore through the shadow hounds.
"Back to hell with you..." the wolf muttered to himself as he watched his enemies perish in the attack. Once everything had gone quiet, however, he suddenly collapsed, falling to his hands and knees as he violently coughed up blood. It seemed that the hard blows he had received from the shadow hounds' attack were taking their toll to say the least; it was likely that the wolf had a broken rib or two and internal bleeding. Groaning slightly, Gareeku then slumped on the floor as everything faded to black.
Jeremiah gets up leaves unsteadly as Bam is checks on Ketefe and Ian. He is out the door before she can stop him. Bam yells after him but he continues on. Bam, herself, is getting uneasy with the situation, She has two no three patients in a defendable room, but the castle seem to feel increasing more wierd and dangerous by the minute...
"Come on Ketefe awake up.." trys Bam. "Ian? " Ian wounds maybe healed but he lost a lot of blood, which Mel cured but he may still be in shock as his body recovers...
"Gina, Are you able to help me at all...? Must we close the Hellgate somehow, or can we go to heaven some help? Please, Gina, this is something, I think, you were suppose to guard.. If you can't or If we can't close it back up. It will take over Furrae, and no one or place will safe." begs Bambi "This Old Bat is going be going after Stygain and he will not be able to setup anything to close the Gate."
PBH
"A battle, Jeremiah," was all that could be heard from the tigress, her head turned away. As Mel helped with Aisha, Rynkura managed to tear her eyes away from her injured form to watch Keaton tend to Stygian. She had noticed the jackal's avoiding the tiger's gaze, but for her at least, that seemed understandable. For all purposes though, she had been doing an impressive job healing the bat long enough for him to suggest that they make haste. And she was quite willing to agree.
She turned to the dragon, who had effectively placed her magic tourniquet on Aisha's bleeding stump of an arm, and gently took her limp body as she was passed. The tiger's emerald gaze was solemn as she looked upon Aisha's face, her eyes closed, looking almost for all the world to be dead. But a pulse still lingered there. A slight glow surrounded Rynkura's body, and so it did to Aisha, keeping her body frozen and still while she was moved so that little damage, if any, could be done.
And then, with a look around, she paused to let the others gather themselves. And then, the tigress heaved a sigh and headed for the nearest stairway up to the floor they had been on. She kept her step slow and steady enough that they could keep up. And when they reached the stairs, she led the climb for two floors. But Aisha had to be taken to a bed, and quickly, which she was willing to do. "She'll be in a nearby bedroom," Rynkura assented. "We'll be in roughly the same place, you can find your way around and gather."
And with a combination of magic and movement of her wings, Rynkura made a gentle leap from the stairway and flew up to the third floor. She cradled Aisha as carefully as she could, though she figured that pain was far out of her reach for the time being.
When she reached the third floor, searching for a room, the scent of the carnage still lingered noticeably...and down the hall, among his slain targets, lay Gareeku. Eyes wide, she regarded the wolf for a moment, the healer cursing herself...someone should have stayed up here. She called to the stairs. "Mel, everyone, Sir Manoko needs help as well! Hurry!"
Oh, how to stop this...
After handing Aisha over to Mistress Rynkura Mel spared a glance at the others. Keaton and Cog were tending to Stygian. She did pause for a moment when she realized the limp bundle that Cog had been dragging around was that cursed spider. She had figured that merely showing her face would have been a death warrant for that one with all the trouble she caused. A moment behind the tiger when they got to the stairwell Mel gave her another moment of lead time. Flying too close together was a risky game. As soon as the angel cleared the next floor Mel opened her large wings and followed. So the dragon was over the stair rail almost as soon as Rynkura called for help with Gareeku. With one eye on the tiger to see where she was headed Mel knelt next to the downed wolf to assess his injuries. Broken ribs, internal bleeding. Serious, but not as bad as she thought with the amount of blood covering him. It must be mostly his opponents blood. Luckily she was still at her larger size and with a bit of a magical assist able to pick him up and follow in the direction the tiger had disappeared.
As Keaton morosely went about, healing Stygian's numerous injuries by utilizing the shadows flowing in a rippling wreath around her, she couldn't help but feel somewhat satisfied as she watched each atramentous strand of darkness weave and tie together the lacerated flesh, or at least somewhat comfortable that she was actually helping something. The glow that seemed to radiate off of the monochromatic juxtaposition of Stygian's flesh and fur was unnerving, almost palpable, but for the most part Keaton attempted to ignore it so she could concentrate on healing him. Unexpectedly, after his body arched, she felt his hand close around her wrist.
He was muttering something she didn't understand. Deliriousness after enduring such wounds probably had attributed to that. Fortunately, Stygian provided a translation (Keaton assumed, or he was just mumbling) shortly afterwards. He insisted on leaving, something Keaton normally would've agreed with, but for once she was hesitant. "I..." she stared down at the hand trapping her wrist, "I need to keep healing you, otherwise you're going to--"
For some reason, Keaton couldn't bring herself to deny him of that, so she reached over and allowed the shadows to crawl up Stygian's mangled leg and restore the ruptured bone and tattered skin. Enough to help him walk, or sustain him for now. Carefully, Keaton stood up, bringing Stygian's arm with her, and looped it around her shoulder so he could lean against her. He was much taller than her and his weight was hard to support. Grunting slightly, Keaton led Stygian away from the mound of rubble, where she finally noticed Cogidubnus. The irrational guilt she had been fighting back returned.
Quickly, Keaton averted her eyes and drew her lip into her mouth, unconsciously tasting the dried blood there. "Come on," she said in a wooden voice, "Let's just get out of here."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
With Mel's quick appearance, Rynkura breathed a sigh of relief while doing a slight bit of maneuvering to tuck her staff under her arm. Watching as the dragon carefully took the wolf in her protective grasp, she only hoped that the healing process would go as well as possible for everyone. Now that Asal was dead...the spider was downed, guarded by Cogidubnus...and the third presence had yet to show itself. The castle still had an air of dark and hellishness around it, though by the way things looked, it had toned down considerably enough to allow the wounded their peace and recovery. The healer had begun to feel a little too far away from the comfort of her monastery.
Her wings were furled around her arms, enveloping Aisha in a white barrier. Not just because she was somewhat protective of the panthress, but also that she tried to keep them as close as possible even when the halls were more than large enough to keep from bumping into walls. Cumbersomeness was one of the reasons the Angel just kept them hidden.
But finally she found a hall with a series of bedrooms, some a bit large and suite-like...easy to expect in such an expansive place as the castle, as much as she could remember of its layout. Looking through the doors, she found one which seemed ideal enough. Lavish and comfortable as per the norm, but slightly larger, with an adjoining door to another room beyond it...not too many entrances and able to be restricted to the patients and healers if needed.
The tigress turned and nodded to Mel. "Place the wolf in the bed next door, you can see to him there. We can have an easy time walking between the rooms as well. And thank you." Rynkura then stepped inside and placed Aisha gently and comfortably onto the sheets. It seemed that she saw the adventurer in this state far too often...she looked to be locked into an uneventful sleep.
"Now..." Rynkura mused with fitful concentration. The first thing she did was re-activate the jewels on her sleeves. With a shimmer, the wings had vanished from the tiger's back, and then she set the staff at the foot of the bed, her hands starting to glow with the healing energy that she also used for Mel before. It was time to work.
For a few moments, Ketefe couldn't hear anything save for her own heartbeat and her demon's laughter. It was all so awfully clear now; she was going to lose any grip on her own body once this was over. The demon was going to use her as a vessel and gain its freedom as a prize for leading the vixen to her prey. She would never see Jarevei again... she'd never find her parents... she couldn't save her newfound friends. The pain, Jeremiah, none of it mattered.
But a blinding flash and swirls of darkness snapped her back to life.
Stygian, Mel and Ian took care of the hellhounds with a flash-bang grenade and an explosion of light magic. Ketefe had to cover her eyes with her arm - which, she noted, was now back under her control. She heard a hiss come from the vixen yet again, and she could've sworn her demon was in some sort of pain too. Once the light faded, she uncovered her eyes to see that the room was now much darker, with Stygian being the main source of light somehow. He destroyed the last struggling hellhound, tearing it apart with a dark force that somehow seemed akin to the beast's own skin and blood. He crushed it with one fist, then dropped to a crouch and faced the demoness. She looked ready to kill the bat, but he held out one hand and impaled her with a thick tendril of blackness. She screamed in pain, crumbling to ash.
At the same moment, Ketefe's parasite shrieked in agony, before fading out almost completely.
Ketefe's mind felt like it had been released from a powerful, painful grip. A wave of the most intense relief she'd ever experienced washed over her. For a long time, all she could do was bask in that blissful feeling, not caring about what happened around her.
When she snapped back, she heard more chaos, but it was a bit far away. Gina and Bam were in the room, fretting over the sounds of battle outside, a rather badly injured Ian, and the azure feline.
"Whoa. Sorry, Bam; guess I blanked out there for a second," Ketefe said. The sentence was so bizarrely normal for the last few circumstances that she almost laughed. "What happened to everyone else? And what's going on out there?"
Mel put Gareeku on the bed Rynkura had chosen. After resizing herself to more room friendly proportions she went immediately to work. His ribs were in shards that had to be carefully maneuvered back into place without causing more damage, then each gash and hole caused by the splintered bone had to be sealed. It was slow and tedious and wasn't helped by the distractions of the darkness of the castle, wondering how the healing in the next room was going, and worry over those whose locations she was unsure of. But despite all these she made herself work carefully on her new friend.
Stumbling along, Stygian leaned half-conscious on Keaton's shoulder, an injured angel-thing which while almost ethereal in appearance weighed heavy. Still, as the jackal walked she gradually felt that weight lighten, the bat starting to stand straighter, though his dark eyes kept half-shut. The place's darkness was having positive effects on him, at least. If only the same could have been said for Aisha, things would actually have seemed to have been improving.
When they entered the bedroom Stygian let go of Keaton and walked over to a chair, his drooping wings slowly dissipating away into nothing, and slumped down, falling asleep with his head to the side. His wounds had visibly begun healing, but though the blackness seemed more living, there were still gaping wounds in his skin. The one revealing his skull was somewhat concealed against the wall, but still hinted as he mumbled in his sleep.
'I... killed... Powerless...' he whispered, voice filled with despair.
Even in her guilt-stricken, partially-numb state, Keaton was aware of the fact that Stygian's weight was gradually beginning to alleviate, eventually petering away until she could barely feel him against her at all. Made carrying him much, much easier--she wasn't sure if she could keep the tentacle she had utilized protectively wrapped around his waist any longer. After using her tentacles so shortly after their incapacitation it was becoming painful.
Keaton hastily chose a bedroom, thankfully vacant, and didn't protest when Stygian stood up and walked of his own accord to a chair. The moment he sat down his ethereal wings began to vanish, soon disappearing altogether. Unsettling as it was, Keaton couldn't bring her face to muster the effort to express her shock. On their own, the injuries and various lacerations were regenerating. Bitterly, Keaton wondered if he had needed her help to begin with, not quite grasping the concept that her assistance had been integral as well. As the bat slipped away into slumber, he continuously mumbled incoherent nothings under his breath, only a few Keaton had understood.
Keaton, troubled, stared with icy irises at Stygian, attentively listening. Cryptic, his voice permeated with sorrow. Was he just saying nonsense? It still was worrying. And regardless, a certain word struck a chord with her: Powerless. Lifelessly, Keaton's vision swung away, staring at the darkness. If she wanted to, she could walk over and allow the shadows to accept her presence so they could swallow her in a protective, isolated pocket, but in the hellish state of the Castle such a maneuver would be risky. So instead, Keaton murmured something under her breath, nigh inaudible.
"Yeah. I feel the same way."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"Well, Ketefe, After the Vixen, Stygain had found that Aisha was lead astray and when Off to rescue her and as well as Mel. I fear that Jeremiah, when off to find Aisha, but he did seem in his right mind but I couldn't get him and watch out for you and Ian...and Gina." says Bam and she turns to look a quiet fearful Gina. Bam goes to Ian as well as and see If he is improved.
"Ian are you awake or you hurt?" asks Bam
PBH
The ambient sounds of the castle made the waiting in the darkness all the more unnerving, the all too whisper-like wind in the distant and the voices that came at completely irregular intervals, so quiet and strange that they might as well have been imaginary. It just didn't seem possible to get used to it.
Stygian slept, shivering and mumbling occasionally where he sat. Strangely, the adventurers found some short respite, perhaps half an hour or more of still silence and peace, though ominous creaks and the sound of breathing and claws scraping on stone made it a very tense refuge.
When the bat finally stirred, or more accurately opened his eyes, his arm had regenerated to something like a skeletal state, the black flesh twining around it like writhing snakes. He looked around, confused for a few moments, and then turned his eyes to Keaton.
For a few seconds he just looked at the jackal where she stood, sable black markings blending into the shadows. 'Are... things alright?' he finally asked, eyes steadier than his voice.
It was hard to tell what time was passing, when the castle still felt as dark as night and no light penetrated the windows just yet. Anyone coming up to Rynkura would have noticed her concentration as she knelt by the side of Aisha's bed, eyes glowing a bright shade of green as she worked on Aisha's internal injuries, detecting them as far as the magic sight and touch would allow; this was done after she made sure that the tourniquet was doing its job and that the bleeding had been curbed and covered with some clean cloth.
For all the panthress appeared on the outside, it was a pretty much extensive and brutal mess to go through. It made the thought of Asal's death all the more reassuring. The first things she searched for were any lacerated internal organs; stomach and diaphragm in particular. The bones in Aisha's ribs were brought back to their original places, but time would be needed for them to mend. Bleeding stopped, though bruises would still be very tender.
Throughout the tiring procedure, Rynkura kept Aisha still with the magic as she had done with Mel, as well as keeping the feeling of pain at bay and instilling her with what would be registered as a feeling of warmth. But still she figured the huntress still was too far away from feeling anything, let alone pain. For a second, the healer was curious as to what was going on in her mind at that point. The last thing she wanted was for Aisha to gain nightmares that lurked in this hellish landscape...
* * *
Darkness. For what seemed like an eternity after the world just rushed away, all that was there was darkness. Nothing. Like she was trapped in a corner of her mind, a soul enveloped in a useless body...only waiting for the time when the body would just die and the soul released. There was no more pain that could be felt. No emotion but emptiness. Memories faded. Just...waiting.
That was when the light came. It wasn't blinding; it just came gradually and slowly, bringing with it a feeling of such warmth...and a part of her felt reawakened. The memories came back slowly, just enough for her to recall them...and she was satisfied. She had accomplished it. But...
Aisha looked around to still find herself surrounded in a blackness lit with a strange glow just ahead. She appeared the same, an image pulled out of her mind of how she always looked. No scars...no ripped clothing...no missing arm. And no pain. Just enveloping warmth, and that light.
"So...I'm dead..." her voice muttered, almost sadly, almost accepting. She wanted to move in the direction of the glow, but she was frozen, like she was held there.
And then something replied from the direction of the light.
"No, hija. Not dead. Just on the edge. You'll be here for a little while."
The voice was familiar...so familiar, unbelievable, that it made her feel like weeping. But she couldn't, not here. Instead, something turned her to look at who had spoken...
Ketefe blinked when Bam explained what had happened. "So that chaos we heard earlier... that was... " She prepared to stand. "Should I go help? Aisha might be hurt... And she might need this more than me." She gestured to the bracer on her arm. She was a little nervous about taking it off, but if someone else was hurt worse than her...
Cog looked at Keaton and Sebastian silently, the wolf's eyes passing slowly over the bat's injuries. Cog made a low noise, squeezing his eyes shut and again leaning against the wall. He took a few deep breaths.
It's fine. Just flesh wounds. And pain...
Cog shook his head, breaking that line of thought, and left Keaton to take care of the bat. There was little he could do, anyway, and from Keaton's expression...he seemed to be making the jackal uncomfortable, anyway. He wasn't quite sure why, but...
Rynkura half-jumped-half-flew Aisha up three stories again, back to the level where he had just come from, and the others began moving back up the stairs to the third floor, where most of the bedrooms were located. Sensible, Cog thought as he looked at the others dispersing. "Well and good...."
Guard the spider. Cog looked over his shoulder at the unconscious form of Sal leaned up against the stone wall. The wolf involuntarily bared a tooth. If it wasn't for that damn spider, none of this might have had to happen. Aisha, Sebastian...
Cog stood silently before the unconscious arachnid, fingering the guard on the hilt of his blade, his gaze blank. A good minute passed before he dropped his hand from his sword, and again grabbed one of the arachnid's arms to wrap around his shoulders. He grunted and lifted, again managing to lift the rather heavy spider off the ground, and slowly Cog began the trek back up the hallway to the stairs.
This is ridiculous. Cog thought, staring up the winding, steep stone staircase back up to the third floor. He stood before the staircase motionless, not really wanting to even attempt such a journey, yet not willing either to simply leave the spider behind. The wolf looked behind him, his gaze finding settling on Jeremiah. Not really the strongest of fellows, but any help he could get...
"Jeremiah. You mind giving me a hand here?" The wolf said, indicating the stairs with his head.
As Mel finished with Gareeku's internal injuries she noticed that wherever his fur was clotted with blood the the skin underneath was red and inflamed. Unfortunately they were without medical supplies so the best she could do was wash the blood off and hope that the irritation would fade with the cause removed. Perhaps Rynkura had some soothing cream, not that she could be interupted to ask.
There being nothing else the wolf needed but a bit of rest Mel crossed to the adjoining room. "Mistress Msh'Taan, where do you need my help?"
Jeremiah had been shocked by what had happened while he was down. Aisha was down an arm, Gareeku had been seriously smacked around (again), Cog looked seriously perturbed (and it wasn't in some way Sebastion's fault), and even Sebastion- Stygian- was missing a few square feet of skin and muscle. He was still digesting recent events when Cog jerked him out of his thoughts.
"Hm?" He looked over and for a moment, when he first laid eyes upon the oh-so-familiar creature in Cog's arms, his thoughts had all the clarity ice and glass wished they could be compared to. Somewhere in the frog's skull a man with half his face smashed in pulled more strings, readying.
"Oh, sure thing Cog. Absolutely, sure." Ugh, why did his head feel so... ugh... Whatever the reason, he stepped forward to help the winded warrior move Sal. While Jeremiah was indeed not the strongest of fellows, he had little trouble supporting the spider under her middle pair of arms while Cog took her feet. Then again, he was probably the least damaged person there. He looked down at the woman who had attacked him so many times...
Being attacked.
Going mad.
Being controlled.
Going mad again.
Confusion.
Pain.
Fear.
And other associated concepts assailed him. She had attacked them on multiple occasions, made him doubt his own sanity, he had every right to want to just drop her down that flight of stairs right there...
So why do I still pity her more than I hate her?!
When Cog uttered those last words, he heard Sal's somewhat coarse voice right next to him, and felt the spider's weight shift. 'I can walk on my own, thank you...' she mumbled. Then, she almost shoved Cogidubnus and Jeremiah away, stumbling a bit before standing straight. She looked at them.
She paused for a second, flexing her fingers. 'Run upstairs, and then knock me out again,' she then said. 'Or restrain me.' She slowly began advancing on the two, tensing up in a threatening fashion, even though her expression was one of repugnant unwillingness.
Fortunately for Keaton, nobody tried to follow her into the bedroom she and Stygian had occupied and claimed as refuge. This was quite relieving--she desperately wanted to avoid a despairing or fretful Cogidubnus after he had seen Stygian in such a moribund condition. Plus this gave her an opportunity to clear her head and confront some of her more unpleasant emotions while Stygian was asleep, or hibernating, or in that regenerative state which seemed to be steadily sealing over his injuries and restoring his rend flesh. The distant, eerily-echoing voices resonating throughout the ambiance of the castle prevented Keaton from concentrating too much on reconciling some of her personal issues.
Sure enough, Stygian awoke not long after. Darkness crept in twining tendrils up the blackened, skeletal frame of his partially-healed arm, knitting together the torn skin. He seemed disoriented, until his gaze rested on Keaton's tense form. In response to his question, Keaton let out a sigh. Not out of exasperation or frustration. Did he forget everything which had occurred? Regardless, Keaton was to inform him.
"More or less..." she muttered, then summarized the situation as thoroughly as she could. "That panther guy's dead, but Aish... lost her arm. Gareeku's been trampled, too, and is off getting treated, as is Aisha."
Keaton stood up, pacing the bedroom restlessly. She walked over to the nearest mirror, leaning in to examine her reflection. Much to her revulsion, she realized that, after forgetting and neglecting her visage for a while, that her face was still caked with mostly-dried and syrupy blood, collecting in matted splatters around the slash on her forehead. Lower lip was mauled by her teeth, having been split open in two places, and her upper arm was missing a big chunk of flesh from during her scuffle where she tried to kill Sal. It wasn't the first time Keaton looked so dreadful; she had grown somewhat used to it, although it was still sickening. Sighing, Keaton leaned her temples against her hand, closing her eyes.
I probably need to get treated too, before my lip or my arm gets infected... she conceded, then stared back at Stygian. "That answer your question?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian took another long pause, just watching the jackal as she strode over to the mirror and listening to her explanations. It seemed that she hadn't entirely understood what he had asked. But her answers explained things well enough either way. Almost as if in self-contempt for having gotten off easy, the bat looked down on his blackened arm, moving the skeletal fingers, their black bone still clearly visible and all but the thumb and index finger claw broken off. Then he slowly clenched his fist and tensed his muscles. Out of an effort of will, more blackness rushed down his arm and his flesh, if that is what it really was, twisted and flowed, repairing itself much faster. He clenched his teeth.
When the last patch of black disappeared under his fur, no longer so porcelain-white and glowing but still very pallid in the darkness, he finally let out his breath and eased up, slipping out of his seat.
'That's not what I was asking,' he said, walking over behind her, looking at her through the reflection, his face like a mask over those dark openings of his eyes. 'We're still threatened here.' There was another pause. Then he walked closer, and put his hand on her shoulder.
'You really need to clean up,' he said.
Watching Stygian through the reflection of the mirror, Keaton observed with heightened fascination as the bat examined his mutilated arm, then quickly reformed the skin and fur there, coating ebony black with ivory white once again. Apparently, Keaton had misunderstood his question--he clarified what he meant, much to her embarrassment. She shouldn't have been, but she was just uncharacteristically sensitive at the moment.
Sighing, Keaton's head slumped into her hands again, so that way she was cupping her chin. She analyzed her appearance again, trying not to look perturbed as Stygian walked towards her. Within short time he was standing directly behind her, then his hand was gently draped over her shoulder. Muscles tensed and bone subtly lifted beneath his palm, a dedication to the tension gripping her body. Keaton merely looked at him, expression slightly saddened, then sighed and scratched behind her head.
"I'll ask Mel to heal me and clean up later," That was said succinctly, although morosely. "And we're still fucked over. What are we going to do? Should we just go after who's responsible?" At this point she was grasping at straws to find a solution, hell, she barely understood what on earth was going on or who were the masterminds behind this nightmarish experience. This became painfully obvious to her, and she remained silent afterwards, listening for Stygian's answer.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"i i I don't think we should seperate, Ketefe, so If you go, we go with you. That mean Ian too. I need some help carrying him, through. The others should be close by, so see if you can hail the others but trying stay in sight of here." Says Bambi. She try to picks up Ian, but puts him down.
"We can carry him but only a short distance.... Scout ahead... Here takes this butterfly, you can talk to me through it and I will hear you." says the Fae and puts a glowing butterfly in the catgirl's hair... "it will get you back here, too."
Hearing Sal's rough voice suddenly speak right next to his ear rather unnerved the poor wolf, Cog's eyes widening as he slid away from the arachnid. Sal pushing him away was rather unnecessary, the wolf stepping back from the spider as quickly as he could, hands already settling on the hilt of his blade.
He paused from drawing for a moment, however, backing away from the suddenly conscious spider, the wolf moving slowly as he ascended the stairs backwards. At her words, however, the wolf quirked an eyebrow, noting the spider's resigned expression, even as she began walking towards them menacingly.
Cog looked down at Jeremiah, the wolf exchanging a glance with the art teacher.
"Iaidouka do not run." Cog said, letting go of his sword and making a elaborate bow to the spider. As he rose, however, the wolf leapt backwards, running up the stairs three at a time as he called back to the arachnid.
"Generally."
Rynkura hadn't heard Mel enter the room...she was too caught up in her concentration. But there is something about one's name that breaks them from a great trance; for as she heard the dragon's voice address her, the tiger's ears perked and her eyes stopped glowing. Her sight was brought back to the outside, in the comforting and yet darkened surroundings.
"Oh, Mel," she turned her head, greeting the dragon with a smile that could be seen as slightly tired. Rynkura had done all-night healing before, but that night seemed to take a slight toll on her. "Yes, I would appreciate your assistance," she nodded and turned back again, regarding Aisha. "Check her arm for me, and see if there's no trace of infection. I have most of the internal injuries, but you if you may please, check that too. I may have missed something...the amount of exertion she seems to have shown without ripping a tendon is impressive, the stubborn girl," she smiled softly.
Before the dragon did that, Rynkura removed what was left of Aisha's tattered shirt, taking the brooch that had held it before with it, so that it wouldn't be in the dragon's way. Then, the tiger stood back and idly rubbed an eye with her palm, glancing across through the door to the other room where the wolf lay. "How is sir Manoko?"
Stygian's answer was short and cold. '
Yes.'
He looked her squarely in the eyes, the sudden sadness having been washed away by an even gloomier hatred and fury that scared Keaton somewhat, however little she wanted to admit it. '
I had thought that I could drive off Asal. Aisha... wasn't really ready for him. She shouldn't have had to deal with this yet,' he said, and sighed, turning his eyes away for a brief moment. '
It's too much damage in a situation like this. But we still have another enemy.' Again he looked at her, and suddenly his hand seemed hard and cold as steel on her shoulder. '
My enemy. He's the greater danger by far.'
The bat sighed again, and then turned Keaton around, gently but firmly. He looked down at her significantly shorter form, a looming, dark shape like some Apollonian statue. Equally carefully he raised his hand, and let his clawed fingers run down the side of her face.
'
Clean these up immediately,' he said. '
The blood might decide to burn, and while I know that you cubi heal, I wouldn't want that sort of face ruined.'
Surprisedly, Sal switched her gaze back and forth between the wolf and the frog. 'No, wait! You don't understand!' she called after Cog, then frowned and gritted her teeth, turning her attention to Jeremiah.
'I'd go with him if I were you,' she said, even as she began stringing web between her fingers.
It was odd, but somehow, Gina seemed to have disappeared. Throughout the exchange that had been, she was nowhere to be found on the upper floors. And considering the things that had happened...
There was a moment of silence after Bam had spoken. Then, very silently yet jaggedly sharp, there was the sound of some light, girlish voice, sobbing somewhere.
For one tense second, Jeremiah and Cog looked at Sal.
Then each other.
Then Sal again.
And then Cog made a break for it.
"Cog... What... What's going on?! What's with-!?" This was pretty damn out of character for the stoic swordsman. And then it was Jeremiah and Sal.
She was readying her webs. Weaponry.
Jeremiah scrabbled up the stairs, less gracefully but a little faster.
At first Keaton was initially uncertain about toward whom the tangible hatred in Stygian's voice was directed to, especially in her period of self-inflicted sorrow, but she found that was overwhelmed by the slight feeling of fright which spiked in the pit of her stomach. Despite this she couldn't bring herself to redirect her gaze, especially when Stygian started speaking again. Surmising from his cryptically murmured statement, he was intimately familiar with this new enemy--but in a way Keaton didn't understand. She was mostly confused by all these developments, being stunned and weary from the earlier events. But judging by the sudden harshness of the once-tranquil hand seated on her shoulder, it was beyond mere speculation.
She was turned around. Keaton did nothing to prevent or resist this as she was steered around, her ears merely flattening and her eyes peering up owlishly at the bat's towering form. He was looking down at her. At that moment Keaton had no idea how unusually vulnerable she looked, something she would later come to resent if she realized it. Velveteen-alabaster fingers trailed down the slightly damp side of her face, tracing the splatters of the blood.
Then when Stygian spoke next, Keaton felt her cheeks flare up in a not-quite-unpleasant way which she wasn't used to, red hidden beneath red. Quietly, Keaton stared at the door, then looked back to Stygian, nodding unconsciously to his statement. Subaudibly, she meekly uttered an affirmative "Alright..." then she turned to leave. "I'll--I'll go talk to Mel. I'll see you after everyone's healed."
And with that, she left, closing the door gently behind her. Once outside, she slumped against the surface of the door, releasing a long-restrained, exhausted sigh, then realized with shock how emotionally exposed she had looked. Cursing several unmentionables under her breath, she proceeded to walk to the door to Mel's room.
She paused for a moment, coming to another realization. She was blushing.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Mel moved to the opposite side of the bed from the tiger. "Gareeku had smashed ribs and some internal bleeding. He will be sore when he wakes up. Oh, and some burns. I think the demon blood causes burns." She began gently double-checking all the areas Rynkura had mentioned. The angel was truly an expert healer, Mel wouldn't have believed the amount of damage she had managed to heal in a relatively short amount of time.
Cog fairly vaulted up the marble staircase, eating up the distance to the third floor with surprising speed as his footsteps echoed downwards. He didn't bother to look back - Jeremiah was a smart one, if nothing else, and Cog was fairly certain he would get the idea pretty quick.
This way was a lot easier than carrying the spider up the stairs, anyway.
It couldn't have taken the wolf more than fifteen seconds to climb all the way up to the third floor. Immediately, Cog looked around for any sign of the others, noting the lights beaconing a little ways away, and nodding to himself Cog whirled around the banisters to stand at the edge of the stairwell. The wolf was -just- out of the range of vision for anyone who was entering from the stairwell.
Cog drew his sword quickly and silently, readying the blade over his head. He could hear both Jeremiah and Sal making their way up the stairs - as soon as the frog passed him, Cog would be ready.
He tightened his grip.
"Gina Gina Gods and Goddess, I know she is depressed and all but To leave.....without me." Bam says loud to herself as she run out of the room in panic. She calls to Gina and follows the ferret's crying sounds. Bam starts to rush after any little sound of Gina.
The Fae shrinks her size and begins to quick from room to room searching for Gina. She hopes against hope that she is not going toward the chapel. But that is the direct of Gina's duty.
PBH
Ketefe grudgingly agreed that it might be best to stay, but perked up when Bam suggested that she go find the others as long as they could communicate. The butterfly spell the cat used tickled in Ketefe's hair, but it did make her feel kind of pretty.
Then they both noticed that Gina was gone, and heard her sobbing. Bam freaked out and left before Ketefe. She called once after the fae, but to no avail. "Damn," she muttered. Well, now I can't leave. Someone has to be here when Ian wakes up. Waking up alone in a place like this after what's been going on isn't just scary, it's downright dangerous. So she stayed, sitting on a chair near Ian's couch, watching the rat and waiting.
"Hey, Bam, can you hear me through this? Have you found Gina?" she said, hoping the butterfly still worked.
Really, it was inevitable that Jeremiah would trip on the stairs. With what Bal was doing it was a wonder he could find his own damn feet.
"ahCRAP!" he yelled as his jaw cracked against the stone stairs. The spider was approaching, readying more webs.
Something poking him in the side. That rock he grabbed earlier. Pulling it out of his coat pocket he threw it at Sal with all the force he could. Not even checking to see how much time he'd bought himself, he scrabbled up the rest of the way and ducked to the side.
"Alright, @#$%in' tag-out or something. I softened her up Cog, now you go."
In her rush to find Gina, the little Fae had forgotten the butterfly comlink that she left with Ketefe until she use it. Bambi stop in mid-air as she calmed herself enough to answer the young kitten.
"Yes yes Ketefe I hear you. I will alert the others to where you are. I think I passed them, a few rooms away. or I hear them in one of the bedrooms near here. Stay calm. I will need you to keep that butterfly safe. I can use it to return to you quickly. Call if anything happens there, I can be there quickly." says Bam
She waits and listens from the others or for Gina's sobs....She hears Gina a ways off, and Cog and Jeremiah seem to be around the corner. She see the Wolf and the frog, and then the spiderlady coming up on them from behind.
"EEEEp" yells the butterfly size Fae as she rushes to attack Sal. Cog and Jeremiah sees what seems like another one of the Bam's butterfly messages flying towards them and heard only a small beep.
PBH
Before he could stop himself, Stygian smirked. Then he felt a slight pang of a headache and a wave of dark tiredness. And another sort of shivering urge. The darkness sustained him, fed him even, now that it was intensifying so. But he had still taken quite a few hits. He sat down on the bed, yet didn't manage to alleviate the unsettling sensation in his gut, so he stood up again after perhaps half a minute and knocked on the door.
'
Would you mind moving away, Keaton?' he said, then pushed the door opened when the jackal made a little startled twitch and then got out of the way. There were certain advantages to being able to sense things right through solid materials. He made another crooked smirk, and walked out, composing his face before he walked around the jackal and headed for the room where Aisha had been put.
He entered that room without knocking, but made sure to keep as still and silent as he could, regarding the panthress on the bed with much more of a solemn expression. They had bound and healed her wounds, yet the wrapped stump of her right arm still stood out as a patch of white against her dark fur and her navy blue clothing. For a second, Stygian just stood, stricken by a rush of guilt. Then he closed his eyes and walked over to a chair, seating himself heavily.
'
So,' he said, not looking up. '
She's going to make it?' He wanted to add more questions to that, especially concerning the method of Asal's death and what he had felt after it. But he felt uncomfortable asking anything in the first place. Thinking back on the conversation he and Rynkura had earlier, he felt all the more a fool.
While Sal was jogging up the stairs after Cog and Jeremiah, she seemed to be taking her time about it. From what the wolf and frog had seen earlier, she should have been able to easily overcome them, at least in terms of immediate movement. But instead she was simply advancing on them, watching them carefully and preparing her tools, but strangely holding back and warning them. From where she was, she should have been able to just snare Jeremiah and pull him over. It didn't add up.
The rock he threw at her did as much as Jeremiah had probably expected, which was nothing. She slowed to a walk and caught it easily with her upper right hand, and crushed it into pieces between her fingers, scowling at the frog. 'I said you have to knock me out, idiot!' she shouted at him angrily, then looked up after Cogidubnus. 'Are you not listening to me?!'
Giving only a slight nod to Jeremiah as he whirled around the corner, Cog twisted his hands on the hilt of his blade and tightened his grip once more. The sound of his hands twisting roughly over the silk was just barely audible.
Sal wasn't a slow girl by any means, however. It wasn't more than a few moments after Jeremiah joined Cog by the edge of the stairs that Cog heard her traversing up the last few steps, her pace still slow and deliberate. Cog took in a breath, silent.
She stepped over the edge and onto the third floor proper. Time seemed to slow for a moment, the wolf narrowing one of his eyes, and with a strange slowness Sal's head peeked around the edge. Cog struck.
THWACK!
Cog brought the metal endcap on the handle of his blade square into the spider's skull, the hammer-hitting-meat sound echoing dully throughout the empty stone room. Cog took a step back, bringing the sword back up over his head and tilting it sideways.
Sometimes they don't always go down, after all.
As a glowing firefly appears and expands into the feline Fae, Bambi in front of Cog and Jeremiah... She asks Cog and Jeremiah to look in on Ketefe, who was watching Ian in the upper social hall.
She tells that Gina has ran off. Bam was looking for her, and one could be hear her girl's sobbs echoing from somewhere in the lower floors of the Castle. Bam also eyes Sal who is lying across the stairs at Cog's feet.
PBH
OOC: sorry i know i said i'd be back sooner but the family kidnaped me and forced me to do *shudder* familial things
Ian had woken up but his gaurdian didn't seem to notice. Ian just couldn't help himself! His gaurdian was half surprised half spooked when Ian broke the heavy silence. "BOO!"
Hissing, Sal staggered back and clasped one of her hands over her forehead. Cog's strike had hit true, yet it seemed that it would take more than that for her to go down. Grabbing the railing, she snarled up at him.
'Oh, come on! You're not even trying!' she exclaimed, and bared her fangs. Then, with an almost involuntary twitch, she fired a pair of strings of web at Jeremiah. One hit him in the pelvic region, the other in the face, and as she yanked hard the frog almost came flying in her direction.
Meanwhile, the crying had receded into near silence, and the lights of the castle seemed to have dimmed, somehow. The commotion in the stairwell was the only really audible sound around.
Keaton made no movements nor did she allow her expression to falter from its slightly neutral, yet stony, red-stained mask when Stygian walked past, entering the room she believed to be Mel's. Just as she was about to follow him her large ears perked up to the muffled sound of voices from behind the door. Couldn't make out what they were saying or who was speaking, of course--the walls were too thick, but the presences were there. Keaton sighed and leaned against the door, laying her ear to its surface. Still couldn't make out anything, but the fact that there could be someone other than Mel inside--even worse Rynkura--deterred Keaton from entering.
She didn't want to ask Rynkura to heal her. Not when she was busy healing her student, and not when she felt like she was, to an extent, responsible for Aisha's injury. After all, she was unwittingly her ally. Come to think of it, Mel was also busy healing Gareeku, and Keaton wasn't sure she wanted anyone to drop what they were doing just for her, for once in her life. Instead, Keaton rolled away from the door and sighed, ears sinking. If Stygian knew that she was outside the door then he probably would now.
But she assumed that she might as well wait until she was sure everyone was finished talking, so she wouldn't feel like she was intruding.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The art teacher, having by virtue of profession somewhat excused himself to the sidelines of this fiasco, simply watched Cog lunge and attempt to bludgeon Sal unconscious. He personally had never seen why people thought martial arts and such were considered a sign of balance and grace (usually, to him, it just looked like people hitting each other), but caught a glimmer of it it that move.
Much like his earlier musings on the adventuring life, something happened to interrupt such thoughts. In this case what happened was Bambi. Often someone who could be described as an event in and of herself rather than the cause thereof, she by that same turn had an unparalleled ability to take the abnormal in stride. Must have seemed like a perfect time to ask him to check on Ketefe. Loony spider chick? Enough of that nonsense, help me with this other nonsense. Thus Jeremiah had been pursuing a second distracting line of thought when Sal webbed him.
"Mrrf!" the frog yelled (being unable to come up with anything more eloquent at the time) as he was yanked to and off his feet again in one swift motion. He stumbled toward Sal and tripped.
Fortunately the frog wasn't completely suicidal. Crashing into a crazy chick and rolling down the stairs in a flailing mess would make a great story, but crashing into a crazy demonic spider chick and rolling down the stairs in a flailing mess would make an embarrassing eulogy. He controlled his direction as he staggered forward so that when he tripped, he tumbled around the woman.
...And down the stairs...
...With those two lines of webbing still attached.
Excellent strategy, sir!
Screw you too, Cab.
On top of all that, he was still all woozy.
Cog's eyes widened as Sal simply turned to give him a nasty look. Such a hit wasn't really something you expected anyone to walk away from - even in a full helm, the effect was much like being inside a bell as it rang. The spider wasn't even disoriented.
Cog bared his teeth, his eyes narrowing. With a twitch, the spider snagged Jeremiah, nimble hands throwing the web with startling accuracy, dragging the frog closer to her. At her comment, however, Cog narrowed one eye, and seemingly without motion moved forward, his sword resting in the sheath at his hip.
The wolf said nothing, simply inhaling a deep breath as he swept his leg back, bringing the palm of his hand up and back. Cog's eyes focused, both of them narrowing now, and exhaling he threw his hand forward, clenching his fist. A wave of force curdled the air in front of the wolf, extending from Cog's palm and slamming into Sal's head with a deafening crack. The wave knocked her head back and sent her crashing into the railing. Cog grimaced.
And then Sal went over the edge.
Eyes widening, Cog saw the trail of silk extending from the weighty spider start pulling the frog back up the stairs a distance and then to the side, preparing to send Jeremiah over the edge as well.
Cog cursed.
Jumping forward, the wolf grabbed the end of the silk line, the webbing sticking to his hands even without him having to grip, and pulled, bracing his feet against the railings.
This seemed like a much better idea a moment ago...
"NO NO NO! GINA !!! GINA !!!" Bam yells as she flies to the center of the stairwell.. Ignoring the fight, the Fae centrating on the small sound of Gina's voice. Listening, she finds a direction, that she almost sure of, but the crying sounds drought out by Sal and Cog's battle.
"Grrr Bitch" Bam turns to the fight and see Sal sail over the edge and sees a web string to save herself.. Bam fire a fireball at the web, which burns it to both ends... Not looking back Bam zips off in the last direction of Gina's crying, looking for any spark of Gina's lifeforce or magic. Bam catches something ahead. She shrinks her back to her 5 inch pixie-size and fly up to near the ceiling the see what it is.
PBH
As Rynkura stood resting to the side, her eyes idly passed from Mel's progress on healing Aisha to the door where the wolf resided. She too was quite impressed with the dragon's skill, at least she had enough to matter very much. The tigress was also relieved to hear in fact that Gareeku would more than likely not need help from herself. "Hrm, burns," she mused. "Demon blood is like that to the skin I understand. But you seem to have done well washing it away. It should leave on its own. He seems quite resilient at any rate."
Then she perked a curious ear as the door opened, in such a silent way that it was recognizable as to whom it was that entered. She watched the bat's expression as his gaze passed over Aisha, her own gaze neutral. Indeed she could see the guilt over Stygian's face, and could understand it more than well enough. But the tigress could not blame him for anything...it was he who, at his expense, brought her back out of the mess that she was in. For the time being, he was owed naught but a thanks, which she expressed with a smile.
"She will live," she solemnly relayed. "But it is hard to say when she will awaken. And I doubt that it will be pleasant when she does."
But, as one would look back to her, they would see something shimmering below the line of her eyes. Tears that seemed to shed on their own, for her eyelids didn't twitch. Rynkura just hummed at that development. "Her mind is alive at least. She's dreaming."
* * *
Within the light, Aisha beheld two figures, though she was in much disbelief to see so. Both were jaguars, but unlike Aisha, not melanistic. The female was mottled with the boldest and darkest spots, over a golden-brown coat with black-grey hair trailing down her back...along with a set of dark eyes that shone red when hit at the right angle of light. The male who stood beside her had a lighter shade of fur, along with shorter black hair and brown eyes.
Both had warm smiles on their faces as they regarded her. They were just as she remembered, straight down to the male's scarred hands, the characteristic cuts and burns that came from forging weaponry. Including her favored boomerang.
Luc and Mara Cabre.
"Mother...Father..." she murmured. And only after a moment of hesitation, she rushed towards them, now feeling like she was in tears...into their comforting embrace. Though it was only all in mind and spirit, they even still had the same scents. Her voice was on the point of sobbing. "I thought I'd...never..."
"It's not like we wouldn't watch over you. Especially after what you have just accomplished. I, my daughter, am proud." Luc smiled. It was his voice that gave her the most strength.
"Indeed." But it was Mara who looked her child in the eyes with such solemnity that it seemed to wipe her smile away in an instant. "Though there are things you will know that will make you doubt some things in time..."
So dark...so cold...
In his unconsciousness, dreams plagued Gareeku. He was fighting. Fighting against an enemy that he could not see. Sinister laughter echoed all around him as he lashed out. Laughing. Mocking.
"You could not even defend yourself properly against those creatures...how do you expect to fare against a real threat..."
Desparation welled up within him as he continued to lash around against this unseen foe.
"Show yourself!" the wolf growled as he stopped. "Stop mocking me and show yourself!"
"Pathetic...you could not defend yourself...how do you honestly expect to defend others...to defend those you care about...truely pathetic..."
Listening to the voice, the desparation was replaced with growing anger as Gareeku grew increasingly frustrated in this darkness that he found himself in. Just then, however, out of the darkness began to appear a shape, become increasingly clearer every second, until finally the figure revealed itself.
It was the panther, sneering at him; a mocking sneer that displayed his mixture of amusement and disgust.
"You!" the wolf snarled. However, his anger would be replaced with shock and to a certain degree, horror, as the panther began to change shape before his very eyes. Then, standing where the panther had once stood, was him; the ringleader of the gang of demons who had brutally slaughtered his father.
"You will never be rid of me...
"No..." was the only thing that Gareeku could say in his sheer disbelief. However, this belief would then change to horror, as the demon then began to change in appearence again.
Now, stood in his place, was himself. In that transformation.
"You will never be rid of me...never...
Sighing yet again and keeping his eyes to the floor, Stygian kept silent. It was not the best of time to be addressing any of the questions that he felt so obligated to. If anything, it was the question of getting Aisha back on her feet and in fighting condition that was most urgent, however much it seemed cruel to demand that she stand and fight again. At least, they had to make sure that they could move her. There was no telling how long this peace would last.
As if to answer his dark thoughts, a tremendous rumble came from the direction of the stairwell. Stygian's point-tipped ears perked right up and he bit his teeth together in a snarl. Suddenly energized with irritated anger, he almost shot out of his seat and was at the door in two strides. He almost didn't stop himself before he could turn to the two women and make just one request.
'Can you please heal Keaton as well? It should only take a minute,' he said, the care in his tone conflicting with his frown. 'I think she's too upset to ask you herself.' Not waiting for an answer, he darted out and closed the door behind him with practiced silence.
Before the last clatters of stone had managed to cease, a snarling, fearsome voice hit the stairwell. 'WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON HERE?!' Leaning over the railing on the third floor, Stygian glared at them all with almost incandescent fury and eyes. 'Are you trying to draw stuff here?! You!' His eyes shifted immediately in Bam's direction. But the fae didn't even stop to listen. 'You stop right now, you little shit!'
There was no use, and there was no time either. When the echo of Stygian's voice died down, there was only a few moments' pause. Then, slowly, faintly, the sound of clattering claws reached them.
Snarling like a beast, Stygian looked to the ceiling. 'Fuck!'
Jeremiah yanked the webbing off his face just in time to look over the edge and watch Sal plummet to the ground below them. He stared for a second, Bal chortling to himself as he continued redirecting trains of thought. In his still befuddled state he still managed to make one crucial observation.
"That's probably gonna come back to bite us, huh?"
Stygian wasn't the only one who heard the rumble. As the tremendous rumble rocked through the foundations of the castle, Keaton stiffened, her musings petrifying in their tracks along with the rest of her body. Letting out a slight curse, Keaton's head jerked towards the direction of the stairwell, blinking. What the hell was happening over there? Did another Hellbeast attack? That was where... shoot, that was where Cog and Jeremiah were. Not once did Keaton stop to consider the possibility that it was the incendiary combination of an incensed Fae, a length of webbing, a former art teacher, a swordsman, and Sal which were responsible for that immense sound.
The door was thrust open, nearly knocking Keaton over. She meeped and skittered to the side, the fur on her back bristling as she stared at the retreating back of a very frustrated, very irritated, and very angry Sebastian Don'Chel, very confused as to where the hell he was going and why he was so infuriated. Either way, she doubted she wanted to know. For a moment, Keaton stared at the door, ears leveled and her pierced eyebrow arched, then her expression sunk. Might as well get it over with.
She walked over and opened the door, peering inside. Inside was none other than Mel, who was helping heal Gareeku's prone and battered body, and, much to her chagrin, a sullen-looking Rynkura tending to her sans-arm student. Keaton grit her teeth, wanting for that moment to withdraw and take care of her injuries herself, but at this point it was too late. Instead, she managed to poke her head out a little bit more, syrup-blood-sticky dirty blonde hair draped in askew locks over her face.
"Hey," she said. "Can I... can I come in?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog's eyes widened as the fae flying around them suddenly started burning the webs, the wolf frantically trying to get her attention before she burned the wrong line.
"No! We need her up here, dam-"
The taut line of silk suddenly went slack. Cog groaned, pushing away from the railing and opening his hands and pulling them away from the sticky line of web. The effect was not unlike peeling one's hands apart after being coated in glue. He neared the railing again, about to look over the edge.
At that moment, the wolf heard Sebastian start thundering out from the balcony. Cog turning his head rather quickly.
He seemed better at least, Cog mused. Certainly well enough to get angry. Improvement, perhaps.
Cog shook his head and cursed, looking over the railing and down to where the spider was should have dropped, and made a face.
"All that work. Now we will have to lug her all the way up here..." he began, before the telltale sounds of claws drew Cog's attention away from the spider below him. The wolf's eyes narrowed.
"We may have bigger problems, Jeremiah." the wolf said, addressing the frog's comment, and staring up at the ceiling. Cog's hands came to rest on his sword hilt.
The sticky webbing did provide quite a good grip, actually.
The sound of Rynkura speaking to Stygian brought Mel's attention back to the room at large. Rynkura had done such a thorough healing job that really all there had been left to do was tighten a few things up and donate a bit of energy to those organs that were acting a little sluggish. When Stygian asked for someone to tend to Keaton Mel stood, "I will do it." She wasn't sure if anyone heard her though, between the rumbling and Stygian dashing outward. As she was pondering where she might find the cubi her question was answered by Keaton's quiet entry.
"It looks as if you need a bit of tending. Lets go into the bathroom and wash you up so I can get a good look at what needs doing." She walked over to a door and opened it, showing the small bathroom shared by the two sickrooms. She stepped inside, soaking a towel and waiting for Keaton to join her.
Following the yelp and the hard thump, it went only a second before Sal made herself noticed again. 'You idiots!' she called out from below, somewhere not immediately visible. 'Are you completely unhinged?!' Her voice was followed by a low growl from somewhere, and she fell silent.
It took about three seconds. Then, the first thing lunged out from the dark at Cog, six eyes glowing and wicked claws swiping wildly for him. Another something with a sinuous and muscular tail three times the length of its body neared him from the left. Something many-limbed that Jeremiah almost mistook for Sal for a second but whose misshapen and sinewy physique and graceless ferocity in its movements immediately told that it was not so advanced on the frog over a wall.
There was a sharp, stabbing sound, like a blade being shoved deep into flesh from above, and a body came tumbling down past the broken stairway. Another was hurled against a wall, already sizzling, telltale signs that Stygian had begun fighting.
'
Cog! Toad! Get as high as you can! I'll get you!' the bat called out from above, sending out stabbing, raking and screeching shadows as he did.
The sobs were faint, but grew closer, as Bam sped down along one of the hallways leading out into the wings of the castle, further out than the social hall had been. It seemed that the constructors had strategically chosen to place some of the larger halls further out and the smaller rooms in the middle, so that they could put more panoramic windows on the ends of the outcropping structures. This proved true at least for the room that Bam finally entered. Tall, large and dark, it housed a stage and a number of entries. It seemed to be a music and dancing hall of some sort.
Things had not been quiet for too long...but then it seemed that Rynkura's wish that it be a peaceful night for the injured would go undone. For as soon as the bat's head whipped to the door, the tigress's eyes also narrowed at the noises toward the stairwell. It shook the floors beneath their feet and came through the walls (as per sensitive hearing it seemed that way certainly enough), and threatened the very sanctity that the rooms were trying to hold.
She nodded quickly to the bat, still keeping her place and wondering what the commotion was. She had a guess as to a number of things...perhaps the demons smelled weakness? Perhaps she had to put a ward up...? Or more than likely it wasn't that. In any case, the healer was still bound to her duty. She wouldn't leave the wounded unguarded...much less Aisha.
As Mel volunteered to heal Keaton, she wasn't too surprised to see the jackal waiting there already, with quite the amount of blood on her body. She greeted the succubus with a soft nod, and then turned to the panthress with a concentrative hum and proceeded to do another healing check. Once again her hands illuminated, and eyes glowed a soft green as she checked the internal injuries.
Quite as she expected, things were mending well. The dragon had done a masterful job...all that was needed was to give Aisha her time to recover. Still, she mused thoughtfully. I wonder where she has donated her bracer; it would be quite needed here. I might sometime go to grab the rest of the weapons she left behind as well...
In lieu of the healing bracer, however, Rynkura just allowed the light magic flowing from the staff to encompass the rest of the bed in a soft blue glow, a stronger alternative in place of the relic, and stood near the door that connected the rooms. The panther lay still and dormant, but her tears seemed to be coming freely now. She and Gareeku, it seemed, both had still bodies and racing minds...though he showed it with a twitch of his eyes at a few intervals. But dreams, whatever they were, the tiger could never interrupt.
Cog's blade flashed in the dim light as the wolf drew his sword, the wolf's stance somehow already neutral between the two demons rushing after him and the frog. He seemed to stand motionless in time for a moment, looking at both creatures simultaneously, and with a sudden spin on one heel he turned and drew, the silver blade flashing up and then down in a fluid, almost liquid arc.
It took less than a moment, and the charging demon fell, it's chest rent with a bloody, ghastly wound. It less time than it took for it to fall to the floor and begin burbling out its lifeblood, the wolf spun again, bringing the blade up and over his head in a continuous arc from his last cut, the sword sliding easily over his head to pause just a moment as the wolf readied himself again.
The next demon was practically on top of the wolf - Cogidubnus could see the thing's long tail whipping around his back, ready to trip the wolf, where the demon could rend the swordsman with much greater ease.
The demon never took another step. Blindingly, almost invisibly fast, the wolf struck again. A bright arc of silver clove through the demon, and as the sword exiting the body Cog kept up the momentum, sliding his left leg forward and in front of himself as he brought the blade back, cutting upwards. The tail aimed to wrap around his feet parted in front of the wolf, sliding around the Iaidoka's feet.
Cog spun the sword in his hand, sluicing the blood off the glittering edge, and called back up to the bat.
"Right then!" he said, turning and staring at the third monster advancing on Jeremiah. Cog cursed, starting towards the thing. If he remembered correctly, Jeremiah -could- defend himself. But that wasn't the sort of trouble they really needed right then.
Both surprisingly and luckily for Keaton, Mel had been the one to volunteer to heal her injuries, as opposed to Rynkura. Managing to swallow a sigh of relief, the jackal stepped out from behind the door, gently closing it behind her. She made a dedicated effort to keep her gaze from irreversibly locking onto Rynkura nurturing Aisha's body, even when the tiger herself nodded kindly in her direction. In response Keaton had merely pretended she didn't notice, not out of the interest of being rude, but because she just... couldn't. She just couldn't look at her. She couldn't realize how uncharacteristic it would be for Rynkura to tack the blame onto her and spite her, but instead Keaton sealed herself behind that lie and wallowed further into despair.
She was more than happy to enter the privacy of the bathroom with Mel, where she would be safe from prying stares and invisible hatred and blame that only Keaton was issuing towards herself. Mel thoroughly soaked a towel, then Keaton gently extended a hand, wanting to wash her face herself. When it was given she proceeded to rub away at the coagulating, sticky spider-webs of blood tangled in her fur and the roots of her hair, being as tender as she could around her still-raw cut. While it was sealed over with a thin, mucilaginous layer of blood, protecting it from further agitation, she didn't want to disturb that scab and create a new rush of blood.
With a heavy sigh Keaton removed her head from the towel, which was now utterly caked in smeared stains of red. Aside from some residual traces of red still glued in the roots of her hair and some streaks around her face, Keaton considered this, as she looked in the mirror, an ostensible improvement. She still looked like hell, however, and much of that was attributed to the weight of her emotions. "God dammit."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Jeremiah didn't need to be told twice. That thing had too many legs to be friendly (somewhat of an arbitrary standard, but so far it worked). He rushed up the stairs, that pain in his head causing him to stagger a bit as he went. He felt so tired...
"Don't gotta tell me twice!"
Wait wait wait, Bal chuckled, Just wait, jussa sec...
More slashes emanated from above, before a growl split the silence and something like the rushing howl of a hurricane, yet somehow more alive, shot past Jeremiah's and Cog's ears. Through the darkness black things, yet more solid, moved by. Then a pallid shape tinged slightly orange and blue by the lighting that revealed itself to be Stygian's torso, half-hidden by a black shirt and wings, dropped down.
'
I said get moving!' the bat snarled, balancing almost at the top of the stairs and skipping down them speedily. He drew up a hand as if he were tugging along something from the floor and opened his palm in Jeremiah's direction. A roaring shape as much resembling something warped but humanoid as the dark, mottled red-brown thing pursuing him rushed past the frog and into the creature, which staggered backwards and fell down the stairs, flailing and screeching in pain, cracking sounds accompanying its descent.
Stygian extended his hand at Cog and Jeremiah, and looked upon both the wolf and frog with a frown. If something hadn't slipped past him upstairs, they would be lucky.
Keaton's pained thoughts were disrupted by a clearly audible and most hostile hiss. It didn't seem that close at all, but whatever it was, it sent chills down her spine and drew her attention from her ruined face in a heartbeat.
It seemed that their rest was at an end.
Mel gently guided Keaton to sit on the wide edge of the tub as she looked over the gash on her forehead and placed a cool finger to seal the gash. "You do not look so well, Keaton. Is there more than just these cuts you need seen to?" The gash sealed easily and she moved to the larger injury on the arm. But before she could tease an answer out of Keaton a horrid hissing sound set both of them on alert.
Twitching more and more in his unconsciousness, Gareeku had a look of slight distress on his face as he dreamt. It was plain to see that he was having a dream that he clearly didn't like, to say the least. He had been having these dreams for a while now when he slept, but this was the first time that he had had one such dream when unconscious.
Suddenly, the wolf's eyes snapped open. Gasping suddenly, the wolf then sat upright, breathing heavily as drops of cold sweat ran down his face and torso. He could still see that vivid image...that image of himself, in his transformation, clutching a motionless body...Aisha's motionless body...
Getting off of the bed that he was lying on, the wolf then saw the room next door, with Aisha lying there on the bed. His eyes widened, Gareeku then started to make his way towards the door. As he did so, however, the pain hit him; a burning pain on his skin, coupled with the dull aches of the injuries that, while they had been healed, still hurt immensely.
"I need to see her..." the wolf said weakly as he reached the door, his eyes fixed on Aisha...
Ketefe was puzzled. The odd squeaking noises coming from the butterfly resembled Bam's voice, but it sounded like she was now the size of a hamster. The noises around her voice seemed truly chaotic. She was calmly listening, really really hoping that nothing was wrong, when Ian decided to scare the hell out of her.
"YIPE!" Ketefe jumped about four feet in the air when the rat snuck up on her. When she figured out who it was, she growled good-naturedly.
"Yeah, freak out the girl who just recently got over being possessed when you're mostly unarmed! Really smart!" She stood up, turning a little more serious. "From what I can tell, even more bad stuff is going on. Aisha's probably hurt really badly, and Gina disappeared somewhere. Bam went to go find her, but judging by this - " she plucked the butterfly out of her hair and held it up to Ian's ear " - she's screwing something up. So, you think you're well enough that we should go see what's wrong?"
"Possibly, depends on-" As Ian stood up there was an audible pop and sickly wet sound like cartalage grinding cartalige as he stood up. "-Oh! That can't be good, even so I think I'll manage. Which way did she go?"
Back in her dreams, Aisha felt the sensation of the tears that were streaming down her face in the living world. No longer was she in the dark atmosphere, but the growing light had enveloped everything. Though it could not be seen, she could hear muted voices in the background that brought back happier memories. It was almost as if the village of Soldeluna had been rebuilt, including all of its lives, and brought into being. It was like a glimpse of paradise...and she still kept in the warm presence of her parents, though it was what she had been told that made those tears.
"There's a reason I kept saying you were named after your grandmother, you know," Mara's ethereal voice seemed to say as she stroked her daughter's face. "In her situation and time there was none braver. You are very well justified in hating the demons for what they are and what they have done."
Aisha had so many questions. But more likely than not, her parents wouldn't provide them, however much she wished they would. She just shook her head with disbelief and distraught tears. "It was true? Everything that monster said...?"
"Es verdadero, mi hija (It's true, my daughter)," Luc interjected with a soft voice. "It will be something not to believe when you awaken. To get used to when you live. To be of use when it's done. There will be more fights...they will look for you. And by then you will be strong. We have faith. And it will be a hero's welcome when you join us. But not now." He smiled. "Someone right now very much wishes for you to live."
It was then that the light started to fade, and Aisha felt like she was being tugged back...out of their grasp, away from the warmth. She didn't wish to leave, ever...but perhaps there were still things to do, and still more questions unanswered. Her eyes widened. "At least tell me one more thing!" she pleaded as their outlines started to vanish behind the light. "Where is Ayan? I didn't see him!"
"Tu hermano vives (your brother lives)..." Luc's voice came as she was tugged back into darkness. The warmth faded. "But he should be with us..."
* * *
Rynkura sighed quietly as she looked around the room, partially keeping an ear to where Mel had taken Keaton to get herself washed up. Still the injured were asleep, still the hellish energies pervaded the rooms and felt like making her skin crawl. It was beginning to look more and more like a good idea to put a ward over the rooms.
But as she readied the appropriate spell, suddenly she heard a sound from Gareeku's room. The wolf had awakened quite abruptly from what she supposed was quite the nightmare, now making his way into the room despite the fact that his injuries still somewhat lingered.
"Sir Manoko! Do you need help? You probably shouldn't be up so quickly..." Rynkura started and turned around, but her argument settled as she took note of the wolf's resolve. Hearing what he said, his eyes locked on the comatose Aisha, it took the tigress aback somewhat. Her head tilted slightly, a light and thoughtful smile on her face. He worried for the panther...perhaps as much as the healer had, if not more. It was easy to see he wouldn't stop trying to move to her.
She simply stepped out of his way, heading towards the door to place the ward and sense what was happening outside. "If you need help, just say so. I fear we may not be staying for much longer."
On the bed, which was still glowing with healing energy, Aisha's breathing had started to turn from shallow to the normal, deep breathing that comes with sleep. The feeling had only just started to come back to her body as her eyes twitched, dark face still glimmering with those tears.
Upon Mel's gentle coaxing Keaton took her seat on the outer rim of the bathtub, still vigorously rubbing away the vestigial traces of blood present on her face with the clean side of her towel. Examining her reflection from afar in the mirror, she realized that there wasn't much she could do regarding her facial appearance until Mel healed her cut--fortunately, the dragon took care of it with a swipe of her finger, the laceration disappearing. The cool sensation faded, and Keaton observed her reflection again, happily cleaning the rest of the blood she was unable to reach previously, then starting on the blood which had branched down the length of her arm from her gash while Mel began work on that injury.
Keaton stared numbly at the dragon, then forced a slight smile. "It's that obvious?" she asked. She decided there was no use in concealing her emotions, not when they were painfully apparent.
Just as Mel was about to commence the recovery on that injury, Keaton's ears pivoted upright at the hissing sound, her hand jerking upright and removing Catastrophe swiftly from its holster. She stood up, opposite, dirtied hand still clutching the bloodstained towel, and directed her gaze towards where the sibilant hissing sound had originated. "Fuck. Playtime's over," she said hoarsely.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Listening to what Rynkura said, Gareeku did not look at her. He couldn't take his eyes off of Aisha; lying there motionless, save for her breathing, and what look like tears running down her face.
"Thank you..." the wolf replied in what was almost a mutter as the tigress made for the door. Slowly he approached, worry and what could only be described as fear, fear for Aisha, on his face. As he stepped nearer the comatose Aisha, Gareeku then noticed, despite the fact that healing energy surrounded her and the bed that she was lying on, the pantheress' injuries, especially that of her arm.
"No..." the wolf whispered, his head slightly shaking from side to side as he spoke. He then saw that there were indeed tears running down her face. Hesitating at first, the wolf gently reached and, with the tips of his fingers, softly wiped away the tears from her face. As he did so, he could feel tears of his own welling up in his eyes. "I should have been there...by your side..."
Jeremiah grabbed the offered hand gratefully, letting Stygian help him up. The frog's hand felt odd, curiously dry, but there wasn't much time to contemplate that. Said hand was quickly snatched away as the frog continued to flee. It took him a sec to realize that he didn't know where he was running to.
"Cog, you know where the others are? Aisha's probably in no shape to be on the move, we gotta get to her!"
Bal pulled another mental strand into place, shoving the Lunacy aside as it tried to mess with his designs. Just gotta hold it a little longer...
Stygian merely shook his head, then grasped Cogidubnus and literally threw the wolf over the gap in the broken stairway. Next, he pulled Jeremiah to him and then leapt up, landing clumsily but steadily a few steps up from the broken precipice.
'
Just get a bloody move on!' the bat growled, and then dashed past. One of the tangles of silk stuck on Jeremiah attached to him as well, and a part of his shirt that had been ruined by demon's blood was ripped loose, but he didn't pay it any heed. Charging ahead, Stygian formed up darkness into a blade as long as a man was tall and swept away one of the few remaining demons, hurrying toward the corridor where the others were.
If Rynkura and Mel had thought they would be able to avoid the demons' attention, they had been dead wrong. A few shuffling scrapes along the floor and coarse breaths signified the passing of perhaps one or two of the creatures. Then one set of claws stopped outside, and they heard sniffing. Sniffing that turned into a low, hostile growl. They could almost feel the tension of the thing, readying to lunge through the door.
Keaton lifted Catastrophe again and edged her way out of the bathroom, remaining on-guard in case one of their hidden antagonists decided to lunge unexpectedly. Outside the bathroom, Aisha was still unconscious, although with noticeable damp trails running down her cheeks, but an anguished Gareeku had awoken and was lamenting her condition. Normally Keaton would've been concerned about being seen by two of Aisha's closest companions when she felt so personally and irrationally responsible for her dismembering injury, but in her heightened sense of anxiety these emotions were lost. Undoubtedly, they would be back to haunt her later.
Keaton squinted, ocher-gold gaze locking onto the door. Behind it she could hear muffled shuffling and scraping sounds, perhaps originating from claws grazing the floor. Sniffing followed, then turned into a low and threatening growl. Keaton shifted into an appropriate battle posture, then, twisting open the doorknob, she flung open the door. The snarling visage of a mutated, demented demon--a mutilated enhancement of the brethren they had encountered earlier--leering in her face was the first glance she was blessed with, accompanied by the swishing of claws. Keaton ducked backwards just in time, the edges of the creature's acute claws brushing past her chest, then lunged, swinging Catastrophe around. The spiked head smashed right into the creature's cranium, sending it flying with a shrieking exclamation as the spikes lodged into its head briefly, then re-emerged from the force of the blow.
The Imp-like demon went sprawling on the ground, ichorous blood streaming in great gouts from its perforated head. Despite this injury it remained functional, lurching back to its feet and snarling. Its two other companions took this opportunity to run at Keaton, where she dove upon them, preparing for another swing while the nearby demon swaggered on its heels and recuperated.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura would find that she would have no time at all to put up that ward. Her hand was frozen at the point of the door upon hearing the noises from the outside. Shadows and growls passed their door, pausing to regard it and the things the beasts surely smelled within...and meanwhile, the adventurers had their interlude.
At first, Aisha felt like she was going to remain in that void of nothing...but she started to feel things coming back to her.
An actual, physical warmth coursed softly through her nerves, blocking the bits of pain that were also starting to register, and went very well with those horrid memories. Feelings of being wrapped up, and too stiff to move; too afraid to bring those wounds back. Then, voices...familiar ones, including one that was close and speaking softly. Lines of moisture on her face...and the feeling of it being dried by a gentle sweep of fingers.
Slowly, as if the process of doing so was a memory lost, the panthress willed herself to open her eyes. The view was blurry. A darkened room, lit by several bits of light, the strongest of which was the glowing point of a staff down at the end of the bed she lay in. The owner of the staff was frozen in front of the door...and as things cleared, her eyes found the white wolf standing near...the one whose hand was brushing her tears, and who had tears of his own.
Gareeku... She thought, trying to process what was going on. What was he so sad about...? Me...right... The tears kept flowing on its own, seeing him so sad...and as she remembered the reason she was there in the first place. Brought back from the brink of death. It was hard to imagine at the time...but she was alive...they were alive. It was all real. Including the hellish feeling of the room. But the sight of the wolf, the thought that he was watching over her, gave her tired and aching feelings much peace as she pondered trying to wake up.
"...Hey..." Aisha breathed, her voice soft and cracking a slight bit as she tried to smile toward her companion. Her crimson gaze however still looked somewhat pained as her hand rested gently over his own. "What's...going on...?"
But that was when something appeared at the corner of her vision, a shimmering dome that covered the wolf and herself. It was a barrier made by Rynkura, the tigress casting it after stepping away. Keaton then rushed to fling it open and dispatch of the impish demons that had been at their door.
"Mel, Gareeku, we had better be prepared to move when the others return!" the tigress could be heard advising as her dart spell zapped the creature nearest the door. While the succubus went after the creatures, she tried to defend the room.
More trouble, already...didn't it ever end?
A part of Aisha felt like trying to help, whatever was going on...but another part of her wanted to stay, and try to rest. Against the urgency, the panthress obeyed the latter instinct and could only close her eyes again. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
Jeremiah staggered away from Stygian as they landed, and was then off running again. He didn't know where Aisha and the others were, but he figured if he just followed the screams...
Bal pulled more strings. For a brief second there was a black spark at the back of the frog's neck.
Almost...
With snarls and cracking jaws, the vile things erupted at Keaton, the first one taking Catastrophe to its leg and then its neck for its transgression, the second falling upon the jackal. It felt like being hit with at least two hundred pounds of coiled springs, hard and tense. The jackal herself was strong, if only somewhat with her limited age as a cubi, but these creatures... She managed to shake it off though, courtesy of the weight of her mace and tentacles. The thing stumbled back, and prepared to lunge again.
Something rushed down the hallway and struck the ill-prepared demon like a freight train. Keaton only caught a glimpse of a nearly humanoid, utterly black shape, snarling as it passed. Then her assailant was swept away and torn apart. One of its arms flew off and fell disintegrating to the floor.
Running down the corridor, not minding to cover his back as he hoped Cog and Jeremiah had it covered, Stygian's expression was one of rage and distress. He stopped by Keaton, looking at her quickly. 'We have to get out of here. Find a choke point. And fast!' he said, his words whiplash sharp and quick. 'Anyone who stays behind gets left behind!'
Mel crept out of the bathroom behind Keaton, her eyes searching for the source of the sound as she began pulling up light magic. Keaton had reached the door and she saw Rynkura was there as well, providing magical backup to the cubi's mostly physical attack. Gareeku was standing over Aisha's bed and Mel was relieved to see him up, until it reminded her of the fact that there were two ways in. She whirled on the other door just in time to see it rattle, then slam open. She let fly with a brilliant lance of light.
When the two remaining creatures, the third and final hindered by its debilitating blow, leapt at Keaton, the jackal wasted no time in swinging and swiping Catastrophe with all of her might, not even stopping to savor the satisfaction in injuring one of them when it dared to get too close. One of them had been thrown off to the side, but the second pinned her to the ground as it pounced upon her, landing in a heap on top. Keaton grit her teeth and let out a hissing snarl as she glared up into its vile visage, shaking off the intimidation which had resulted from staring into the depths of its bloodied rictus-smile. No matter how mush she flailed she couldn't seem to get it off of her initially, but fortunately, upon kneeing it in its gut and taking advantage of the fluctuation in the grip of its arm, she was able to use Catastrophe to pry the demon off of her, stabbing the diamond-shaped blade on the end of its pommel into the beast's side.
Just as it was about to lunge at her again, the demon was gone, almost as though an enormous truck had barreled right into it and splattered its innards all over the floor. A black shape was all Keaton had been granted with in terms of sight, followed by its arm as it cartwheeled off to the side and dissolved in mid-air. From off to the side, Stygian snarled a command at the group, one Keaton knew better than to disobey. She gathered up her mace and leapt to her feet, running after him.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Bambi flies around the music hall, but she sees nothing beyond Gina crying. She landings near Gina, who is near the stage. "Oh Gina Are you alright?" asks Bam
PBH
Cog managed to keep himself from yelling as Stygian suddenly tossed the hapless wolf across the broken staircase, the iaidoka just barely managing to keep himself from falling on his sword as he landed on the other side. Cog rolled a few times, his head making a nice thumping sound on the marble floor, and finally came to a skittering stop right before he slammed into the marble wall.
Cog cursed, sliding to his feet quickly and putting himself into a guarded stance, getting the sharp edge of his sword between himself and whatever else might be lurking. He saw Jeremiah fly up and over as well, landing a bit more gracefully than Cog had managed to, and then Sebastian practically leap across the chasm and start running for the corridor. Jeremiah followed him shortly, and Cog let his sword hang at his side as he joined them, booted feet clacking on the marble floors.
As he ran behind the bat, however, a hiss and a few quick footfalls drew the wolf's attention behind him. The same hideous thing that had assaulted them in the hallway below was scrabbling towards them, a demon made of black claws and black eyes. Cog stopped quickly, not even bothering to turn all the way, and paused for just a moment, letting the thing catch up and leap at him while he brought his right hand subtly down and across.
Turning his hips and using his shoulders as a rail and brace, the wolf slid the blunt edge of his sword across his body, aiming the keen tip at the maw of the flying demon and catching the thing full in the throat. Cog managed to keep the thing in the air for a moment, the hilt of his blade couched securely under his forearm.
It didn't stay there for long. Cog took a step back, and using the heel of one of his boots pushed the crying, gurgling thing off his sword. He continued to move backwards, keeping his back to the path that Sebastian was clearing in behind him, even as he kept his eyes facing the corridor in front.
Tears were now running freely down the wolf's face as he watched over the pantheress. He hadn't been there for her when she needed someone there. He had failed her. "I'm so sorry..."
Just then, however, he heard her voice; soft and slightly croaky, but it was her voice. His eyes snapping open, the wolf saw her face looking up at him. She was awake.
A wave of a mixture of relief and sadness then swept over him as he saw her face. The tears continued to run down his cheeks, staining his white fur a slightly darker shade as they did so.
"Sssh...it's ok..." the wolf replied, his voice soft and reassuring as he gently held her hand in his own.
Nothing else mattered now...the hellish feeling of the room...the demons outside...at this moment it just didn't matter. Aisha was awake. She was going to be ok. That was all that he cared about.
Noticing the protective dome barrier that had been placed around them by Rynkura, Gareeku listened to the tigress' words and nodded his head in acknowledgment.
"Sssh...don't talk, just rest..." the wolf replied to Aisha softly, ready to gently pick her up into his arms when the time came.
Flickers of light flew past Stygian as he stopped at the door, craning his neck and looking in while keeping half of his attention still on the corridor. Gareeku was by Aisha's bed, and the panthress didn't seem quite awake yet. Not that it would have mattered too much. Taking another few seconds to help Rynkura dispatch an incoming ragged, snarling thing, Stygian then looked back and saw Gareeku move to lift Aisha up. '
You've taken hits. Don't be...' he started, but the wolf ignored him.
Not that I can blame him, the bat throught. Then he snarled through his teeth and turned down the corridor again.
'
I trust them to you, Ryn,' Stygian said, before taking a quick look to see Keaton at his back and then setting off at a hurried pace down the path the other group had come from earlier.
For the longest time, it had seemed like it had been Gina weeping on the stage. But this close, Bam could notice the differences. The figure, like the ferret, was small as a child and had a sort of pallid, glowing sheen to its figure, as if moonlight congregated to its form. But its voice was too light, too childlike. And unlike the ferret, this weeping little girl seemed clothed in some old-fashioned, elaborate dress, pale and thin in its many-layered composition. It looked as if she were wearing a few layers of mist over her doll-like form. Her crying was silent, hopeless and heartbreaking.
Ketefe grimaced as Ian's body protested to the rat standing up. "Yeouch. I'm not sure which way she went, but we can find out." She tapped the little commlink butterfly in her hand. "I don't know if the others are with her, but once she and Gina are with us, we can look for them. And if that sound happens again, I'll be nervous about you going any farther."
That being said, she held the butterfly about six inches from her mouth and spoke. "Bam? Can you still hear me? Ian woke up. We want to help out if we can. Are the others with you?"
According to Rynkura, it was insanity that started to unfold in the corridor...where she thought it would be safe. But the Angel in truth was quite exasperated...there was indeed no rest for the weary under her guard, nor on Mel's side. Not until the castle was free of these spirits and the gate to Hell closed.
And the one who had opened it in the first place destroyed.
She watched from the door as the jackal was confronted by an onslaught of impish demons, each one stronger than it seemed to look. Any others that had attempted to bypass the tigress was met with a face full of darts, or had their systems rendered paralyzed by her electricity, all while she kept watch for the rest of the group to arrive. But it was then that Stygian appeared with such urgency, shredding the beasts in his path in a harried effort to get everyone moving.
"I will keep them," Rynkura nodded toward his statement, after witnessing the adventurers, while watching the bat rush off with Keaton at his back. She turned back to where Gareeku sat with Aisha, the wolf poised to carry the panthress. The tigress smiled briefly, quite appreciative of his dedication towards her student.
"The barrier will move with you," she informed Gareeku as she took her staff from the end of the bed, the healing glow leaving it...more than likely, being exposed to the magic would have given the wolf much of his strength back. "We must hurry...I will watch your back. Mel!" she called after the dragon, starting to move toward the door. "After Sebastian!"
Meanwhile, Aisha's body was tensing. It was hard to rest with so much going on...so much conflict and anger and darkness...but as she held Gareeku's hand, heard his reassuring voice, and felt his warmth, she felt quite restful...and there was no question of it.
Hearing the signal to retreat Mel threw a giant blast of light into the bedroom Gareeku had vacated, driving the monsters back long enough to slam the door shut. Not that it would stop them for more than maybe a quarter second but at least she didn't have their eyes upon her as she dashed across the room. If Rynkura was watching Gareeku's back someone had to be in front.
Not taking his eyes off of Aisha, Gareeku heard Rynkura explain that the barrier would move with him and the pantheress. That made things a hell of a lot easier. Trying to cause as little pain to Aisha as possible, the wolf gently picked her up in his arms, holding her close to him as her head rested against his neck. He had sworn to protect here, and by God, even if he had to walk into the heart of hell itself, he would do it.
Being exposed to the magic from the staff had indeed strengthened Gareeku. He felt more energy surging through his body than before, and this would definitely come in handy as he began to carry Aisha with him. Following Rynkura and Mel, Gareeku continually looked down at the pantheress in his arms, while also keeping a lookout for any demons who wanted to try their luck at attacking. He may have been carrying Aisha, but that sure as hell didn't mean he was defenseless.
Jeremiah moved to follow the others, staggering drunkenly at this point as he fled. His head was KILLING him...
"Ketefe? Ian?" Bam was a fae, nothing was going to seriously damage her short of a direct meteor strike, but in all this they'd lost track of the college student and the young adventuress. "Guys, where...?" Mel, Aisha (oh my god, she's down an arm, oh my-), Gareeku (real noble type, that guy. Carrying the nice lady. Knight in shining... Shining something...). Rynkura, clever old bird... Cog's still fighting, why don't I fight? Besides the whole incompetance thing... Oh gods, his HEAD. Everyone was moving, and at this point everyTHING was moving. Demons practically coming out of the woodwork. And he was so TIRED...
Bal laughed. Jeremiah tripped. Another demon, like a grossly overgrown version of the imps from earlier, advanced upon the frog slowly.
My head...
No! MY head!
A black flame it at the back of what had a couple seconds ago been the artists neck, and slowly spread down his spine. The flame went everywhere, taking. That was what Bal did. He decayed. Time stole everything.
Jeremiah's- no, Bal's- hand lashed out, grabbed the Demon's ankle. These things didn't age, but they had time to lose. Slowly, it's disgusting bulk sagged and creaked, eventually rotting off the bone.
"My gods, but I needed that."
Running down the hallways, the party led by Stygian came farther and farther away from the screeches and the growls of the demons at their heels. However, telling by the pressing darkness and the almost tangible change of the environment to the more grim and sinister, the bat was leading them closer to the source of the evil. They descended stairs and ran through rooms, until finally the bat stopped in a hall to the side of the castle, and turned. The only exits were in front and behind. And no hideous things approached anywhere except from behind them. They couldn't run much longer, or they would draw too many things out and reach the chapel at the same time. They had to make a stand.
Sweeping his huge black wings out behind him, Stygian turned toward the arched gateway behind him and watched his companions run, eyes glinting in the darkness behind him. He shouted.
'Get in! We have to fight!'
Darkness swarmed upon the party as they dashed relentlessly through the Castle, Gar generously carting Aisha's body despite his condition so that way they wouldn't be forced to leave her behind, while all the others kept their weapons out. Keaton was among those who were prepared for combat even with her arm not healed, something she would have to tend to after this whole situation had smoldered--that is, if they survived the current carnage raging throughout the structure.
Keaton restricted the use of any of her magic abilities, as most of her magical inclinations rested in darkness, something which was probably useless against creatures born of that element. Stygian had been able to manipulate it to his advantage, why wouldn't these barbaric beasts be able to do the same thing? So for now, she relied on brute strength and Catastrophe, keeping her guard up and her offensive abilities heightened as the throng of demons flared. They were approaching the heart of it all, where the monsters were thriving. The precipice of Hell itself.
They were at the gateway. Snarling, Keaton lifted Catastrophe and prepared herself, closing in on her target. Now was the time for vengeance.
Now was the time for success.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The Music Hall
" Little Kit little kit little Kit, where have you been? Do you wish a song? Can we sing a long?" asks Bambi The Fae walks slowly down the aile to stop in front of the stage.....
"What is name are you, little kit?" asks Bambi
Ian looked to Ketefe and said. "I'm useless without my guns. They're on the second floor near my room. ....I think, that's where I was knocked out right? I should be able to do some damage with my UV bullets. That is if you wouldn't mind a detour?" Ian started for the door to the hallway that lead to the stairwell. "Though, time might be more important right now."
OOC: If I break technology limets let me know and I'll adjust accordingly
Following the others down the corridors and hallways, Gareeku could not help but wonder if Stygian was leading them further into the hellish depths. The wolf wasn't exactly comfortable with this idea at all, but at this point in time, he had to trust the bat.
Looking down at Aisha in his arms again, the wolf was trying not to jolt her about too much as he ran. His concern for her was always the biggest thing on his mind at that point in time.
It was then, however, that Gareeku heard Stygian say that they had to make a stand and fight.
"I'm not making a stand until I know Aisha will be safe!" the wolf replied, his voice assertive as he spoke. "Only then will I fight. Until then, I'm making sure that Aisha will not be harmed, and considering the situation we're in, I consider that pretty damn important."
The labyrinthine corridors that they had passed had turned into one long blur after another. Rynkura hadn't recalled a time when she had to move so quickly, yet still it was hard to keep her winded. She kept the bat far ahead of them in sight, along with Keaton and Mel. And of course, Gareeku and Aisha were never out of her line of vision either, for she had sworn to watch them.
And as they dashed from high point to low, it was evident that the castle's character was changing gradually. The Angel tried to keep her light magic strong, though the very feeling of malice and darkness crept upon them as they ran to meet it. She wanted to question where Stygian was leading them, for it was a sickening atmosphere...and taking Aisha and the battle-weary to essentially the very heart of Hell...
While they traveled, Rynkura had noticed that the demons were none and few, far behind...and one point took the time to stray just momentarily away, pinpointing the scattered bits of magic enchantment that she felt...all too difficult as she couldn't do that and keep up with the group...yet, she was marginally successful in her quick search. The healer rejoined them just as they stopped under the arch of one long corridor, front and back and nowhere but there to go. On her person, held in the sash about her waist, was a recognizable sword: her Dragonblade...if the panther indeed was expected to fight again soon, it was made sure she'd have the benefit of something to hold.
And that was when Stygian told the group what she feared, as he ordered the others to move behind him and take a stand against the creatures that came for them. The tiger grimaced, before quirking an ear as Gareeku spoke up against it as well. The healer shook her head, trying to figure out if she would run, or stay...and listening for the reactions of Keaton and Mel.
Then her eyes set on Aisha, who had her eyes open again, just slightly, shivering in Gareeku's grasp as she felt the atmosphere too. "Don't want to...go to this..." she was murmuring, not entirely livid yet...but getting there.
There was a hum from the tigress. "The barrier should keep you both safe," Rynkura reassured, bringing her staff up and turning her eyes briefly to the opposite end. "Trust me, I'm not fond of taking a chance. I will see to her protection just as well."
After he had spoken, Gareeku looked down to see Aisha's eyes slightly open. Listening to her speak, the look of concern reappeared on his face.
"I won't let anything harm you." the wolf replied in a soft voice that held a tone of finality about it. "I swear it."
It was then that, listening to Rynkura explain about the magical barrier that was currently surrounding him and Aisha, Gareeku seemed to think about something for a second, before moving to set Aisha softly down on a chair a safe distance from where the stand would take place, so that the group would be between her and the demons. Once he had done so, the wolf then removed his hooded cloak, before gently wrapping it around the injured pantheress.
"I will be back for you. I promise." Gareeku whispered softly to her, before standing up and facing Rynkura, his hand resting on the sheathed katana at his side. "Remove the barrier from me. I wish to fight."
Jeremiah had most definitely been left behind, somewhere in his own skull. Bal wasn't too good at keeping up either. He kept stopping to look around for a weapon. Another thing the personae possessed was a nigh-bottomless capacity for violence. Bal wasn't mad. In fact, he was probably the most rational aspect of Jeremiah's condition up to and including the frog himself. He was just a sadistic brute, who had several well thought out excuses for his actions (when he bothered to stick to a story, rather than leave a certain art teacher in the middle of whatever mess he caused). The mental fragment manuvered his hijacked body expertly, dodging claws at his heels, until finally he scrabbled around into the hall Styg had found.
There, a decorative suit of armor, holding a long-handled axe. Bal unceremoniously snatched the weapon from it, black flames along Jeremiah's spine rising briefly.
"Bring 'em on..." Bal grinned, not caring about worrying anybody with Jeremiah's altered teeth, "Bring 'em the hell on..."
Upon hearing Gareeku's soft voice, Aisha's quivering seemed to cease. She locked her gaze with his, feeling the sincerity behind his words, and she felt like blushing. However it was still hard for her to calm down, now that she realized there was indeed trouble. The panthress just tried her best to be restful, even when the wolf set her down on the chair and promised to be back for her. And as he placed his cape around her, she felt warm again, gripping the fabric and immersing in his scent.
I'll...hold you to it, she could only think with a soft, thankful smile towards Gareeku as he turned toward her mentor. Still waking up, it was somewhat tough even to speak. But already her mind had about returned, the body soon to follow after...and thus the awareness of her condition. Weaponless and...she gulped and peered down to where her right arm was supposed to be...yes, she saw with a downcast gaze. Lamed and immobile...Aisha couldn't but feel like nothing but a helpless kitten as she tried to rest again...just watching the others fight.
Meanwhile, Rynkura watched the warrior approach as she readied her magic. But she managed to hear the exchange between him and Aisha, and view her response...she too cared for him. To the tigress, who had always seen the panther's rough and often insociable side, it was nearly an unbelievable development...but it was more than accepted, if for the sake of the girl's hardened heart, after having so many of those she cared for die in the past. And though he had just come out of exhaustion himself, his impressive resilience befit his name.
After a pause, she nodded. "As you wish, sir Manoko. Fortune be with you." With wave of a glowing hand, the tigress willed the shimmering barrier to fall around him and disappear altogether. Then, she turned to where the bat was standing against the onslaught of demons that would surely befall the group. Stygian, Mel, Gareeku, herself, and now Jeremiah, though it was strange that the frog looked more than ready to battle.
"You have your stand," the tigress growled as they came...
Sword gripped tightly in his left hand and his right holding onto his hat, Cogidubnus skittered around a corner and ran towards the little safe room. The wolf ran as though the fires of hell itself licked at his ankles. Although there were no obvious flames behind him, ominous shadows cast their silhouette on the stone walls behind him.
Once making it to the room, he slid to a stop, his eyes passing over the group as he whirled to face behind him. Aisha and Rynkura seemed to have made it, and Gareeku stood off a little ways with the two of them. The other wolf seemed winded, but ready. Sebastian seemed alright as well, although Cog wondered how long the bat could last after taking as much punishment as he had. More troubling was Jeremiah's expression as he held an axe that he had gotten from somewhere, the normally timid art teacher looking as eager to take on the demons of hell as the demons themselves did to kill them. Cog frowned for a moment, troubled, but kept his eyes on the corridor ahead of him anyway.
As long as the little guy didn't start axing the wrong side, perhaps it was for the best right now.
Cog kept his back angled towards the wall and brought his sword into a simple horizontal guard, his eyes and ears on a wire trigger.
When Bam didn't respond, Ketefe put the butterfly back in her hair and hoped for the best. She looked to Ian. "Well, as long as we avoid dying before we get there, I don't mind. But if you hear so much as an unfamiliar claw click on the ground, we take a different way as quickly as we can. If worse comes to worst, I can try and kill it, but don't count on it." She headed to the door alongside the rat.
Risking detection before the greater danger of being stranded, Ketefe and Ian thus set out through the middle floors.
Meanwhile down below the other part of the group were faced with a much more imminent threat. Though it stalled the final attack, the slow, creeping approach of the demonic things only heightened the sensation of tension and dread that befell the adventurers. They were swarming now, crawling over the walls and ceiling even as they approached the group down the narrow passageway to the hall.
Though on edge, knowing full well what some of those things could do and how dangerous a pack of this size could be, Stygian was hardly numbed of thought. Why were they not attacking? High on the smell of blood and the flight of their prey the demons should have been blind with bloodlust, no matter how close to intelligent some of them came. It didn't make sense.
Then he felt it, and instantly the bat spun around, moving past Rynkura and positioning himself toward the other end of the hall. He looked up, baring his teeth. '
They're coming straight out of the gate now!' he hissed. '
Behind us!'
Something detached from the ceiling, seemingly turning into a humanoid only as it fell. And then Stygian's wing was there, swiping out into a massive black blade. The demon let out a cry as it was slashed in two and hit the bat before tumbling away in pieces. As if this had been the cue for the transition to the next act in some play, the other fiends let out their cries, myriad snarls and hisses from an unprecedented amount of inhuman throats. And then they attacked.
For the longest time it seemed that the little ghastly shape had not noticed Bambi. Then, when the cat queried as to her name, the little girl's sobs slowly subsided. She grew deathly still. Then, just as the fae was about to ask again, the girl slowly turned to look at her. And Bam was lost for speech.
The thing in front of her, all pale whites and misty blues, had a face like some Chinese doll or mask, perfect and porcelain-like, but infinitely frightening. A small, pinched mouth and button nose to a fawn face, but with black pits for eyes, empty and wide open and infinitely deep. The little abomination stared at Bam, unnaturally still. And then opened its mouth into a black chasm, tearing up the air with a horrid, deafening shriek. The moment it hit Bam she could not help but stumble backwards, her ears ringing and her body and mind oddly terrorized and tired all of a sudden.
Things were everywhere. Monstrous, twisted perversions of the natural order, shrieking and changing as they charged hoping to rend our heroes limb from still-sticky limb.
For Bal, it was a lot like home. Really, you don't want to meet anyone's subconscious in a dark alley. He swung at the first thing he saw, something best described as a cross between a cuddlefish, an imp, and a drake that tried to charge him head-on. The axe went straight down, slamming to the floor through the beast. As it began to dissolve he was already raising his weapon to block the talons of some other, somewhat taller demon with its handle. He stepped back, and attempted to jab at it with the spike at the top of the axe.
The good thing about these things is that the other guy is all the freaking way over there at the other end... Bal grinned. First time in a while I've had a good time...
"Ketefe and Ian, Are you Okay? Sorry I am not with the others, they are by the center stairs. and on the third floor. I am still look for Gina here in the music hall." Bambi tells her antenna as she nears the little Ferret girl.
Bam turn back to the little fawn after she had talk to Ketefe, as the little fawn starts to stare at the catgirl. the china girl's shrieks knocks Bam down. Bambi screams herself and her voice goes over the comlink.
"Stop screaming little fawn, I have a Sunbeam Ice Cream for you.." yells Bambi as she lays on the floor. She pulls out a shining Star the size of the little girls head, but the fae finds herself alone in her sphere of light with a surrounding darkness. The music hall and the demon girl are gone. And so is the world. There is only her, her light sphere, and the dark beyond. "Gina?"
"Hey, Little one, I got your ice cream" says Bam as holds up the star of light magic. Its light slowly light up the Music Hall. As if the sun was suddenly rising into the room.
PBH
Mel shivered a little as they prepared for the oncoming monsters. She buried the fear under the business of preparing a variety of light spells. Looking at her companions she felt a little more vulnerable as the only one without a physical weapons to fall back on. She made a mental note to learn some sort of weapon if she ever got out of this mess. Then with a cacophony of howls the attack began and she was too busy cutting attackers down with lashes of light to think of much of anything else.
Ian opened the door and stepped into the hall. He started for the stairs. Ian was reciteing basic principals of bio chem. He forgot one as he got to the stairs. "Damn! what was it again?" He hissed under his breath.
The air was intense. Hell had surfaced around them, the heart of it lingering behind them. She pitied anyone else who would try to enter the castle at this rate. For it had become frighteningly worthy of its reputation in the span of an unending night. The healer was not only worried for the health of the others...but also for the state of their minds. Not everyone had been recovered from the pit that was made within the walls...
All that the adventurers could do now was make a stand and fight through this throng...that even now were crawling up walls and over the ceilings in an effort to move for them. Rynkura's entire body was glowing through this time, the precipice of an attack, of light and holy-powered energy conjured from hiding.
And that was when Stygian leaped past her suddenly, and she tensed at what she heard. "Behind us?" she growled, turning to see the evidence. His wing having pierced and sliced through the body of a grotesque, humanoid demon that even scared her with its inhuman calls and that of its brethren. And then came the rest of them. They could not even be described as creatures or beasts, names reserved for the living, born, earthbound. They were things, plain and simple.
They charged, and the group defended. Lances of white electricity flew through her hands, incinerating and killing bodies on the inside out. A dart spell was set against another one diving from the ceiling at her...though when the lacerated body sprayed blood, she stopped and let it drop...nobody needed to afford more caustic damage from whatever entrails were left, if it was still that way.
"Straight from the gate...!" Rynkura growled, her staff whirling and catching another one, breaking whatever passed for a spine. "How are we supposed to go..." she grunted, tossing another one from her back while finishing the sentence. "...through?"
Aisha, meanwhile, could hear and see the events now more clearly than ever. But, unable to do anything, she held her ears back against her skull and shrunk into the chair, the demons fended off relatively easily by the light barrier surrounding her. Please end...please end...
Cog took a quick look over his shoulder, noting the demons now heading for the rear as well as the front, and without so much as a word simply charged forward, pressing the attack on the creatures ahead of them. His blade began to whistle through the air, cleaving the top half of one demon's skull clean off even as he brought the sword up and into the body of another, stabbing through and cutting his way out of the demon's belly, disemboweling the unfortunate monster as he moved to the side.
The wolf, moving fluidly and yet rigidly, cut down three demons in short order even as he moved deeper into the horde, trying to create some sort of pressure on the tide. He moved almost faster than sight, his sword merely a series of silver, arcing blurs set against against the carapaces of the blackened demons. His hands and feet moved quickly.
Cog took another step forward, twisting the sword out of the stomach of yet another creature as he brought it up to block the claws of another, taking the thing's hands as he brought the blade up and then into its skull.
Cog paused for half a moment to wipe a bit of blood of his face, sidestepping a lunging creature. He cursed and brought the blade back up, setting up a cut that would split the demon through the middle...
The demons ran into the adventurers, and were split like tide against a rock, rushing in from all sides and around the trapped adventurers. Cog's strikes made gaps in the demon line, while the things had serious difficulty getting close to Aisha with the barrier and Gar for her guard. Keaton was swinging wildly and responsible for largely all of the flying bodies, Rynkura shredded creatures with darts of light and toward the back Stygian was pushing the line with a flurry of attacks from maws, claws and tentacles.
'Back up! Follow me!' the bat shouted, barely audible over the horrid screeches and vile voices roaring for the adventurers' blood. Struggling forward, he snarled horridly and swept out his wings, throwing a pair of things away, before throwing out a mass of darkness that swirled and twisted, before congregating into humanoid shapes. The next moment the bat was fighting alongside two seething shadowy copies of himself, trying as well as he could to drive the beasts back, blurring and slashing. Ever so slowly, the group advanced back down the hall.
Bal normally would take a swipe at the bat for trying to tell him to stop hitting things for any reason. However, there was kind of a lot of demons. He yanked the end of the axe out of one creature and whirled around to bury it in another, some spindely thing with too many arms for comfort. Too many arms that still tried to grasp at and choke him as they fell from its shattered body.
THEY'RE TOUCHING ME!
Bal didn't like that. Anything that touched him when he controlled Jeremiah's body decayed, and he HATED it. He hated that slimey, musty sensation of something aging rapidly as it came in contact with any part of his (borrowed) bare skin. With a yelp, the flames that ignited along Jeremiah's spine leaped up, and soon there were dusty demonic particles drifting around him. He swung his axe into another demon with as much force as he could. "Don't @#$%in' touch me..." he muttered, glaring at the beast he'd already chosen as his next target.
Among the swarming mass of incoming demons and monstrosities, Keaton was, along with the others, fighting for her life.
Malodorous teeth and bloodthirsty claws nicked and grazed at Keaton's body as she flung, swung, and maneuvered Catastrophe this way and that, its great spiked head slamming and crashing into demon after demon. Limbs were snapped like twigs, bones were splintered into shards, ribcages collapsed, blood burst in ruptured veins--the carnage never ended, each corpse or mutilated cadaver or half-dead abomination that sailed through the air a testament to every sacrificed second.
Beneath the pounding and pulsing of Keaton's blood rushing in her own ears she barely--just barely--heard Stygian shout for them all to follow him. Her head snapped in his direction just as the two demons which had tried to latch onto him were sent flying by a sweep of his wings. Shortly after, with a seething and writhing of the darkness surrounding him, he had crafted himself a pair of duplicates to accompany him through the fighting, possibly confirming that it was relatively safe to use some degrees of Dark Magic. So she hoped. She wasn't willing to take that chance and end up being another useless waste again.
Right now Keaton, for once, wasn't getting any entertainment in this sort of fighting. Her life was actually on the line. Now wasn't the time to be overconfident. Growling slightly under her breath, she grit her teeth and pursued the three Stygians, keeping Catastrophe at the ready. One more demon--a vile, foaming monstrosity, a four-legged beast with leathery, taut skin and razor-sharp claws--launched itself at her, preparing to sink its teeth into her skull.
It never got the chance. The second it entered Keaton's range she had swung Catastrophe about, obliterating the upper half of the creature's body with a soundless swipe. And there was no time to enjoy that insignificant victory. All she could do was keep on going as she fought her way after Stygian.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
As Stygian began to move forward, Cog caught the bat's voice floating over the sounds of battle - taking just a moment to push another Imp off his sword with his foot, the Wolf bounded backwards and began to run for it. The wolf trailed blood behind him, his sword fairly painted in the stuff, and the wolf stepped carefully to avoid slipping on the suddenly wet floor.
Jeremiah seemed to be making a time of it. One of Cog's eyes widened as he saw about three or four demonic arms simply disintegrate after touching him, and the wolf made a mental note to ask the art teacher about that later. Slightly distracted, he almost sidestepped a slashing pair a claws too late, the Iaidouka refocusing and bringing the blade up and sideways, leaving a deep gash in the thing's torso before cutting down through the thing diagonally.
Cog kept his eyes on the bat in front of him, moving forward as quickly as he could in hopes of outrunning the demons behind him, while keeping himself on his toes and preparing to fight the demons in front of him...
The line wavered, but never faltered. The adventurers suffered gashes and rips in already bloodstained and shredding clothes and stinging burns, yet managed to somehow drive the demons before them. It went on for what seemed like an hour, yet could not have been more than a few minutes, before the things stopped coming right out of the walls and the torn and battered group looked down the hallway leading straight to the chapel. Yellow and red eyes backed away from them into the dark, keeping watch like wounded wolves eying equally wounded but still struggling prey.
Finally stopping, Stygian leaned back into an alcove, shrugging the last remaining pieces of his shirt and tightening the wrappings around his feet. He was panting, something they had never seen him doing before. '
There's the chapel,' he said heavily, his face still locked in a snarl and one arm, gun in hand, resting against the statue standing in the alcove. '
This close. There's got to be something guarding him down there...' The idea of just what sort of sentinels the old man could have summoned were what had made Stygian stop in the first place. Darkness was his element entirely, but the rest of the group...
'
How... how are we?' the bat asked after a short pause, looking back at the others. Everyone else seemed at least as wearied as he. And everyone was wounded. Even Mel's draconian hide had not been able to completely stop the creatures' claws. Keaton had suffered a gash over her cheek and her swing arm dangled as she leaned on her mace, and with her being a brawler her top and the fur on her arms was shredded and stained red. Gareeku was looking even worse for wear than before, exhausted both from spells and sword-swinging. Aisha was just plain bad off, and Jeremiah, though tired, looked as if he was about to have a mental breakdown, a strange, sharp-toothed grin on the frog's bloodstained face. The only one who had escaped losing what looked like half their fur and clothing was Rynkura, and even she had not gone unscathed.
With a panicky yelp and a crying, unintelligible plea, the little girl or whatever she was put her hands up over her eyes, stumbling back in the face of Bambi's light. Then, just when the solar flare seemed to reach its peak, another shriek split the air, a shriek easily audible to anyone nearby and which drifted down even to the ones fighting their way forth in the hallway down below. The air seemed to ripple away from the girl, and the shining light wavered and flickered as if it were a lit candle being robbed of oxygen.
'
YOU ARE A MEAN LADY!' the little thing called out, and the next second Bambi felt as if she were struck with an iron rod in the stomach.
Ian wouldn't get a chance to remeber that rule, for the girl's scream made his ears ring. "GAAK!" He clutched his ears and fell to the ground. Unfortunately ground was a relative term, and proceeded to tumble down the stairs to the next floor.
The strike to her stomach pushes the fae back. Bambi stumbles back into a whirlwind fall to her butt . Her ball of light falls from her hands and lands behind her. The Fae's light magic sphere, now, fades from a Sunburst to a just bright torch of light which lights a circle just the 6 feet across. Bambi scrambles to reach it as it lays just beyond her paw tips.
PBH
As soon as the fighting ceased, Gareeku looked at the darkness, panting heavily as the grip on his sword did not soften. Looking over his shoulder at Aisha, he could see that she was alright. With his main concern put to rest, the wolf wiped the worst of the blood from his face before looking around to check on everyone else. It seemed that they all were injured in some way or another. Even Rynkura had not escaped injury-free.
To Rynkura, this was an epic massacre that would go down in the better annals of her long memory. Her ears caught nothing but the sounds of pain and fighting. It looked nearly impossible to drive the demons back...but, the adventurers must have been blessed with luck even here...for ever so slowly they were. The tigress just kept her concentration on blasting the monsters out of her way, alternating between dart lacerations and bouts of lightning magic...if they were not inside, she would have evoked some of her earth spells as well.
An entire arsenal of spells that she wished to release against every single one of them...just...to...get...through! The warriors pushed onward for what seemed like hour upon grueling hour, though sometimes Rynkura stopped to keep Aisha in sight. Perhaps the sun would shine through the windows when they were done...
And then, just as the battered group seemed to be on the edge of their own limits, the throng stopped hounding them and just backed away...not entirely continuing, not entirely retreating...just hovering, like the predators they were. The healer could finally catch her breath and look upon the others. All were quite worse off, and though she was still standing, Rynkura stopped to gaze upon a few gashes that had been put in her arm and on her back.
"The chapel..." she echoed, noticing Stygian's hesitance. They weren't going to confront this evil without having a portion of fight left in them. It felt like torture...healing, fighting, and healing everyone again, just to fight again. She shook her head, and with one wave of her hand, the barrier was replaced...this time to everyone who'd have need of it...just temporarily so that the light magic around it could replenish a tiny bit of strength. And then, the tigress turned back for Aisha, who had stumbled out of her spot in a tired effort to keep up.
Her barrier had held well, but at this point, the panthress just looked profoundly tired once more. Having to watch her comrades battle through a horde of demons, she was shaken, torn between hiding and aiding...her resolve not yet regained. Rynkura turned and helped her up. "Can you walk?"
At this, Aisha murmured something unintelligible and dropped to her knee, quivering. Noting that Gareeku looked more than exhausted himself, Rynkura decided to take the burden for the time being, and took Aisha onto her back...though she could only hold on about the tiger's shoulder with one arm.
"You have my thanks for keeping her, sir Manoko," she nodded to the wolf, and then looked around. "Well, we're alive," Rynkura sighed. "Now what...I could probably go back and look for that enchanted blade if you think it might be needed. It would be easy." Her eyes narrowed. "A respite would be wise, if the chapel can provide that. Unless the urgency is too great..."
The Angel didn't know what to think at that point. Demons from Hell having come from the direction of a chapel...it wasn't just an invasion, it was serious, if a place normally considered for sanctuary was lost.
Leaning against the wall, Cogidubnus looked terrible, even by the standards of battle - moreso than he should have been, really. His coat and hat were entirely gone, and some of his hair had gone along with it, the silver locks looking as though a deranged barber had taken a pair of rusty shears to them. His fur was mostly intact, but his clothing, where it wasn't simply simply gone, was covered in holes and patches.
Strangely, though, much of the gore that had previously slicked the wolf seemed to be missing.
Cog's face was twisted in grim displeasure, wiping his sword clear of blood with a scrap of black cloth in one hand. He looked up at Sebastian's inquiry, raising an eyebrow.
"Doing -rather- well, thanks." he said dryly, throwing the now-smoking cloth to his feet.
Fucking God she hurt.
Strangled breath after strangled breath escaped Keaton's lungs as she slumped heavily against the handle of Catastrophe, using the elongated, sturdy pommel as leverage to support her haggard and hurt body. Shocking as it was, despite the weightlessness of Catastrophe and her experience in berserker methods of fighting, she did have limited stamina and she could grow unbearably exhausted, especially when there were so many foes that needed to be dispatched in such a relentless supply. Behind the numbness which had gripped Keaton's pendulously hanging arm she could feel the stinging and aching of her torn skin, lacerations scattered around her upper arms oozing blood. The arm with the unhealed and possibly infected gash was sticky with snaking trails of sanguine from her previous injury, the dark and brittle layers becoming viscous with secreting rivulets of moisture all over again. Opposite arm wasn't much better, and her clothes were a bloodstained mess at this point.
Keaton heard Stygian speak, inquiring on their general health, and was unable to respond in-between her heaving. Keaton looked around for a moment--everybody else seemed to be just as bad as she was. Fuck, even Stygian looked tired, as he was breathing heavily. Aisha, bereft of one arm, looked pallid and surprisingly vulnerable, especially when her mentor rested her against her back. Gareeku had done an excellent job of keeping Aisha safe, but he was exhausted as well. Cogidubnus was missing his coat and hat (Keaton liked that fucking hat) and his hair was disheveled and uneven. Keaton tasted blood and realized that she had endured a deep gash into the flesh of her cheek, one she didn't dare touch, but the red was dribbling down her face.
"M' fine," Keaton half-muttered, half-slurred unconvincingly. Her organic eye looked slightly mad even in her weariness, the eye-stone's once-fiery glow having died down to a sputtering spark. Dizzy, she stared at the entrance to the chapel. "We're here, ri" - gasp - "right? 'Bout fu..."
She lost her tangent and deteriorated into a few, unintelligible mumblings, eventually ending with, "'feel weird."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian shook his head, and looked down, the gleaming points of his pupils entirely shadowed for a second. He steadied his breathing and took a deep lungfull of air, and then pushed himself to his feet. Walking slowly out of the alcove, he glared into the dark, as if challenging the things within it to come out and die some more. Then he took out his guns, and busied himself with reloading them.
'If we can busy ourselves with healing, I'll take point. I'm not sure how much energy we have left though,' he said after a while, sliding the last magazine into its slot. He snapped the slide releases down, and the slides clacked back into place. 'This is why you usually have potions...' He had to remember making something like that for himself later. Though he felt the darkness all around feeding him, bringing him strength to drive away the tiredness and the wounds every second, going too long for a stretch wore him down as well.
Bal was in fine shape, but Jeremiah's body was showing some fairly obvious signs of fatigue. New holes and rips in the already worn tweed coat, one leg of his jeans torn off at the knee, his hair singed and his hat askew. Any demons claw that came in contact with him hadn't for long, but he had his fair share of gashes and damages; one leg wound, several scratches to the shoulders, and a nick along the bottom of his jaw. Jeremiah'd ache like hell later, but Bal felt great now.
"Eh? And let you have all the fun?" the personae smirked, only realizing a second later how out of character that was for Jeremiah. He quickly cobbled together something a bit less bloodthirsty and a bit more self interested. "You're our resident expert on this stuff, Styggy, if you go down we don't know how the hell to fix this."
Mel didn't think she had ever used as much magic in a whole week as she had in this one battle. While she hadn't quite exhausted her reserves yet she was noticing a lag as she had to dig deeper for each spell. And slowing down meant the monsters got closer. She wasn't badly hurt but scratched up, blue blood staining the grey suede remnants of her favorite coat. She felt the tiniest little drops of condensation starting to bead on her skin and run off her nose as she began to divert power away from the spell to mimic the body temperature of a mammal.
When Stygian called for healing she looked around. Keaton was closest. Without time or finesse for a proper healing Mel just put one hand on her shoulder and a quick stream of healing energy ran through the jackal's body.
Rynkura released a sigh as she observed the bat, busily taking the opportunity they had of peace to reload his guns while he recomposed himself. With a hum, the tigress looked around. Mel already had started tending to Keaton's wounds, and she was one of the more seriously injured...that just left the two wolves and frog. Jeremiah (or whomever he was at the moment...the sudden change in personality had somewhat intrigued the tiger) wasn't much worse for wear than Gareeku was...the warrior was still standing, but marred. That left Cogidubnus, who looked much like he had walked out of a whirlwind of teeth, claws and blood...virtually what had happened, really.
She then decided to start making herself useful...true, most of the energy that came out of fighting had left her a little depleted...but thankfully, if her body couldn't call up magic, then there was plenty in her staff. As Rynkura gently set Aisha against a portion of the wall, the weary panther watched her mentor with half-lidded eyes as she spoke. "I want you to try and see if you can stand. If you cannot, then rest...do not waste your energy...not yet."
Aisha simply nodded her assent after a pause, and nearly fell over when she tried to put her weight on a nonexistent arm to stand up. With a growl and some effort, the panthress tried to get up on a less-than sturdy left arm.
Meanwhile, Rynkura caused her relic to glow and the air right around it to fill with an aura of strengthening, and turned to inform the group. "Those near the staff should recover their stamina somewhat quickly...Mel, Gareeku, and Aisha have all been within the effect, so they should vouch for it. And as for potions," she answered in response to Sebastian's comment with a chuckle. "I more often rely on magic. There are many kinds of medicines for many kinds of Creatures and Beings, and you never know if an ingredient may prove deadly to one when it is lifesaving to another..."
The tigress then reached into a hidden satchel and pulled out a small, pyramidal glass vial with a substance that swirled in shades of red and glowing white-blue. "This is a catch-all I have managed to make for only the most dire of emergencies...made with plants so rare that if you ask any alchemist in Furrae about them, they will say they have gone extinct. It is exceptionally hard to remake. So for now, magic should do." With that, Rynkura slipped the vial back into its pocket and set about to healing as best she can herself, first with Cogidubnus, then Gareeku, and then a quick check with Keaton and Mel.
Aisha, meanwhile, had managed to just crouch on her feet with the hand to the floor...just balancing herself. But her eyes were narrowed; not in concentration, but extreme thought.
Too delirious and concerned with her own unintelligible mumblings to notice Mel's approach, Keaton remained barely upright by bracing herself against Catastrophe, eventually closing her eyes slightly when her world unexpectedly somersaulted right before her eyes. Fortunately for Mel and Keaton, the spell worked as it was intended to, the cold sensation jolting Keaton out of her blood loss-induced delirium and restoring the lost portion of the mildly infected flesh of her long-neglected upper arm.
"Gah!" Keaton gasped, body instinctually scrambling to a more tidy posture, but considering her bloodstained and bedraggled condition achieving this was impossible. Eyes wild, she stared around, looking as though an electric shock had run through her body.
Keaton glanced over to Mel, still heaving, although with significantly more ease. Thankfully, Mel didn't seem to be as injured as the rest of them, albeit very tired-looking and with sweat budding on her forehead. Nevertheless, seeing the dragon bleeding again wasn't something Keaton was happy to witness. She, despite her exhaustion, tried to display some amount of gratitude in her smirk. "T-Thanks. I needed that."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Stygian turned around, and for a moment he simply stared confusedly at Jeremiah. There was no doubt. Something had happened to the frog. There was something seething right through him, like a rank stench or a creeping, boiling feeling to Stygian's senses. And considering the state of things...
Almost as if he ignored Mel and Keaton's exchange, and Rynkura's most important words, the bat stepped slowly closer, before with a final stretch he grasped the frog around the neck and lifted him from the ground, both by neck and shirt. He gasped silently, and for a second his hand quivered as he felt the putrefying power seep through it. Then it steadied. Whatever corruption had affected the demons somehow didn't touch Stygian.
'Right. But maybe some things have to be fixed before to minimize the danger,' the bat hissed, narrowing his eyes as he looked up at the amphibian. 'Like whatever the fuck is up with you.'
Things were good. Things were REAL good. They probably bought that bit about worries about conscequences. Now the big funny-looking one was coming over and WHAT THE HELL-!?
"S-Stygian!?" Bal wheezed, dropping the axe to scrabble at the hand as he flailed his legs about a foot off the floor. "Whaddya talking about! I-" He wheezed and chocked more.
Why isn't he dead yet? From what he could tell, the man was practically hemmoraging energy. Bal turned up the effects until the man before him should have been a smoking, sparking mound of slush, but nothing!
"Nothing's u-up..."
The bat's eyes narrowed another step, and he bared his teeth, before he shook the frog back and forth violently. 'Stop that shit!' he growled, and then threw Jeremiah to the floor. He pulled his other gun out with his left hand, and then stepped over, putting his foot on the still shocked man's chest and lowering the barrel until it was aligned directly with Jeremiah's forehead.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Stygian growled again. 'I don't know what the Hell is up, and that irritates me greatly. But I can tell that it ends right here,' he said down at the frog, his voice at its coarsest and cruelest pitch. 'We've already had one problem like this. We are not going to have another. So even if I can't do anything against you directly, you can be sure that if you so much as make a comment meant to go against us, I won't stop until you are a smear on a wall. Got it?!' He silenced and went completely still, the dark barrel almost pressed to Jeremiah's forehead and not so much as trembling.
In the Music Hall.
The fae just reaches her light ball with her hands as the demon kid attacks with long claw hands....
PBH
"Get him away from me!" Bal shrieked, putting as much fear as he could into his voice. C'mon, let's see... Ventriloquism spell, ventriloquism spell, aha!
"And how will you explain to the rest of them..." Something said next to Stygian's ear, too quietly for anyone else to pick up on, "Why you killed me? Because you sensed some spell that nobody else picked up on?" The quiet little voice laughed softly, approaching something closer to Bal's real voice, "Who're they gonna believe? A killer, or their own eyes telling them you held a gun to my head while I begged you to stop?"
"Please, somebody!" The thing using Jeremiah's body wept openly, horrified, "Get him away!"
The bat didn't flinch for a second. And his mouth didn't move. But somehow, Bal could almost feel something creeping up next to Jeremiah's ear. Or perhaps it was another trick of the darkness.
'Who of them would stop me?' a double-edged, fiendish voice whispered to the frog, only vaguely recognizable as Stygian's darker one. 'Who could? They are dependent on me. I am their eyes through this darkness, their one guide. What I see is what matters, and if they haven't thought of it, they still realize it deep down.' The bat, the thing, took a pause. And Bal thought that he could see the slightest quirk to his lips. 'You on the other hand are naught but a burden.'
The next moment seemed to creep by, achingly slow, before Stygian spoke again.
'What's it going to be?'
Ketefe received the greater brunt of the girl's shriek, clapping her hands to her ears and yelping in pain. She forgot her own pain, though, when she watched Ian topple down the stairs.
"OhmygodIAN!" she yelled, running as fast as she safely could without tripping herself. Oh God.. he was already injured before. What if he's broken a rib or hit his head? Pray he's all right...
She finally ended up kneeling beside him, breathless. "Are you *pant* all right? *pant*"
"You're not dumb enough to think in such short terms and I'm not dumb enough to think you are. I've fought alongside the others; that's their most recent impression, and they'll remember that. Hell I've done more good for you than Jeremiah has anyway. And when you guide them out of this, when they don't need your eyes, they'll remember that you killed me, Sebastian. Stygian. He who left a woman lying open in an alleyway, wounds steaming up into the night.
But if you're just going to throw such a fit if you don't get your way..."
"I'll admit I'm... Not exactly the guy you're familiar with," Bal chuckled, and scratched the back of his head, "But really, I only want to help," the personae mostly-lied. He often had many things on his mind other than philanthropy, but in this case he was on their side, "And you gotta admit," now there was that slightly more honest grin, "I've been going through demons like paranoia through common sense. It really so bad, having me around for a while?"
When Ketefe reached Ian he was curseing more than an irish sailor. When he'd settled down he answered. "I think I'll be-" he started getting up "Oi! Fine. Dunno what to make of this though." He lifted his hand and his pinky was broken and dangleing by the flesh of the first knuckle. if he held his hand level and on it's side his pinky would point straight to the floor. "Come on then. We need to grab my stuff and find the others. No doubt we can do more than be space fillers."
Ketefe made an appropriately grossed-out face at Ian's broken finger before nodding in agreement with the rat."I guess so. But I wouldn't do anything with that hand for a little bit. I don't know how to set broken bones, so unless you do, we should wait for a convenient time to get that fixed." By convenient, Ketefe partially meant if the others aren't busy healing their own injuries or the injuries of others. Hoping that everyone was safe (but doubting it), she straightened up and looked back at Ian.
"So where's this detour you mentioned? Or did we just take it?" She suppressed a smirk at that. Not the time to be joking...
'You?' Stygian said, raising his left eyebrow a bit. 'Oh, yes. You. That.' He felt a fang with his tongue for a second, then slowly stood up and lowered his gun. 'My point still stands, whoever the Hell you are,' he hissed, and then turned, pacing back toward the other end of the corridor, against the chapel.
Then, while he walked past, Stygian looked to the side and over the others. 'Good, Ryn. We appreciate it,' he said, as if he had just heard the tigress' words. 'Let's just hope we don't have to use it.'
"I'm guessing....yes?" Ian looked down the hall "Ah! Definately yes!" He ran up to and in heis room long enought to get his belt. then he made for the hallway where he last remembered that spider wench. There they were two gleaming firearms, but before they could get to them two shadows gooped out of the wall foarming two of the weaker shadows. "hey Ketefe let's see of they'll work." Ian took a clip out of one of his belt's pockets and poped out a UV round. He smacked it's butt end against a wall to activate it. and tossed it at the shadows.
Mel took advantage of the momentary break to pull more magical power into her reserves, giving her easier access to it when the fight resumed. She saw the scuffle break out between Stygian and Jeremiah and wondered what was going on, but it was over before she could figure out what was happening. She did hear the bat say that Jeremiah needed fixing and wondered if he had been taken over by a denizen of hell as Ketefe had. But after a moment Stygian just turned and walked away so the dragon hoped she was wrong. A traitor in the ranks was the last thing they needed. She did put an ice spell to hand, just in case.
Cog raised an eyebrow at the sudden interlude between Sebastian and Jeremiah, the wolf almost on the verge of saying something, but not quite. Something -was- wrong with the little frog. He had seen things simply crumble to dust merely touching him - last he knew, that wasn't something Jeremiah could do.
He stayed silent, however, too tired to do anything at the moment. They seemed to be working it out. He simply stood in the light of Rynkura's staff, feeling the healing energies suffuse his body, and almost drowsed to sleep against the wall. His light head seemed to gain a bit of strength back to it, as did his arm. He didn't feel quite like a piece of jelly anymore.
He slid his sword back into the sheath at his side. At least his belt hadn't been eaten away. That really would have put him in a bad position.
As soon as the wolf started feeling stronger, he pushed himself off the wall, and sighed. Sebastian started pacing down the corridor towards the chapel, and tapping the side of his head, the wolf started following him.
He kept his hand on his sword hilt, his ears perked.
The slow, deliberate but decisive walk down the hallway toward the chapel entry seemed more like the last steps down death row to Stygian, and it was quite visible. The gloom and dark of the castle seemed to cling even deeper to the bat, as if he were walking in a faint shroud of murky black. It wasn't something detrimental - actually the gloom and the dark brought him strength. Yet as always it was something that came at the cost of taint and an inner darkness as deep as that without.
'
Let's... get going here. Before we regret it,' he said wearily, just audible back through the corridor.
The fluid, ghastly things formed out of the darkness hissed and immediately came darting over the floor against Ian, half loping and half slithering across the floor like some viscous gas that had arbitrarily decided on taking on the shape of fangs and claws at times and snarl while it did. The things were halted in their tracks though by a blue light, the only visual part of the burn of the UV-charges, the first one hissing and being burned until it was seen no more, the other leaping back out of sight with an unpleasant sound. Being as small as it was, the UV round didn't last long though, and in just a few seconds the creature was back, slipping out from behind a corner and darting against Ian like a black Mamba.
The little girl was ferocious, even though in her anger she was still crying as if in pain and left alone without any hope whatsoever. That was most probably her situation, actually. And she seemed to want to take out her pain on the fae as well. When she was thrown back, and burned with the light, she let out another terrible shriek that made Bam's head tremble, the light flicker and every piece of metal and glass in the hall whine and quiver.
'I HATE IT! I HATE IT!' she howled. 'YOU DESERVE IT ALL!'
Mel took a deep breath and followed the bat and the wolf down the hall. She was shivering and obviously couldn't blame it on cold. Even Stygian seemed exhausted. She made her feet move before nerves pinned her to the spot and kept her from traveling through the clinging shadows. Out of the frying pan into the fire.
All the while contemplating bloody vengance on the bat, Bal gathered up his axe and followed the others.
Real prone to sticking up for ya, this lot is. I thought they liked you?
Shaddap Bal, I know what you're up to.
Entering the chapel was like entering another world. Their first visit had been bad, but now it really seemed that they were on the very doorstep of Hell, a sensation most familiar from their venture into the faux world of the painting before. The cracked columns stood tall and shadowed and the statues hovered dark and intimidating around them, hard and uncaring as the stone they were crafted from and tall as giants. By comparison Stygian seemed small as a child as he walked in, the whiteness of the fur on his bare torso tinted gray and amber by the light streaming from candles and the ghastly glow beyond the windows.
The bat stopped halfway down the midship, tightening his grip on the dark pistols in his hands and standing tall.
'Come on out, Asmodai! I know you can hear me!' he called to the dark. His voice seemed to disturb the great hall, and when the echo died down a stillness more dead and silent yet somehow also more tense than before gripped the chapel.
'Be still, you filth!' The sudden growl of a voice seemed to shake the very bones of those present, even though it seemed so distant. 'I have not the time for you. You will wait. Then I shall deal with you and your "friends".'
With the help of her staff, Rynkura's process of healing was fairly quick. The others were quickly regaining some of their strength, and with any luck she certainly hoped the potion wouldn't come to be used. Sometimes she would glance back at Aisha, who was still in a crouched position on the floor, nearly standing; at least the panther had stopped quivering.
During the respite, she hadn't been inclined to pay too much attention to Stygian's words...not until they turned harsh and he had suddenly whirled on the strange frog. Rynkura followed everyone else's gaze to the spectacle as the bat had him by the throat, and then, a gun pointed to his head. And all the while, Jeremiah had a look that was unreadable as he spoke back...the tigress felt like jumping in to stop the banter...but it ended swiftly enough and left a strange air surrounding the frog.
Soon, things still went back to the intensity in the air that it had before, with a bit of a difference. Sighing, Rynkura shook her head and passed Jeremiah with a bit of a cautionary look. Then, she looked at the others as they started to leave, and picked her staff from the floor after those who needed to use it, did. And finally, she turned to her student, expectantly. "Well?"
Aisha was silent as she pushed herself up on her good arm...she was wobbly on her legs, but she was quick to try regaining her balance. There was a dark, dangerous look in her eyes. It seemed her resolve had returned...but it was hard to tell what she was thinking...that is, until she spoke. "Let me...at...the demons...my friends won't...fight without me..."
The tigress shook her head. "You won't be fighting just yet. Don't waste your energy on anger. Just focus on making your muscles work again. You'll be protected." And with that, she started along with the others, slow enough for her to catch up. And slowly, she did, walking and lightly stumbling as well. Silent and slightly withdrawn, while still holding Gareeku's cloak close around her otherwise shirtless form, she kept near to him, and to Rynkura as she looked forward to where they were walking.
The chapel...where it all started...why the hell...did we come here...?
But its appearance when they arrived, so radically different than when it was before, started shaking her to the very core again, making the panther duck her head...as it nearly did Rynkura when a dark voice answered Stygian's call. She gripped her staff tightly, ears pinned to her head as she regarded the bat, and looked forward again. "Asmodai...?" she muttered.
Quote from: Stygian on October 10, 2007, 06:40:30 PM
The little girl was ferocious, even though in her anger she was still crying as if in pain and left alone without any hope whatsoever. That was most probably her situation, actually. And she seemed to want to take out her pain on the Fae as well. When she was thrown back, and burned with the light, she let out another terrible shriek that made Bam's head tremble, the light flicker and every piece of metal and glass in the hall whine and quiver.
'I HATE IT! I HATE IT!' she howled. 'YOU DESERVE IT ALL!'
"There There Kit, No one deserves this more than you " Says Bam softy... The child hits and beats the Fae. The ball of light magic shatters into tiny sprites and stars. Bam stands takes to blows, then she hugs the raging child to herself as the tiny sprites and stars start orbiting around them and start to brighten.
The Fae heals herself and the child as they are enveloped by a light sphere.
"Come Child, You are loved and you are not alone anymore" said the shining Fae.
PBH
The 'thing' jumped Ian biteing his right forearm. It's putrid serraded teeth ripping a lot of flesh off the bone. "HELP ME! GET THIS THING OFF ME!"
Ketefe followed Ian to the hall, smiling when she saw his guns. Good. Now we're both competent. But before they could retrieve the guns, a pair of black, shadowy demon-creatures slithered out of the wall. Ketefe cringed and took a step back at first, but quickly narrowed her eyes, drew her sword and took an attack stance. Ian lobbed a UV round at them, and it worked for a moment - but then they shook it off and began to attack the rat, rendering his forearm to a bloody massacre.
"Shit!" the feline hissed. She wasted no time in darting over to the vicious creatures and slicing at them quickly, nimbly avoiding causing Ian any damage.
Ian was a smart boy even though he didn't look the part. While Ketefe swung away, Ian remained still as he could. She hit the creature on him and it took most of his flesh off that arm. When all was clear he grabbed both his guns in a quick sweeping action with his left arm and ran back to and past Ketefe. "Come on! I have to stop the bleeding then we have to get to our friends!" Ian was being carried by more than adrenaline. He was able to shut out most of the pain by focusing on how he needed to help his new friends, even at the cost of his body if need be. That wouldn't be neccessary though as Mel and Rankura could probably heal him. Well at least he hoped so. Even so, he did feel dizzy and a little cold.
'You've had a thousand years of time, grandfather. There will be no more waiting now,' Stygian hissed back at the voice, slowly walking forward and scanning between and behind the columns on each side with his gaze.
'I will not answer to a lowly creature as you. Destroy him!' the voice responded, and immediately a gust of wind ran through the chapel, extinguishing the lights and plunging it into almost complete darkness.
After re-sheathing her sword and taking a few breaths, Ketefe sprinted down the hall after Ian. "WAIT! If there's one thing I know, it's how to stop bleeding!" She slowed a little as she pulled off her mask. "If you stop a second, maybe you won't collapse before we reach the others!"
Bal wasn't too worried by the imagery before him, the pale and dischivelled bat standing in the dark and cavernous architectural feat that was the Chapel. He spent most of his mind in Jeremiah's head, and one really doesn't want to meet anyones subconscious in a back alley late at night. The voice from the shadows, similar and yet not to the bat's own...
And then the lights went out. FUCK!
Bal had no problem with what he'd seen, but in this sort of situation it was best to see SOMETHING. He readied the axe and opened Jeremiah's eyes wide as they adjusted to the light.
"Alright, what the hell are we looking at here?" He said, half question to whoever knew the answer and half thinking aloud.
Unnerved as she was by Stygian suddenly lifting Jeremiah off of the ground and menacing him with his pistol in-between their virulent exchange, Keaton found that she was too encumbered by her agitating lack of fervor and residual dizziness to intervene. Around her nobody else reacted in the frog's defense, perhaps reflective of how noticeable his previous, mercurially altered disposition was in the midst of battle. Most wouldn't have assumed Keaton had noticed, but at the end of the bloodshed, when she was teetering in and out of collapsing, she had witnessed his unstable expression which could be exhibited only by a madman. She couldn't think much of it at the time, but now, as she was struggling to regain all memories which had drifted out of the sieve of her delusion-hazed mind, she was reminded.
Keaton recalled Jeremiah being possessed by the spiders, and pondered if one of those insidious arachnids had latched onto the amphibian again. He was with the suspiciously absent Sal, after all. But if that were the case Stygian would've destroyed the spider by now, she suspected. Either way, the confrontation ended without relative violence, although both participants looked rather ruffled. All attention was diverted to the entrance of the chapel.
Whether they liked it or not, they were proceeding into the heart of Hell itself.
Keaton chose to use every step she took to restore some of her exhausted energy and increase awareness of her surroundings, especially as they progressively grew darker and darker, as though the corruption was creeping onto every inch and corner of the Castle. Amber firelight, produced in flickering fumes around the dark and desolate chamber, served as the only illumination, as sparse as it was, providing the only contrast against the disgustingly vile darkness. How Keaton could call darkness, her weapon of choice and magical element, with such revilement, was initially appalling to her, but it soon became understandable. Nothing was sacrosanct here. Especially not the shadows.
That horrid voice spoke, thundering against Keaton's eardrums. Gripping Catastrophe tighter, Keaton braced herself, teeth clamping together like an ivory beartrap and eyes sweeping with uncertainty around the dimly-lit chamber, only for what little light that was afforded to extinguish, dying against the gust of wind that inexplicably sped past. Normally Keaton would be able to see in the darkness. But there was something sinisterly wrong with this, as though it had muffled her magically-endowed ocular replacement. Against her better judgment, Keaton could clearly remember a passage she had read a while back: it seemed appropriate.
...And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ian stopped and turned around. "I'm looking for a room to do this in. These halls feel. um... tight. Yeah, tight. Oh man, i feel sick." He was trying hard not to look at the wound, and even harder to stop it from gushing. He was failing at both, very badly. "Hay um, sorry for putting you through this....I..oh, I know I'm more of a hasstle than it's worth. Damn I'm gonna need new clothes when it's all done." His mind was wandering.
Ketefe listened to Ian ramble as he was rapidly losing blood. Any more and he'd probably faint. "Okay. You need this. Now."
She untied the mask, which was still knotted, and retied it tightly around Ian's upper arm, about an inch from the actual wound. She wrapped it around his arm twice before doing the actual knot. Can't afford to take chances at this point.
"That's the best I can do for now," she said, rubbing her eyes once to get used to having no mask on. "C'mon. Let's keep going, and hope that we find the others while you're still conscious." She walked to his other side and slipped her arm under his, supporting his weight in case he really did faint.
When the lights blew out and plunged them deeper into the malignant darkness Mel hurriedly created a large ball of light and tossed it upward. It settled into a gentle bobbing float in nearly the location that the chandelier had formerly occupied before the earlier battle. It seemed a puny firefly in relation to the consuming darkness.
Ian worked at loading his UV clips as Ketefe led him in the direction of the others. When he had one loaded he handed the gun to Ketefe. "Just in case." He said with a slight smile.
The darkness lasted for a few, fateful seconds. Mel lifted her illuminating orb above them, casting light out from precisely amid and above them. And then it was as if the hair on their bodies lifted with it. Something seemed to fizzed out there, in the darkness beyond the faces of the statues.
A flash of light exploded in the middle of the group, and then they were violently hurled to the sides, splintered stone stinging them and sparks leaping for a second before disappearing. Something moved like an invisible stormcloud through the dark, trails of purplish light arcing off it.
Somewhere to the right, Stygian's guns exploded into a series of flashes and fiery streaks of bullets tore through the air. 'Change of plans!' he shouted, though only Cog and Jeremiah could hear it. 'Spread out! Do not bunch up!'
"Ah hell," Bal muttered, propping himself back up with the long handle of the axe. It was dark, and he could barely see a damn thing, and he didn't know half the magic Jeremiah did so he couldn't even light the place up. He held the axe with the blade fairly far from him, swishing and probing in the darkness for whatever they were up against. By some marvelous stroke of luck he didn't hit any of his allies.
Wait, did something just move?
Where?
I'm not the only one using the eyes! Check!
You keep focusing on one thing or an- wait, THERE!
Where?
THERE! There was a slight nudge, like a fly trying to push your head out of the way. Dammit Bal, use my eyes!
Where are you trying to direct- oh.
Yeah. Oh. That sums it up, you freaking idiot.
Watch it, you little fuckwit. I can get you back. Oh how I can do that. Permanently break your hands, put out your eyes, sign us into an institution next time I'm in charge-
And go through life as a blind, handless invalid whenever you'd try to take over?
Silence.
You're just a blunt instrament, Bal. Don't try to do the thinking.
It really was interesting, how easily they traded roles.
Bal ground Jeremiah's teeth and backed away from the THING, crouching by one of the columns. It moved, Bal sped up.
"I see it! It's-!"
It had already moved, purplish trail fading away.
"FUCK!"
After the room had fallen into almost complete darkness, Rynkura had no more time to think about this entity before them...whose voice was drenching the atmosphere and the minds of the adventurers down to the core of their soul with uncertainty and fear. The chapel was the heart of this hell, and the creature its composure, she was sure of it.
At least the felids and others of nocturnal nature in the room would regain their eyesight quite quickly...her staff had a natural glow to it; it wasn't enough to cast light onto everyone, but it served for Mel to try taking a sphere of light into her own hands and toss it into the ceiling...where its illumination was only barely up.
The following explosion of light rocked the group off of their feet; even Rynkura was thrown back some, though the claws on her feet and the staff digging into the floor kept her balance. "Damn!" she cursed as Sebastian leaped straight into the fray, guns blazing. She dashed out of the way, hoping to spot this invisible creature coursing its way through the darkness...its form trailed with a glow of purple as the only clue to its existence.
"Aisha!" she called to her student. "Stand back! And take this! That barrier won't be the only thing that must be used to defend you." Quickly, the tigress took the Dragonblade from its position on her sash and tossed it to the panther, who had to switch thinking to her left hand in order to catch it. It wasn't hard physically to stay out of the way...but mentally...
The panther just tried to saunter into the shadows...it was easy, with her fur blending quite well into it. And meanwhile, the tigress's arm was surging with electric magic, and because of a lack of good vision, she tried to pinpoint where the bat's fiery bullet streaks were whizzing...and a white-hot bolt arched like a whip through the air against the thing to hopefully catch it. What is this...?
After a few minutes of the raging child's abuse, Bam had had enough.
"Enough Kit, Stop this, you are not alone. It is time to feel the light."
The sprites and sprinkles of the light magic stop orbiting around them and quickly spears inward. A thousand needles of light magic strike them, and the darkness starts to bleed out of the child.
PBH
With a paling, atonal shriek, the little thing in Bambi's arms began to singe and dissolve. Feeling the very pain of the twisted little thing bleed out and disappear into the air, it was all the feline could do not to tremble.
The moment passed too slow and much too fast for anything important to register to Bam's senses. The vengeful little thing in her arms crumbled and dissolved into flaky darkness and then nothing, and she was left standing in the music hall alone.
Another blast directed right at Stygian shook the hall and sent sparks and dust cascading through the side of the chapel. Both the bat and Cogidubnus had been hurled, the one into a wall and the other against one of the benches to the side. The dark thing still moved between the columns and statues, a floating thunderstorm whose position was only possible to tell due to the crackles of electricity trailing its form like thunder between clouds.
Destroyed... a voice spoke from somewhere.
This household is destroyed. Vengeance will come...
Mel had barely thrown the globe of light into the air when something burst into the middle of their grouping, knocking them about like bowling pins. Coming to a stop by falling over one of the benches broken two days she heard things flying overhead. Peeping a bit over the splintered wood she saw muzzle flashes that had to be Stygian and the purplish streak that had to be what he was aiming at. She flinched a bit from the brightness of Ryn's lightning blast against the darkness of the room, but added a lance of light, laced with ice just for good measure, to the chaos.
With a sudden crack of shattering wood, Cogidubnus was thrown bodily into the benches that lined the small chapel, the pews serving as a rather unforgiving cushion to the wolf. Lying atop a pile of wood, the wolf laid still for a moment, groaning, and then sucked in a breath. He managed to force himself off the wood in time to see Mel and Rynkura's addition to the attack against the strange, purplish entity fly past his head.
Cog bared his teeth. His sword lay just a few feet to the side of him, knocked out of his hands after being thrown into the pews. A small growl on his lips, the wolf stood, and took a deep breath, gathering his feet under himself and standing.
The wolf began to murmur under his breath, and as the sky outside darkened, the wolf began to take a few steps to the side, nearer to his sword. An arc of electricity passed from hand to hand, and a slight gleam sparkled in his eye.
"Let clouds of the mourning, gray-dark day, with glistening blades, strip away..." the wolf intoned slowly, the muffled thundercrack of multiple lightning bolts echoing into the chamber.
The wolf picked up his sword, and holding it out to his side raised his free hand at the purplish, invisible apparition. Blue lightning crackled from the ground and up into the wolf, and after just a moment the wolf flourished his hand again, unleashing the stored power of a dozen bolts of lightning at the thing...
The light needles fly into the Fae, and the glow around the Fae fades leaving the Fae in the dark music hall. With sorrow, Bam falls to her knees, *Gina* she cries silently.
From the comlink spell on Ketefe, Bam now hears the sounds of battle and pain... She is torn between still searching for Gina and go help the bat and her friends.
Bambi sends out one last seeking spell with her yell "Gina, Gina Dearheart Where are you?"
She waits a moment or two listening with her heart and mind for a direction...a place. even just a feeling that Gina is alive...
*waiting*
PBH
It seemed as though the webs and nets of darkness which had been scarcely caging the writhing hell walled behind it vanished after Mel's orb of light had been tossed up into the air, providing a stark, whitewashed illumination which barely chased away the encroaching blackness. It should've been a beacon of hope, some form of light in the darkness, as it were, but instead it just appeared to herald the nightmarish sequence of events which proceeded in breakneck blitzkrieg afterwards.
It began with an explosion.
Everyone was thrown helter-skelter, landing in various uncomfortable positions throughout the chamber. Keaton wasn't sure where everyone else had collapsed, but she herself had been tossed like a rag doll a good distance away, right in the nest of broken and splintered pews adjacent from Cogidubnus's row. Dust and detritus mushroomed in the atramentous air surrounding Keaton's body, Catasrophe clattering off to the side and the jackal herself moaning painfully as the sounds of the ensuing conflict resonated in droning droves on the brim of her peripheral hearing. For a moment Keaton seemed to flicker in and out of unconsciousness, making her wonder, distantly, if she had hit her head in some way, but that pondering vanished when she realized this was mostly just shock.
She hadn't heard Stygian shout, but she certainly heard the gunfire, echoing like thunderclaps. Each individual boom gradually chiseled away at the thick layer of dizziness clouding her brain until it shattered entirely, simultaneous to the moment Cogidubnus had conjured up a series of lightning-lances to fire off at the apparitional opponent. With a feral growl Keaton flung herself to her feet, forcing her body into motion and grabbing up Catastrophe from its discarded position on the floor.
She didn't know if this monstrosity was invulnerable or could be exacerbated by dark magic, but she had to try something. Anything. She wasn't going to be helpless again. Snarling, Keaton swept Catastrophe through the air; crepuscular sparks of convulsing, spasming energy composed within each shred of erratic lightning trailing behind its spiked crown. Between the pikes and spikes covering Catastrophe's head red lightning began to dance, twisting and bending, writhing and warbling together as Keaton whipped Catastrophe around and around again and again over her head, gathering as much collective strength as she could from the darkness surrounding her. Not enough to consider it a shadowy attack, but necessarily, it was a dark-oriented spell.
With a loud, raucous roar, Keaton swept Catastrophe forward and an erubescent-red bolt of electricity leaped in jagged strokes from the mace, arching towards the invisible creature like a demented, fiery serpent, gliding and yet jerking through the air.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The first of the lightning bolts cut through the air, a dazzling arc of supercharged electrons storming toward the darkness so fast that it practically hit in an instant. A roar like a chorus of pained voices, shrieking and moaning, split the chapel and tore at the adventurers' already battered senses. But the thing that had been hit only moved faster, returning the favor with a trio of crackling arcs of its own. They struck the benches beside Cog, threw them up and split the wood in half and made it catch fire. One hit Cog himself and he was torn off the floor, strips of cloth and fur shredding from him before he landed violently on one of the benches.
'Stop! You're...!' Stygian shouted, but it was too late. Keaton unleashed a bolt of energy of her own, less dazzling and speedy but more hellish in its nature and no less powerful. It smashed into whatever it was that prowled around them and sparked off it. Only a short few seconds passed before the thing shot back another rebound of energy at the jackal, a smattering shockwave that passed along the floor and ripped it up before hurling the succubus up and away against a window. She could only scream as the glass shattered around her and she flew, bleeding and shocked, out into the night.
Snarling violently, Stygian threw himself against their dark foe, even as it thrashed and growled, briefly illuminated by the flashes of light that slashed into it but not clearly visible as it sped and dodged in its darkness.
Cog's eyes widened at the bolt bounced back from the creature and towards him, biting off a quick curse before the lightning stuck him full in the chest and launched him backwards, slamming the wolf into the benches behind him. There was a sickening thud as Cog landed, his sword tumbling out of his hand and the wolf falling off the wooden pews bodily. He lay on the ground in a tumble of limbs, unmoving.
A slight groan escaped his lips. That spell by itself took a lot out of the wolf, and combining that with it being reflected back at him, and all the scrapes and scratches and loss of blood he'd suffered already...he coughed once, tasting a bit of blood, and rolled onto his back.
He looked down at himself and groaned again. His shirt had a very nice, rather large hole in it, as did his fur. A few wisps of smoke still rose from his chest, and Cog could smell the nauseating smell of burnt fur. He groaned again, shifting to his feet.
The spell left him too weak to fight, and even moreso that it had hit him, instead of it's target. He managed to find his sword, and taking a deep breath, he pushed himself back to his feet.
He nearly fell again, but by sheer force of will, kept himself upright. He began breathing slowly, and taking a few steps forward, brought his sword up in a defensive position. Arms almost failing, he concentrated on regaining his strength.
You should always finish off an opponent before turning your back on them...
Bal darted behind another one of the columns, barely avoiding being struck by lightning himself. He didn't have that kind of durability.
And then, for an instant, it stopped.
Now, go! Use my eyes, go hit things. Get him! Briefly, the remains of sparks settling around the thing in the darkness. Bal stepped forward once, twice, speeding up into a charge with the axehead low to the ground and far from his center of gravity.
Breakbreakbreakbreakbreak! In, feeling as though he's fighting by proxy. While the others are distracted, he can grab up more of the mind to think.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Bal, you're going to get us all killed! Nex, always so very aware that they inhabited the body of a being, and not the most robust of them.
Go! Take things from him! Mebbe I'll get some treasures! Plic and her kleptomania. As if staring enviously at all the memories all damn day aren't enough, she always has to sink her talons into something.
Don't do this! Do not charge this creature! DO AS I SAY! WHY WONT YOU DO AS I SAY!? Cab. Funny how well they all fit what represents them. That angel, always trying to make others listen.
And the Lunacy, just laughing...
Bal pivoted on the last step, whirling around to put as much inertia as he could behind an upward stroke at this thing he still couldn't see properly. The axe swung upward, a slight snarl escaping between Jeremiah's teeth...
Mel watched in horror as Cog's and Keaton's attacks were reflected back upon them tossing them painfully backwards. The wolf hit with a crack that was hopefully wood and not bone. She was more horrified when Keaton's reflected attack threw her through a window and into the stormy night. She couldn't see that her own attack had done anything at all but at least she hadn't had to eat it. With Stygian now physically assaulting the monster she didn't dare try a second major light attack. A swarm of smaller balls of light buzzed around the invisible beast.
Somehow, it was bloody hard to aim for the thing. There was some sort of darkening shroud, black as the flames that Bal spouted, surrounding the entity, and flickering static stung Jeremiah's skin fiercely as the frog closed in, sweeping around his axe for what would otherwise have been a pretty devastating strike. He felt the edge of the blade nudge against something, and a shock run up his arm. And he saw the thing's eyes, six slitted points arranged almost in a circle, glaring at him. Its voice crackled and fizzed as it howled, and then something swept against the frog, knocking him back.
You are not... relevant to this...! that voice comprised of voices sounded again, and Bal just had time to make Jeremiah dodge a sparking tear of energy that ripped against him, before another practically tripped him and threw him rolling over the floor. Begone!
A series of blasts sounded above him, and then Stygian threw himself over Jeremiah, blackness swirling and almost crackling with energy itself. Sparks and shockwaves that caused the air to ripple flew, turning Mel's flying lights into white trails in the air, and then the bat came flying back out again, thrown headfirst against the benches.
Keaton honestly hadn't expected for her attack to have any positive effect on their invisible adversary. Frankly, after how little her dark-oriented abilities had been utilized throughout their excursion, she was surprised that it had any effect whatsoever.
Unfortunately, it wasn't something she was going to be grateful for.
The first thing she was aware of was Stygian shouting toward her, a sound muffled and garbled over the shrill shrieking of her lightning-lance, not to mention the twisted satisfaction which had inexplicably flared in the simmering cauldron of her stomach. Satisfaction which quickly vanished once realization swung back in and smashed her right in the face, sinking its serrated fangs right into her heart. She had made a horrible mistake.
The very air itself seemed to tense and convulse before Keaton felt her stomach buckle as an irresistible wave of pressure pulverized her, suckerpunching her once, twice, three times in the span of five seconds, utterly disorienting her and flinging her right across the room. For a moment everything spun; the world swung on its hinges in a swirling flurry of colors and sights and sounds and she was vaguely aware of the fact that she was bleeding from the nose, judging by the trickle of copper streaming from her nostrils. Back touched something fragile and cold before it shattered into thousands of glittering fragments, cutting through her skin and creating new wounds and breaking open old ones as she penetrated the window, Keaton's body hurling right out into the darkness.
Only when the pain kicked in and she realized she was falling did she truly scream, not involuntarily like before, but out of pure and bloodcurdling horror.
During her plummet she continued screaming, although no longer out of anger, but in fury at everything. The darkness responded to her call, the night itself seeming to leap out of its tangible barrier and crisscrossing over and over again, weaving and webbing, splotching and spidering as streak after streak of black night materialized. Keaton felt her scream taper off into a groan as her back hit something strangely elastic and she bounced slightly; disheveled head resting against the protection she had created.
Beneath her, suspended in mid-air, she had conjured an immense, corrupted, black spider-web, opaque and ichorous and hideous, a bastardized brother of the masterpieces that their arachnid artists would weave. Heaving and gasping, Keaton twitched where she laid, fists clenching and unclenching. Still, she protectively held Catatrophe in her bloodied grip, having not lost it during her fall.
Keaton was vaguely aware of the fact she was bleeding from various cuts shredding her body, but for some reason it didn't concern her. She just felt tired, feeling the telltale demanding tug of unconsciousness pull at the edges of her mind. She didn't give into it. She resisted. But all she could do was lie on her back and stare up at the dark heavens above her, listening to the sounds of the battle raging inside the castle.
And feel all the more weak.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
It was hard for Rynkura to restrain a curse as her attack, much like the others, either missed the creature or had struck blindly...absorbing electrical potential rather than being hurt by it. This was proven by Cogidubnus's effort as well...but energy only against this transparent threat seemed to be for naught, for even Keaton was thrown back with less than predictable results. In the end it was sending a wave of undeniable power through the room and sending the jackal flying out of a window in a rain of glass.
No, no... the tigress snarled in frustration, trying to keep back as far as possible while Stygian had tried to confront the thing himself...sending her own blasts of light wouldn't do, after that. She had her staff raised in defense, options running through her mind...magic, physical attacks...but in such frantic moments, the healer could find no easy solution...did this thing even have a weakness? Nothing worked! A few pieces of the chapel were already ablaze with this battle, at least sending more light into the ethereally haunting and hell bound room.
Just keep trying...something must do. At least make distractions, she snarled to herself, and let loose her white-magic darts to try lacerating the thing, wherever it was, as soon as Stygian was thrown off.
Aisha meanwhile felt like a coward. She watched her comrades...her mentor...all seemingly fighting the very air itself, while her body frantically tried to gather itself again. Adrenaline, too much of it coursing through her veins already, bunching up her muscles in case she needed to run or to fight...and yet she could still barely move, just clutching the Dragonblade's handle with her opposite hand...aching and forced to only watch, never to help...something she feared and loathed more than anything. What the hell...am I supposed to do? She berated herself while shockwaves jabbed at the castle walls. I have to...I can't...can't...
With all the previous attacks seemingly ineffective the panicked dragon fell back to her strengths. She hurled a lance of freezing cold at the entity and hoped if nothing better it would slow it's rapid movements and leave it open for someone else's attack.
There was a slightly audible 'whush' as Stygian went past. Bal used the axe to scramble to his feet again for another rush.
"Not relevant?" he hissed through Jeremiah's teeth, furious. Not relevant? How dare he!? Some half-witted little twit of a construct has the balls to call ME irrelevant!?
No matter how one looked at it, the personae was at a core, fundimental level a bully. He wanted to be feared. He needed it.
"Not relevant!?" Bal sent his hijacked body in for another charge, powering forward at the last second for a thrust with the spike at the head of the axe. Aim right between the bastid's eyes...
Energy seared and blazed through the air, and much of what Mel threw against the strange thing was merely vaporized. However, after a few seconds it instead began turning into something like a whirling squall, the ice freezing and breaking up in the shroud around the thing at the same time, arcs of lightning jumping between jagged, sharp crystals. The thing howled like a whirlwind, slowing but also changing direction against Mel, closing the distance frighteningly quick. She could see its eyes now, burning with storming fury. Then Jeremiah got in its way.
The prong of the axe jerked hard when the thing's weight hit it, and it howled out. But the one who was hurt was Jeremiah. In an instant, sharp crystals of ice cut into the frog's skin, and a massive jolt of electricity sparked through him and down into the frost-covered floor. The frog jumped with the shock before the thing hurled him aside and thundered on against Mel, and was knocked to the ground, laying unmoving against the foot of a bench. The dragon could feel the static building as it got closer, and though chill trailed it there was also a glowing, searing heat that came from the sheer charge it let out into the air. Mel was an ice dragon, with some of a thunder dragon in her as well. But the thing that closed on her now was so volatile, so raging and so powerful that it intimidated her as much as any storming inferno ever could. One of those bolts through her, and she knew her flesh would sear in seconds. The thing shrugged the darts of light thrown against it by Rynkura, the things too small to shred the thunderclouds of black that still clung to it as it hurtled toward the dragoness, an approaching storm that would swallow her whole.
Having a fairly accurate knowledge of lightning from her cousins Mel knew there was no escaping the attack. For the first, and undoubtedly last, time in her life she chose to take a fight physical. With a release of magic she took her natural form. As she expanded she swept some of the few remaining intact pews aside and vaguely heard the crashing sound as her tail swept one of the stone saints from it's pedestal. She roared at the oncoming monster, traces of her icy breath weapon sparking in the dim light as static charges jumped between the fine crystals. As the monster advanced she lifted her left paw, eight inch claws evolved to tear stone apart fully extended. She chose the left with the practical thought that the charge would hit her heart a moment faster, making this a moment less painful. The dragon slashed out at the beast, a hard slap to it's side. She screamed as the electricity discharged through her, a subsonic bellow that rattled the stones of the castle to the foundations. Twitching, she fell, the sound of nearly a ton of dragon hitting the floor masking the sound she hoped to hear, the rapid deceleration of the monster against the chapel wall. The last thought to flutter from her brain was that she hoped she had done some damage to the guardian. It would be embarrassing as anything if her grandmother investigated this and found out she'd screwed it up. The weakling, ineffectual to the last. Then even regret fled, leaving just random electric shudders, flashes of blue and pink pearlesence running back and forth over the otherwise still white form.
Bam is dishearted that she can locate Gina ny sound or magic, and after a few moments of listening, she knows that Gina is not here. Maybe, once the fae is closer to the Helgate, she will feel the girl.
"Okay, Time to find the others, maybe Gina is there, and maybe she is a hortage"
Bambi actives her comlink with Ketefe. It brighter in her hair, as Bambi creates another buterfly in front of herself. A bell tone is heard where Ketefe is as her butterfly from her hair enlarges as it flys a ways up the hallway.
PBH
Mel's full weight slammed heavily into the floor, making it shudder. And the dragon lay still. The beast she had fought to fend off though, did not, despite its hard impact with the chapel wall. Slowly moving forward, it hovered for a second, seeking a new target. It found one in Aisha and Gareeku.
Hissing and sparking like a broken power line, the beast drew closer to the wolf and panthress. Rynkura and Gareeku were the only fighters left standing. Aisha clearly wouldn't be of any help. She was wobbling at the knees and couldn't even hold her weapon with her favored hand. And seeing the terrible apparition closing with them, flickering bolts reflecting off and hinting at the humanoid shape amid the deathly shadows that surrounded it, she wasn't even sure she could keep conscious. The three unfortunates left felt their skin beginning to sting as the thing came closer, short discharges of lightning coruscating from it and off the floor and columns to its side, intensifying as the thing readied for its final assault. It seemed they were done for.
Suddenly, a dark shape lunged out of the shadows and tackled the fiend, smashing it violently into the wall yet again. The monster shrieked in its many voices again, and immediately began discharging a storm of lightning around it, crackling and ripping. Another voice was added to the screaming.
'KILL IT! KILL THE MOTHERFUCKING THING! NOW!' Stygian roared, holding the thrashing thing in his grip while streams of lightning ripped and lashed through him. He was pulling the shadows that had hidden the thing back somehow, exposing its true form. It was muscular and humanoid, but seemed almost skeletal somehow, with a split lower jaw and six glowing, terrible eyes on the front of its skull-like face. Its long, spindly, talon-like fingers were clawing the bat's skin as it tore and struggled to get out of his grip.
Throughout the whole ordeal, Gareeku had been trying to find some way of harming the thing that they were now up against. He had looked on with gritted teeth as Mel, Keaton and Cogi had all suffered at the hands of this disgusting entity.
Now, however, that thing was caught, held in place thanks to Stygian, and Gareeku was going to make sure that this thing would be vanquished. Holding his brightly glowing katana above his head, the wolf then brought it down in a powerful slash that would cleave right through the entity, from it's shoulder, through where it's heart would be and out the other side at it's waist.
The wolf's slash was heavy with tiredness, but also with strength, and the cut ripped through the creature's body, deep into its torso. It screamed and flailed, howling in that terrible, demonic voice, as a spray of black blood and incandescent particles splashed out and burned the wolf's blade and also his face and arms. Electricity surged everywhere, the horrid creature seeming to burn itself up like a broken fuse as it died.
When at last the lightning died, the room seemed terribly, impossibly dark all of a sudden. The bony, skeletal figure of what was left of the demon was laying to the side, and Stygian lay sprawled on the floor a step away from it. His near-white fur was burned into graying and yellowing shades, black at the tips and edges, and his eyes were closed.
For the Healer, it was all just hard to watch. The creature trailing shadows of purple light was growing stronger in power and menace for each attack that it was given...and tearing back into the chapel with enough force to slightly rip the walls and the floor. Everyone that had gone against it were down for the count...even Mel, now an impressive ice dragon, had her bulk sprawled on the chapel's floors and among the pews. Rynkura had even tried to call up some stronger light magic attacks...all failing.
All except for herself, Gareeku, and Aisha...and like a trained carnivore, the fully-sighted humanoid beast now sensed this and was bearing down upon them...literally crackling and sizzling with electricity all over its form. The panthress had the barrier for protection...but with the stress and blood loss of her previous wounds making her weaker and weaker, still it felt like the discharges were close enough to threaten to stop her heart. Rynkura raised her staff with a dangerous grimace on her face and white magic glowing on her palms...she wouldn't let the beast anywhere near Aisha...nor try to let it harm anyone else.
The wolf seemed to have the same mentality. For in an instant, Stygian the beast held, and the tigress caught the flash of a bright, glowing blade...and in a flash of steel, blood, and lightning, Rynkura only shut her eyes for a moment. She opened them to the corpse, and the blood-stained individual who had vanquished it. Having been in the vicinity of the slaying, her opalescent fur and light blue robe were also partially covered in deep red.
"Brilliant, sir Manoko," she said with a smile, after a hushed breath as the room had fallen dark again...nearly impossibly dark. But the soft glow of Rynkura's staff, and the faint light emitted from Gareeku's blade helped cut through it. Just like Mel had done, the tigress cautiously constructed an orb of light and thrust it upward, just enough to see what the damage was like.
And it wasn't at all good. "Ohh...this battle is going to last an eternity," the tiger murmured. There were many injured to be counted...but she looked for those who were up. "I want someone to try and awaken Sebastian...Keaton needs to return...and I can't do this healing alone. Permit me, and the rest of you try your best to halt your bleeding." Rynkura approached the dragon, looking her large frame over before pressing her hand against her neck. "Good, you're alive..." she sighed, and began to send a good deal of magic through her system...a good deal of energy, but with any luck, the dragon would be awake in a moment. At least she was familiar with the dragon's workings, having healed her once before. Her staff was left on one of the pews once again. She figured she could trust anyone to touch it if they wanted a quick strength boost.
Aisha, meanwhile, looked up and saw the end of the battle, still relieved of Gareeku's presence. She wasn't much help standing around...the light had given her a good view of the injured...but she had but little strength to walk, let alone help them. Her eyes were glazed, and so she sat down on the floor, watching. "Quiero dormir... (I want to sleep...)" she sighed, having replaced the Dragonblade on her right hip, instead of her left, as usual. She had practiced being ambidextrous in a time like that, but she had never figured it would actually happen. Damn it all...
Amazingly the first thing Mel noticed was that her nose was wet. It was only when she tried to figure out why water was splashing on her nose that she realized her chest hurt like she'd been kicked, several hundred times. She moaned and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a smashed out stained glass window. Windblown rain was what was hitting her face. Then she remembered how the window had been broken. "Keaton?"
She tried to push herself up onto her legs, only to have searing pain shoot up the left one, causing her to collapse again. She cursed, quite thoroughly in her native tongue as she remembered the fight and realized that her arm was probably burned internally and was going to be horrid to heal. Then she saw the tiger beside her. "Apologies, Madame. What have I missed?"
She tried to return to a more being-friendly size and found that, distracted by the pain in her chest and arm and her brain feeling fuzzy and disconnected, magic was slower and harder, she really had to concentrate before she found herself sitting on the floor, looking up and Rynkura.
A low groan and the clinks and clattering of little pieces of stone signified Stygian waking up from his blackout. Shaking, the bat scraped himself up from the floor and onto his knees, taking as good a look around as he could before stopping. He sat still for a good while, closing his eyes and simply breathing slowly and steadily. Then he looked up at the broken window.
The bat's eyes widened. 'Oh, shit!' he exclaimed. In an instant, shadows gathered, and a swirling, flaky squall of darkness gathered at his back, taking shape as a pair of utterly black wings that spread their huge span and swept up a cloud of dust. Defying the pain he felt, Stygian pushed himself up and with a beat of his wings catapulted himself through the broken window, out into the night.
It would have been hard for most others, even though one could tell from broken branches on the surrounding trees and scraped up dirt further down, where on the nearly vertical drop Keaton had landed. The darkness and rain obscured most sight completely. But fortunately Stygian was not like most others. Plummeting down and using his large wings like a parachute, he broke the downward fall meters off the ground and then braced close to the steep wall, feeling the loose and wet, stony ground with his feet. Finding a grip, he bent down and slipped his hands under the jackal's bleeding body, careful as if she were made of porcelain. He lifted her slowly, gingerly and turned, bending his head back to look upward, and then threw himself up again, making sure to cradle her head to keep any fractures or concussions at bay.
Getting back in through the ruined window was more of a problem with Keaton in his arms than getting out, but once he got inside, just cutting his ankle on the splintered glass, Stygian dropped to the floor and put her down as carefully as he had picked her up.
With a soft thump, Cog sat down on the bench behind him, immediately falling forwards on his elbows as he breathed heavily. He simply held his sword in his left hand, too tired to sheath the naked blade, and took in the carnage. Almost everyone except Rynkura had taken serious damage. Even Mel, who he thought almost invincible as a dragon, seemed to have taken quite a beating.
They were broken and bleeding. And that had just been a servant.
Cog made a face, a charm of a small amethyst-laden attached to a chain around his wrist glowing softly in the darkness. He felt cool, sweet strength flow up from it - not nearly enough, but enough to ease his breathing and start his skin to scabbing. Even so, the others needed the help more than he did.
Cog sat and let the little cross do it's work, keeping his ears perked.
When Stygian had reached her, upon first glance, Keaton looked quite dead. Resting on the spider web in a broken, battered heap, she was covered in splatters and stains of blood, even more red oozing from the gashes and cuts lacerating her shredded, pallid skin. Black-tarnished, yellow fur was mottled and marred with copper, her hair disheveled and spilling like a ragged halo around her head. Only a half-dead spark remained active in the core of Keaton's eye-stone, the solitary signal of her volatile survival. Occasionally her body twitched and spasmed, body wracking in pain as this involuntarily triggered an unconscious movement from the arm holding Catastrophe, which was bent and still bleeding anew from those cuts previously inflicted during the demonic throng. Keaton's face was equally splattered with blood, having endured two more cuts to her face, one bisecting the first one on her gash, the other dangerously close above her organic eye.
One chocolatey iris glazed over with pain fixed on the incoming silhouette of Stygian, Keaton herself barely reacting aside from a loud groan. Her brain seemed to skip like a broken record, intermittently blanking out and restarting as she teetered in and out of unconsciousness. At one moment Stygian seemed to be approaching her, at the next he was right beside her, then she was gathered in his arms carefully so to not disturb her injuries and cradled as he glided back up to the window. Keaton struggled to say something, but it only came out as a slur, voice garbled and choked. Instead, all that registered was a profanity, especially as she was rested on the ground.
Quietly, she turned her head to face the others. Mel was gradually returning to her normal size, something rather surreal to Keaton, and everyone else was blurred beyond recognition, distinguishable only by color. Suddenly becoming self-conscious of how weak and moribund she appeared, Keaton reached up with her unhurt, yet blood-sticky hand and buried her face in it, hissing and moaning unintelligibly through her teeth. "G... gaaaahhhk..." With slightly wet eyes she looked up at them through her fingers, then smiled slightly, feeling too delirious to be ashamed. "H-Hey... guys...
"Y'... you all look like shit," she stated shakily, but then choked with slightly insane laughter. At this point the delusion was really getting to her. "I'm no... not much better, though," she forced a grin, then rested her head against the floor, her organic eye still hazy. It hurt so bad, but she was just tired at this point. Sleep. Needed to sleep. Then everything would be okay. "Sorry I fucked things up again... just gonna sl... sleep for a moment if the thing's gone..."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe led Ian to the chapel without incident. Ian walked in and saw his friends for the first time in a while. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you all, but man do you all look like hell." Funny he said that as his gapeing wound was clearly visible below the tuniqute.
OOC: If I'm takeing too much liberty with Ketefe let me know I'll edit.
Jeremiah opened his eyes and the first thing he thought was, Oh thank gods, they're my eyes again.
The second one was, Oh thank gods, I'm still alive!
The third was simply the realization that just about everything hurt. He'd looked away for only a second, when Bal was recuperating from that first charge, and then something had happened...
Everyone was regrouping, arriving, making sure everyone they cared about was still intact. Ian, Ketefe... Glad they're alright. Wonder where Bam is...
... Wait, we look like hell? He feels the need to say this after we've all been-? For some reason this was tremendously amusing for the battered frog at the time, and the few small laughs he could manage hurt, but he'd really needed it. He tried to make a joke about how it would fit, since they'd been chewing demons up and spitting them out, and everyone knows you are what you eat. However, all that came out was, "H-hell? HAH- Ow," he put a webbed hand to his side and grimaced, "Owwww, ow ow ow ow ow. Ow." He sucked in air through his teeth and tilted his hat out of his eyes, noting that his thump against the floor had left him with a gash that he assumed looked awful. "Ow."
Rynkura had let her magic wane as soon as she could feel Mel awakening. The tigress tried to be careful with her energy...on a victim of electric shock, at that size, it would have been daunting...but the situation was proving to be somewhat desperate. Though the healing had at last proven quick. She backed away for a moment as the dragon tried to stand, and then watched as she shrunk back to the size that she had been before. "Easy, don't overexert yourself," the healer softly chided.
She sighed quietly. At least Mel was alive, though she would be needing a moment's rest. Rynkura smiled and offered a hand to help the dragon on her feet. "You haven't missed much. Sir Manoko dispatched of the demon with the help of Sebastian..."
That was when she was interrupted as said bat stood up with an exclamation and shot out of the shattered window, where Keaton had been thrown. More relief, at least, that the group would be gathered. She took a breath and continued. "It's just a good thing your heart hadn't given out. The rest of us have come out badly from this fight in some way or another."
It was certainly no exaggeration, as soon as the bat returned with Keaton in his grip. As he gently set her on the floor, she could see that the succubus was alive, but quite battered...as it was the case with the others. But the new voices that belonged to Ian and Ketefe were a relief. She cast a nod of greeting at the two. "That makes most of us together again..." the tigress muttered and turned back to Mel. "If you wish, you can take a moment and rest, and then help me with some of the healing that we must do, and..."
That was when she spotted a familiar relic on Ketefe's wrist. It was the healing bracer that she had given to Aisha some time ago. "Well, that's where it was..." she said thoughtfully, tilting her head at the cat. "We may be in need of that, if you are done with it. Either Aisha or myself can unlock it for you," the tigress informed before turning around and looking to see who was the most hurt. Having caught that Keaton felt exhausted enough to fall asleep, the tigress decided to try seeing to her first. She approached the jackal with a softly glowing palm. "If I may," she added politely, and started to seal her bleeding.
Watching the events unfold before her, Aisha felt like her eyes were getting heavier as her body tried to calm itself down after the fiasco. Falling asleep again didn't seem nearly as bad an idea for herself either...and that's what she did, slumping lightly against the wall with a long sigh taken as she clutched the cloak around herself. In a chapel of Hell, surrounded by her companions...the panthress could do nothing more but put her trust in them...especially to her closest, Gareeku, the wolf looking as a blur of white in her vision before she closed her eyes.
Breathing heavily as he watched the creature disappear, having felt the satisfying feeling of feeling his blad cut through it's "flesh", Gareeku chose not to resheathe his sword as the group was plunged into darkness. Nodding his head in acknowledgment as he was mentioned, the wolf then recharged himself somewhat thanks to Rynkura's staff. The creature's blood had created burns on his white fur and what remained on his top, which by now was in utter tatters. Feeling that these remaining pieces of fabric would only serve to get in his way should they encounter yet another battle, the wolf removed them, completely exposing the rest of his torso.
It was then that, turning around, Gareeku saw Aisha. Immediately all concern for his own well-being disappeared.
"Aisha..." he murmured, not taking her eyes off of her as she seemed to fall asleep. She was so vulnerable; a far cry from the strong warrior he had always known and, in many respects, admired. Walking over to her, the wolf gently picked her up, not wanting to disturb her as he cradled her in his arms. Sitting down on a nearby chair, he cradled her protectively. He had sworn that he would see that no harm would come to her, and, quite appropriately considering the hellish environment they were in, he would be damned before he would break that promise.
'Don't talk,' Stygian said, taking Keaton's hand and gently lowering it. His face was pained as he looked up to Rynkura. 'Heal her,' he said. 'As far as you can without expending yourself. Mel has to recover as well. And don't we have any potions?' He wouldn't mention that he himself was in dreadful pain. Her healing would probably not help, and he was gaining strength through the darkness with each passing second.
A dark, cruel laugh sounded throughout the chapel.
'I was a bit disappointed that you were all still alive, but it seems I have something to rejoice for nevertheless,' Asmodai's rasping voice leered at them from the dark. 'Is the little cubi precious to you, Sebastian? And I who thought you were callous. If anything I had expected you would care more for the DeCabre bastard.'
Stygian glared up and out into the dark. 'I will kill you, old man. Save your jabs, because they are for naught,' he growled. Only silence greeted him.
From Ketefe's hair, a green glowingbutterfly flys into the chapel. The glow turns blue and expands to Being size and shape. It turns to Bambi with a white flash.
Bambi has a batch of cookies on a tray.. "Hey You guys start this party without me. But I brought the Cookies. These are really healthy cookies, so everyone should have one. ", says the Fae. "Nothing is like these cookies for the Energy you need or help you with your hurts and scraps."
"And No cookies for you, You old Bat" says Bambi
PBH
It took a moment once Rynkura got her to her feet before Mel felt safe to move. Every muscle in her body still twitched and ached from the heavy electrical jolt she had received. Knowing that Cog had received similar treatment she made her way across the room. "How are you doing? Does your chest feel funny?"
Ian couldn't help but feel a wave of hatred when his gaze fell on Keaton. Judgeing from everyone's reaction to her current state she was helping them or they just didn't know. Ian figured that they had found out, how could they not? So that left her helping them. He bit his tongue because they needed the help, but God help the jackel when this mess is over. "Mel, you look like you survived a hardcore punk concert back home. You ok?" Ian was so happy she was ok he nearly forgot about the hellish scenery around him.
Cog's breath came slowly, and he looked up at Mel suddenly, his eyes widened at the suddenly-moving dragon. Rynkura was good at what she did - Mel didn't look nearly as bad off as she had before.
At her question, however, the wolf shook his head. "No. Not like that." he said, moving gingerly and hissing through his teeth as he laughed lightly. "That's going to be a hell of a scab, though."
Where the lightning bolt had struck, Cog's chest seemed to be merely one large, furless patch of flesh, the skin burned away into the dermis like one large, bloody scrape, welling with blood. The patch had begun to heal, thanks to the attentions of the little cross in his hands, but even moving a little bit started the bleeding fresh.
"I could use new everything. Other than that, alright." he said, cracking his neck without the aid of hands. One of his eyes closed automatically as he tilted his head, and the wolf suddenly stopped, ear twitching. Looking somewhat confused, the wolf's stare went straight up, trying to find bangs that usually settled over his eye, that were no longer there. He stared up in disbelief, pausing for a moment, and then sighing resignedly.
"Dammit."
Upon feeling her wrist unexpectedly, yet gently seized, every muscle in Keaton's body went taut all over again where they were once relaxed and ready for deathly slumber. The fur around her wrist was damp from the thick and inky trails of blood which had streamed from the now-healed divot of missing flesh in her shoulder, tarnishing the yellow and blending in the black on her mottled fur. Other splatters and splotches of blood peppered Keaton's form from her various injuries, viscous red rivulets trickling down her face and neck and saturating the fibers of her fur and the shredded fabric of her top. That, combined with the sunken nature of Keaton's wan features, made her look almost cadaverous; like a living corpse. Shakily, she stared up at the alabaster blur she assumed was Rynkura as the tigress approached her, gently beginning on sealing her injuries.
The white light worked its magic, although it had not the cooling and revitalizing abilities of Mel's last injection of strength. Steadily, each wound began to mend themselves, steadily ebbing away until they had shriveled out of sight and were memorized only through the rings of blood still congealed around their once-outlines. It was almost as though an enormous ladel of light had slipped underneath Keaton's sinking soul and scooped it out of the darkness, elevating it away from impending death and back to relative stability--although Keaton still felt significantly delirious, and her still-rampaging emotions didn't help. Ears laid flat as she heard the reverberating voice, a gravelly growl building up in the back of her throat at nothing in particular as her hand clasped over her ear.
"'M no... not little," she snarled, hating the condescending manner she had been addressed. "S-Shu... shut uuup..."
Then, she laughed again, driven by blood-loss lunacy; a choking sound as she spat out the blood which had culminated in her mouth into a messy heap on the floor. Fortunately, Rynkura's healing had recovered her internal injuries as well, so the blood was residual. All that remained at this point was her exhaustion and delirium. "Fuck..." she groaned, then slumped, resting her head against the stone floor again. She wanted to sleep, but as coherent thought returned she vaguely remembred all those times she had been injured in battle and was strictly told never to fall asleep, or there was a possibility she would never wake up.
Keaton didn't want that, but when she wasn't in her right mind she just desired rest. Then she noticed the way Ian was looking at her, and grit her bloodstained teeth together, feeling innate rage build. Incoherent or not, she could still vaguely detect emotions without the vestigial pain that saturated the room, and she didn't like what she felt. Resentment, perhaps? Disregarding this with another coughing laugh, Keaton nearly allowed her eyes to roll back in her head as her face fell slack, but her features quickly snapped back to normal as she snarled and forced herself out of near-unconsciousness. She wasn't the only one hurt. Nearby she could see Mel tending to an injured grey smear (Cog), while Gareeku (or a white blob which looked like Gareeku) steadied the black shape she identified as Aisha.
That made her feel all the worse. Again, Keaton draped her arm over her head and buried her face, making a sound which was similar to a whimper and a grunt.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura nodded softly in reply to Sebastian, as she knelt to begin her work on sealing the jackal's wounds. The task took a bit more work than what it had with Mel, considering the succubus's dark-magic nature. But still the tigress worked with her strength. Her eyes could be seen glowing softly as once again she allowed her sight to extend to the healing of internal injuries. At least she could speak while doing so. She hummed thoughtfully at the bat's inquiry. "Like I said, I have only one potion on my person...certainly this castle has a sort of small apothecary room or something...?"
At least the girl was indeed going to be alright, for her will and resolve was felt as she moved in reply to the sudden dark voice. "Not so fast, child," the tigress calmly relayed, letting the light magic that washed over the jackal's body keep her somewhat still. "It will be fine, just relax." However, the echo of Asmodai's words through the chapel somewhat made Rynkura tense as well. For all it was worth, she just wanted all of this to end. Her ears pinned against her skull even at the brief cursing of Aisha's name.
The tiger glanced over to where the panthress was laying, gently cradled in Gareeku's arms. Though she was on the brink of sleeping soundly, it could be seen that she sensed the chilling words. She had shuddered briefly, before warmly nestling against his body with a soft hum.
There was a brief smile on Rynkura's face at the sight, before Keaton caught her attention again when she grunted, hiding her face in her hands. "Just relax, try not to worry," the tiger said softly as she put the finishing touches on her healing...all that the jackal would need then was a bit of rest. Then she glanced again to the progress that everyone else was taking...all of this injury after one beast...what a road they had ahead of them.
The tiger cast an incredulous look at Stygian. "Your grandfather sounds charming," she said, ending her sarcasm with a snort.
"More charming than some people I've delt with." Ian laughed. "One time I was fighting a cromatic red dragon that just wouldn't stop oggleing the maiden he had taken, or flirting in his own obsene way for that matter. When I ran out of rockets for my bazooka he laughed at me and said I was shooting blanks, wich that maiden could tell you i sure as hell wasn't." Ian said that last part in a saucy jokeing manner as he elbow nudged Mel with his good arm.
Mel placed a hand on Cogidubnus's shoulder and gave him a rush of cool healing energy. Electrical burns could continue to develop for days and feeling okay now didn't mean much. She tried not to smile as he reacted to the fact that his hair was as patchy as his outfit. "I can't do much for the hair, not really a common dilemma where I'm from."
Then Ian poked her in her side while making some sort of disparaging remark about dragons. She gave a bit of a hiss, while she was working on her own healing it was far from complete and being jostled started the shocks running up and down it again. She made a soft comment for Cog's ear about understanding why the girl chose the dragon before turning and very firmly grasping Ian's torn arm. "Let me see to this injury." She flooded the arm with icy healing as she asked, "What happened to you?"
"Some weird dark puss monster grabbed on and wouldn't let go." Ian winced as she handled him roughly. "Hay, you know cromatic reds are more often than not evil. At least i ask questions before i splatter my bounties head all over the wall. Most adventures don't even give you guys that much credit." Ian decided to end his stumbeling apology before he offended her anymore. "Look I uh...I'msorryok? The guy was going to bed her and sacrifice her. He needed stopped." Ian realizing even his short simple apology was going to dig his hole deeper just shut up and hung his head.
Watching Keaton's struggle and state, and then arcing his back and hissing at the two newcomers and their insensitive bustling, Stygian decided to vent his anger in some more productive way. Scanning the room, he located a good piece of cloth in one of the draperies by the altar and paced off to fetch it. Carelessly ripping the heavy, velveteen fabric down, he returned and laid it over the jackal, covering her and then lifting her up like a bundle, walking off to lay her down on something not so hard and filthy as the stone floor.
'How most fortunate that you found us anyway,' the bat growled back at them over his shoulder. 'Now unless you can do something useful I suggest you sit down and stay out of the way.' His intonation, especially on the last remark, made his opinion fairly clear.
As if to answer the bat's words, another shudder shook the castle, followed by a heavy creak. A few stray rocks and dust particles pelted the newly arrived before, surprisingly silently, one of the columns separated from the balcony above keeled over and fell against them.
The heavy creak and groan, dust drifting down, the pillar falling almost lazily...
"Oh gods..." Jeremiah whispered, looking up at the tumbling wonder of architecture from his sprawled position against the ruined pews, "Oh gods..."
The frog immediately began trying to stand, fumbling at the ground beneath for some position whereby he could support himself- PAIN! His injuries! Possible cracked rib, definitely something bad to his leg. No time for one of the healers to help.
Looks like the blunt instrument's better qualified to drive than you are, you pathetic little twit. After all I did to keep our asses alive.
There was a hiss as Jeremiah sucked more air through his teeth, trying to glare at someone in his head. Rather hard to do, so he just glared in general. The artist pushed himself up, a bit more than half crawling as he scrambled away from the column.
"R... Ruh..." Stupid weakling, stop proving Bal right and take a breath. That pain in your side can wait, "RUN!"
Even through Cog's fur Mel's hand was icy, and the wolf winced a bit at her cold touch. The cool, healing energies flowing through her, however, were just what the wolf needed. He sighed, feeling his wounds and his aches stitch themselves up, and the chronic anemia from which he'd been suffering begin to fade. Little bits of his fur even started growing back, the wound on his chest become a bit smaller as it healed.
At her comment about his hair, though, Cog merely smiled, and blew a ragged strand out of his left eye. "If nothing else, this clinches it. I'm killing this bastard." he said in mock anger.
Ketefe and Ian rejoined the group, and Cog nodded to himself. The group was finally coming together again. Good.
At Ian's sudden and rather inappropriate comment to Mel, however, Cog narrowed one eye, giving the rat a look. Now was -hardly- the time...
Mel leaned forward and whispered in his ear her opinion of the matter, and Cog couldn't hold back a snerk at the jab. He shook his head, about to reply to the dragon's comment, when Jeremiah suddenly cried out.
"R...Ruh....RUN!"
Cog's head whipped around behind him, and the wolf suddenly found himself staring up at a rapidly falling column of stone. The wolf's eyes went wide as he watched the eerily slow descend of tons of stone.
He tensed, getting ready to dodge.
Mel harrumphed, "Yeah yeah. Next time ask the dragon what is going on instead of some tramp who probably just wanted dragon blood for a potion." Anything she might have added was lost to Jeremiah's shout. Feeling the dust raining down she looked up. Seeing the danger she jumped up and back, wings spreading to slow the jolt of descent.
Ian tucked and rolled out of the way of the pillar. He hoped everyone but that traitor had gotten away. oh how he would have loved to see her crushed beneth a ton of stone, so much so a smile crept upon his face. It quickly vanished at the thought that some of his other friends might be caught in it as well.
White light flared in thousands of glowing molecules as they completed their healing magic on Keaton's bruised and battered body, perfectly repairing the ruptured muscle and tissue and the fractured bones, but doing nothing for the dried dollops of blood splattering her form. Steadily she was being elevated from her unhinged state, but for now Keaton found herself incapable of actively climbing to her feet. Still keeping her face hidden behind her ragged and now bloodstained locks of dirty blonde, she unconsciously reached up with a now-healed hand, having discarded Catastrophe beside her, and started rummaging around in her pocket. All throughout this she continued mumbling indecipherable and delirious half-sentences, occasionally uttering something about uselessness and detriments before she started wondering aloud "where the fuck her marble" was.
A flash of churning colors heralded the surface of the marble as it was gently cradled between Keaton's trembling hands, almost reverently. Keaton's vision had been restored almost completely now, the blurring gone, trickling away around the luminescent surface of the sphere in her hands, injecting her sight with vibrant and complete color. A dazed smile flicked over Keaton's muzzle as she felt a foreign sensation of comfort fill her. Meanwhile, Stygian noticed her bedraggled state and decided to scoop her up in the safety and comfort of a cocooning blanket, lifting her easily off of the ground and clutching her a bit closer. It was rather cold before, wasn't it? Unknown to Keaton, that was because her clothing had nearly been entirely shredded. Keaton still held the marble in her palms, being careful not to smear its flawless shell with residual blood, and rested her head against Stygian's chest--an unconscious maneuver, as all she was aware of was the fact that there was something larger and stronger holding her, with a perfectly comfortable surface for her to snuggle against.
The glow which had been replenished in her eye-stone started to flicker a bit as she steadily allowed her eyes to close, knowing that now the danger was over it was safe for her to rest.
Or so she thought, because the earsplitting rumble of fissuring stone quickly woke her up from her hazy peaceful state. Ears flickered upright and eyes widened as she gazed in horror at the plummeting pillar, just barely keeping herself from shouting in surprise like Jeremiah had done. The marble fumbled between her grip before she altogether squeezed it against her palms and shoved it into her pocket, pupil pinpricking.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The smash shook the chapel floor, the already partially cracked column of stone dashing into pieces and sending dust throughout the room. Stygian turned his back to it, feeling only the sting of a few splinters before turning back. It seemed as if no one else had been caught under the thing, but one couldn't be so sure. They all seemed present though, and no voices were raised crying out in pain. Staring at the destruction for half a dozen seconds, Stygian then turned and settled down with Keaton on one of the intact wooden benches.
When the bat sat down, he saw that Keaton had opened her eyes again. And to what a pleasant sight... he thought sarcastically. Was she saying she's lost her marbles? He looked down at her. We don't have the time...
'Keaton?' Stygian spoke softly. 'How do you feel?' A stupid question to some, but he needed to know if she thought she was going to pass out on them again or not.
"Head count?" Ian called out loud enough for everyone to hear. "Everyone ok?"
As the reverberating quake resonated throughout the foundations of the chamber upon the pillar's collapse, Keaton coughed and shielded her face from the billowing plume of dust which detonated from the column's remains by burying her muzzle into her hands. Unwittingly, she curled in on herself the best she could, keeping her eyes squeezed shut, as though she were unaware of the fact Stygian was keeping her away from the peppering shards of stone and mushrooming detritus. When the rumbling subsided and the dust had cleared Keaton opened her eyes again, once more rustling through her pocket for her marble.
Her anxiety was alleviated the moment her fingers curled around the marble and lifted it from the confines of her pocket, cradling it once more in her palm. Keeping it close to her seemed to accelerate the soothing, balm-like suffusion of the white light still lingering vestigially in her body, not to mention it heralded a certain amount of comfort. Deciding that staring at the outside world was too disorienting and thunderous, Keaton locked all attention onto the swirling colors of the marble, watching as each facet of its constantly bubbling hues spiraled in and out of dominance.
Being settled on the bench came as a surprise to her. Keaton blinked, then stared owlishly up at Stygian, realizing that the majority of her vision had returned back to relative clarity. "I--" it took her a moment to register everything Stygian had said, but once the information was fully comprehended she stumbled for words again. "I'm ff... fine. I'm just a bit dizzy."
This was true. Still had a bit of a slur to her voice, but that was almost gone. "What th' hell happened?" Her hand squeezed slightly, the visible sliver of color poking out of her palm vanishing between her digits.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Jeremiah stared hard at the pillar lying where it was, his foot inches away from having been crushed under the large mass of stone. Damn...
That woulda been freaking hilarious. All that I somehow managed to live through, and then just get gooshed under a big rock. He sobered up from the adreneline rush and fear fairly quickly; the pain of forcing several already bruised and damaged muscles to propel you distances you had no right to ask of them would do that.
"Erm, Rynkura? Me-HACKcoughowowowow-el?" Jeremiah laboriously raised one hand, wincing as it fell back to his side, "Got a minute?"
As soon as she finished healing Keaton, Rynkura backed away for a moment to allow a somewhat stressed Sebastian to gather her up and set her in a safe place. As the Angel took a moment to replenish her energy, she watched this with a slight bit of reverence, while ignoring the improper statement that the rat had made to Mel. There was no humor that could break the solemnity of the moment at all, though she guessed the youngster was also just trying to cope.
And that was when the shudder happened. A quake that hit the castle and shook the floor beneath her bare white paws, as with the others. Her ears caught a slight crack, a very quiet but sickening noise as rock was shattered, before movement was sensed in one of the pillars.
"Oh by gods," Rynkura growled and rushed out of the way, carefully heeding Jeremiah's sudden words. Those in the way of the monstrous marble stone were rushing out just in time for it to impact the ground with a thunderous noise. It rattled the chamber and struck a blow to the nerves of the battle-shaken. The noise itself was so sudden that Aisha was jolted from her sleep with a short scream, eyes wide and almost bloodshot.
Rynkura grunted as a cloud of dust and cracked floor were thrown in all directions. She shielded her eyes, and then opened them again to a relief that all had made it out of the way of impact...a few with but a few moments left to spare. One by one, voices could be heard answering the call. "We're all fine," she voiced, before one of her ears caught Jeremiah's voice calling for help.
With her breath finally caught, the Healer walked across the damaged floor to Jeremiah and grabbed her staff on the way. "That was close...right then, let's see about you. Hold still a moment." She then placed a softly glowing hand on the frog's back, letting healing magic flow through another one of the adventurers and start to seal wounds within and without...for so many times that day that it was hard to count. ...What next? Gods keep giving us strength. Even on the steps of Hell surely your powers can reach.
In the background, Aisha saw the column from a part of her slightly blurred vision. Thankfully, as she heard Rynkura say that everyone was fine, she could still her rapidly beating heart and close her eyes again. "Damn it...I don't think...we should've come..." she murmured to the wolf. She hadn't even questioned as to why she felt such comfort in his arms...the warmth was as healing to the panther as any magic.
As the others were being healed, Gareeku remained sat there with Aisha in his arms. They were located a little distance from the others, although they could be easily seen by the group.
It was then, however, that the wolf's ears perked up upon hearing a quiet cracking noise coming from above. Sharply looking up, Gareeku's eyes widened as he saw the column begin it's descent, Jeremiah wisely advising the others to run. As the column struck the ground, the wolf sheilded Aisha from the plume of dust it created, coughing as he closed his eyes. Hearing Aisha speak, Gareeku held her close to him.
"Sssh...it's ok...i'm here..." he said softly to her.
Stygian stroked Keaton's hair back. 'Nothing important,' he said, and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look. It was hard to look gentle with his facial features and eyes, but he tried his best. 'Rest. Lie down until you feel like you can get up.' And hopefully not too soon, he thought. It occurred to him that he should get Rynkura to see if she had a concussion or something that might have caused the slurring. But the others had to have their time as well, however sparse it was.
He sat there for a while, simply leaning back and working as a cushion for the jackal while staring off into space, dark thoughts clouding his head. Finally, he eased his way out under Keaton and gingerly laid her down on the bench with the cloth around her and under her head for comfort. Standing, he took a long look at the others.
'If you don't think you can make it down there,' he said after a long pause, speaking to them all, 'then you should stay up here. Make sure that the exit doesn't cave in.' He thought more of Mel and Jeremiah than any of the others. Both were wounded, and neither would like the environment when they approached the gate. 'This is my battle, and I don't want to put anyone here at any unnecessary risk.'
"Not once in my life have I passed on a challange that may well put my life on the line if only for a friend. I don't intend to start now." Ian had a look of calm resolve on his face as he made sure his gun was in working order. "It'd be an honor to fight along side you in the pits of hell, Styg."
Cogidubnus stood covered in dust, his formerly elegant-looking black clothes ripped completely to shreds. At this point, the wolf was simply wearing an open shirt and long shorts, the rest of his clothing long lost or left behind. His chest was one large, open would, barely scabbed over and threatening to start bleeding out again at the slightest provocation, his body was covered in scratches and burns, his fur had patches in it, his hat was gone, and the wolf's hair had been given an inpromptu acid-haircut.
The wolf already looked like he'd been through hell.
Adding to this laundry list of detriments was a new impediment - the falling marble column had clipped the end of his sword sheath, breaking the wood in pieces. The sheath of his blade lay at Cog's feet, the broken and lacquered saya now good for only so much firewood. Cog held his naked blade in his hand, letting the tip rest on the marble floor.
His face was dark, and his eyes were stormy beneath the only piece of his ensemble still intact - the magic glasses Mel had given him.
At Sebastian's question, Cog simply spat out a bit of blood, wiping his mouth on his wrist. "That bastard is going to die." Cog stated, his voice even, and the wolf sat down on the marble column as he waited for the others to make their decision.
Still keeping her beloved keepsake marble nestled protectively and comfortably between her palms, Keaton didn't resist nor vociferate any indignation or surprise at feeling Stygian rake his fingernails through her hair, digits serving as combs to cleave through the bloodied and tangled mess and draw it out of her tired-looking face. Color had been restored to Keaton's features, flushing away the perishing paleness and making her appear significantly less moribund than she did previously. Still remaining was the slight tremor to her body and the fixation on her marble, which she was still toying compulsively with as Stygian spoke to her. His voice was eerily calm in her heightened tension and negativity, strangely soothing, which Keaton fortunately did not misconstrue as she looked up at his attempt to create a gentle expression on his face.
When she was so exhausted Keaton knew better than to deny any assistance, no matter how sour she felt. Her head was settled against his chest when he took a seat with her draped nearby, colorful orb clenched between her fingers. Trembling was abating somewhat, as was the slur to her voice, but she still realized that she felt as emotionally damaged as she did before. With her expulsion out the window she had been ejected along with her pride, which, unlike her, did not survive the fall. As far as she knew, it was resting in a bloodied heap hundreds of feet below, simmering in the pits of Hell. Still persistent were those dreadful feelings of encroaching uselessness, which she had managed to curb before but were now nearly exacerbated to the point she could shed tears. Such a thing never happened, though, as she restricted this by staring at the boiling colors sealed in her marble.
Stygian left, but not after gathering some of the blanket around so that way she could remain relatively comfortable. Feeling too ashamed to be grateful, Keaton stared after his back, then listened to him, steadily recovering. Now her stamina was returning. Sheepishly, she stared down at the shredded remains of her clothing, then sighed. Had to shapeshift so that way she could replace this apparel, as well. How embarrassing could this get? She felt increasingly more grateful that Stygian had draped the blanket over her.
Though, despite her recovery, was she in any condition to fight?
~Keaton the Black Jackal
As Rynkura finished healing the frog, again with the damage gone and only leaving a sense of exhaustion, she thought about what was going to come next. The battle with several kinds of demons had been rough...and it was hard to expect Asmodai to just show himself. But the tigress just kept her concentration on the wounds of the adventurers. At one point, with Ketefe's permission, she snapped the bracer of light from around her wrist with the unlocking magic. Hopefully, the feline wouldn't need it for the time being...and it was a relief to have the trinket back in case it was needed again.
And that was when Stygian made the announcement that he was going down into the depths to fight through hell...and that it was their choice to either stay or go. The tiger paused as she heard a couple of voices speak up. The wounded were certainly staying, that was for sure...at least she hoped they would. Aisha would not be going into that pit, or she would surely be killed.
And Rynkura...she hummed, her eyes taking on a look of resolve. As one of the least injured, her talents would not be used on the sidelines...the Angel believed that she would be far more useful fighting. And thus, she stood straight, facing the bat. "I will go. A good use will be made of my energy in battle there, if it means stopping this."
"And I will stay here." Gareeku said, looking up at the others. "I am not going to leave Aisha."
Though he was no longer injured, the wolf wanted to stay with the pantheress. Yes, he would be most useful in battle considering his fighting skills, but he could not bear to leave Aisha alone. He wanted to be with her, and if that meant sitting out on the sidelines, then so be it.
Ian stripped Ketefe of his second gun. "Turn for the worse dear, I'll be needing this. Stay safe." Ian said with a smile and turned back tot he others. "I feel much better knowing we'll be in your capable hands, Rynkura."
Mel hesitated a moment at Stygian's question regarding who would go and who would remain behind to guard the exit. She was hurt but that didn't put a magic user as far behind as it did a fighter. She could cast magic one-handed. She had her left hand tucked into her jacket pocket to disguise the fact that she wasn't nearly done healing that arm. But before she could speak up Rynkura volunteered to go into the catacombs. That made the dragon's decision. "Someone with magic should stay behind to help guard the gate and the injured. If Mistress Msh'tann is going I will stay." She turned to Cog, "I think I should finish that healing before you leave."
Jeremiah thanked Rynkura as she finished up, standing tentatively. He felt great compared to how he was a second ago (Although that wasn't saying much. Terrified, aches and pains everywhere, vaguely sick with dread... Dr. Kervorkian would've been able to make the frog feel better), ready to take on the world, he-
Naturally, Stygian chose now to mention the opt-out clause of this particular adventure. Jeremiah felt good, but not THAT good.
"I'm probably more useful as an extra pair of eyes up here than down there, folks. I'll keep Mel company if she's staying up here," the artist shrugged, "Besides, what's the worst that could happen? We just carved our way through a huge damn..." Jeremiah stopped and considered the brief glimpse of the creature they'd fought that he managed to see when he was getting up, "... That thing." He finished lamely, gesturing to where the guardian had fallen, "What's gonna be dumb enough to chase us?"
"It's best not to take chances though." Ian said sitting down waiting for everyone to finnish makeing up their minds and getting ready. He was noticably makeing an effort not to look at Kaeton. we'll have a nice talk later. wait, you can't not look at her it makes you look weird! Crap! Don't stare! Ian thought to himself.
At Mel's comment, Cog made a tired nod, and stood up again to approach the healer. "We seem to do this a lot." he said, coming to a slow stop in front of the dragon. "The last time it was just my back."
He paused, and waited for the dragon to tell him what to do. She was the healer, after all.
As much as he appreciated their support, Stygian could not but worry about the decision to go with him. He knew what waited, and he knew what sort of thoughts must be going through most of their heads. Ian's and Jeremiah's comments had just made his face sour. Typical of adventurers and the sort.
'More of those things,' Stygian said to the frog, turning. 'And the things that treat them as pawns.' Slowly he began pacing back across the floor toward the altar. 'Make sure you are whole and fit to go,' was all he said, before he pushed the heavy stone aside a bit and then stood, looking down into the smoldering darkness waiting down the stairway. He took an agonizing first step, then another, and descended again down into the catacombs under the castle.
"Oh. Well then," Jeremiah replied weakly. No, he hadn't actually thought he was in the clear horrible-hell-thing-wise. His life just didn't work that way, he wasn't that lucky. Still, it had been nice to pretend. "We'll just not let them follow you, shall we?"
Rynkura stood as before in the great hall of the chapel--or what was left of it--a figure of white drenched slightly in blood, an Angel with hidden wings who was more than ready to descend into the world below. She listened as, one by one, the others put in their word to either stay in relative safety or to face the dangers with Stygian.
Cogidubnus would come, after he would gather a quick healing from the dragon. Ian was coming, although in her mind the tiger believed that the young rat might find out if he'd be in over his head a little too late. Ketefe and Keaton seemed undecided, but she wondered if the injured jackal was probably more likely to remain. Among those who were staying, she wished Mel and Jeremiah luck, in the hope that guarding the entrance wouldn't prove too difficult. And finally, Gareeku, though he was healthy enough to fight, had declined doing so to protect Aisha...which made her glance over in their direction for a moment.
The panthress was once again asleep, unable to have heard the exchanges between the others. Though she stirred slightly when her mentor's voice was heard, and could feel her left wrist being lifted...there was a quiet snap as something locked around it. Rynkura had walked over and placed the bracer in Aisha's care, and as the one most in need of it. The tigress then stood, a brief smile on her face as she observed her student and the warrior who held her. "I admire your dedication towards Aisha, sir Manoko, and thank you for it," she relayed with sincerity. Certainly if the panthress trusted him, then her mentor could. "Please, take care of her."
Nothing more was said. She turned and started to approach the altar as it was moved, revealing a path down into the abyss below the castle. Looking toward the seemingly unending darkness, Rynkura couldn't help but suppress a low growl in her throat.
Mel smiled a bit. "Just stand still while I take care of that chest injury." Very delicately, minding the sensitivity of burned skin, she placed just the fingertips of her right hand over the epicenter of the burn and began the restoration of skin, muscle and nerve. "Is there anything else that needs healing? No sense of starting out at a deficit."
The atmosphere down the passage was thickening, a fumy, dry breath brushing against the bat's skin as he moved downward. To his eyes there was no such thing as darkness. Mainly because he had no sight to speak of. But he knew anyway that a deep red light was starting to seep in from the depth of the dark stairwell, as it was about to open up into the entryway into the terror. He could both see and feel the slightly uneven placement of the stones in the wall, could smell and touch the fumes that leaked through cracks in the floor up ahead. And with every passing moment he felt his own strength growing as he inched closer to the dark that he fed upon.
None of the others had entered the passageway yet. He knew that. But he did not blame them. Better then that he clear the entryway. Probably the ones who had chosen to stay behind would have to fend against attacks they too, but they were not facing anything alike what they might go up against down there.
Ian stepped down into the stairway. It may have just been him but the stairs felt warm giveing him a false sense of slight comfort before the nightmares he would have to endure. "Styg," Ian tapped him on the shoulder lightly. "It seems you'd be the best equipped to fight your, um, rival. I was thinking, if you stay behind us as we punch a hole through what ever resistance there is you'll be fresh for the fight."
Cog nodded to the dragon, shaking his head. "No. I'm alright. Thank you." he said, experimentally bringing his arms back and then forward, testing out his newly-healed body. No immediate pains sprang up.
Cog made a bow to the dragon, making sure to keep his sword out of the way and behind him, and straightened back up slowly.
"Good luck. We'll return as fast as we can." he said, tapping and increasing the magical sight on his glasses once before turning and walking towards the entrance to hell. The wolf took a deep breath, his last breath of relatively fresh air, before taking the first step and descending.
Through the smog and smoke that was the new atmosphere, the wolf descended the stone steps quickly. The dry, ashen atmosphere was almost discomforting, as was the lurid red glow that suffused the stairway, glowing a eerie blue out of his glasses. Cog came to a slow stop behind behind the Ian and Sebastian, the wolf idly cracking his neck once more as they paused.
He kept silent, instead concentrating on keeping his eyes and ears open. His grip on his sword tightened, and his yellow eyes seemed to glow as they reflected back the red-and-blue light of hell.
* * *
The masked feline stood very quietly through the ordeal, her eyes flickering to and fro. She gave the gun back to Ian, giving the wererat a strange look at his comment, and simply shrugged. Her tail flicked back and forth, a show of typical feline agitation.
As Ian and the other wolf made thier way down the stairs, Ketefe also headed for the stairs, the feline strangely quiet as she headed into hell.
For a few, brooding minutes, a countenance of sullen sorrow hanging palpably about her blanket-bundled frame, Keaton remained where she was, pondering her options. Hands of mismatched hue wrung at the folds of the makeshift blanket that Stygian had provided, pulling it fully around her form so she was safely protected from the biting cold and remnants of fluttering dust hovering in the heady air, as well as her exposed chest. Steadily, as her strength returned to her, Keaton attempted to conjure up a shapeshifted outfit to replace her torn and bedraggled top, considering the effort to be a barometer for how successfully her abilities had crept back into her exhausted body. Still deliberately making an effort to avoid the gazes of those in the room, Keaton let her eyes sink to the cracked and groove-riddled floor, unconsciously tracing the numerous divots running like spider-webbed splatters.
Among those who had chosen to follow Stygian were Cogidubnus, Ketefe, Rynkura, and the wererat... Ian. The one who still seemed to be holding some apprehension towards her transgressions, as was evidenced from how he simply wasn't looking at her. Keaton wasn't stupid. She knew when someone was angry at her, and for some reason, as injured as her pride was and how infuriated she was at herself, she found his ostracizing more enraging than upsetting. Either way, it still was damaging to her self-esteem, and she didn't even bother glaring at him in return. Pathetic. Underneath the blanket, Keaton finally managed to weave a temporary top out of darkness, tightly hugging her chest. It was a replica of her previous one, slightly threadbare due to the lackluster amount of concentration, but it would still suffice.
In the midst of her pondering Keaton realized that Rynkura had healed her. Rynkura, the one who had possibly been the most hurt--besides Gareeku--by Aisha losing her arm, which she still felt partially responsible for. Did the tigress not harbor any animosity for what she believed to be her fault? Either way, the wizened healer had restored her from the brink of death, and that was deserving of some sort of appreciation... some form of thanks. As vicious as she was, Keaton didn't forget when she owed someone something, and knew better than to neglect this. Especially when she was supposed to be taking as many opportunities as she could to redeem herself.
Quietly, Keaton unfurled the blanket from her body and stood up, sniffling. With an air of silent resolution about her she trudged away, bending down briefly to scoop up Catastrophe and inspect it for any damage, then she continued her pursuit, walking behind the group during their trek into the abyss.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura stood at the entrance that lay beneath the altar, staring down into the darkness after Stygian had stepped into it and was engulfed by the shadows. She was regarding it with admitted caution, while she awaited those who were coming along. Ian of course rushed into it, and Cogidubnus followed after...with Ketefe. It was a small army, but hopefully, it would be enough. Though even the tigress had her doubts.
She cast one last look around the room, again wishing her luck to all who caught her gaze. And then, with a clack of her staff on the floor just to kill the ominous silence and bring her courage to bear, she took the first step onto the stairway right behind the others...each step bringing her out of the chapel's sight. The entrance, a square of light, was slowly left behind.
The fumes of the underground also encompassed Rynkura as she followed in silence. The Healer felt like she was going to be sick, a sort of anxious feeling suppressed. Perhaps it was the fact that anything born to have wings had a natural dislike of underground places...or perhaps it was the hellish atmosphere pervading the senses. The glow ahead of them was getting closer, an accursed shade of red welcoming the group into unfathomable danger.
I hope we know what we're doing, she thought, gripping her staff tightly. She was shaken out of more dire thoughts, however, when footsteps were heard coming closely behind. Surprisingly, it was Keaton, the succubus bearing a look of unbreakable determination on her face. The tigress smiled briefly, grateful that one more had come to help their cause, but concerned. "I hope you're certain that you are strong enough to come."
* * *
A sleeping Aisha, the bracer of light softly glowing around her wrist, found that warmth and comfort were quite easy to fall into...as she rested against Gareeku and lightly sensed his heartbeat. Whatever scattered dreams came to her mind, they were visions of better times, breaching the feeling of the chapel, the voices of reality nearly lost to her hearing. The adrenaline was gone, her pulse beating at a constant pace, and her face holding a look of serenity...perhaps hard to envision on the adventurer's battle-worn state.
At intervals, a soft and low rumble could be heard from within the panther's throat. At first it could have been mistaken for a growl...but she didn't look to be having a nightmare, nor did a growl ever make an entire body gently vibrate. Aisha was purring.
With the warriors on their way to the source of the hell plague Mel began to work on healing her own arm. She pulled her left hand out of her pocket. Rynkura had cured the major burns but the nerves would take more work. Her hand was pulled into a stiff claw by the damage. As she began restoring feeling and movement to her limb she walked over to where Gareeku held Aisha. "How is she doing?"
Jeremiah's occasional "Good luck!" "Keep yourselves safe!" Or the slightly quieter, "Don't die, you guys," followed those moving on ahead. So, who remained...?
Mel, a decidedly out of commission Aisha, and an equally out of commission Gareeku looking after her. Mel was probably a force to be reckoned with in her own right; he hadn't been fully conscious when she'd reverted to her true size and shape earlier, but he remembered the roar.
More demons, and the things that use them as pawns.
Yes Cab, I heard him. Now please, please, please shut up. Jeremiah went and picked up the axe Bal had been wielding earlier and hoped he could use it as well as the maniacal personae could.
Oh, you can't. You don't have the guts, the skill... you're a bleeding heart. This entire time here, you haven't been willing to do anything that might dirty those hands of yours. That lovely degree of seperation that what little magic you know gives you... Except, of course, when you've let yourself go. Bal snickered, glad to be the one doing the tormenting again, Or when SOMEONE lets you go, anyway.
The Lunacy's constant buzz was starting to take on the qualities of laughter. What really worried the frog was that the laughter was in his voice.
"I'll just keep an eye on the door than, shall I?" The frog offered nervously, slinging the axe over one shoulder and waiting at a position close enough to the door to watch it and far enough from that door to have the chance to run away from whatever came through it.
Watching Rynkura put the light bracer on Aisha's wrist, Gareeku listened to what the tigress said, nodding his head in response.
"Good luck." was all the wolf could say as he watched them descend into the catacombs below. Looking around, Gareeku checked to see who altogether was there apart from Aisha and himself; namely, Jeremiah and Mel.
Turning to look at Aisha again, Gareeku watched her sleep as he felt her vibrate softly; she was purring. She looked so peaceful at that moment, it brought a soft smile to the wolf's face to see her like that...
It was then, however, that he heard Mel ask how she was doing, causing Gareeku to snap back to attention, so to speak.
"She's sleeping now..." the wolf said as he looked at Mel, before looking back at Aisha again. Jeremiah's voice was the next to be heard. Looking over, Gareeku saw that the frog seemed nervous. A completely understandable feeling considering the situation that they were in. Nevertheless, the wolf could not help but be a bit concerned.
Stygian stepped out into the nearly utter dark of the catacomb entry, not entirely the same as the one that the adventurers had first sought out. The layout of the room was largely the same, but there was another exit available now. And the walls retained the same misplaced, laden look as in the stairway. It seemed that things were changing even faster this close to the gateway, but that was not unexpected. Just inconvenient.
Waiting in the others, Stygian walked slowly forth and stared hard at the archways leading down into the terror. A glowing, orange light streamed unevenly up from the one right in front of him, while the two others remained mostly dark and anonymous. All in all, it was not foreboding or especially enlightening at all. But then, the old bastard isn't in a hurry to have me come to him... he thought.
'Let's not split up. At all,' the bat spoke over his shoulder to the others as they arrived, one by one. 'We don't know exactly what waits.' He arced his neck forward and walked forth, heading closer to the faint light and in under the archway, hearing the others at his back.
At first Keaton conjured up a determined effort to remain as distanced and silent from everyone else as possible unless explicitly necessary, purposefully remaining behind the group and keeping her attention on the shadows. Around her the darkness seemed to writhe, coalescing in thick, palpable waves off of the walls that they cloaked, though for the first time in hundreds of horrible years, Keaton did not find their ethereal presence a comfort. After all, in their depths they probably masked a threat even greater than the monster which had so easily incapacitated her, and those aforementioned threats could have the same immunity to her abilities that the last one did.
When Rynkura spoke Keaton froze, having genuinely not expected for someone to step forward and talk to her. Quite to her relief, it was the one she felt indebted to--meaning she could state her gratitude, if she weren't devoid of eloquence at the moment. "I--" Keaton attempted to muster up a complete sentence, failing miserably. "Yeah, I am, I just..."
Finally, she sighed and rubbed behind her head, gripping her mace with her opposite hand. "I am, but... that's thanks to you. Thanks for... well, for healing me." Keaton sheepishly nodded her head, then continued walking after the rest of the group, still acutely observing her surroundings in anticipation of some volatile, temperamental disturbance.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The wolf nodded silently at the bat, the ragged iaidouka quiet as he followed the bat into hell. The lurid, red glow of the entryway cast tattered shadows across the wolf's chest, the black rags of his shirt somewhat blocking the crimson glow, and the red light reflected dully from his eyes, the crimson colored hellish as it mixed with his own sulfurous hue. Steel, silvery blade glowing a flashing red, the wolf simply held his sword at his side, the tip not quite touching the ground, and his bare feet thumped softly on the stone floor.
His ears perked, Cog kept his eyes carefully roving throughout the room, listening for a telltale scuttle or a sudden flash of blue that would signal danger. The whole doorway in front of him glowed blue, the red lurid light colored an eldritch hue. It was the same blue that the runes and symbols that had run down the hallway had been, strangely bright but...different from purely arcane magics.
The wolf tightened his grip on his sword, glancing towards the rest of his party. Keats seemed to be doing better - she was coherent, and certainly didn't seem to be suffering from blood loss anymore. And the presence of Rynkura was certainly a boon. The healer would be very useful.
The masked feline behind them was quieter than even the wolf, not even nodding, but simply following the bat and the rest of the party with a silent intensity. Behind her mask, her eyes almost seemed...distant, as if she was was somewhere else.
Cog shrugged, and keeping his ears perked, he walked silently into hell.
"Hm, Bloody Nail or Crimson Thumbtack or whhat ever that goth kid goes by, would be green with envy right now." Ian said flatly for once he wasn't jokeing at all. "Lead on Stygian." A raw determination shone through the terrified trembelings of his baritone voice.
Oh how hard it was to concentrate on one point in the castle's underground, while the hellish air intensified with each moment. But the group seemed in determined spirits, if silent. Rynkura however spared a smile to Keaton as they walked. "You are more than welcome," she nodded to the succubus. "No one should be ignored in the presence of such trouble. Allies, especially. And for now we need all we can get. Your help is appreciated, Keaton."
As they descended the stairs, Rynkura observed the intensifying light that lay before them, illuminating their field of vision. That light seemed to be the only constant thing in their sight, the morbid surroundings seemingly changing in their vision. There wasn't just one exit...there were a few, and the central door's light shone while the others remained dark and ominous.
"We shall try," the tigress responded to Stygian, and glanced back at the others before following the bat through the entryway. As long as everyone had the wisdom to stay together...
Mel found herself pacing back and forth between the main doors and the altar as she simultaneously worked on getting all the feeling back in her arm and preparing spells. She laughed a bit at the nervous action. Previous opponents had shown no difficulty with coming through the walls and floor. She was glad Aisha was asleep, the panther didn't need the nerve-stretching stress of waiting to see when they would be attacked, or who would return from the catacombs.
Even as Rynkura responded to Keaton's gratitude, the jackal looked undeniably anxious, her ears laid flat and her vision shakily slipping to the side, purposefully redirecting itself away from the others. However, at hearing herself being referred to as an ally Keaton's ears flicked upright, lobes tilting themselves forward and eyebrow arching almost incredulously, reacting in a cynically instinctive manner despite her surprise. Upon realizing how sarcastic she may have looked Keaton's expression fell almost apologetically, then she blinked.
If that wasn't a confirmation on Rynkura not holding any animosity towards her, Keaton wasn't sure what was. Not only that, her help was actually appreciated. She wasn't viewed as a detriment by at least someone, so she wasn't... entirely useless, was she? At least there was that. She still felt the guilt sting at the back of her head, but she disregarded it for now. Something was going in her favor.
"...Thanks, Ryn," Keaton said gratefully, resting her mace against her shoulder. "I appreciate that."
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Though it had to be imagination, the group venturing down almost felt the weight of tons upon tons of stone above them. The passage which Stygian had walked into led down a staircase into a tomb-like chamber, insets and bars surrounded by spikes in the slightly uneven walls. The skeletal remains of someone's upper body hung chained to one such, providing grotesque decoration. The only lighting was provided by braziers hung on the walls to the far end of the room, surrounding a circular opening covered by more metal bars. Stygian paced up to the latter and with a bit of work wrenched them up and aside, peering down a circular staircase that led down into utmost blackness. Again, he chose only to wait for the others to enter the room before he descended.
The first step down the stairs brought a slight shudder and dust falling from the floor. And then that voice again, though darker this time. You're going deeper, boy. But for what? Do you think there is anything to find but your death here? it growled. I will not tell you to go away. But you fools following have no business with us. Leave, and you might still survive!
The echo died out, while Stygian simply walked steadily on, vanishing into the dark.
Ian mocked the omonious voice in a high pitched nagy voice with his arms in a t-rexy position flailing his hands about. "Leave now and you just might live..." he was pissed now and he just wanted to get back to studying "Horse shit." And he truged on. As he got inot the room Stygian was in he looked down at him. "So what's this all about? I mean what's his beef with you?"
Ian's voice seemed to fall on dead ears. Stygian's steps were inaudible, and with the bat nowhere in sight, darkness clouding their senses and confusing them, suddenly none could see the bat.
Cog glanced at the rat beside him, giving him a strange look as he continued on. The wolf shook his head imperceptibly - he seemed like hardly more than some kid with a pair of guns. Not that he would say much: the kid was either far stupider than he seemed so far, to walk into hell, or he was much braver than Cog would have given a student credit for. Still, his commentary thus far was making Cog lean towards the former.
Sebastian continued forward, disappearing into the darkness. Cog's eyes widened - despite the enchantment on his glasses, he couldn't see the bat up ahead. He normally glowed an eldritch blue, but the darkness seemed to absorb even that.
What's more, the darkness seemed to do more than just impede sight. He couldn't smell the bat anymore either, and his ears seemed to be registering nothing, not even his footfalls. The wolf's eyes narrowed, his gut clenching. This was ringing alarm bells on all his deepest instincts.
Still - what else could he do? Cog continued on, walking in a straight line, and hoped that he would be able to see -something- soon...
"Styg?" Ian looked around and waited on his fellow party members. "Man, crap like this always happens."
Rynkura nodded in response to Keaton's gratitude, a smile her only reply as she turned her gaze forward again. Step after step through the darkness of the castle's undercroft, the feeling of being weighed down came further upon them. Above their heads lay the possibility that it they would be buried alive, fear and intimidation attempting to gnaw at each one of them. But there was a reason these adventurers had followed; whether out of true courage or out of foolishness.
Then they had come upon a lair that screamed "dungeon" to the white tiger's mind...those existing in the days long past of merciless torture and agonizing airless death...as insisted by the remains of a poor individual condemned to stocks. And wherever the old grandfather bat was it seemed that this was quite the theme for him to use.
With reverent silence, Rynkura watched as Sebastian opened the way to another passage...and then the voice came again, as dark as ever and ever more menacing. When the bat showed no answer but his own resolve, the Healer watched the passage that he opened. More stairs down into encompassing darkness, where he was soon swallowed and could not be seen. This was the point of no return. The chance to go forward or back. But really, the choice was easy once it was thought about enough.
"I guess we're condemned, then," she muttered, and followed along behind Cogidubnus...though concern also settled onto her. Hopefully Sebastian hadn't really disappeared, and was just in front of them. "Keep walking, Ian," she ordered, trying to focus. "Just keep going forward; we mustn't lose each other. And keep at least a little respect. You never know what we will find between here and there," she warned, trying to keep her staff glowing and acting as a torch to see at least where their feet stepped.
* * *
What time is it?
Slowly and surely, the bracer of light was taking its effect to overshadow Aisha's exhaustion. In much the same effect that the staff had, the power combined with the quiet, uninterrupted sleep was bringing her strength back. Added to the little sleep that she had gotten ever since her injuries earlier in the night, sooner or later it would be a slight difficulty to keep her eyes closed. The question on time was the first thing to come to her scattered thoughts.
The panthress's purring slowed, lingered, and halted after what seemed like a long few moments, and then her eyes started to open. The view was blurry...and still dark, bar for the few bits of light that kept the dirty and nearly-destroyed chapel in sight, and the glow at her wrist. Aisha blinked a few times, comfortably shifting herself in Gareeku's arms.
"Dios mio..." she groaned, still quite groggy as she looked up at him, and then turned her head around at the surroundings, wondering if anyone else was there besides them. "It's not even morning yet, is it?"
"To be honest I can't really see where he's gone off to. I don't want to fubar things so you'd better lead." Ian said stepping behind the next person.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs Stygian was nowhere in sight. What was though, was something more resembling a cavern than an actual catacomb, the misplaced stone tiles and walls giving way to sheer rock in places and branching out into the darkness and the floor inexplicably opening in places into dark, bottomless shafts. Deep, deep and murky red light flooded in from below to one of the sides, and judging from the open look to their left it seemed that they had no choice but to go down toward it, even deeper yet. A winding stairway cruelly decorated with the same heathen images that now adorned part of the walls - bestial faces, scenes of dark history and demon-worshiping - led down into the depths. No shadows moved around them, yet a few whispering sounds and the darkness that obscured vision to the point where only Rynkura could navigate the room safely made the place seem very close to alive.
Upstairs, those who had chosen to stay behind had lost all signs of the ones who had went below, leaving them seemingly stranded in the trashed and darkened chapel. Few lights burned, granting them an incomplete and gloomy view of the surrounding destruction as they kept together, surrounded by the dark and the chapel's statues, which seemed more like the keepers of a prison than some guards against evil. But at least they had peace and quiet for the moment. Had it not been for the nervous whistling coming from Jeremiah's direction, things might even have been restful.
Mel returned to Aisha's side. "No, it is not yet morning. Dawn should be soon, although with the rain it may be hard to tell. We are waiting on the others return. How are you feeling?" She expended a small amount of magic to check Aisha to make sure that no infections had set in, although her eyes looked bright and clear enough that she didn't really expect to find any. Her heart seemed stronger as well, so the lost blood had to be replenishing well.
The only light he could see by was the dull, red glow drifting up from the chasm-ridden floor. A path opened up to the right, also glowing luridly with red, hellish light. Despite the red glow, Cog could barely see - he couldn't see. The light seemed more like a paint than a luminescence, illuminating only that which it fell directly across. Not even the magic lenses on his glasses helped - there was simply nothing to perceive.
Cog touched the charm that hung around his neck. The piece of twisted silver flared, and then settled into a steady, white glow - the blade at Cog's side also flared white, the edge glittering despite the lack of light. It wasn't very strong at all, but enough to make sure he wasn't walking into a precipice. He walked carefully towards the stairway, the light from his charm and sword revealing hideous, sacreligious engravings down the winding staircase. Cog merely frowned, shaking his head, and continued down the stairs.
Ian followed close behind Cog guns ready. "So, uh, you guys know anything about this 'hell on earth' thing? 'cause I...well, I am really freaked out right now." Every step seemed to magnify the horrible evil feeling. His only comfort was the light hum of the UV clips in his guns.
"That is only to be expected," Rynkura staunchly answered the shaky rat. "If you are so afraid, perhaps you still have the chance to turn around."
She continued along with the others toward the next stairway, carefully navigating and warning the adventurers against the pitfalls and dangers. The cavern-like area was daunting, the patterns so realistic that she wondered whether or not the underground catacombs had actually been there for long. So far underground it seemed they were, that they weren't breathing the freshest of air...and weight seemed to pull down on them a little harder...yet, they had to keep going.
It was only a little further down, following the hellish light. "Stay together," she reminded. "If any one of us strays from here on, it will mean the end."
Moreover, at least the tiger liked when the silence was filled with words. The bat was gone, and she wondered if they had really gotten themselves lost...or if it was his intention to speed on ahead. Whatever the reason was, at least they had themselves a path to follow.
* * *
Aisha lifted her head as she heard Mel, and tried to comprehend her words. So it was at least close to morning...the light had not yet been seen again. With the overall feeling of the chapel, it still felt like night. But the dragon was with them, and she could hear someone's whistling breaking the silence from somewhere off. Other than that...she wondered what Mel meant by waiting for the others to return.
"Uh..." Aisha grunted, putting her hand to her forehead. "I think...I think I'll be fine, yeah...thanks. That is...thank you both. I don't know how I could...ever..." the panthress turned to cast a smile at Gareeku, in whose grasp she remembered that she was resting. Her face was warm as she tried to move so that his arms wouldn't be tired in holding her up. Somewhat hard to do, as she remembered that one of her own arms was missing...the stump still wrapped in gauze that was no longer completely white.
The panthress cringed and turned away from the sight, pulling the cloak she was wrapped in over it. Instead she looked at her left hand, a bit of a forlorn, confused look crossing her eyes. "...How should I even be alive?"
As he sat there, the feeling of fatigue had finally caught up with Gareeku. Having more or less fallen asleep, his eyes opening slowly as he felt Aisha move in his arms. Looking down at her, the wolf smiled softly.
"Hey there..." he said in a whisper to her, glad to see that the pantheress was awake. Listening as the others spoke, Gareeku shook his head slightly as Aisha commented on how she was still alive.
"The important thing is that you are alive." the wolf replied softly, his hand gently holding the sie of her face as he spoke.
"I'm just wonderin' how to fix all this. actually it's kinda exciteing down here." Ian had a big smile on his face.
Caught in her morbid thoughts for only a moment, the panthress looked back to Gareeku as she heard his gentle voice and felt his hand softly on her face. No doubt, he could feel the warmth on her cheek, the feeling of security and protection coming back to her...something that she hadn't felt in the longest time. With a soft smile back to the wolf, she placed her hand on his and closed her eyes. "That's true," she solemnly agreed. "And I suppose I have all of you to thank for it, with my life...and you, Gareeku, for watching over me...I never thought you would have missed any fights," she joked, smirking slightly before she softly nuzzled her face into his palm. "I owe you so much now. I who've probably only been not much more than a burden."
She opened her eyes and sighed quietly, turning her gaze away. "I just wonder as to how I still lived...before blacking out, all I remember seeing was..." her eyes narrowed. "Fire, everywhere. And blood. And that demon, with a knife in his hand..." She took a deep breath. "If I'm here then...that must mean he's dead...right? I killed him."
As she recalled the details of the fight, the look on her face became dark...it began as an appearance of anger, then slowly formed into a wicked grin as the situation drove itself into her mind. "I killed him. I killed him. I...killed...him..." Her voice wavered. For a moment it seemed like she would break down. But then she growled slightly. "I hope that demon's torture in hell is having his heart ripped out again and again. Just like he did to my father."
It was then that she turned her head outward, gently letting herself off of Gareeku's lap to sit beside him, and looked out at the darkness of the chapel...everything that still reminded her of the fight. Then, she stood, and shook her fist in the air. "You hear that, bastard?!" she shouted upward, elation catching up with her now that she had recovered, intent on letting out all of the last of her anger. Her voice echoed. "A Cabre still lives! We're avenged! Avenged, basura! You peace of filth! We. LIVE!"
For a second it looked like Aisha started to overreact...but she calmed almost as instantly, leaning back into the seat, hand clutching the area on her chest where her heart was beating ferociously. The expression on her face was no longer dark...it was one that Gareeku would probably have identified with. The most sincere smile on her face, tears streaming from her eyes...a look of pure and absolute elation, and accomplishment.
"Sorry...but I've been wanting to do that for so long..." she whispered. "Finally..."
The stairs wound down fairly steadily. It was not long however, before the walls and clear references of support began to fall away into the dark. They found themselves walking down damaged and cracked steps that had no visible or explainable support. And now the red light was everywhere. They could vaguely hint stony, uneven structures out in the darkness, but that was all. Once, they thought they could hear the sweeping sound of large wings out in the nothingness, but it passed quickly, and was hard to distinguish from the ghastly, living sounds of the place.
Finally, they reached another platform, large and decidedly solid yet it too without much visible support. Half-crumbled walls and a seemingly ancient, gothic arch-like structure stood above them. From the platform more stairs originated, one set leading upward and another down, and a bridge-like arch to their right beyond which at least Rynkura thought she could see something resembling a cliff.
Aisha's words echoed long and strongly in the chapel, adding perfectly to the message and the mood of the situation all in the same. Silence followed for a few seconds, during which she thought she could almost see the statues frowning on her exacerbating loudness. Then the quiet whistling resumed.
Cog remained silent as he thought about what to say to the college student behind him, his glowing sword just barely illuminating the sides of the stairway around him. He opened his mouth to speak when Rynkura answered, and Cog sighed a small sigh of relief. He didn't know how to explain this place. It was hell, with all that was implied.
At the rat's second comment, however, Cog almost stopped to check if the little guy's eyes were dilated. There was bravado, and there was simple stupidity. He began to wonder if the wererat really knew where they were.
If they died, they might not have very far to go.
As they continued into the depths, things began to make less and less sense. Walls and floors began to have no discernible sign of support, and strange and organic sounds permeated the crumbling stone walkways, only once punctuated by the sound of leathery wings. Cog kept his sword resting on his shoulder, and his eyes constantly roving.
Finally, they reached a platform, more stairs going up and down, and a path leading off to the right. White brightness pooling about his feet, the wolf stood in the middle and waited for the others.
"Don't get split up, he says..." the wolf muttered, looking for some sign that the bat had left behind.
Jeremiah flinched at first at Aisha's outburst, but soon found himself grinning along with the overall sentiments of the pantheress' cry. Take that, hell! Take that, monsters! Take that, universe! Everything you throw at us, we're still alive! WE'RE STILL ALIVE! It seemed almost poetic to him, the way the shout echoed down the halls. If he closed his eyes he could almost see it, track it's passage through the castle by sound as her shout delivered their boasts to everything wandering the halls of this accursed place. WE. LIVE.
Wait...
Eyes still shut, but now concern creased the artists lids. Something else. I hear something else... Some soft background noise, so soft it seemed almost nervous to be heard. What is it... It was going on a second ago, Jeremiah realized, before Aisha spoke. Gradually as he listened closer, head bowed, eyes shut and both hands clasping the axe as though this mere act of listening left him without free strength to stand. His mind made the connection, dredged up words to go with the depressing tune that he mouthed aloud.
... And the itsy bitsy spi~der went up the spout a~gain...
His eyes snapped open. The frog turned around, ignoring the grating noise as the end of his axe scraped across the floor as he switched to holding it horizontally.
"Guys?" eyes wide, voice only avoiding being a nervous whisper out of necessity, "That whistling isn't me..."
Silence was all that answered Jeremiah's call. The whistling ceased, and for a while they could all just look up and around into the dark.
All Mel heard was a faint swoosh before something hit her in the back of the head, and she was sent tumbling forward a bit, sliding to a stop on the floor. The dragon had been knocked out cold. Whatever had hit her swung back up into the ceiling as quickly as it had swept down. There was another pause, and then Jeremiah felt as he was gripped and tugged by his shirt up into the air and back, flying toward the benches behind him. A shadow moved above, climbing around the columns.
Much like Cogidubnus, along with a very quiet Keaton, Rynkura had decided to ignore most of Ian's nervous talk. Though the youngster made himself out to be brave, she wondered just how long he...or any of them...could keep up with a front until the right monster would appear to place a creep up their back. It was one step after another through darkness, save for the hellish light coming from around them and from various glowing items. The tiger felt well enough with her staff cutting through most of it.
The morbidity was unending. The further down they went, the more it felt like they were going so far underground that not even the collapse of the castle would outright kill them. The creeping feeling of being cooped up, although they were in such a wide chamber with slowly crumbling stairs beneath her feet, was still present in anyone's mind. At one point, Rynkura took pace to the head of the group so that she would have more room to maneuver. "Pardon me for a moment," she excused, and with a touch, deactivated the gems on her sleeves. Slowly, the bold-striped and white-feathered wings materialized from her back once more and rested around her shoulders like a makeshift cloak. In this pit, she found it useful to be able to fly if something were to happen.
But finally, they had reached a deciding point. A rocky platform, which mostly only seemed supported by the air itself, was their stepping stone into an abyss of red light, crooked and misused stone patterns, and a veil of shadows. As the Healer waited beside Cogidubnus for the others, she gazed up at the gothic arch before them. And when Rynkura counted the exits, she looked just as frustrated.
"Three ways..." she muttered, looking over the stairs, and then over the bridge where a cliff stood. Dammit...we may very well have to split. With a hum, she looked back at the wolf, jackal, rat, and feline. "Well, we have just been going down thus far, it may make sense to do so again. And there seems to be nothing but a sheer drop in the direction off right. But it may be worthwhile to take just a glance at the other paths. What do the rest of you propose?"
"Down seems to be the best choice, but for the sake of arguement why don't we take a short trek down all of them? We could all split up meet back here in five and report." Ian was stareing at the passage to the right. There was something about it that he couldn't explain. It drew him to it like a moth to flame.
Edited. where is my head sometimes?
Jeremiah should have known better than to point things out. It always, always, ALWAYS ended badly. Things don't like being pointed out.
This is of course what was going through his head as two and a half seconds after he was jerked into the air, gravity already having yanked the axe out of his hands in the first 0.6 seconds. Everything seemed to slow as he tumbled through the air, the tugging sensation on his back fading as he reached the top of his arc.
And directly in front of him was a line of web. He craned his head back, looking at the floor. The line went down, and looped up again to him. He'd been caught, and then flicked through the air like a fly on the end of a fishing line. Except instead of landing on the surface of a stream, he'd be slammed and shattered against the unforgiving furnishings below.
Unless...
Both hands shot out and grabbed the line in front of him, and the world sped up again.
Gravity still had something to say in the matter, nearly jerking and twisting his arms out of their sockets as he did everything he could to keep his grip on the line and astoundingly enough succeeding. Lucky me, I'm stuck in something. His gaze traveled up to the shadow above, noticing the meager light reflecting off of eight eyes, I'm stuck in spider silk. Lucky, lucky me. The momentum that would have carried him to the ground instead ended up pushing him horizontally, swinging on the web line across the room. He assessed the situation as best he could while screaming his head off in fright.
She was smart; took out our only really usable heavy hitter right away. Mel is down. Aisha; HA! Alright, no kidding myself. Gareeku...
Gareeku's looking after Aisha.
Oh my gods, I'm all alone up here.
The strand of webbing curled around one of the columns and stuck. Jeremiah braced his feet against said column and held on like a rock climber, his knuckles turning white to keep their grip as his slick amphibious palms slowly neutralized the gluey substance on the webs. His eyes scanned the area above him again. He'd stopped screaming. He was too scared to.
Where are you? Come on, where?
Breakbreakbreakbreak-
Hide!
Get closer! Wanna see!
Gain the upper hand!
Just let her finish her!
HeehehehAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAH!
Where? Wild eyed and searching frantically, loose fingers motioning through an illusion that would hide him against the column, Where?
What did I get myself into?
Upon finding the others, Ketefe was astonished to see how badly everyone had been injured. Keaton had been covered in cuts, Aisha had – oh dear God – lost her sword-hand, and everyone else was just plain battered and exhausted. The feline's own exhaustion was catching up with her, but she managed to pay attention when Rynkura asked for the bracer back, nodding her assent. The healer seemed remarkably calm, given that a battle had obviously ended within a few minutes of Ketefe and Ian arriving. Gareeku was hovering over Aisha, and Stygian was focused on Keaton.
When a voice came out of nowhere, Ketefe's muscles froze and her eyes widened in terror for a moment. Then she realized it wasn't her recently vanquished demon... it was something different. And everyone heard it, not just her. If anything, the one most affected by this unseen presence was Stygian, who snarled back at the voice and silenced it. She stayed silent and still, because it would be easiest to figure everything out that way and there wasn't much she could do to help. She watched as everyone was doctored, learning that the voice was Stygian's grandfather, and only moving to avoid a falling column that nearly smashed an already badly-injured Jeremiah.
Finally, Stygian spoke about closing the gate to Hell in the castle. Cog, Ian, and Rynkura had already offered to follow the bat. As Ian took his gun out of Ketefe's unresisting hands, she pondered whether she should stay or go, but her own body answered the question for her. She was one of the few people who hadn't received a severe physical injury yet, and now that she was of sound spirit, she was healthy enough to fight. True, she was tired, but hadn't the break she'd just received allowed her to recharge?
Without saying a word, she followed the others through the darkened catacombs, seeing Keaton get up and follow out of the corner of her eye. The darkness in the hall wasn't a threat to her stamina; her other senses made up for the shadows impeding her vision. And yet, it weighed down on the group. Once again, she felt as though the gloom itself was conscious. The macabre carvings on the wall did nothing to dissuade her of this sickening dread. The voice threatened them, but Ketefe glared at the darkness and hissed quietly, partly to reaffirm her own courage. I've been scared by worse things than voices, bastard. You're gonna have to do better than that. But she couldn't deny the darkness and spite in the eldritch voice...
Something seemed wrong all of a sudden. She sniffed the air and listened, but someone was missing. "Where's Stygian?" she said to herself. But that thought left her head when she realized they'd hit a tight spot. Some stairs, a bridge to the right, and the abyss below them... Ketefe shook her head and glanced at their exits, taking note that Rynkura had just sprouted wings.
"The path to the right looks sturdier than the stairs..." Ketefe said aloud. "But I'm not so sure splitting up would be the best idea." The bat had said to stay together, but where had he gone? She sighed and waited to see what the others had to say.
Cog shook his head. "Splitting up is a bad idea. We're not at full strength as it is." the wolf said, looking somewhat nonplussed. "And we aren't alone here." he said, his eyes passing over the almost impenetrable darkness. His magic-seeing told him nothing, the umbra complete in it's concealment. There was nothing to see.
Not where he was looking, anyway.
He turned to Rynkura. "I agree. We've been going down so far. And if one way is closed to us, we can try another. Splitting up will only make it easier for whatever is watching us." Cog sighed, turning again to look at the downward-spiraling staircase.
In the distance, through the organic sounds of hell, Cog almost though he could hear wind, slow and mournful and infinitely despairing, and perhaps the whistling of some far-off jutting rocks, whistling high and gleefully. A double tonality that drove spikes of fear into the wolf's brain.
And loud they sang, and long they sang, for they sang to wake the dead...
Watching as Aisha gently got up from his lap, and then making her declaration to the heavens, Gareeku watched, a slight smile on his face as he did so.
It was then, however, that it became apparent that something was amiss. A whistling sound...
Suddenly, Mel was down. The wolf leapt to his feet as he looked at her. His eyes darting, Gareeku then saw as Jeremiah seemingly disappeared. Growling, the wolf continued to look around, until he suddenly spotted something up above; a shadow, climing around the columns...
Not taking his eyes off of the silouette, while at the same listening for anything else, Gareeku began to slowly unsheathe his sword, the shimmering blade reappearing once more as he gripped the weapon firmly in his hand.
"To the right." Ian said confidantly "I think it's the right way."
Rynkura stood patiently on the platform, almost below the arch as she resisted the fearful feeling of the dark atmosphere--and thoughts of what might be hiding in those shadows--to listen to the group's feelings on which path to take.
So far, Ian had suggested taking the path on the right on a strange feeling. Ketefe had also suggested that path, and indeed it looked sturdier than the stairs. Cogidubnus had brought up a good point, as well...there wasn't any way that the group was splitting up. Although each had their own talents in battle, a few were only just recovering from injury. And the bat had warned them. Going separately, even for just a few minutes, could be ensuring death.
And also, it was another good point...if one path were to be blocked, they could try to come back and choose again. The group was without their guide, and in ways scared, but they were not helpless. All had considerable abilities against whatever creatures they could come across, and more eyes at one's back were important.
"Right then...nobody splits up. And nobody becomes tempted to explore other paths," Rynkura asserted. "No matter how compelled we are. On the best guess we have, we will try to keep going down unless circumstances prevent. If the stairs cannot hold us, then we run back immediately. If one of us falls, I will help to catch them." A slight ruffling of her wings emphasized that fact. It was useful to be able to fly. "But we watch over each other."
With that, the tigress's gaze turned to the stairs, although she fairly listened for any objections before moving.
* * *
The statues hadn't seemed to like Aisha's declaration. But still it lingered, and listening to her words echoing through the grandeur of the chapel, it felt like the greatest victory in all of her life. Her heart managed to slow down, and she could stop clutching her chest and just rest on the bench alongside Gareeku. In that moment, the adventurer didn't care if she had lost an arm. One thing to make up for it was that Mistress Rynkura would probably finally remove the scars from her back.
That is, if the tiger made it back from where she had gone...
And that was when the whistling started again. Aisha nearly wanted to disregard it, but something about it kept an ear in Jeremiah's direction. It seemed to be nerves coming from the frog.
Until he had said that the whistling wasn't coming from him. And in the seconds that followed, the calm came to a dead halt. Something had flown from the ceiling, rushing in through the darkness and hitting Mel straight on, knocking her unconscious in an instant...and in the next instant, had grabbed Jeremiah and threw him to another column, only for him to hold onto a piece of...
...Web?!
With most of her energy back, Aisha didn't waste any time in standing up again, just like Gareeku. While the wolf readied his sword, the panthress rushed to help Mel. The dragon was out cold...how strong was this thing? It's not wise...but dammit, hard choice. The panther's left hand dove to her belt and drew the Dragonblade. Though it was a little pokey in her off-hand, hopefully she would feel the practice to wield it coming back. She just wished she had her boomerang to knock the thing down.
"Stop throwing us around and show yourself!" she demanded angrily to the air. She had a pretty good idea who it was that had dropped in on them. And if she, or Gareeku, or anyone else had anything to do about it, the bone would be picked. And clean.
"If you're sure. Well who weighs the most? If it can't hold them then we can't go that way, we should send them first." Ian looked over the group "well come on speak up."
Shortly after Stygian's inexplicable disappearance, the group had entered an immense, aphotic chamber, dilapidated and cracked and tarnished with giant snaking fissures rupturing the stony walls, their forms suspended over the atramentous pit yawning at the heart of the monstrous structure by the rocky platform they stepped onto. Throughout their journey Keaton remained unsettlingly quiet, having not spoken up since her brief conversation with Rynkura, as she was devoting her attention strictly to keeping her guard elevated and her eyes on the darkness. Being paranoid about her signature element wasn't something Keaton was comfortable with. The last time she had felt like that she had--she wasn't well. Not in the head.
Ian was suggesting different tactics to explore the area, none of which Keaton commented on. It was probably best they didn't split up, Keaton decided. Lord knew what was lurking about this treacherous chamber. As for who was the heaviest... Keaton knew she wasn't. At a diminutive five-foot-two and one hundred ten pounds, she was hardly the weightiest in the party. For now, Keaton reluctantly acknowledged the fact she had nothing to contribute, and resorted to wringing the pommel of Catastrophe to relieve her stress.
Without their guide, Keaton knew the group was grasping at straws when it came to different approaches to safely traverse the castle. Where the hell was he?
~Keaton the Black Jackal
A few seconds passed, before a familiar, slightly raspy but at the same time strangely melodic voice answered Aisha's words. 'Now what would be the point in that?' Sal said quizzically. She clambered out of sight again, and for another few moments she seemed completely gone.
'Tell you what... We don't even have to do this. All I want is to go past and down,' she said, her voice dislocated and echoing from above so that Aisha had trouble hearing just where she was speaking from. 'I'm not going to hurt you or your friends. All I want are the bats.' More clambering, and her voice seemed to shift direction a bit. 'Put down your weapons, and I'll just go past.'
Ketefe happened to know she wasn' the heaviest, so she shook her head. "Ms. Rynkura already said she'd catch whoever fell. Maybe we should just all go one at a time, to be safe." She prayed silently that no-one would fall, wishing desperately that Stygian would come back. She really hated and feared the darkness around her...
Listening to Sal's words, Gareeku's eyes narrowed. Like Aisha, he had a pretty good idea of who it was who had decided to intrude upon them so rudely.
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that." the wolf replied, gripping his sword firmly in his hand as his ears swivelled, looking for any sign of her presence. "The others are down there, and I'll be damned before I let some spider-commanding psycho interfere with what they're trying to do."
Shifting his feet slightly, Gareeku continued to try and get an idea of where the hell Sal was, his eyes moving to look in every direction as his ears continued to swivel.
"We're not letting you pass." the wolf said, a tone of finality in his voice as he spoke.
Before Rynkura could take one step towards the stairs, Ian had spoken up with another point...albeit disrespectfully. The tigress turned and eyed the rat, the look of a disciplinary tactician in her eyes, before she looked up to listen to the others. She took Ketefe's answer as satisfactory, and nodded. "One at a time is best. We'll space out a little from each other so that weight is distributed, but none of us will be separated. As was put, I will catch anyone who may fall, although I'm pretty sure that some of you have the ability to keep your balance well, as adventurers," she grinned.
And with that, the Healer turned to stride back off in the direction of the downward staircase, wings spreading behind her as she placed one cautious foot on the first step...followed by another, and then another, and motioning for the others to go. Inside, she was adverse to keep going down further, but for the moment this seemed the proper choice.
* * *
Aisha couldn't help but let out a hiss as their assailant answered her demand in a smooth tone. Her eyes scanned the ceiling, while she stood over Mel with her sword raised defensively. It couldn't easily be told from where the voice was coming...but she was there, somewhere.
Sal wanted to go on ahead...after the bats, she said. But when the panthress heard Gareeku say that the others had gone ahead into the depths as well, her ears flattened against her skull and she growled between her teeth. "Agreed. Nobody's going to interfere with our comrades, bruja."
It was easy to see that the bunch of adventurers would take a bit of convincing before anyone was let to pass.
At the question about who was lightest, Cog simply scratched his neck. It certainly wasn't him, he knew, although he'd lost a considerable amount of excess baggage on the way down here. He felt lighter, anyway.
The consensus was finally reached that they'd try the stairs, and Rynkura was the first to go, her feathery wings spreading wide as she took a first hesitant step. The stairs seemed to hold, and pausing to look around only once the wolf followed, his steps thumping faintly. Stepping as delicately as he could, he followed the angel in front of him down into the darkness.
Ketefe was a little confused when the stairs won over the path, but she shrugged it off. She watched as Rynkura went first, and relaxed inwardly when they didn't crumble. Cogidubnus was next to go, following Rynkura carefully. After Cog was a good few feet down the stairs, Ketefe followed, holding her arms to her sides, but her hands slightly out for balance.
She focused alternatingly on Cog's back and the stairs below her, each step as cautious and light as she could make it.
Ian may have been taller but he was very light, he walked calmly after Ketefe. "I hope the bat's ok." He said solemnly
The descent went well to a beginning, only the scrapes of dirt and footsteps signaling their movement down the stairway, while other shapes and paths hinted in the dark. But if the unfortunate adventurers had thought that things would go so well, they were wrong.
The one signal they had was a sudden creak. They had come just up to a point where it seemed they could see another platform before them, and a stone column leading down into nothingness held up the stairs behind them, when the stairs gave way out under Cog. A large block of steps ground loose, and the wolf could not immediately recover his balance mid-stride. Jerking reflexively, he slipped on his heel and slid down, his backside hitting and scraping against the last step before he managed to turn around. The scrambling fingers of his right hand found a grip just before he plummeted down along with the two blocks of steps that fell away silently under him. Almost twisting his arm around, the wolf caught himself and hung, tensing to near the point of breaking and his hand already starting to ache.
Aisha almost thought she could hear something like a sigh or a breath in the dark, and for a moment she almost had a fix on Sal's position. 'You're not being very smart. We're not really on opposite sides here,' the spider spoke. 'I'm only doing what I have to. But if that's how you want it...'
There was a stretching sound, something akin to the faint vibration of an elastic band being tugged at rapidly, and then suddenly a huge, roughly circular web, spun into a net, shot out at Aisha and Gareeku from up one of the columns.
Despite the possibility, Cog hadn't actually thought that the stairs might give way. By virtue of incredible luck, he'd just barely managed to catch the lip of the stairs behind him, already straining to hold on mere moments after grabbing the ledge. After the brief clutter, the noiselessness with which he hung was terrible, the wolf swinging gently in complete silence. Cog didn't made a noise, all his effort concentrating on not letting go.
Although he didn't react, the wolf noted distinctly that he never heard the stones falling below hit bottom.
Pulling himself up was out of the question - dangling in his left hand, and still shimmering with holy light, was his sword. Cog didn't possess the superhuman strength necessary to pull himself back up with one hand, and so the wolf simply dangled off the ledge, trying to think of some way to bring himself back up.
He remembered Rynkura's promise to catch them - he didn't hear the angel's wings, but he probably hadn't been hanging there for more than a second or two. Angling himself, he began to try and slide his sword back up on the ledge, and thereby free his other hand...
It turned out, as the group each in turn took their cautious and fleet steps on the winding, crumbling stairs, that wishing for things to go smoothly would be a futile effort. Rynkura could almost breath a sigh of relief when the adventures could make out ahead of them another platform upon which to stand. Again the crawling discomfort of things lurking in the dark and in the abyss started to seethe into their imaginations...
But the sudden creaking of rocks shoved that distraction aside for another. Nobody had time to warn anyone else...and then the stairs gave way under the weight of one of their comrades: Cogidubnus. Rynkura's head swiveled urgently at the sound, just in time to witness the wolf catch himself with his right hand and grip the surface, struggling to get back up again.
"Sir Mithlome!" the tigress growled, wings flaring open in an instant. She leaped from the edge and caught the air, working the flight muscles and her magic to power her up again. "It'd be a good idea to run to the platform, quickly!" Rynkura warned the others...whether or not they would obey was their choice, but she certainly hoped. The path behind them was now closed...one wondered if perhaps it was a way of saying that maybe their choice wasn't the right one...
She reached the opposing stairway where the wolf hung, landing above him with her wings outspread in preparation should the rocks crumble under her own feet as well. The Healer reached and gripped Cogidubnus's upper arm with one hand, pulling while digging the point of her staff into the stone for leverage. "Get yourself up..." she grimaced. It might only be a bit of work to carry the wolf to the other side, with luck...
* * *
One of Aisha's ears quirked up when she heard the spider's reply, ignoring the part about not being very smart. But she had to snort. "'Not on opposite sides'...?" she murmured.
Before the idea could be thought of further, her ears caught a sudden sound like stretching or coiling...and then a flash of silk. Aisha's eyes widened. "Gareeku, look out!" she cried, before dashing and attempting to roll out of the way herself...some of her coordination had been lost along with her arm though, and she ended up getting a leg caught in a part of the web.
"Mierda!" she cursed, trying to sit up and look to see if Mel or the wolf hadn't gotten caught in a part of it either. "The hell do you mean we're on the same side?" She snarled up to the ceiling. "Last thing I recall, some of us had been made into goddamn slaves! For what purpose?!" Aisha growled as she struggled and tried to bring her blade around to slice herself out...however hard that was to do.
Ketefe was so completely focused on surviving the trip down the stairs that she had tuned out almost all else. When the stairs beneath Cog gave way, she snapped back to life. Biting her tongue to keep from yelping out and jumping back from the void where the stairs had been, she watched as Rynkura spread her wings and swooped to help the wolf - who, thankfully, had grabbed onto the stairs and was now hanging for his life.
She didn't want to leave them behind, so she didn't do as Rynkura said. She watched Cog and the tigress carefully, not running for the platform just yet in case any help was needed.
The sound of wings approaching was far too quick and too late for them to notice. In a short but dreadful moment, something screeched, and then threw itself out of the dark at Rynkura. The mottled, fleshy and ashen gathering of leather and claws flashed large fangs under black eyes for a second as it struck the tigress head-on, and dragged her off into the dark. Her grip almost pulled Cogidubnus along with her, before she vanished entirely with a few flaps of wings, leaving only silence. Rynkura was gone. And they were one less in the darkness.
There was a pause. Then, with a slight clatter of claws, Sal maneuvered herself around to the front of the pillar, sitting forward on her haunches and looking down at them. They could almost see her clearly.
'I had to. And you weren't slaves. More something alike to being 'compelled'. I hope it wasn't too discomforting,' the spider said, the two large humanoid-like eyes in her face glimmering in the shadows. 'I'm just doing what I think I have to. And that does not include hurting you.'
Right after Sal had finished the sentence, Aisha noticed movement beneath the spider-woman. Slipping out from under her strange dress, a few skittering spiders began lazily making their way down the column. 'Of course, if I have to do it again to make sure no one is hurt and I have your help...' Sal said meaningfully, adding pressure to her argument.
Rynkura's hand was like the outstreched hand of heaven to the wolf, and he grabbed and held onto the Angel's arm even as he tried to get enough leverage to pull himself the rest of the way up. Right as he was about to pass the pivot point and be able to slide back into the stairway, without sound and without warning Rynkura was snatched away, the sudden beat of leathery wings and the Angel's cry of surprise the only warning Cog received. Almost instantly the wolf's hand darted back to the stone stairway, Cog forced to catch himself a second time.
He almost didn't make it. Once again, that eerie silence descended, and the wolf dangled from the lip of the stairs in complete and total silence. It would have been less frightening if there was a noise - something, anything, to break the yawning null, but the wolf and hell itself remained quiet. It was almost entrancing and somehow terrifying to watch.
He had no options, and couldn't hold on for much longer anymore. Cog's fingers and arms were strong indeed, but catching yourself from a fall twice is exceedingly difficult to do once. Especially one-handed. He couldn't pull himself up until his sword was elsewhere, and as much as he would rather die than lose his sword, to sacrifice the blade to save his life was a trade he would make any day.
He didn't necessarily have to right then. His left hand came up, and lightly tossing he dropped the blade on the stairs in front of him, and just in time to keep himself from tumbling into the darkness his other hand slapped onto the edge, and the wolf began to strain and pull himself up. The left side did most of the work, but with both sides of his body now pulling, he managed to get his upper body up and over the edge.
Cog managed to slide a knee over the lip of the stairs, and that clenched it. From there, he mounted the stairs quickly, his ears straining to hear some sign of their lost Angel.
"RYNKURA!" Ian couldn't stop himself from shouting. He would have started shooting if not for the fact he couldn't see anything any more, and he didn't want to hurt his friend.
Ketefe watched, frozen, as Rynkura was swept away from Cog by a leather-winged, rotting ... thing, and Cog pulled himself up. The feline ran to the wolf, thinking a million things at once and trying to stay quiet in case Rynkura was still around.
Is Cog okay, where's Rynkura, is she hurt, what was that thing, what should we do, will it come back, oh shit, oh shit shit shit...
"Cog, are you okay? What was that..." she said in a quietly panicking tone, not really believing anyone knew the answer. "How can we get her back?"
Cog lurched back up onto the stairs, and snatched up the sword lying at his feet. Ketefe's inquiry and Ian's exclamation was the only sound in the darkness, and both outcries were quickly swallowed up into the silence. Rapidly the null void surrounded them again, and Cog backed away from the edge, his field of vision sweeping over the darkness, looking for the blue glow of the angel tigress.
"I'm fine, Ketefe." he said, keeping his sword in a high guard. "And I don't know what that was." He paused, searching through the darkness. He felt a tightness in his gut.
How would they get her back?
He didn't answer Ketefe's last question. He didn't have an answer.
Hearing a faint noise, Gareeku's ears perked up. It was then that, with widened eyes, the wolf saw a mass of web flying at him and Aisha. Hearing the pantheress' exclamations, Gareeku didn't need telling. Darting to the side, the warrior rolled along the floor a litte, before whirling round to check on Aisha. Seeing that she had got her leg caught in some of the web, the wolf brought his sword down in an effort to slice through the webbing and free her. Turning round again, Gareeku could now see the spider woman more clearly than before. Growling softly, the wolf watched as small spiders lazily began descending the pillar as Sal spoke.
Aisha's sword had sliced through more of the webbing that held her leg, but if she were to swing it any more with just the little dexterity her left hand had, she would have probably sliced herself, as well. But when Gareeku's blade came down, slicing the rest of the web, she was relieved to see that he hadn't been caught. She sent him a soft smile of gratitude, before trying to get to her feet.
That was when she noticed movement and realized that Sal was speaking, and that now she was a little further down upon the pillar where they could at least catch the outline of her body. The panther stood next to the wolf, her sword raised, and ears pinned as she heard her words. But at the sight of the small spiders, as they slowly but purposefully came down the pillar, Aisha cringed and backed up a few steps. The expression on her face was that of pure revulsion.
"Oh no..." she snarled up at her. "'Compelled' my ass! You say that you don't want anyone hurt, but then you go and knock out our friend, attempt to get us stuck, and then release those things at us. Yes, it is discomforting. There are better ways to earn trust and help, and you're not exactly exercising it."
Aisha then straightened up, and lowered her sword. As much as it was shown that she didn't want to, she placed it back on the sheath on her hip, and glanced up to where Jeremiah was holding on for his life, and back to the spider woman. She tried to make her voice reasonable, but still there was showing a hint of anger. "Show us how you actually want to help. Call your little beasts back, and help Jeremiah down, or at least tell us what you were planning to do, and your passage may be considered." Her head lowered, mostly so she could keep an eye on the scuttling arachnids. "Because, really, you don't want to fight us, and more so the others."
* * *
It was just a few inches. Just a moment, and Rynkura would have gotten Cogidubnus back on his feet again. But, before anyone's hearing--even the tiger's--could discern it, something had swooped from the darkness and slammed into Rynkura. The Healer, grunting loudly with surprise, unwittingly had let go of the wolf...the staff also thrown from her grip and onto the stairs.
"No!" she cried, though it was hard to tell if she was heard, as the creature of darkness grasped and carried her into the shadows...the group, divided by a gap in the stairs, were soon to be out of her sight.
"Where are you taking me!?" Rynkura growled as she struggled, wings flapping in a ferocious whirlwind in a fighting attempt to dislodge herself from the thing. When she found it futile, her hands coursed with electricity to try downing the demonic creature, claws also digging into its flesh...she had to get back to the others...
Jeremiah squeaked at the back of his throat and clung to his strand of webbing tighter. Trust the spider? To get me down? Is she INSANE!?
Because you're one to talk.
Bal. Not the time.
Perhaps it is. Your ability to withstand a fall is... limited. You may want to accept the offer of aid, if only for now. I realize the risks associated with this individual, Nex continued, But what are our options?
Remaining here stubbornly and falling, sir. Poor choices.
Shaddap Cab. The frog shut his eyes tight. This just wasn't his day.
Aisha's words seemed to have done nothing, until, almost a bit hesitantly, the skittering arthropods stopped, and then crawled out of sight, and Sal began to climb, head first, down the column. Placing her hands on the floor, she flipped over and stood up, dusting herself off and straightening her odd clothing with two sets of hands.
'Alright. Fair,' the spider said. 'You really don't have much to put up against me, that's a lie, but I can agree with some things. And I don't want to help you, unless I have to, because it really would be pointless right now.' She began walking toward them, the sight of her smooth steps and too many limbs too eerie not to be frightening. 'But all I need to do is go down there, and this can be over.' She stopped by a statue, about ten steps away from the wolf and panther.
- -
If the thing gripping Rynkura could speak, then it certainly did not do so. All she got for a response to her words were ragged, fiendish breaths. Her struggle made some good, but far from enough to get her back to her friends; the thing was too strong for that. So she resorted to more violent measures, and then she got a reaction. Her claws pierced the creature's thin flier's skin, and the electrical buildup coursed through it, striking sparks off its claws and making it twitch and flail. As its wings failed, Rynkura felt herself and the thing begin to plummet. The creature thrashed, but it was beginning to singe, like a convict being executed in the electrical chair, and the irregularity of its motions was testimony to its quick death at the tigress' hands. Letting out a final screech, its grip slipped, and it fell away from her, tumbling into the dark.
But it did not end there. For whatever the thing had signaled with its last breath was quickly responded to by answering cries from within the darkness. Rynkura fought to straighten on her own wings, but just as she slowed down, three shapes dove out of the blackness, all empty dark eyes and bared fangs and leathery wings. They struck her, and then everything went black.
"How?" Was all Ian could muster.
As he listened to Aisha speak, Gareeku watched as Sal seemingly called off the spiders' advancement. Standing his ground, the wolf looked on as Sal descended from above, watching her come to a stop when she was about ten steps away from him and Aisha.
"I'm not letting you any further until you tell us what exactly it is that you are after, and why." the wolf said as he stood firm, blade in hand as he spoke, his voice possessing a commanding tone, coupled with finality.
Prior to when the stairs had given away and Cogidubnus had nearly plunged into the yawning abyss below, Keaton had almost expected that something--something--in their sordid Castle-adventure would go right. That the stairs would have supported all of their weight despite the collective strain on their ancient frames.
Unfortunately, the situation degenerated quickly. First the stairs had crumbled, Cog managing to save his life by awkwardly grabbing at the ledge of the stair's remains. Then Rynkura had attempted to help him by flying over. And then--
--then she was gone. Everything happened so fast. All throughout those events Keaton was only capable of watching, an expression of thunderstruck horror engraved over her features. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she would realize that she would later hate herself for her inaction, but at the moment she was just too horrified. What was that thing which had snatched up Rynkura? All she had been able to see was a vague blur, membranous wings, and the vague visage of something hideous. This could've just been a random attack by one of the many demons dwelling in this Castle, but why did she feel like this was orchestrated?
On his own, Cog managed to draw himself back up onto the ledge. Keaton felt ashamed that she didn't react--that she had frozen up, but right now that self-pity was overwhelmed by concern for Rynkura. How could they reach her?
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Cog slowly lowered the sword back down to his side, his eyes peering into the ink-like darkness of hell. The eerie whistling of the distant wind still rang in the wolf's ears, somehow obscenely loud in the dead silence. Cog's sword allowed him to see, but only just in front of him, and no matter how hard he looked for a dot of blue amidst the sea of black, he simply could not see the angel.
He stood silently, the silence somehow irritating the wolf. They couldn't just leave her here, to die in this pit. She'd risked her life to save his, and now...
Cog ground his teeth. It was all too easy for the wolf to imagine himself in Rynkura's place - blind, deaf, falling endlessly into darkness. Alone and lost in hell. He'd come so close...
How could he abandon her?
The wolf cursed softly, and moving carefully on the stairway turned towards Keaton. He flipped his sword around so that it faced the Cubi hilt-first.
"I can't see her, Keats. You're the only other one with wings here - can you fly?" he asked, his voice hesitant.
Even as Cog spoke, he knew that it was not a good idea to ask Keaton to do what he was suggesting. Faint rustling sounds and the near-imperceptible echoes of inhuman cries from every direction over the ambient sounds of the darkness made him guess that sending someone else out into the dark would be as good as suicide. In fact, some of those sounds seemed to be approaching on them...
A small, fluttering something swept by the wolf right behind him, passing quite close. He could hear its high-pitched cries strengthening, as though it had been startled by its presence. For a moment he thought that the thing had been a bat, but something in the way it sounded made it seem not so.
Gareeku's question made the spider snort, and she made a sort of low chittering, scraping sound of irritation. 'You're not...' she began, but then cut herself off, clamping her fanged mouth together. 'Alright. I'm planning to kill them. Just the two bats, none of the others.' She put a pair of hands on her hips, and leaned with another against the statue beside her. 'All I need is the bats, and then I'm free to help you as much as we can agree on.'
Aisha watched the arachnid woman as she spoke, with narrowed eyes and a look of pure suspicion. One couldn't blame the panthress, after all that had happened to her...all of these horrendous events, as far as she could remember, having been started with this creature in front of them. But Aisha's eyebrows quirked at her answer to the question that Gareeku posed. At least it looked like Sal answered rather honestly, when it was easily seen that she could have just attacked them and left.
"The bats?" Aisha inquired with a tilt of her head, her working hand crossing over her chest in a half-completed crossing of arms. She tried to remember what the whole deal was. She was awake when they had come into the chapel and a second bat was mentioned, but she was also exhausted in mind and body. "...I take it one of the bats you mean is Sebastian." She hummed. "I wish I knew what kind of bone you have to pick with him...but from what I remember, he and the other bat aren't on the same side."
She shook her head, uncertain, and looked between the spider and Gareeku, and back again. "Whatever business you have with them is not of our business, but Sebastian is rather our host. It'll be hard to hold responsibility for sending someone down to kill him," she pointed out. Her voice was no longer full of anger, but of calm reasoning. Cautious, but calm.
The spider took two steps around the statue, getting a bit closer but then leaning back on the statue. She shook her head and closed her eyes. All of them, or at least it seemed so. 'No, you don't understand. I have to kill them both. Otherwise I'll never be free to get out of here. And I have to kill the old bat before your "host", otherwise it won't work.' Her voice was lined with anger and a bit of anxiety and pain, beneath the hard seriousness.
Jeremiah was of the professional opinion that, if it got the spider on her merry way, as many bats as she was interested in could go find some rope and hang themselves.
But then, Aisha does have a point.
Who was that!?
You again, oh fearless wonder. You gripping that spider silk tight enough? 'Cuz if you drop us I'm gonna fucking-!
He's a bastard. He killed the cubi woman, he screwed up Cog, he's done plenty of reprehensible things. Jeremiah continued thinking to himself, horrified with the conclusions he was reaching, But so's the other bat and so's the spider. And he didn't have to take us in. Sebastian's a bastard, but he's OUR bastard, and we can't turn on him now. The frog resisted the urge to pound the stone before him with his fist, Fuck.
Sir, she speaks of freedom. Perhaps if we tried to cut her some manner of deal... Jeremiah licked his lips nervously. Cab, represented as an angel, never did something without an ulterior motive. His advice, even when it related to the survival of Jeremiah and the entire curse with him, always had some slant on it to act in his favor. The lion's words were poison that the art teacher rarely listened to.
But right now, the manipulative personae was probably the one who knew best.
"And we're not likely to let you until you tell us why." Jeremiah leaned out from the pillar a bit (Just remember don't look down. There's nothing important down in the direction you're about to look in-Nrrrrg nrrrrg nrrrg!) to look at the spider, "Big on reasons around here. Call it a Being thing."
Sal looked up at the frog angrily, and looked as if she were about to snap out at him again. But then her eyes flickered back to Aisha for a bit. She seemed to argue with herself, clearly aggravated over something. The, just as they were about to speak again, she lifted her hand and uttered an irritated 'Fine. If you have to know, go ahead.' She gripped the high collar of her odd outfit, and then undid it in the back, pulling it down.
At first, they couldn't really see anything clearly, though Aisha's enhanced sense of sight brought her a glimpse of glowing reddish orange. Then, Sal arced her neck a bit and turned her head. Runic, dimly glowing symbols came into view, forming a slim but detailed collar-like pattern around her neck.
'Get a good look?' the spider said angrily, and turned her head back to glare at them. 'It's called a "Binding", simply. It's a sort of magically imbued tattoo that enforces obedience to an owner, in this case, the head of the Don'Chel family.' Her voice was charged sharp with loathing. 'Better than some other things, of course, because you can find loopholes in the commands your owner gives you, but still pretty bad because you are aware of what you're doing all the time.' She glared daggers at them all, as if daring them to ridicule her for her situation.
Jeremiah stared at the markings on her neck for a minute, face betraying nothing (anyone's guess why, it wasn't nearly so loyal usually). Inwardly he was laughing his head off at the irony, but even then could still appreciate the horrible situation the spider was in.
"... That explains a bit..." He nodded, still staring, "But I find myself wondering if there are other methods of removing it. It's a tattoo; one can always burn it off or have it disenchanted, unless the spells involved allow neither- augh!" His feet slipped on the stone and, for a second, the artist nearly fell to his death. He barely managed to keep his grip on the web and brace is feet against the pillar again. "You know, we really have to start meeting under better circumstances. Tell you what. The way things are going, you're DEFINITELY not getting through here without a fight, and you have no idea how long the big goddamn ice dragon is going to stay unconscious. Help me down and your odds of getting through unscathed goes up significantly." Clinging to a strand of spiderweb, a natural form of trap, hanging MUCH too high over the stone floor, and trying to out-bargain a demonic spider the man grinned, "And with what you're trying to do you can't afford a scratch, can you?"
As if to emphasize Jeremiah's words Mel moaned and twitched a little from her spot on the floor. No longer really unconscious she wasn't really conscious either. The voices of the others floated past without meaning anything more than the confusion over why her bed was so darn hard. A bit of frost sparkled around her as she tried to make herself more comfortable on her impromptu bed.
Listening to the spider, Aisha's look hadn't softened at all...though she was indeed beginning to wonder more about Sal's motives for taking down the bats. She still hadn't explained why Sebastian had to be included...just that he did have to be, right after the older one as well. And that was when Jeremiah spoke up from his precarious ledge of the side of a column, heads swiveling in his direction.
A little harsh for a question, but it was effective. The panthress turned back to Sal as she suddenly revealed her reason...shown in a glowing circle of magic about her neck. Aisha's eyes narrowed, and she uncrossed her arm. "Now that is the definition of a slave," she muttered. It was proof, but she still found it hard to pity the thing.
Then Jeremiah spoke again, and Aisha's ears pinned to her head. How are we ever going to get out of here without a confrontation...?
"Our amphibious amigo up there has something of a point," she turned back to the spider, trying to ignore her fierce glare. "Things can be dispelled. Or if they can't, really...this old bat, the head of the Don'Chel line, if he's taken out, then what does Sebastian have to do with it...unless he becomes the one to owe obedience to?" She guessed, tilting her head in curiosity. "That's the case, maybe he can be reasoned with to let you go. It's hard to tell what one would do after more than a hundred years."
Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Mel, twitching, and groaning, nearly about to wake up. Better think fast, then.
Sal snorted, and looked down at the floor again. 'You may think well of people like that. Me? I am just trying to get free. I've seen cruelty like you can't imagine, girl. And I don't think so highly of that monster,' she said, voice and speech acerbic. 'Especially since he knows what my opinion on him is. And especially since I know just how hard this thing is to remove.'
For a few moments, the spider just stood there, sunken in cold, inner rage, and it looked like they were not going to get anywhere. Then, she stood back up, straightened her clothes though they didn't need it, and hissed a bit. 'Alright,' she said, and passed a stray glance toward Mel. 'Let's work with this. Say, I go down there, and I make sure that the old groat gets it. Then I help the rest of your friends up. And then, if he refuses to release me, you kill him for me. Does that run with you?'
"Maybe we should get to that platform." Ian said heading down the steps some. "Maybe getting of the ageing and obviously unreliable steps is a good idea."
Aisha's tail flickered in the air, a gesture of some impatience as she listened to the spider. It certainly felt like they weren't getting anywhere with trying to bargain, and the strain of the decision kept weighing on the adventurers' minds. Sal had pointed out that she wasn't going to trust the bat that far, and that brought up a curiosity on whether or not he really -would- think of setting her free.
And that was when she made an offer...to go after the older bat and help their friends up out of the pit...and to kill Stygian if he didn't return the favor. Aisha was indecisive...it was a choice between their friends' safety, bringing the castle back to normal, and backstabbing the one who had become their help throughout the ordeal.
The panther wasn't one to betray, if she could help it. But it seemed that was the best deal they were going to get out of the spider. And she still felt adverse to even trusting her.
She sighed, running a hand through her bangs. A moment of thought, and she nodded slowly. Gods, don't let us regret this. "I guess it might." Aisha glanced up to Jeremiah, and back to Gareeku. "What do you two think?"
Still engrossed with her inner panic and turmoil, Keaton hastily glanced about the darkness-suffused chamber, mismatched gaze of ocher orb and glowing gold combing through the darkness in search of their missing companion. Despite the almost perfect visual clarity her new ocular apparatus provided, she could detect no sight nor sound of Rynkura, much to her increasing dismay. An encroaching expression of defeat started to spread along Keaton's features, a visage exacerbated under the volatile magnification of her emotions, and for a second she seemed as though she was about to scream aloud to vociferate her frustration, but such an outburst never occurred. She was interrupted from her musings by Cogidubnus's comment.
"I--" Keaton froze, then her teeth sunk into her lower lip. Not piercing the flesh, this time, quite fortunately. "I can't fly. I never--I never learned how to, I--"
Without realizing it, she was starting to ramble. Amidst what could've turned into a very hateful tirade Keaton managed to hook onto her emotions and reign them back in, especially as her gaze landed on what she had identified as Rynkura's staff. It was resting on the platform beneath. Fortunately the outcropping of the collapsed stairs was enough for Keaton to reach it with an outstretched tentacle, the claw formed on the end scooping up the staff, then drawing it back into its owner's clutches. Keaton seethed a little, weighing the enchanted staff in her hands. At least she had done something. Minimal progress.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
"Sounds perfect," Jeremiah replied, cautiously shifting his grip on his lifeline, "It gets her what she wants and, more importantly, out of our collective hair. Sebastian won't like it, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to get him to see reason. Of course," he added, tilting his head, "It'd sound a lot better if someone would GET ME THE HELL DOWN!"
Keat's negative response made the wolf's face fall, and the whispered, leathery sounds of flying things served only to make the wolf's face fall a little farther. He looked out into the inky darkness plaintively, his free hand clenching unconsciously, and uttered a single small, sharp curse.
"I'm sorry." he said to no one in particular. The words tasted like ash in his mouth, a lie, as if he had reached his first obstacle and was giving up on the tigress. He could still see himself falling down into the darkness, endlessly. As irrational as it sounded, the wolf wanted to jump out after the angel. Throw the sword out into the darkness and try to use its white, holy glow to see her that way. Build a glider right there. Something. Anything.
He took in a deep breath, and uttered a sharp curse again.
"Back up. The way is shut." he said, waiting for the others to turn so the wolf could follow. He noticed Keaton's grab Rynkura's staff, and keeping an eye out for a telltale blue glimmer, waited for the others to go back.
It was just after Cog spoke that a trio of flapping things, like the one that had just passed him, dove by, making strange and agitated little noises. He thought he could hear more of them in the dark, a growing fluttering sound, like bat's wings. One of the creatures flew back past, and he caught a glimpse of shiny horns and teeth, before the long-tailed little monstrosity slipped out of sight.
- -
'Oh, shut your yap!' Sal said, snapping out and directing her black-eyed glare at Jeremiah where he hung. For a moment she just stared at him, and then she struck out with a hand, stepping forward and almost posing, as a long white band whipped out from her palm. She wove her hand around, and added another one, combining long threads of silk in a dazzlingly fast sequence of weaving into a long, tightly webbed net. Before the frog could say much more, the new, sticky web struck him, and wrapped around the column behind him, together with his head and torso. And so he was both secured to the pillar and rendered unable to utter more than incoherent moans.
'I'll get you down when we're finished,' the spider said disregardingly, and then looked back to Aisha.
"You'll get him down now/." Gareeku replied, his voice possessing a calm tone as he stared at the spider woman. He clearly didn't trust Sal in the slightest, but if they were going to get anywhere then it looked like he would have to agree with the deal. "Fine, whatever. It's a deal. However, if I so much as even smell an intent to break the deal, then I won't hesitate to kill you."
It became apparent that Mel's level of consciousness was rising by the uncomfortable little shifts she was making as she realized her awkward position on the marble floor. Her claws made unaware gouges in the stone as discomfort began to pull her back from the darkness.
Aisha had to jump slightly when Sal suddenly turned to snap at Jeremiah, and was on the verge of drawing her sword when her hand shot out and spun an intricate, fast netting of web towards him. At least the frog was no longer hanging from his life on the column, but pinned tightly to it so that he wouldn't fall, bound at the mouth.
Her eyes narrowed. A bit of a hasty solution, but at least effective. Still when she listened to Gareeku give his assent onto the terms...perhaps reluctantly, as herself...she agreed with him. "That goes for me, too," Aisha said, her voice and expression final. The spider would be free to go down, but was confronted with that stern warning from the warriors. And with Mel about to wake up, it was only a matter of finishing it.
Aisha made to put out her right hand, which she then remembered was nonexistent, glimpsing the gauze out of the corner of her eye. She gritted her teeth...somewhere in her mind she still felt it there. Instead, she put out her left, slowly and cautiously, to shake on it, and just nodded. It was a deal.
Eying Gareeku critically, and Mel with wariness, Sal stood her ground for a couple of seconds. Then, slowly and calmly, she stepped closer, and reached out with one of many hands to grasp Aisha's. The grip was quite firm and strong, although the panthress realized it should not have come as a surprise. 'Deal,' she said, returning Aisha's nod. She let go, and then strolled around her, keeping her distance from the others as she approached the column. She watched the twisting frog upside it, shook her head, and then placed her palms on it, calmly beginning to climb. By the time she was level with Jeremiah, he was already half free, the sticky strands falling from him in great tangles. Finally, Sal grasped and lowered him down from a thread, without taking off the webbing on his face. She only removed that once he was on the ground, stripping it off with a smarting rip.
"OW!" Jeremiah rubbed his jaw and grimaced, "Thanks," The artist finally conceded. He was just glad to be on the ground again, and the others probably wouldn't have minded leaving him up there too much.
Cab?
Yes sir?
You know that thing where you give me advice?
Yes?
Stop it.
"Right then, something about killing an old bat?" He yanked a few more scraps of web off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt, muttering about smudges. "I don't suppose we're so fortunate that this guy's senile or blind or any of those traditional old-people things?" He'd found himself in this strange area a little past fear, where he assumed that being a smartass couldn't get him killed on the basis that then the fun was over for the things that kept picking on him. "What's he got?"
Ketefe nodded unsurely at Cog's decision, starting back up the stairs and keeping her blade at the ready in case any other creatures came. "If she comes back, or if that thing does, what should we do?" she asked no-one specific. She was trying to keep a tremble out of her voice, trying to focus on protecting the others, but in this place, it was hard not to let fear affect her.
More and more of those screeching little things were gathering now. They heard the sound of the bat-like things' flaps and the high pitched cries they emitted, either clearly or ringing in their ears. As they started circling the adventurers, it was becoming more evident by the second that something was not right.
Jeremiah's terribly characteristic, sarcastic interruption was met with a level stare from Sal's side, and a few seconds' intermission as the spider gathered her words. 'Only thousands of years of accumulated power, and the skill and might required to summon greater fiends and such,' she said. 'Not to forget loads of experience in dark magic and in controlling infernal fire. Oh, and a pair of swords,' she added, 'that can turn into lashes and waves of flame and cut through solid rock like butter.' She kept that same level face and stared at the frog throughout the whole explanation, the dull and bitter explanation meant to to make a point and hopefully shut the frog up.
Aisha blinked as she kept her stand next to Gareeku, watching the spider as she went back to the column and lowered the frog down as promised. At least so far Sal was keeping true to her word, under threat of death if it wasn't fulfilled. She listened though as Jeremiah asked about the old man, rather curious as to what exactly they were up against...all she knew was that he was some sort of relative to Stygian. With power enough to have created the hellish atmosphere.
Her eyes widened however at the spider's reply, a rather good description of any old and powerful demon, though it was hard to tell if it was really a demon they were dealing with. "Holy crap," she finally muttered, wondering what their friends underground may have been up to their necks in quite a bit of trouble. But as long as Stygian was with them...
The huntress found herself snorting. "Frankly I don't care if the bastard can contract dysentery, black plague, and head lice all with a snap of his fingers. I think he will die, sure as he is responsible for everything. Including, if my guess isn't mistaken, bringing my father's murderer." Her head lowered. "I have faith in those who fight." With that, she cast a concerned look to the nearly-conscious Mel.
In her mind, she still had her doubts about the deal she made. Maybe it was Sal who started it all, and brought them to the castle. But things weren't going to get any better by casting blame where it wouldn't be necessary.
Ian was heading for the nearist platform. He wouldn't fight anything till he knew he was on solid ground.
A second after Ketefe asked her question, more of the same creatures that had attacked Rynkura began circling the group. She hissed loudly at them, mostly out of spite and to overcome her own fear, before following Ian up the steps to the platform. If there was going to be a battle, it would be best not to have it on a decrepit flight of stairs.
With a soft moan Mel pulled her elbows under herself and tried to push herself up on her hands and knees. The screeching sound of her claws digging deep into the stone of the floor told of her unsteadiness, as did the disjointed mutterings in her native tongue. She wasn't yet aware of the spider standing nearby.
Once she had safely drawn Rynkura's abandoned staff back up onto their platform and into the security of her arms, Keaton's hands clamped firmly around the wooden shaft of the staff's length with such force the blood circulating in her knuckles fled; skin draining of color. She stared at the staff for a minute, eyes locked onto the giant, opalescent sapphire-stone ornamenting its end almost mournfully, as though she had somehow come to the conclusion that she wasn't worthy to even gaze upon their missing comrade's weapon.
A ridiculous assessment, but with how far gone Keaton's emotional and ego-based stability had gone, such outrageously overblown statements were only natural. She felt even worse considering Rynkura had been praising her contributions to the party earlier, and that she hadn't even reacted when the aforementioned tigress had been abducted...
Cogidubnus mentioned having to leave somewhere in-between Keaton's sordid musings. Still possessing that dreary, resigned look about her, Keaton continued to cradle the staff a little tighter to her body, then followed her companions, managing to keep her pace relatively quick.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The sounds of hellish, winged things enclosing around him, Cog started moving up to the platform quickly, unconsciously leaning forward as to make himself a smaller target. The leathery sound of wings were all around them, as was the chirps and noises of the flying demons. They had been able to snatch Rynkura from her feet - there was no doubt that they could do the same to them.
The wolf had a grimace on his face as he made his way up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. He kept his sword at a ready position, and as much as he could tried to keep himself completely balanced as he ascended. There wasn't much he could do to defend himself, and it would be difficult indeed to predict an attack while his ears were full of the sound of beating wings, but as much as he could the wolf kept himself wary.
Glowing sword at his side, the wolf practically ran forward, and didn't stop until he reached the platform above them.
In the hell-chamber, it was hard for Rynkura to expect what had been coming. No sooner was she finally able to strike the beast carrying her down and regain her flight, than the dying screech of the demon was answered by plenty more of its brethren...too far into the shadows, too close to the endless depths and harrowing darkness, even the Angel was stopped in her tracks before she could make it back to her comrades. The will to get back was all that was leaping into her mind...before she was hit and her vision fading to black.
The last thing she felt then was a putrid, retching sensation in her stomach upon feeling the creatures and the motion in the air, being carried away from the direction she was seeking.
It was only moments later that she started to stir again, showing the resilience and strength of mind she had against a hard blow. Nothing came to her hearing when it returned...nothing familiar. No voices belonging to the others. Her hands were empty, and she remembered that her staff was lost. She didn't even know whether or not her eyes were closed, it was so dark.
In fact, somehow, she felt that she dare not open them yet. Instead, her voice came out into a whisper in the air...wherever she was. "...What in Heaven's name...?"
Listening to Sal describe their enemy's power, Gareeku frowned.
"Great. As if descending into the depths of hell itself wasn't bad enough." The wolf replied in a mutter.. It was then, however, that he heard Aisha's reply, listening to her faith and confidence that the evil they faced would be destroyed.
"Get real." Gareeku replied, his voice a calm tone as he looked to Aisha with a grim expression on his face that showed signs of frustration and concern. "The threat we are facing is extremely powerful. I would be very surprised if everyone makes it out of there alive, if anyone at all."
Looking to everyone else, Gareeku then turned away, starting to take steps towards the entrance where the rest of the group had disappeared into before.
"Which is why I will not let them die alone."
Sal's eyebrows shot. Well, the two large ones that were clear to make out did. No one in the group above could be so sure about the others. Or if she even had any others. 'You're going to
what? I thought the idea was that you stay here,' she said, not angered but sounding somewhat incredulous.
And then the little creatures befell the group. One second they were moving freely ahead, the other they were in a storming, thick cloud of beating wings and sharp, jagged teeth and claws. They found it hard to even so much as move their limbs around.
It was not the end though. Because as soon as she had gotten a glimpse of sense back, the tigress was immediately knocked around and tumbled over edge as she hit a rocky surface, hard. She hadn't even felt as if she were moving! No wind, no direction, nothing to see... Except that there seemed to be something to see now. Some dark, fiery light. If only she could stop tumbling so she could open her eyes safely...
Finally sliding down onto a flat surface, beaten and bruised, Rynkura was welcomed by a hot, acrid atmosphere and the putrescent stench of ash and dust.
"Ah. Right then," Jeremiah replied weakly to Sal's description. "Charming. Well better you than me, Legs." He'd never caught her name, after all. The frog frowned as Gareeku voiced his desire to follow, grasping frantically for reasons not to.
Things other than the spider. Demons. Other big scary people.
Thanks Nex, I can handle it on my own.
"Gareeku, we're still needed here. Just because we sort-of have her on our side doesn't mean others aren't on their way," He strode over to the dragoness, partially to help her up and partially to keep Gareeku from noticing that the calm rational voice wasn't on speaking terms with the facial expression, "Better that they survive alone than die with company because we weren't doing our part."
Aisha nearly expected a rebuttal from the spider woman on her comments about the old bat that everyone was suddenly up against. For a moment she glanced toward Mel, who was now attempting to get back up, with a bit of effort. The panthress, after a pause, decided that it was safe enough to step away from the others and help the dragon.
Before she could take the step, however, she heard Gareeku's comment, which also made her turn her head. Unlike Sal's look, her gaze wasn't incredulous, but just...surprised. Perhaps troubled. It was hard to tell...though she expected the wolf to have wanted to go help, the combination of worry in his own countenance and his comment to her on facing the facts...the reality of the situation sort of hit her. Especially thinking of everything he has done to keep her alive.
She released a sigh, and looked between him, the spider, the bracer on her arm that was feeding strength into her body, and back again. "I feel I can be so sure because Rynkura is with them. You don't know her as well as I do, and you can't underestimate her strength. The stories she could tell you about what she's done in her life, even I find hard to believe. And do you think we should underestimate Stygian, too?" She glanced back at Sal, who seemed to know the bats better than any of them. "I doubt it."
That was when Jeremiah interjected with his own reasons...there was a sense of optimism, but even then, doubt still flooded her mind. Aisha's eyes met Gareeku's, and her gaze turned soft. "But I also doubt you can be stopped." She hung her head and stepped forward, placing her hand on his arm. "I just hope that you aren't about to go to your death."
* * *
Rynkura snarled as soon as the motion stopped, and her side hit stone. She was thrown with too much speed, too much shock to have tried to stop until she was sliding on the ground. Her wings were pinned against her body so they wouldn't stand a chance of being broken just by an impact. However it still left them bloody and absent a few feathers. The rest of her body was marred similarly.
"Oh..." the tigress groaned, finally able to open her eyes and glimpse the atmosphere. Dark, bar for just a reddish light coming from one direction. The demons had dropped her there on purpose, she guessed. Shaking her head, the Healer used a free hand to activate the enchantment to make her wings vanish...the other hand she used to get herself up again. Her nostrils flared at the distinct smell that the place had. "Where am I?" she wondered out loud. Her claws dug into the solid earth, and there was a faint light glow from it, an action of being prepared for whatever might answer.
Listening to the others talk, Gareeku stopped in his tracks, turning to look at the others. Thinking their words over, the wolf sighed.
"...fine." he said, stepping slowly back to where the others were. "But I hope for their sake that you are right."
There were a few shouts of frustration from Ian, but soon after he opened fire UV rounds cutting through the dark till they could no longer be seen.
The darkness, black as ink, surrounded them and blinded them, and to all but the sparse little that the holy-glowing sword illumined, shadow concealed and hid. The very creatures, demons, pressed close to them with leather wings and jagged claws could not be seen, and making their way up the rest of the stairs was proving impossible. They would be rent to pieces, stopped from moving forward by the sheer mass of flapping wings around them. The wolf heard shots ring out, small lights burning through the darkness like sparks before fading into darkness some interminable distance away.
Cogidubnus, battered, bruised, his clothing and his fur in tatters, had received enough. The depths of hell had plucked the angel come to save him right out from under him, the healer carried away almost without a sound in a single breathless heartbeat. Preying upon their compassion – now preying upon their helplessness. Slowly, the leather-winged, darkness-hidden demons were descending upon them, like a child delighted to find that a thrown rock made small animals bleed.
But they were not so helpless. Three charms dangled from the wolf's wrist, two from his neck, and one glowing sword in hand – and thanks to Mel, despite his ragged appearance, the wolf felt better than he had before descending into the pit. The wolf was strong.
Cog clenched his teeth, and bared a fang as a claw came dangerously close to an eye, leaving a cut on the wolf's cheek. The constant, paralyzing mass of demons flying around them made the wolf's skin crawl, and he instinctively wanted to pause and gather his strength for a moment, and blow the demons away with a bubble of force. But ahead of him, Ketefe, Keaton, and Ian – they would be knocked to their doom. The wolf's eye darkened – and in a brief instant, a piece of his mind gifted, cursed, with an almost perfect knowledge of all things elementally thunderous and arcane, clicked.
The wolf did not give into anger, but instead dropped to a knee, laying his sword to the side and making a quick series of arcane gestures – there was no sky to respond to his ministrations, but he needed no storm for this spell. This sort of lightning could occur in a clear sky, as well as a darkened one. Mystic words flowed from his lips, entreating the elements to respond to his command – and in the distance, one could almost hear the crashing sound of thunder. The wolf's hands began to fizzle, not with a blue glow, but with a lurid red.
And, in a flashing moment, it happened – a orb appeared in front of the wolf, red and flaming without fire, and in a instant began to move, circling up and around the wolf in a corkscrew. His hands still fizzled red, and with a jerk with one hand an a gesture with the other, he began to control the little ball, his hands in turn controlling the height and direction of the little orb. With a short syllable, the spell was complete, and the little thing began to truly -move-, with an almost predictable lightning quickness.
It was the work of a moment to bring the orb down, and with a snarl the wolf smote a path through the flying demons above him – and with yet further ministrations he brought the little orb back, the ball lightning carving yet another furrow in the demons.
"Ah, broken is the golden bowl," Cog said, the words almost speaking themselves. "The spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll – A saintly soul," the wolf made a few quick series of motions with his hands, drawing circles in the air, the little ball began to circle the stairs, almost like a tube around the pathway.
"Glides down the Stygian river! Let the burial song be sung – a dirge for the most lovely dead-" The little ball was destruction itself – anything that touched it simply seemed to disintegrate into ash.
"That ever died so young." the wolf said, moving the ball of lightning through the air with deft movements. He bared his fangs again. "If we have to find the devil himself, I swear we'll get her back, you bastards..."
During their trek, Keaton remained unsettlingly quiet, routinely isolated from the rest of the group and, in-between mournfully and remorsefully staring at the staff protectively clutched in her exsanguinous hands, studiously gazing about the shadows in search of any advancing adversaries. Keeping her concentration was somewhat difficult under the weight of her emotions, but, significantly, Keaton wasn't hysterical, and that was a positive change from her previous breakdowns. Particularly the ones where she had nearly assaulted and killed Sal.
Speaking of Sal, what was that bitch up to? She had been fortunate enough to escape, but where was she lurking now? Of course, that was an irrelevant train of thought. Right now, finding Rynkura was priority. As long as things didn't go horribly wrong, locating their missing comrade would be--
Wingbeats. Hundreds of them, like thundering battledrums.
Fuck.
In the next moment, they were besieged by the incoming upswell of winged monstrosities and creepy-crawly creatures, all swarming and diving upon those in the group. Ravenous jaws and claws tore into skin and bone, their resonating screeches rending the air--
--amidst the screaming throng, Keaton's sight and sound was obscured by the beating wings and monotonous wailing. She lost all sight of her companions; their forms disappearing between the blurred bodies of the sweeping figures, leaving her to attempt to scream over the racket created by the monsters. Crouching slightly, Keaton attempted to protect herself from the pandemonium by trying to exchange Rynkura's staff for Catastrophe, which was still strapped to her back, but the concourse of sweeping claws interfered every time. Nails like serrated razors raked through Keaton's skin, cleaving thin lines of jagged scarlet across the already blood-tarnished, mottled surface of her saffron-sable fur. Snarling ferociously, Keaton crouched, taking advantage of a sudden lapse in the pack by finally snatching Catastrophe and sweeping it out from its holster with one hand, keeping Rynkura's staff secured in the other one--
--when among the cacophony of swelling shrieks, she heard the sizzling and popping of ozone, the tumescent bloating of electrified air, and the sirenous shriek of expanding energy as an orb of lightning flourished in Cogidubnus's hands and flared, spreading spades of crackling light in a cleaving streak through the demons, driving them back. Shielding her eyes from the pulsating concentration of light, Keaton quickly slipped Rynkura's staff in Catastrophe's holster and, using both hands, swung the aforementioned mace in a wide arc. The spiked globe delivered a swift uppercut to one of the demons who had the misfortune of moving too slowly out of the way, its body becoming impaled on one of Catastrophe's spikes. Another swing discarded the carcass, then another swiped through another division of the throng, and another swing crushed a pair of demons under its head...
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rolling her eyes, Sal began walking forward toward Gar and the downward passageway. 'Well, if you're feeling particularly restless, don't let me hinder you,' she said, having 'restless' replace the 'suicidal' she had thought of saying first. 'Going down there to save your friends is the noble thing to do. I just want to make sure that the bats die. Anything past that is... an improvement, actually.' She certainly was not going to complain if they decided to go down there and kill everything in sight. Partly because they would have a greater chance at succeeding, and partly since that would leave no one to owe a favor to later if they failed. Rounding the stairs and the split altar up on the podium, she glanced toward the dark, steep stairway, easily keeping hesitation back through virtue of sheer determination and the knowledge that things could not become worse than they were.
Thunder cracked once in the dark night outside, after a flash that made the painted glass windows flash amber light onto them, and Sal finally stepped forward toward the stairway. 'Either way, I'm going. I can't ask you to cover my back, since I've been ordered to fight you. But if you "chase" me down there, and just
happen to find the others, I won't complain...' she said, then put her foot on the first step and started descending.
Sizzling sounds echoed everywhere around them, through the crackling and frying hiss of the thunderous orb that Cog had called forth. It was not hard for Keaton to hit anything either, rather, it was hard just to keep on swinging, defying the clawing pain and the resistance of the bodies being crushed by her mace.
The swarming creatures did not respond immediately to the retaliation, yet when their screeches finally rose to a climactic hiss they turned tail and were gone as quickly as they had attacked, rippling in synchronized flight out into the dark, the sound of their cries and wings dying after only a few short seconds. Left were the adventurers only, shaggy and scratched raw, clothes finally torn into the rags they should already have been and their hides covered with scratches and flesh wounds that bled profusely into sticky fur.
As Rynkura stood, she caught the hissing, rolling background sound, coming from the very same direction as the light. From the opposite, it was as if some deep, engulfing darkness was welling out, but intermingling mid-way with streams of fire. Only when she turned her head to get as clear a look as she could, did she realize. She had reached the very bottom of it all, it seemed.
To the tigress' immediate left a veritable lake of fire and molten rock spread out, throughout the bottom of some immeasurable shaft, the few hints of which one could see if one turned their head upwards. She could not guess how far the top was, but she had a sort of hunch that it was not a distance that
could be measured by any traditional means. Platforms, outcroppings, caverns and crevices were carved in the jagged walls within her sight, cliffs and small islands of ashy rock jutted out of the molten lake, and everywhere there were... shapes, wisps of fire floating up from the lava or slipping out of the cracks, dissipating or hiding away as they flew around, nearly all of them rising upward. And yet it was nothing compared to the gateway that spewed darkness and both blood-chilling, dark emptiness and searing, soul-scorching heat. A dark corridor, its interior impossibly distant and ever so close, its exit shaped like a fanged, skeletal maw, was set into a cavern at the very bottom of it all, spewing forth horrid, fiery shapes and seething, twisting shadows from its sides while staying impossibly black at its heart like some inverse black hole. Rynkura weakened just seeing it; merely being so deep in that blackness made her think she would not be able to stand.
'
Where you should not be, little angel...' a voice rose behind the tigress, growling and deep and so terribly heavy with the darkness that she felt as if she were being pressed into the ground. A heavy step and dry ash underfoot sounded from behind her. '
You are... where you will die.'
Aisha stepped back from Gareeku, observing as he had actually decided to stay. In particular she also observed Sal's reaction to the whole thing, subtly hinting that it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if those who were charged with guarding the entrance would follow into the death trap. Not a chance, the panther thought, watching the spider as she started to descend into the darkness. There was still a spot of sickness in the pit of her stomach, watching as the one least likely expected to be let through disappeared through the shadows. She wouldn't wish her the luck that was wished for their friends. But she did hope that the deal wouldn't be broken.
When she was gone, Aisha placed her palm over her forehead, growling. "Gods...I sincerely hope that we haven't condemned anyone. I swear that spider will be dead without words if that's what happens," she spat. The huntress obviously never did like letting quarry go, even if she had to.
She glanced briefly between Gareeku and Jeremiah, a troubled countenance shared between all of them. Was it really too much to ask to have woken up when things were peaceful again? When there was a chance that one day wouldn't go by without one fight?
Sighing, Aisha then turned around and stepped up to Mel, offering to help her up. "You okay, amiga?"
* * *
Rynkura almost thought that the sight of molten rock and fire on her level was impossible...so far deep into the earth that it could have been the base of a volcano. Where no creature could live just because of the poisons alone...but she remembered what they had been fighting, and where they were. The lowest piece of the conjured, almost-realistic version of Hell. The darkness made that completely evident...the fires, the rolling shadows, and the light which harbored sounds of foreboding.
The tigress tried to keep her stand. She had fought among impossible levels of darkness during her days as a paladin, and this was hardly different...except for a feeling that belonged to no conventional demon, which kept reminding her of its presence with a chill up her spine and a very heavy feeling.
Briefly, she used just bits of her magic to heal the scratches that accumulated in places on her body...bruises would heal with a bit more effort, but less time. And then her head swiveled on the voice...the almost immediate answer to her question started with the sound of a heavy step. The Healer's eyes narrowed. Oh, I've heard that threat before.
Her hands, stretched and laying at her sides, were glowing as she stared at the void. "Where I will die...a haughty prediction. That has certainly worked so far. And here I thought I could pass for someone of no importance." She put an incredulous, almost mocking tone to her voice in the last statement, before turning serious again. "I suspect that I am speaking to Asmodai."
Mel let the frog and the pantheress to help her to her feet. She leaned against one of the pillars, rubbing the knot on the back of her head. "What happened? How long was I out?" She managed to clear her vision just in time to notice a flash of red disappearing into the gate. Only one person they had encountered thus far had red hair. "The spider?! Someone stop her."
With a whisper, the wolf dismissed the ball of thunder orbiting around the stairway. It disappeared almost as fast as it came, simply blinking out of existence without even a crackle or spark. The wolf's hands stopped fizzling that eerie, eldritch red, and without preamble the wolf grabbed his sword laying at his side. The moment his hand touched the hilt, it again began to glow with a holy light.
"Let's move." he said, standing up slowly. His chin felt wet, and he brushed his hand across it - it came away bloody, and Cog scowled. "Before they get back. This isn't the best place to fight."
Ian looked about as annoied as a teenager appointed to keep their littler sibling entertained for an entire 500 mile trip. He set foot on the platform. "These were my faverite clothes! and now they're all torn and UGH! The blood stains wont come out for MONTHS!" It soon became appearnt Ian was a bleeder, he was bleeding about twice as much as a normal person. He took off his Jacket wich was mostly intact to rid himself of his ruined band shirt wich he promtly tossed into the pit. He then put his jacket back on. "This is the last time i follow anyone into a cold dark pit in the intrest of saveing the world. Wish I still had some Flashies." He muttered comeing in range of Keaton.
"We worked out a deal with her and are hoping it doesn't screw us over. Relax," Jeremiah smiled worriedly, "I'm certain things will be..." Now this was tricky. There was an upward limit to how much he was going to lie to someone that was for the most part on the same side as him. "Not catastrophic in a way that directly effects us." He finished lamely as he finished helping the dragon upright.
For a while, all Ketefe could focus on was running to the platform and killing the creatures. The dark, the absence of Stygian, the condition of the others - none of it mattered to her now. All that mattered was survival.
But in the next second, the swarm surrounded the group, and all Ketefe could see and hear were leathery wings and jagged claws. Her sword had already been drawn when she'd started back up the stairs, but now it hardly made a difference. The creatures surrounded her so thickly she could barely swing her weapon, and she couldn't keep the creatures away from her - she felt several places get scratched and bitten, but all she could do was keep swinging and hope that at least some of the creatures died before she did.
Then a realization struck her. THE BRACELET! But how the hell was she going to get it to work?! Mel hadn't told her the instructions, but if she could just look away from the creatures long enough to figure it out...
Thankfully, before she tried anything that insane, she felt her fur prickle with electricity, and watched in awe as Cogidubnus cast a lightning spell that injured and scared the creatures enough to force them into retreat. She gazed at her friends - all tattered and bleeding, their clothing shredded, but all still alive. She noted to herself that Keaton had saved Rynkura's staff, and looked at Ian in amazement when he disregarded how much he was bleeding in favor of how ruined his clothes were.
The azure feline stood up straight - and immediately winced in pain. She looked down at herself in frustration. Her attire had been skimpy enough not to receive any significant rips or tears, but as a result, she was much more scratched up than she should've been.
"Fuck," she muttered, wiping blood from around a particularly painful wound just under her ribcage. She moved to follow Cog, the scratches on her legs protesting with every step. "We need to find Rynkura before we all die of blood loss," she said to the room at large. "Think those things have a nest, or should we not risk it?"
As the final of those winged beasts dispersed, its flapping form vanishing within the darkness amidst its retreat, Keaton finally released every bit of tension and strength which was keeping her body upright, every muscle in her form snapping like severed rubber bands as she buckled and slumped over. The end of Catastrophe's handle slammed into the ground, perforating the stone effortlessly, and driving deeper as Keaton leaned against the mace, using it as her solitary support. Achieving some form of grip on Catastrophe's shaft was difficult, since her hands were slick with blood, and by the time Keaton was stabilized, she was nearly on her knees.
New blood had joined the coagulating fluid smearing and smudging Keaton's fur, nearly making the color which was tarnished indistinguishable. Very little of her body was untouched by the red substance, and her outfit, which was relatively new after it replaced her older one, was now tattered and unsalvageable, and equally stained with blood. Other wounds and injuries crisscrossed over Keaton's form, several having the misfortune of landing in rather dangerous parts of her body--one had bisected her right eyebrow; nearly diagonally slashing over her forehead; a triad of slashes deeply marked her cheek, and another cleaved over her collarbone, dodging her neck. The bodies of decimated creatures littered the ground around Keaton's feet, some having been skewered on Catastrophe's spikes. Movements agonized, Keaton reached up, and began to pry off the beasts, but only after she had regained some control over her haphazard breathing.
Cogidubnus ordered for them to move on. One glance confirmed the worst: everyone else was as damaged as she was, their clothes and skin in tatters. Ian was walking somewhere near her, but Keaton didn't really give a damn at that moment. She was too preoccupied with extricating the final corpse impaled on Catastrophe's last spike. Trying to ignore her exhaustion, Keaton trailed behind the group, her organic eye visibly glazed.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura received no immediate reply. Instead, two more of those heavy steps stopped a bit closer to her, close enough that she knew she could simply turn around and reach out and touch their source. But she wanted rather the opposite, to get away from them as fast as simply possible. Nevertheless, her eyes were drawn around, so she could get a glimpse of her foe. And she almost wished they hadn't been.
To believe that this creature and the one who had entered the castle were one and the same really took a great deal of knowledge about Demons and their nature. Looming over the tigress now, the bat's features had hardened and turned monstrous in a most terrifying way, two large horns splitting his brow and curving around his ears to sharpened tips. In his dark eyes, his burning eyes were the one truly visible feature, set among black, vaguely patterned fur and over the hint of a jaggedly fanged mouth. His dark clothes like shadows wrapped around his muscular form, opening at the back to let a ridge of spikes down his slightly craned neck and spine out. And of course, to let out the massive, fiendish wings that sprouted from his back and shadowed his form. Glowing, tattooed symbols, like heated iron embedded in his skin, hinted on his forearms, and an aura of darkness and fumes made the very air writhe immediately around him. He was holding a pitch-black staff in his hand.
'I seem to recall...' the split voice growled, unhurriedly and maliciously. Rynkura could just see his mouth moving, teeth that could no doubt snap her neck in half like a twig parting slowly. 'I think I remember you as well. Not that it matters.' His fiery glare flared once. His voice was grave as death itself. 'My grandson will be here, soon enough. But not before your poor friends have been taken care of. Even now, they are struggling to make their way here. Rest assured that I will not let them die before they reach us.' Only at the last words did the tigress think she hinted a slight smirk on his darkened face. 'After all, what good are they, save as hostage? Not that I expect him to care, but perhaps.'
"Whoa, easy," Aisha said as soon as Mel managed to get herself up, with the help of Jeremiah as well. The frog quickly explained what Sal was doing there in a nutshell. When Aisha met the dragon's gaze, she solemnly nodded. "It's true. The spider wanted to go down after the bats, and kinda had us cold, so we made an agreement. She helps kill the older one and gets our friends back up here, and we kill Sebastian if she's not set free afterward. She's something of a slave to their family, ask her next time."
When she saw that Mel was more or less fine, Aisha turned without saying anything more. Though everyone who was awake agreed to the bargain, she still felt more responsible for it, as she was the one who shook the creature's hand. By the end of the fiasco, someone was going to get stabbed in the back...she was almost sure of it.
She passed Gareeku with a quick smile, rather grateful that he had decided to stay...among much more. Finally the panther sat back onto the chapel bench, forehead resting in her hand in a pensive stance. "How do we get through this..." she muttered.
* * *
As soon as Rynkura turned to finally lay eyes on the one speaking, she almost wished that she hadn't. The demonic creature looming before her couldn't be described as anything more than an absolute embodiment of malice and darkness. Asmodai walked with sinuous intent, eyes that burned among void-black fur. He looked nothing like a bat, more like a hellbent mammalian reptile.
The Angel still held her stance, however her face was bunched in a spiteful snarl. She took a step back as he took a step forward and spoke, his voice feeling enough like death that she nearly expected the reaper to be in the chamber as well.
"I doubt I recall you, demon. I haven't been here in hundreds of years," Rynkura pointed out, her voice low. "In fact, I thought all of you were dead." Bits of electricity powered by the magic of holy light slowly surged through one sleek, strong arm, crackling through outstretched claws...readying.
"Why are you doing this? Your only business should be with Stygian. Not with me, for I have little affiliation with this place now. Not with any of the others, they are innocent. Adventurers, warriors, not worthy of such trouble." Her fangs bared. "And especially not with Aisha, who was rather too young to face the dog you let loose on her. Too young for you to fear anything. So why all of this?"
She couldn't take her eyes from the beast, nor would she. Her muscles were tensed, senses honed completely, ready to spring away or attack at the next provocation. But first and foremost, Rynkura wanted answers.
"We need to get somewhere where we're not this vulnerable." Cog said, climbing the stairs slowly. He couldn't see Ketefe, the inky blackness obscuring even that much sight. "Maybe we can go back up and get Mel. She might be able to fly around and find Ryn-"
Cog slipped, only barely catching himself before again falling off the stone stairs. He steadied himself, and moved his foot over the step that had thrown him, the stone surface slick. With his nose almost touching the stairway, the overpowering coppery scent was inescapable.
Blood. Cog scowled, his face darkening yet again, and he very carefully stood upright. Apparently the party was hurt more than he'd thought. Someone was, at least.
He couldn't see -who-, though, no matter how hard he tried to peer through the darkness. Cog made a face. He really was beginning to despise not being able to see. Still, there was one source of light here...
He held his sword over his head and thrusted it forward slowly, the shining blade illuminating what was below it. It passed over Ian, wrapped in his coat, who seemed to be alright, and then passed over the Cubi. As the white light passed over Keaton, the wolf gave a sharp curse.
Keaton was bleeding profusely, the sanguineous fluid flowing out to the point that it was beginning to pool on the steps below her. Anemia seemed to be a common aliment recently, and one the wolf had no desire for any of them to revisit. He paused a moment, finding the correct charm on his wrist, and then held out a glowing, silver cross to the Cubi.
"Keats. You're bleeding all over the floor. This'll help staunch that, and help with other scrapes." he said, waiting for Keats to grab it.
Ian said nothing but Cog could tell he didn't much like the offer of aid to the jackel.
Keaton was only aware of the great deal of blood she was oozing until Cogidubnus had nearly slipped and fallen all over again, something which she lethargically attempted to lurch into action to prevent. Due to the burden on her body all she could manage was a small edge before she was stunned by the weight of her wounds, and, quite fortunately, Cog didn't need anyone's assistance to begin with since he quickly righted his body and regained is balance.
Shortly afterward, he combed the members of the party for the source of the blood which had tripped him, then, much to Keaton's dismay, he found her responsible. Keaton's expression faltered into one of absolute sadness as she realized this, in the middle of her blood-loss-induced delirium. Agonizing. Fortunately, Cog didn't seem angry despite her involuntary misdeed, and proffered one of his many charms. According to him, it would aid her and accelerate her healing process.
Initially, Keaton was reluctant about accepting the trinket, but she was desperate for some form of healing. She couldn't last like this. Outside of absolute delusional spells, she didn't want to die. Shakily, she extended a hand--
--then quickly withdrew it when she noticed Ian's expression out of the corner of her peripheral vision.
Ian didn't say anything. He didn't need to say anything. It was just that stare, that single, disapproving glance, which had provoked her next reaction like nothing else. The bastard hadn't said anything to her all day; not since her possession, but he clearly hated her. She managed to curb what she wanted to be an explosive reaction enough, for her to snap, with as much venomous anger as possible, "Is there a problem, asshole?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe had only slightly better night vision than the others, so she was grateful for the light from Cog's sword. She grimaced once at Keaton's wounds, which were bleeding much worse than even Ian's. Cog offered to help, which Keaton accepted, but no-one missed the glare Ian shot to the jackal.
Ketefe bit her lip nervously. Keaton had noticed the rat's disdain, and was restraining herself from attacking him. But now was not the time to risk a disagreement, no matter how minor. In a momentary flash of home, she thought, What would Jarevei do?
"Hey. It's been a really awful day, for all of us. We're all tired and hurt, and I know a lot of us feel angry and cheated. But the last thing we need is to have a fight when we're all injured, only one of us has healing magic, and the gates of Hell are open somewhere in this castle." She looked at Ian and Keaton carefully, hoping they could see how serious she was. "Whatever problems you have with anyone else, ignore them until we know everyone's alive and safe. Okay?"
"It's nothing that can't wait." Ian said standing up. "I've some first aid things on me if it'll help anyone." Ian said to the room. He took out a few patches and stuck them to the more serious areas of his person.
Dangling the chain in front of him, Cog glared at the rat standing in front of him for the sudden interruption. From the glow of his sword, he could see the rat taking out first-aid supplies in the middle of the stairs. The wolf narrowed his eyes, and hissed in the ear of the rat in front of him.
"Dammit! We don't have time for this!" he said, his voice rife with frustration. "Patch yourself up when we get to the platform! This isn't the place to wrap bandages!" Cog sighed, continuing to hold out the little charm. "When Keaton isn't about to die from blood loss, have her pass the thing to you, if it's that bad. But we need to keep moving."
Ketefe's intents did her credit, but thinking that they were still actually inside the castle was overly positive to say the least. Still, there was little else for the adventurers to do, but to press on until they could reach the platform they had left. It wouldn't be long before even that turned out to be more hopeful than was reasonable though.
The first sign that something was amiss was that as they retraced their steps, the stairs seemed longer than they had before. And they turned lightly to the left, something they couldn't remember they had done before. And when they ended, they ran into the cave wall instead, leading up to a sort of balcony or outcropping before a column-supported and decorated, if grotesque, opening into the rock. It seemed like some sort of passageway or cavern.
'Why?' the demon returned Rynkura's question, slowly turning a bit to the side and pacing equally slowly around her, toward the end of the platform they seemed to be standing on.
'Why did you even come here in the first place? I have no personal quarrel with you, or any of the others, true. But neither do I have any doubt that you will try and stop me, kill me even, for the sake of mere... shall we call it principle?' he growled, turning his head and glaring at the Angel over his shoulder.
'Don't try and make it seem as if I were the one acting illogically here. I brought Asal, yes, but only out of his insistence. And I did not aid him in harming your precious protegé. In fact, with him dead, that is one less problem for me. I shall only have to arrange with the ceremonies.' Without waiting for Rynkura's reaction, the Demon grinned darkly, and stepped forward to the very end of the platform, looking down at the lake of fire, seemingly lost in contemplation.
'I have only come to put an end to things,' he said, after a few seconds. His voice seemed not so overwhelming right then, for some reason.
'If your little friends are caught in the storm, I would blame them. There was still the option to leave. Now...'
Smoldering rage was still evident in the backdrop of Keaton's delirium-hazed organic eye, her bloodsoaked features still attempting to form some semblance of indignation as she started to slip further and further away from coherency, but soon losing all concentration and backfiring when Cogidubnus snarled his frustration. Driven by desperation and a faraway sense of dizzy weariness, she lunged her hand forward and snatched up the proffered charm.
Clutching it tightly in the palm of her pallid-knuckled hand, Keaton weakly threw her venomously-narrowed glare back and forth without comment, then lowered her head and grit her teeth sharply as she waited for the charm's effects to take place. Stepping over the splatters of blood caking the floor, she followed behind the group, still keeping Catastrophe defensively leveled beside her body as they descended into the bowels of Hell.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Watching Aisha tend to Mel as the dragoness came to, Gareeku turned towards the entrance to the catacombs, his eyes narrowing as he looked at it.
If she breaks the deal and hurts anybody, I will make her suffer. the wolf thought to himself.
Turning away, Gareeku then watched the pantheress sit back down on the bench that they had been resting upon earlier. Hearing her mutter, the wolf then turned towards her fully.
"All we can do is wait. Nothing more." he replied, his voice calm and his arms crossed as he spoke.
As she rubbed her forehead, making sure that there was no sign of a headache, Aisha glanced up and listened to Gareeku as he spoke. There was a pause, before she nodded her agreement and let the hand rest in her lap. It seemed as if the look of disturbance and worry in her eyes wouldn't cease. "Yes...that's true. We were charged with staying, I guess...all we can do is hope that they are resourceful and strong, while we wait and just try to relax." Her head hung. "Forgive me, I'm just a little impatient as well." She stole a glance at her stump of a right arm. "Just...it's not everyday you wake up and feel so useless."
While the panther regarded her bandages, she took a second to see if they were still bound tightly so that there would be no infection. The bracer and whatever healing magic had been put on her would see to that, but no harm in checking. And especially, she made sure that the wrappings binding her chest hadn't come apart in any way either (and they hadn't, to near infinite relief).
And then she noticed next to her the cloak that she was wrapped in when she was sleeping and being carried, which belonged to Gareeku. It was hard to see in the darkness, but a soft line of dark red crossed her cheeks. Facing the wolf again, she stood up before him, the fabric in her grasp. "By the way...I never did get to properly thank you...for keeping me safe," she said quietly, a warm smile having come to her features as she offered it back to him.
* * *
As the bat spoke, Rynkura regarded him with an incredulous look hidden behind her narrowed eyes. Her arm still glowed with potential strains of magic, sometimes changing the color of the light in her indecision on what to start with...just in case. But as he spoke, she allowed just three hairs to settle back on her bruised haunches.
It was hard to tell the demon's intentions. One could certainly guess from listening that he and Sebastian were related; but of course, not all families were on the best of terms...the tigress knew that quite well of herself. So he sounded real enough in his opinions, despite the dark voice creeping upon itself. She kept a careful watch as he walked around and had his back to her, staring out into the lava, as if just daring the angel to attack while he talked about coming to kill him. And she had to admit, it was tempting...though perhaps foolhardy, right about then.
When he finished, she had to suppress a scoff. "Principle...I don't know. To some others, the proper word would be 'justice'. I don't know what word your grandson would use. But you can hardly expect adventurers to run from danger when it is presented." She hummed, her voice rather calm. "In fact, I doubt you really expect anyone to take the chance to turn back. I was carried away in front of the party, so perhaps you actually expect them to come looking for me...just to walk into something, like being a ransom, as you so elegantly put it."
Feeling a little more steady on her feet Mel crossed the room to where the gate was located. They had been charged with making sure the gate stayed open so their friends could return. From a respectful distance the dragon checked the spell for tampering. Just because some sort of deal had been made for the spider not to harm the others didn't mean she wouldn't impede their return by booby-trapping the gate. Mel couldn't see anything but she hadn't had a chance to examine the gate closely before being knocked out. She grumbled a bit under her breath but there was nothing to do for it now.
Ketefe let out a little rush of air when Keaton and Ian begrudgingly agreed not to duke it out on the stairs (the jackal a bit more begrudgingly than the rat). She gave Ian a bit of a look for not offering first aid to anyone else before patching himself up, but it was somewhat understandable. Then she turned to follow the others.
The staircase didn't feel familiar to Ketefe at all. When had they turned left? Had they even gone this far before Cogi fell? Her questions were answered when they came to a deep cavern of some kind. We're not even in the same place anymore, are we?
She wanted to figure out how this had happened, but she didn't have the time. She reached up to her face, suddenly remembering that she'd given Ian her mask for a tourniquet. "Hey, Ian..." she asked the rat, quietly. "If you have first aid supplies anyway, can I have my mask back? I'd kinda like to have it on if we're gonna..." She left her sentence hanging, her prediction all too clear.
"Ok people, this is no place to loose our heads. So let's all keep our feelings pent up till we kill this old bastard ok?" Ian sounded accuseing but at the same time there was an unmistakeable pleading in his voice. He was probably on the verge of a mental breakdown what with: going into hell, fighting along side who he thought was a back stabber, dealing with the fact a friend might be another rotting carcass in hell, all the shouting and to top it all off keeping it all pent up for the good of the group. of everything he could experence in hell the worst was the yelling. the endless yelling. it wasn't the yelling as much as it was the stark contrast from the people who welcomed him in with outstreached arms......if only he could go back, but still he continued on.
Listening to Aisha speak, Gareeku felt bad for her. She seemed quite torn up about losing her arm. Not surprising, really.
"Don't worry about it. It's understandable." the wolf replied in a reassuring voice.
It was then that the pantheress stood up again, before approaching Gareeku with his cloak in her hand. Listening to what she said next as she handed his cloak back to him, he smiled softly.
"There is no need to thank me at all." the wolf replied softly. "I swore that I would look after you, and I'm not about to take it back. Not now, not ever."
The bat kept looking for a while, just staring narrowly out at the fiery landscape as if searching or waiting for something, yet something made it seem as if Rynkura's words had brought some... tension to him. Whatever that tension was, it was very hard to say.
Just as Rynkura had almost begun feeling like saying something more to end the stranded conversation, a cruel chuckle from the old man broke her off. He turned slowly against her, still with that air of power and superiority, knowing full well how little of a threat she was to him right then.
'That word... "Justice". To me, that smacks of... convenience,' he grated. 'Convenience and self-delusion, as it serves other adventurers. And yet...' He grinned, glowing embers for eyes fixed upon the tigress' face. 'You have half a point, at least, girl. I had not expected them to turn back. And I will enjoy putting them in place, like my failure of a grandson, because ultimately they have practically asked for it, and deserve nothing better.' He took a pair of steps closer, one hand behind his back and the other on that black staff of his. 'Your little adventuress child I will enjoy seeing dead more than the others, indeed. But not of her own fault. Merely, for being the child of a child...'
Up so close to the Demon, it was as if Rynkura's senses were pushed down by that darkness again, suppressed and overwhelmed. She felt as if her skin were being heated and prickled with chill at the same time, as he leaned down, eyes narrowed, and glared at her.
'Tell me, young one... Did you ever meet... that little creature's mother's mother?' he asked, voice less mirthful and more unpleasant than ever.
Keaton took the glowing charm from his hand, and as she started up the stairs the rest of the party followed her up. As they rose, something was amiss - instead of coming to the platform, the stairs simply kept going, and going, much father than they had traveled down. Eventually, they came to a slight bend to the left, and after that, found themselves walking to a ledge sticking out of the cliffside. Beyond them lay a opening the the rock, with a hellishly carved entrance.
Cog gave the rat a look, his face blank, and saying nothing simply waited until they were all on the platform before going forward. Nothing to be done at this point - it appeared hell was guiding them to where it wanted them to go.
Cog kept his sword ready, his face unreadable, and continued into the cave.
As Aisha gave the cape back to Gareeku, she rested her hand into the fabric as she listened to what he said. The wolf's quiet declaration made the panthress's face flush with warmth, and blood rush quickly through her veins. The feeling of comfort, of being protected and cared for, overwhelmed her again. It defeated the abandoned and dark feeling that the chapel held.
She let out a soft chuckle in reply. "Well, all the same, to do that...to leave the fighting there and stay, and for me...well...I just..."
It was hard for her to find words, but there was one thing that came to mind...her hand had come up to touch the side of the wolf's face, and his other cheek was met with a kiss. She pulled away after a moment, her gaze meeting his with a light, rather sheepish smile, hand sliding from his face to rest on his shoulder. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
* * *
Rynkura indeed felt those pinpricks of cold, chills racing up her spine and attempting to turn her blood into ice. The tigress wondered just how long she could keep standing against the monstrosity of a demon before she'd let into her impulse to lance a string of lightning toward his face.
But she didn't...instead just watched him with an unending stare, unintimidated and strong, despite the way he looked down on her. The fact that he had an air of such certainty that he had accumulated a few thousand years of power, and she only hundreds, only made her somewhat angry. When he came close, she hadn't stepped back. The tigress wasn't going to let the illusion of power overtake her senses. The Healer never did.
Her arms crossed, her blood hot from anger and tension, the cold feeling receding. "If you mean Aisha's grandmother, I've only heard of her from Mara, along with stories passed. A Demon who forsook a life of killing. Of chaos and misery, of preying on sentience. Whose overly-zealous and vengeful family believed she forsook them. Who bore children to a Being, apparently, some with a Being's lifespan and alignment but an affinity for magic that they believed wasn't deserving."
Rynkura's emerald eyes seemed to have a determined glow to them as she stepped back and turned her gaze to the darkness of the "ceiling" in thought. "That is all I know, and all I see fit to care about...Mara was as much a friend as I was to the Cabres. I see not how you, Don'Chel, would want to fit into the general opinion. Aisha is her own person, who should not be killed for something she had no control over. Because of Asal's interference, she has already lost an arm and perhaps some of her spirit."
Her head turned back. "It is the same with the adventurers. They knew nothing about what would happen, and for the good, they are trying to reverse it. It will not be easy to kill them, if you even succeed. You are against the talents of not just adventurers, but some trained and powerful Creatures, and Sebastian. And, I."
Rynkura's normally neutral, respectable eyes suddenly had a look of venom. It wasn't the just the look of a mentor, a guardian, defending their charge...it was as if she had taken on the look of a fierce, protective mother as well. "And the child is safe, not among the ones coming. She will not die."
"This doesn't feel right... we're playing into the old freaks hands." Ian whispered to Cog.
The wolf looked at the rat again, raising an eyebrow.
"You're free to go back." the wolf said, turning his attention back to the dark cave. "Unless you see another path, concentrate on seeing things before they cut you." Cog continued to walk into the cave, his sword providing only a vague illumination.
The cave revealed itself to be a closed passage, turning to the left and heading downward immediately as they entered. The rough walls seemed partially carved out, and partially eroded forth. The moment Cog stepped into the cave, he noticed one particular quality that it had, which contrasted the place they had just come from; it was silent, and completely dark, lacking that fiendish atmosphere of the 'outside'. Not that it did not radiate evil; the place had such an empty, chilling darkness to it that it was as if they were walking down a black well, straight into unending, captivating night. But, at least there were walls to the sides, and that meant they were safe from sudden attacks, or so it seemed.
The sight of his glare making Rynkura feel almost as if holes were about start burning in her head from the intensity of his fiery stare, the bat stood for a second, almost as if analyzing her words, checking them for discrepancies. Then, he snorted, face turning more bitter than angered.
'Forsook! Such a way to twist a tale,' Asmodai growled.
'But I guess it is true, from one
narrow point of view. But blood is blood,' he continued.
'To some it is more personal. To others, it is merely a question of principle. Or perhaps, of justice, you would say. To let demon blood be soiled, or to pass on the powers of a legacy to those unworthy of it - those who would only use it for their own pitiful pleasures, or even use that power to destroy its very creators! That may not be injustice to you, but it is wrong nevertheless! To squander glory and power and prosperity, and for what?!' He scowled and snarled, standing tall, fiery points in his looming face glaring down at her.
'You should be thankful you never met the woman. She was a failure and a whore.'
"It was just a heads up." Ian said nothing more.
Ketefe continued down the passage, remaining silent for a little while as Ian and Cog conversed. This place didn't seem quite as...alive as the darkness from before, but it still gave her the chills. She rubbed her eyes once and moved closer to Ian.
"Ian, I'd really like my mask back. Please?" she asked the rat in a whisper. "If you're not gonna bleed everywhere, that is..."
The darkness of the cave seemed somehow less intimidating than the inky black of the stairway, but infinitely more despairing. Staring down into the cave, the wolf got the feeling that such a passageway might never end - just continue down into shadow for all eternity. Even so - they had nowhere else to go. Keeping a steady pace, the wolf moved forward, the glow of his sword a beacon in the darkness.
Even through his glasses, the wolf saw nothing. He hoped that the dragon's gift to him might be able to see these demons before they attacked - but so far, Hell had hardly played fair. Cog kept a careful eye out, and his ears perked.
Almost as if on cue Ian's hand whipped out and held the mask infront of Ketefe as they walked.
As Rynkura listened to the old bat's words, she more or less worked to keep her composure, despite the Demon's flaming gaze. Finally she simply--more out of caution and plus a little bit out of spite--conjured the barrier of light around herself; barely visible, just a shimmer in the air around her form and nothing else. While hearing the Creature speak and observing his tone, the tigress had made no change in facial expression.
That is, until he was finished. Rynkura stared for a moment, somewhat troubled from what he had said regarding Aisha's grandmother. And then, a slow smirk spread on the Angel's countenance, which slowly erupted into a harsh laugh. "A whore, huh," she snorted, quirking an eyebrow and crossing her arms. "Squandering power and glory."
Rynkura's head shook as she turned away from Asmodai and looked over the scope of the surroundings. "For what, you ask? Did you ever stop to think that maybe for all the power and glory in the world, that doesn't equal prosperity and happiness to some others? That perhaps it is your mentality that is in the wrong, Demon? What is the race that is hunted most, because they misuse power and strength so they can horde it over others...kill, gorge, plunder, destroy? Whose 'pitiful pleasures' have more sin associated with it? Yours. Angels share the same crimes, sure, but their history isn't written in nearly as much blood."
She laughed quietly. "It's no wonder she fell in love with a Being. And it's no surprise...the same story over and over with a gap such as this. Love. It brings races together and at the same time tears them apart. Not to mention that your particular families, it seems, never did have much in the line of respect among their own; let alone true caring. Another good reason."
The tigress turned back to the bat, a grimace on her face that was also an ironic smirk. "A failure and a whore, you say of my student's namesake. What a way to put it. Do I sense something behind those words? Another story I'm about to hear? Or should I just be angry and off my guard?" She snorted, glancing at her claws, where small lances of electricity danced between the points. "Really, I'm quite curious. What does she have to do with all of this?"
"Thanks." Ketefe glanced once at Ian and nodded before taking the mask out of his hand. She untied it quickly and retied it around her eyes, feeling just a little braver as they continued on.
"You're welcome." He seemed distant and focused on the darkness as he pulled out the gun he had holstered to hand her the mask.
Fortunately, the cave seemed to hold no surprises for the injured. But making their way down was almost as hard as going up, what with all the punishment they had taken. The artifacts they relied on slowly strengthened them, but their effects seemed so slight and slow under the pressure of the Hell around them that it was easy to begin doubting whether if they would ever reach their goal. Ketefe had begun hearing that voice inside her head somewhat clearly again, speaking to her sometimes pleadingly, sometimes hatefully, sometimes as if it were her best friend and sometimes as if it wanted nothing but to die, again, and take her with it. It sometimes shifted between this even mid-sentence. And sometimes it seemed to be talking either to itself or to someone or something else she could not see.
Where are you going, dearest? Where are you taking us? Putting our feet over the chasm. Two steps forward, five steps back, no no no... it echoed, almost taking on the same tonality as a dear old uncle correcting his youthfully inexperienced niece.
She does not know where she goes, we know, she knows we know she knows. Yes! And the other idiots as well. Looking with their eyes... it continued, more aggressively, before its tone became almost panicked and weeping.
Our eyes! Why can't we look around?!'A very great deal!' the bat snarled back at Rynkura, almost pressing his face against hers, huge fangs exposed.
'She is the blood taint. She is the one holding power she should not have. Now,' he said, before adjusting his tone to a much more low and less furious but somehow more hateful one,
'had she chosen to simply grow her power and keep to herself, this would not have been so overt a problem. At least I could have overlooked. But her father and mother brought the curse down upon themselves. And her grandmother as well, when she collaborated with them against the Be'Lann. Asal was young and hot-blooded. The moment they offended his family, their fate was sealed.' His rumbling voice had sunk almost to a hiss, a whisper, toward the end.
Stepping back and making some growling sound that might have been a sigh, Asmodai settled and returned to the calm, superior manner of before.
'You did not know her, or her failings. I did. That is the real truth to that,' he said, with an air of finality.
'You do not know the family or the blood. And mostly, you do not know the sort of prosperity or glory we possessed. That was squandered when creatures and people like you, and her, broke it apart.' His voice dripped with acid spite and resentment.
'The last of the great, dark families. We did not destroy. We did not plunder. Not before the self-righteous likes of you came along.' His eyes narrowed, and the grip around his staff clenched.
'We had no need to, no reason. Have you ever considered that? That it might have been the offenses made by people like you that created the sort of fury that grips the hearts of Demons today?'
Ketefe was marginally surprised when her demon revealed itself to still be alive. But after a night in Hell, it was hard to surprise her. "Damn thing is still alive..." she muttered aloud for anyone who'd listen and know what she meant. Then she sent a message to it.
Okay, bastard, listen up. First off, there is no 'we'. You're a parasite, a minor annoyance that will be dealt with as such. I'm not your friend, and in case you forgot, you almost got my friends KILLED a little while ago. Second, quit talking to anyone or anything outside my head or I smash my skull open with a rock and kill us both.
With that, she forbade herself to talk to it again until she knew it was safe. As much as she hated to think about it, there was the chance it might possess her again. She steeled herself and spoke up.
"Guys. Do me a favor. I was possessed a couple hours ago and the demon isn't quite dead yet, so if it looks like I'm about to hurt or kill anyone we know... either knock me out or kill me."
In her indignation and quietly smoldering fury, Keaton's pace had accelerated to the point she had trudged from her stable position at the rear of the group to the center, where she was flanked by her companions. Cogidubnus's charm was clutched in one, blood-drenched hand, Rynkura's orb-ornamented staff draped in Catastrophe's holster. The crystalline sapphire-sphere cradled in the crown of the staff was gently emitting a soft, rhythmic palpitation, its center softly suffused in oceanic light. At first Keaton didn't think the charm was having any affect on her anemia-stricken body, as, no matter how ardently she wrung the amethyst-laden charm for support or clenched it into her palm, it wouldn't provide the energy she was craving. As Keaton glanced wearily down at the charm nestled in her hand, she realized all she had accomplished was getting Cogidubnus's charm coated with blood. Heartbrokenly, she released a shuddering sigh, sniffling.
She could hear the erratic pace of her heart pounding in her ears, swarming through the shallow and half-emptied streams of her blood-veins. It was irregular, to the point Keaton could almost feel her heart straining and rampaging against her ribcage, battering away at the bone-chamber. Oddly, Keaton didn't feel unnerved by her heart's pace--it distracted her from the wicked and increasingly corrupted surroundings, and reminded her that she didn't seem to be on the verge of her pulse petering out and plunging her into darkness. In comparison to her heart being utterly and unnervingly silent, this was preferable.
As she continued to walk, their group descending further and further into the cavernous precipice, Keaton didn't realize the escalating strength behind her steps. Against the subaudible thrumming of Rynkura's staff, Keaton's aberrant heartbeat was winding down, slowly yet surely settling into synchronization with the palpitations produced by the staff's orb. Keaton's breathing was regulated somewhat, her body heaving as she stared warily about the dark-imbued chamber, but it nearly hitched when Ketefe spoke up. Both organic and synthetic eye wild, Keaton pivoted her head around to stare at the masked feline.
The feline mentioned something about possession, which was rather bizarre to the jackal. After all, she wasn't present when the symptoms of Ketefe's possession were taking place. However, at the idea of incapacitating or killing the feline if this demonic inhabitance became dangerous... it must have been a serious matter. Keaton glanced uncertainly to Cog.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Rynkura's nostrils flared as the bat replied to her with his glare thrust into her face, a reaction that just screamed of disgust. Still the tigress was staunch, at least secure in the notion that she still had her barrier. Her mind was quick in coming up with all sorts of answers to the demon's retorts, though she wondered just how long the talk would keep before he would try to make good his threat.
When he finished, Rynkura's calm countenance returned in place of the expression of disgust. It almost seemed...apologetic, surprisingly. "Quite honestly, I have considered that. You do not live for nearly a millenium without learning how to see two sides...at least, the good-minded people do not. But see, that is not nearly long enough to see when magic was first utilized and the first Demon walked with the first Being...as well 'Cubi and Angels other Creatures. Nor is it long enough to have seen what really started it all."
She glanced back up Asmodai, and within her emerald eyes there was something of a wise curiosity, a seeking of understanding. "I doubt you have lived long enough to see what has truly happened, either. Your families' practices may be the fault of the Beings, and maybe it's not. There are plenty of other Demons--some you may have met perhaps--that see reason to kill Beings as the simple principle of the stronger survive, and that it has always been that way. That Beings were as animal as our feral counterparts until intelligence evolved and compromised their more magical predators. 'Might makes right', and all of that nonsense. All that the adventurers are doing today is treating their survival to those standards, when they prove their strength against the supposed stronger."
She grinned slightly, remembering a certain metaphor, though in a different way. "Like, perhaps, the spider as being a predator to all insects...and the mantis who can fight against the spider."
The tiger's ears lowered, once more giving her a fierce look. Her arms crossed and tail swished through the air. "So. Aisha then should be killed for bearing magic that, in fact, she never wanted in the first place, and now that she may know she has it, may still not want?" Her tone of voice became mocking, and she laughed. "Shameful thinking, lord bat."
The Demon's response was hard and direct, and much more calm and cold than the Angel probably expected.
'No. She is to die because she should never have been born in the first place. Because vengeance was sworn, and because she now goes against me so that I can exact that vengeance without trouble.' His glare remained on the Angel, unwavering.
'That is why. And this,' he continued, indicating the Hellish pit around them with an outstretched arm and hand, the shadows and fire wreathing into the seemingly mile-long distance
'is why you have only two choices.' Stepping around, and planting his staff in the ground, the demon ruffled his wings and took a long, hard look, before speaking again.
'You can either aid me, by standing aside. Or you may bring me your little protegé, and perhaps a few of the others, and we can negotiate. Or...' he stated, and bored his eyes into Rynkura's yet again,
'you can try to stand in my way and die a slow, agonizing death, watching those who you protect fail, before expiring.' Spreading his wings slightly as he adjusted his stance, the bat seemed ready to strike at her.
'What is your decision?'Idiots! You can't see, and you can't hear. But we feel you. Oh, yes, little Ketefe, dearest, we feel us... The voice inside Ketefe's head shifted and twisted, almost pleasant at one moment and then jumping to bone-chilling and insane at the next. In fact, the way whispers trailed it, it didn't seem to be just
one voice, but perhaps two or three. Something, a wispy light, flickered and swam just behind her.
'Or, listen to us.' Ketefe couldn't catch herself, before another sentence left her lips, unbidden. It sounded... not quite like her own voice.
'Because you are trapped and twisting. Yeeees...'
Walking silently through the inky blackness, Ketefe's statement seemed to somehow grow infintiely more disturbing. The wolf looked back at the masked feline, raising an eyebrow, and had only taken a single step forward when he heard...whispers.
The wolf turned back to Ketefe, the dry, papery voice fading down the stone corridor. It had unmistakably come from the feline, but it...didn't quite sound like her. Cog only paused for a moment.
"Are you yourself, Ketefe?" he said, asking before he kept moving forward through the cave.
Ketefe continued to walk as she waited for reactions from the others. Keaton had been lost in though when she had spoken up, so the jackal looked a little surprised and confused. The feline remembered that Keaton hadn't seen her get possessed, so she wouldn't quite know what Ketefe was talking about. Cog hadn't reacted at all to her request, focusing on moving ever forward. She assumed that everyone at least had heard her, and would know that she might become dangerous later, so she said nothing and followed the others.
Her demon whispered to her again, taunting her, berating her senselessness. She was finding it harder and harder to ignore the voice in her head - especially now that it seemed to be multiple voices. Only one had possessed her... where had these others come from? She prepared herself to speak up again and warn the others of this new development.
But before she could, something whispered out of her head and past her lips - the demon's two cents.
"Or, listen to us. Because you are trapped and twisting. Yeeees..." Ketefe stopped and covered her mouth in horror. The voice hadn't sounded quite like hers... The demon's physical influence was coming back. "Oh shit..." she whispered in fear.
When Cog asked his question, she looked up. "I... I am now, but... that wasn't me. I thought it couldn't control me anymore... Shit." She started to walk again, despite being severely shaken. She was now attuned to every muscle in her body, in case anything tried to control her again. I don't want any more pain...
Looking at Ketefe, Cog frowned for a moment, stopping, and looking first carefully ahead of him and then behind turned to face the masked feline. His face was concerned, and he walked up to the cat.
She sounded...very flustered. He didn't want to have to keep her from stabbing them all in the back at an inopportune time, either.
He unwrapped another silver charm from his hand, and without preamble simply placed the chain over the cat's head and around her neck. As soon as he let go of it, the light from his sword died, and Cog began to unwind a a third charm from his wrist, beginning to loop that one around his sword arm. Holy magic from the charm began to pour into the feline, making her almost palpably glow with light.
"That may help." Cog said simply, turning and beginning to walk forward again, his sword beginning to frost over.
"Oooo glow in the dark kitty." Ian smiled. "good to know we have a walking nightlight now." Ian kept pace close to Cog. "You don't think she'll turn do you? How long you suppose those charms'll last?" He said in a hushed whisper.
At this point, Rynkura wished that she still had her staff to clutch, and provide more light in the dingy volcanic landscape underground. Instead, she was working hard to keep her claws from digging into the center of her palm within clenched fists. The tigress saw the finality in Asmodai's words as he spoke to her again. The talking was nearly at end.
Hopefully beneath the demon's notice, she sent forth small waves of magic into the earth from her feet and had kept doing it, never moving from her spot...she was grateful for the presence of earth, no matter how rocky or volcanic. Earth was earth.
Meanwhile, she couldn't quite believe what he was saying. Her heart was aching; a complete manifestation of the fear she had for Aisha and the fact that he was confirming it. Among the business that old Don'Chel had with his grandson, he also wanted the huntress dead and the others disposed of.
Her face held no trace of emotion as he gave his offer, eyes staring straight forward and almost blank. That was both concentration at work--the magic grew outward into the rock--and the fact that a nerve was finally struck within the Angel. And she was going to illustrate that point quite clearly. Her choice was made already, without quarrel...and she probably knew what fate awaited her...a demon even older than herself was quite formidable. But at this point, it was anything to keep them safe, and she was prepared to fight for it.
"That's three choices," she corrected, her voice low. "And you should know the answer. I am a Healer, and by oath I cannot put anyone in harm's way. Plus, I have taken a bit of a liking to this group of adventurers. So I will not give them to you. None of them." Her lip curled up into a snarl. "As for Aisha, she is not only my student, but my god-daughter. She will live, as it is her divine right, as it is anyone's divine right; no matter where they may come from. And you have pointed out that there is no true quarrel with anyone here, bar Sebastian."
Rynkura's look became one of reasonableness. "So I shall add a fourth choice to that. You just let me go, and I shall convince the others to leave. Because, really, hostages aren't a part of any honorable fight."
It was then that she noticed the bat's stance was different. He was ready to take his word out to kill her. "No?" She closed her eyes and lowered her head for a moment, looking solemn as she deactivated the gems on her sleeves, her grand feathered wings materializing once more, and letting loose the rest of her power. She flared them, just as the demon had flared his. "I guess I shall take that upon myself then."
Three things happened at once after that. The barrier she had constructed shimmered, and then suddenly her form simply vanished into a quickly-constructed invisibility spell. The next second, the magic pulses in the earth stopped, in favor of what they had conjured; fairly thick, thorned vines constructed of and carrying an unnatural light erupted from the ground around the bat and attempted to ensnare him. And right after that, a distinct scrabbling and flapping sound could be heard from somewhere above, and going higher.
Within her encasement, lightning formed in her hands, she was ready at the first sign of a retort. I hope that without my staff my power can outlive my resourcefulness.
Cogidubnus looked at Ian quickly, his gaze only a flash before his attention returned to the darkness. He spoke softly. "I don't know. And I can recharge them, if necessary." he said, continuing forward. His footsteps echoed hollowly.
The cave managed to be freezing and sweltering at the same time, in defiance of all logic. Condensation dripped from the end of his sword, not freezing despite the powerful ice magics flowing through it.
"Where the hell is he..." Cog murmured, continuing on.
When Cog placed that chain around her neck, Ketefe felt a shudder through her entire body. In her head, whispers of protest and pain rose up, distant and nearby at the same time. Something almost made her want to hiss, but at the same time the chill and relief that the holy symbol brought with it were almost enough to make her fur stand on end. Still, she could not feel entirely comfortable. For despite the reaction, the voices refused to die away. Something told her that they weren't going to. Not completely. Certainly not as long as she was practically bathing in all this evil around them.
They had managed to get a good way ahead, before Cog spoke up once more. And in response, something made Ketefe giggle with malicious mirth. Not of her own accord, but...
'You would not see him, even if he were right behind you!' she laughed, before her control restored itself.
And you would not reach him, if he were right before you... the voice continued in her head, almost as if nothing had happened. She thought she could almost feel something behind her, but she couldn't catch anything there. There was nothing but empty cavern behind them.
That's what you think, girl... The voice hissed into her ear as if she had spoken her thoughts aloud.
But this is not a place for the living and the sane. Not a place for those who can be trusted. And that is why you cannot trust them. They are blind in the dark... She felt maniacal amusement stirring up inside her, though it was clearly separated from herself. She had no problem containing a laugh this time.
But we can see, yes. Listen to us...The Angel's action was, as could be expected, faster. After all, there was no denying that her sort of creature were generally superior in the department of immediate speed. However, the Demon was not a slouch himself. And, much more significantly, the difference in power and age between the two was so vast that Rynkura could have brought several more like her, and it would have made no difference at all. The Demon was on very favorable territory. In short, the tigress' attempt was failed right from the start.
When Rynkura's shield spell flickered and made her disappear from sight, Asmodai merely turned down his eyes. He knew full well some sort of distraction attack would come. To him, it seemed poorly constructed, nonpersistent as it was. The bat raised his staff, and then put the bottom down again with a hard snap, and in a heartbeat he spread his wings as a wall of rushing flames blasted out from him, covering and blurring his form. The vines she had created were swept away like mist, and paying no more heed, the bat leaned back his head, eyes closed. Reaching out with his hands, he clutched at the air above him, and in response the flames rushed upward, mimicking his movements. Then, breathing in sharply, he struck his palms together. And the fire moved.
The blast as the almost hand-shaped torrents of flames came together around her was like an explosion right between Rynkura's ears. One second she was moving upward, vision clear and her spell and defenses holding. The next, the world turned inside out. Something cracked, and she tumbled. Then, she struck the ground. It seemed a miracle that she did not black out again. But her violently protesting stomach made her wish she had instead. She barely had time to move again, before slow steps approached her, and the world darkened.
'There is no more to do, Angel. You lost before you even began playing,' Asmodai's darkened voice echoed from above her. Fire flared up somewhere to the corner of her vision, and then went away as a metallic, clinking sound reached her ears. A shadow bent over her, and then her head and chin were gripped, and she were lifted off the ground. 'What hopes did you think you had? You are trapped. And you will not escape. You have but to choose.'
The Demon said no more. The cold, spiky metal of chains began wrapping itself around the tigress, and he left her there, with the truth of his words.
Cog growled, partly in response to Ketefe's strange laugh, and party because, very simply, the wolf was getting tired of the dark.
Of not being able to see in front of him, of the almost suffocating feel of the inky black, and the more and more difficult fight it was becoming to not panic or twitch at every errant sound or footstep.
Cog paused. He had nowhere to stow his sword, so he simply set it on the ground for a moment.
"Angels of rain and thunder, hear, oh hear..." the wolf muttered, a low, soft cadence, and bringing one hand up high as if he was trying to reach for something hanging from the stone ceiling above - taking a fistful of the darkness, he brought it back down.
His hand alighted, a tiny ball of bright, bright sparks.
He whispered something else, and tossed the little thing into the air, where it began to circle the air above the party. It wasn't perfect, but being able to see anything at all made up for it.
Cog picked up his sword and continued, keeping his ears perked for the sound of claws on stone, of perhaps blanket cloth over a sword.
Ketefe froze for a minute when Cogidubnus looped the holy charm from his sword around her neck. An odd, conflicting sense of warmth and cold spread through her body, and she noticed that her body had begun to glow - not powerfully, but she was definitely luminous.
Okay, seriously, mind. Feel free to wake me up any time now.
Iam's joke helped her come as close to smiling as she had in the last few hours. She was beginning to think that maybe she'd survive this night after all, when Cog wondered aloud where Stygian could be, and her demon forced her to snicker cruelly.
"You would not see him, even if he were right behind you!" it jeered through her mouth. Even when she caught herself, the demon continued to mock inside her brain. She felt not only the invading presence of the demon, but the strangest feeling that... they were being followed. She turned to look, but the empty chasm behind them stretched on for miles and revealed nothing.
That's what you think, girl... The demon, answering her thoughts as if it shared them. She wanted to scream at the voice to stay out of her head, but it went on. But this is not a place for the living and the sane. Not a place for those who can be trusted. And that is why you cannot trust them. They are blind in the dark... Its amusement, although separate from her emotions, was felt by Ketefe; she didn't laugh again, but she knew the creature felt like it. But we can see, yes. Listen to us...
Ketefe crossed her arms, clenching her forearms tightly. It wasn't the best way to relieve frustration, but it would have to do for now. She heard Cog growl - it wasn't in her head, and somehow that reassured her. When the wolf uttered a short spell and lit a piece of the darkness up to help guide them, she felt a little less afraid. At the very least, now the darkness wasn't crushing them anymore. She walked on, responding to the voices in her head mentally. She wasn't going to be suckered that easily; not just yet.
Not a place for the trustworthy, eh? No wonder you claim to know so much about it. How could I ever trust the word of something that almost made me kill my friend? How could I ever be lead to follow something that could, at any moment, steal all my self-control and kill my friends, right here? What's your answer to THAT?
The voice chuckled darkly in Ketefe's head, and she felt a hard streak of sadistic pleasure shoot through the madness. We don't know, either of you. No, no... Poor girl, lost in mind as well as path... it said, almost sounding lamenting. The worst part was that she could feel its thoughts and the strangely convincing sadness, while at the same time sensing it think of something deeper and far more consuming. A plot, almost, though more like a wish or a desire. We were upset. Desperate. Yes, you were too. Me? You? I just wish to get out. But now I am taken back where I am strong instead, oh yes, struggling against the chains... We have no help, so I must help ourselves. The way of its speech and the pronouns didn't make any sense. Ketefe knew that. But she was also beginning to understand what the thing meant sometimes through its insane speech. I can't get out, we must get out, and there are many, many. We can help us, and they can help me, and together... It almost snickered, then went silent, save for some incoherent whispering for some time.
When it spoke up again, the feeling of it was enough to make Ketefe think her spine would wriggle free any moment. I propose a deal for us, and we can reach an agreement. Yes we can. You know us. Me. A deal, we can understand, both you and I...
Rynkura thought that she was prepared for anything. Somewhere in her mind she knew that there wasn't a chance against the demon. No reasoning with, no sneaking away from...but she had to try. The tiger wasn't going to give up.
It was only for a split second that she thought she was finally in the clear, and was only half-expecting more lesser demonic creatures taken to the air. But no sooner had the Healer thought that, then suddenly her world turned into fire...she had been encased in it. Impossible! He couldn't have found me! That was her final thought before she came careening back down into the abyss...with nothing to catch her but the solid stone ground.
The Angel groaned as the breath was knocked clean out of her. Indeed she wished that instead she were knocked out, instead of feeling the bruises. Thankfully she was more than tough enough to have not sustained anything broken, more thankfully neither of her wings. But instead of being helped to her feet, she gasped for air as she was brought up in Asmodai's grip. She sustained a look of absolute hatred on her face as she spoke.
He was still asking her to choose. Even as she felt the cold chains binding limbs as she was let go. Her fingers clenched around a portion of the chains, and an electric blast of glowing blue light magic swept through them. It was probably futile, but she was going to insist being a tough one to hold still. It was long enough for her other arm to be free to make her wings vanish again.
"You already know my choice, bastard! You will have NONE of them!" Rynkura lashed and called after him, eyes glowing a fierce emerald and voice quaking with power, struggling despite her injuries. "Not Aisha. Not any of the others. Not...one."
That was when she fell to the ground on her own accord, nearly out of energy. The feeling was completely new for Rynkura; that of powerlessness, when usually she had more than enough to spare. She suspected it was a part of the environment itself. But as she stared out into the darkness, lit only by an expanse of lava, all that she could still be certain of was that somehow Sebastian had a plan, going into this place against such a beast.
Only by that curiosity was the tiger even sure she was to keep her life.
Mel stared at the portal. It seemed stable and inactive but considering what was going on the inactivity seemed more ominous than not. She didn't really know what she should be doing with herself while their friends battled in the hidden depths. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed residual webbing clinging to the frog. "Are you okay, Jeremiah? Were you hurt in the confrontation?"
"you ok Ket? You seem, distracted." Ian sounded cautious and concerned. He didn't want Ketefe to go rampageing, but he hated the thought of hurting or, God forbid, killing her.
Ketefe controlled her urge to growl at the creature's sinister laugh. The thing(s) began to explain, and in spite of very garbled and grammatically nightmarish speech, they were starting to make sense to her. She could feel a strange sort of sympathy exuding from them, but a deeper underlying emotion remained.
She tried to make more sense of the demon's words. The creature, she guessed, didn't like being stuck here any more than she did. But when it said "get out", did it want to get out of her, or did it want to get out of the castle in her body? It had, after all, tried that before.
The demon snickered softly and was relatively quiet for a while. But its next words gave her chills beyond compare. It was trying to strike a bargain with her.
She glared ahead at nothing in particular, not really focusing until Ian asked her how she was doing. She gasped and took a startled step backward; the silence in which she'd been consumed had almost made her forget where she was.
She calmed herself down quickly and looked at the rat with a semi-grateful expression. "I'm ... I don't know whether I could say I was okay. The damn thing is trying to make a deal with me... It's acting like it knows something we don't about this place. Should I listen to it or not?" What she didn't dare say was that they weren't getting very far anyway, so the demon's advice might just be better than walking into oblivion. She knew better than to trust even her own opinion with that weighty a decision.
"The demons I've encountered have been self centered nightmareish creatures. They strike no bargan unless it helps them far more than it helps you. This theological demon should be no less, so I'd say no." Ian looked infuriated he didn't mean to It's just how he is. He didn't even notice how tightly he was gripping his guns untill he accidently pulled a trigger and a bright speck of light shattered into the ground. "Wha?! Oh sorry." He started calming down.
In the modicum of light that the spark was providing, Cog could feel the strange grip that the dark had on him slip, somewhat. The feeling of hell was still around him, of course, but without that inky black pressing down onto him, it felt like he could breathe again. Condensation dripped from his somewhat misting sword, and Cog brought a hand up to his ragged hair and brushed a bit out of his eyes.
Demons... Cog muttered to himself. Anything deal we try and make is liable to haunt us. Cog shifted on his feet, looking straight at the masked feline. But we're lost. The bat is strong, but...not that strong. Alone.
Cog licked at his teeth, tasting a bit of blood. Probably from one of those creatures earlier. He sighed, and shook his head, looking straight at Ketefe.
"If they're still there after that charm..."
He paused. "Ask them what they want."
Ketefe listened carefully to Ian. She knew he was right - demons like these were probably incapable of making a deal to help someone else out, and even if it did, it would end up turning back on them later. But what other option did they have...?
She jumped when Ian's gun fired, half of her fearing that the noise would attract some hidden creature. She didn't trust this hall, no matter how safe it looked.
Then Cog spoke up. Ketefe wasn't sure she liked his decision, but he probably didn't either. She gulped and nodded, steeling her nerves as she thought to the creatures:
What kind of deal?
"Please, be careful." Ian said as they went through with the plan.
Jeremiah noticed Mel's glance and chuckled nervously, tugging away little strands of web. "Nah, I'm fine. Shook up, but fine. If I wasn't I'd probably be screaming my head off, begging the aid of various deities, and possibly crying profusely," He grinned as he counted off the symptoms of Not Being Ok on his fingers. "Thanks for the concern though."
Wonder where it was when Stygian was gonna put a bullet through our brain?
Shut up, Bal.
When he pressed the barrel to your forehead and everyone WATCHED, just waiting?
Shut UP, Bal.
Kill 'em.
We must remain alive, Jeremiah. These people aren't safe.
Breakbreakbreakbreak-
Nex, In, don't you two dare-
Sir, they have a-
We need pretties! Jeremiah, go where I can have more pretties!
-Blunt instrument, am I? I'm the only thing in here worth ANYTHING, you little shit, and don't you-!
... Furthermore, Sir, these adversaries have shown an inclination to bargain. Perhaps if we-
BREAKBREAKBREAKBREAK-!
BZzzzzZzZZzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ!
SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU!
Jeremiah massaged his temples with his fingertips. "Although if you have anything for headaches that would be fantastic. Didn't get much sleep before this started." He murmured.
Looking at Aisha, Gareeku continued to smile softly at her, meaning every word that he had said. Listening to her words, the wolf was about to say something himself when the pantheress gently touched the side of his face with her hand. That was not to be it, however, as Aisha then softly kissed him on his other cheek, before gazing into his eyes with her eyes...those beautiful ruby-like eyes...
Looking away slightly, it could easily seen through his white fur that his cheek had turned bright red.
"No...uh...no problem..." the wolf muttered in reply. It was easy to see that he had been totally caught off-guard.
As Aisha watched Gareeku and his reaction to her affection, she couldn't help but blush just as fiercely as he had, a soft smile on her face as he broke their gaze. He's cute when he's flustered, she thought. Normally she would have teased him and said that, but somehow right then her heart wasn't into teasing her companion and savior. Whether it was the exhaustion from the recent events, or that she had few words left...or the small thought that that perhaps he was having enough of the attention...she let fingers run over his warm cheeks, looking into his soft, handsome azure eyes once more for a lingering moment. "I mean every bit of it," she whispered.
After that, standing close to the wolf, the huntress took a quick look around the perpetually-dark scenery of the chapel. She observed Mel speaking to Jeremiah near the altar, the both of them looking pretty much the most exhausted she's ever seen them. Aisha couldn't blame anyone for being tired...her face fell into uncertainty. Wondering if the others were still safe...hoping that Rynkura hadn't gotten into trouble...and yet they couldn't very well go after them after promising to watch the door. In short, after Sal had disappeared, she felt more restless.
"I look forward to when this is all over and we can all just rest in peace," Aisha sighed. Her eyes glanced then to the chapel's epicenter, an aisle which was littered with a few stones and other debris. Her eyes narrowed. "But I know what'll probably be a good idea meantime. We still need to be on guard, and I'm going to try and get back on my toes again."
Aisha stepped from the side into the aisle and started to kick and move stones away. In a few moments, she had made a clear circular arena of sorts, and took the Dragonblade's handle in her left hand. She held it up to let it balance a pause for focus, and then she started a slow swish around the arena, testing the air with her blade...thrusting and parrying as if she were against an invisible enemy and trying not to trip. It was practice, a steady dance of the blade under the grim eyes of the statues.
There were still a few very dull aches in her body, repressed and fixed by the bracer she wore, but one could tell that Aisha's resolve had come back.
Ketefe stopped the creatures from using her as a megaphone again, forcing them to stay inside her head. her pace slowed and she shut her eyes as the demons spoke to her about their deal, a look of hatred mixed with resignation on her face. At some point during the mental exchange, her eyes shot open again in surprise - like she was remembering something important she had forgotten until now. Finally, her features relaxed as the conversation finished, but some residual surprise remained - now, mixed with a sense of remembered fear.
"If I listen to them and stop forcing them out of my mind, they'll lead us through this place and get us to Stygian's grandfather so we can kill him. They say this place isn't meant for the sane, and they can see their way through it much clearer than we ever could." She didn't say what she knew everyone was thinking: that they were right. This was their home-turf; it was meant for monsters and spirits to get through, not living, rational people. "So, do we accept?"
"I'd feel safer with some collateral." Ian said with a hint of worry
Cogidubnus seemed to contemplate for a moment, the sparking light buzzing over his head and casing strange shadows about the wolf. They cast around him wrong, somehow, showing shadows and shapes were there was nothing, and in some places staying lit when they should have been shaded. The wolf looked at Ketefe hard, staring into her eyes.
"Tell them that after they kill the bat, they leave you, us, and this castle forever." Cog said, bringing his sword closer to his head. The cold pouring off the blade felt good in the strangely oppressive heat.
He hoped they would take the deal. He knew that he really didn't have any way of forcing their hand, other than a really rather hopeless attempt at exorcism.
Ketefe nodded grimly to the wolf. "Okay." She retreated into her mind once again.
One more condition, she thought to them, her mental voice severe, but solemnly accepting of her current position. As soon as you lead us to the bastard, you never bother me or any of my friends again. You'll go back to wherever you came from.
The demons laughed quietly in her head. We promise to leave, yes...
Ketefe's features grew a little more cross. Why were they laughing? Once again, it felt like they knew something they weren't telling her. But now wasn't the time to stand here and grill them until they told her; they had to find the bat, and hopefully, Rynkura at some point.
"They accepted. I'm going to ask them which way we should go," she informed the others. She fell silent again. But within three seconds, her eyes became livid and her fur bristled. The demons' instructions had infuriated her so badly that she had begun to speak her answers to them aloud as well as thinking them, pacing back and forth.
"What do you MEAN go back the way we came?! What do you t-"
As she did an about-face to storm in the other direction, she cut off her sentence with a gasp. The hall behind them had... changed. Not more than twelve steps away from the masked cat was a solid wall, cutting off where they had been walking a few minutes ago. Two hallways, one to the left and one to the right, took the place of what had just been a straight-ahead hallway.
"Guys....," Ketefe said, her voice shaking now. "That wasn't there before..."
Ian looked creeped out. "Well this is hell so i suppose it's entirely possible, but DAMN!" He said in a very confuzed manner "This ought to be fun."
The blade cut through the air without resistance, each swish of her arm feeling a little more familiar. Her eyes followed the shimmering edge as it passed through light and darkness and light again in all of her practice stances. Lessons from Rynkura passed through her mind, all except the ones that required two hands. The adventurer had to filter those out...she no longer had two limbs.
There was a second when she wondered if she would have to give up adventuring because of the handicap. After all, Aisha had accomplished one of her life goals already. The other--trying to find Ayan--could have been lost to begin with. This made her heart sink and caused her sword practice to stop right in its steps, a blank look in her eyes.
The panther stood like that for just a moment, before the dizziness that came from the practice finally came to her. She dug the point of the sword in the ground with a grunt, holding it for balance while she regained her strength again. Just how hurt was she still, to still have such a limited amount of energy?
Before Aisha could think about it, however, the statues caught her eye. They were watching her with what seemed like expressions of contempt, or at least impatience. They were staring at all of the party members...in fact, it could have been the dizziness, but just for a second...did one of them move?
Her ears flickered, looking around as she held herself up. She blinked, her focus returning, and glanced around before laying eyes on the others. "...Did...you all just hear something?"
Cog narrowed an eye, his sword almost touching the ground. It hadn't been there before, not at all. But something told him that maybe it had been there the entire time also.
Cog gave the rat a look before walking past him.
"Lead on, Ketefe." Cog said, waiting for the feline to make her way forward.
Jeremiah turned toward Aisha. "Hear something? No, I di- didn'- didna... dnahah hah hah..."
He was staring at a point somewhere behind Mel, where something was happening. A statue of the goddess of truth strode out of the shadows, raising the set of balances she held and letting it thwack against her stone palm. It grinned wickedly, the wrinkles in a face that should have been unable to acquire them drawing ones gaze to the cracked gouges over her blindfold where her eyes should have been.
"Hey loves..."
And around the room, from more sculptures stepping out of their respective walls. "Hey loves..." "Hey loves..." "Hey loves..."
---
There was a plink, somewhere behind those facing the two new passageways. A furrae figure that, one could presume, had made the noise pressed itself against the wall to hide from sight.
"...What?!" Ian said in a defenceive manner. "Oh come on don't you think this all is even the least bit interesting? Sure beats the haunted house they set up on campus for halloween."
Ketefe took a few breaths to get over the heart palpitation that had occurred, and looked to Cogi. "Okay, you got it," she said breathily. She took a few steps forward, shooting a look to Ian. "Interesting, yes, but now is not the time," she said, mostly to cover up her fading initial shock.
Before she went any further, she heard a plink! from behind where she and the others were standing. Her eyes narrowed, her muscles tensed and she turned, slowly, looking in the direction the small sound had come from. "Who's there?" she called, hand hovering over the hilt of her sword.
The sound of Ian's guns cocking said he was ready for action too.
Rynkura could still sense the demon's presence nearby in her place, chained on the ground and having been rather matted and dirt-ridden, though he was hard to hear. This dreary place, draped in shadows, for the first time the tigress was doubting herself, and the skills of the adventurers somewhere above...all she could do was wait.
She had her magic, though it was dulled. At first, the Healer had the urge to overrun the caves with her vines, this time to try enchanting them with poison. But she knew the thought was one out of rage. It would waste her energy and perhaps rouse the demon's ire and end her life early. Still Rynkura was anxious, something had to be done...a message to send to the adventurers that she was alive, probably. And at the same time she would know whether they had found it or not.
With little movement and more quiet uttering, she summoned a flickering orb of light and watched it ascend, her eyes having a glow to them while they followed it. Whether it would make it or not was low in chances...too low. But it was something.
* * *
Aisha regained her breath while listening to Jeremiah's answer, which came out as a harsh stutter. The panther almost didn't dare follow his gaze.
But she did, and she almost stumbled again. Ah damn, so it wasn't a trick of the light...
A statue of Justice followed by three others, each about the size of an average furre yet still as menacing in their unblinded eyes, had stepped out of the wall and were coming towards them. There were four she could count, their voices ringing one after the other...one was coming behind Mel, and the others were each making their way to a respective group member.
"Oh mierda..." she cursed and stepped back, raising her sword defensively and wondering what the hell the deal was. "Everyone watch out!"
Hearing Aisha's whispered words to him, Gareeku looked back at her, back at those beautiful ruby-like eyes, smiling softly as he did so. When she looked away to scan the surroundings, the wolf continued to gaze at her for another second or so, before doing the same. His thoughts also wondered to the safety of the others. He, like the others still in the chapel, had no idea if those who had ventured down into the catacombs below were still alright, or even alive for that matter.
It was then, however, that Gareeku turned his head to look back at Aisha, who had spoken once more, this time speaking of her desire that this would all end, but in the meantime deciding to occupy herself with some training.
"I think that, in this place, that goes without saying." The wolf replied as he watched the pantheress make her way to the aisle, before kicking the stones on the floor away to make a small clearance for her to practice in. As he watched her, Gareeku could tell that Aisha's renowned resolve had returned, and this made him a bit less worried, as he can been concerned that her injury could have demoralised her.
As Aisha continued training, Gareeku could see that she was beginning to get the hang of only using one arm with a weapon. Again this made him a little less worried, as the wolf wasn't sure how well she would cope with only one arm in terms of fighting.
It was then, however, that the pantheress stopped her training, a blank look in her eyes before digging the point of her dragonblade into the ground and leaning on it as she seemingly tried to regain strength. As she did so, Gareeku made his way into the aisle and next to her.
"Are you ok?" the wolf asked, concern evident on his face. "Don't wear yourself...out..."
Trailing off as he noticed the look on Aisha's face, the wolf looked in the direction that she was. It was then, however, that one of his ears suddenly perked up. He, like Aisha, had heard something. It was faint, but he had definitely heard it. Listening to the pantheress' question, Gareeku reached for his sword.
"Yes..." the wolf replied, unsheathing his sword as he spoke. "...I did."
The sound of Jeremiah's stuttering then caught Gareeku's attention as he turned around to see what he was stuttering about. It was then that, with slightly widened eyes, the wolf saw the reason why he had suddenly decided to have a stuttering fit.
Noticing the wicked grin on the living statue's face, Gareeku grimaced as he raised his sword. However, the statue wasn't to be the only living piece of rock that would be advancing towards the group. Hearing more noises, the wolf saw that three more statues had come to live, now advancing towards each member of the group with the same evil grin that the first statue possessed.
"Shit..." Gareeku cursed under his breath, raising his sword and staring at the statue that had chosen him for prey, while at the same time mindful of the other statues and their targets.
"Come and get me." the wolf said to his stone foe, his voice carrying a menacing growl as he shifted into a defensive position. He was ready.
It never ends! Jeremiah backed away from the nearest stature, only to turn to see another advancing toward the group from another side. Five flavors of demon, little flappy things, some vixen with claws, a six eyed lightning monster, the screwey spider chick, and now I'm being menaced by masonry. It's not fair! It's just not FAIR!
The statues advanced further, the one that had attracted Gareeku's ire grinning more and charging. They didn't move any slower for being made of stone, rushing in close and swinging with her set of balances like a blackjack. Another advanced on Aisha somewhat more leisurely, smirking, while the other two decided Mel was mildly more of a threat than Jeremiah. After all, a fifth had just showed up to block the frog's retreat ("Hey loves...")
---
Whatever was down the hall peered out the slightest amount and hid again. Something was strange about the details of its face, but it was too far to make out.
As he watched the statue advance, Gareeku noticed the grin on the thing's face widen as it began to charge. The speed in which the statue moved was most surprising, the wolf's eyes widened as he saw this for himself. Almost immediately, however, he composed himself, breaking out into a charge of his own as it appeared as if he would take the statue on head-on. However, at the last second the warrior darted the statue's left-hand side, feeling the force in the air that the statue made when it swung it's set of balances, barely missing the wolf's head as he darted out of the way.
As soon as his feet made contact with the ground, Gareeku began his counter attack. Gripping his enchanted katana with both hands, the wolf swung the blade in towards the statue's hip, a blazing trail of white energy trailing the weapons path as it moved.
Wary of the fact that the statue may try a counter attack of it's own if his attack didn't work, Gareeku immediately rolled away after he had executed his attack. Rising to his feet afterwards, the wolf's eyes darted around for a moment, checking on how the others were doing before shifting his focus back onto his foe.
The statues advanced, all of them bearing no weapons save for their balances...still they looked intimidating enough. Aisha even wondered how they could defeat creatures of stone, perhaps animated by the dark forces around the castle. And when they charged, they weren't all that slow...
The cocky look on the one that made a target of the panther certainly wasn't lost on her, while she could hear the rest charging the others with heavy footfalls. She held her blade up, turning her body so that the side with the bandaged shoulder wasn't in reach of the beast. She had the impression that it was waiting for her to make the first move, and with that, make a mistake. Aisha had her strength, but she couldn't afford to rip the bandages where the stump of an arm was still sure to be tender.
"What, you're not gonna come at me?" She hissed, sidestepping around. "Think I'm weak?"
It looked like she didn't have a choice...but it was then she remembered (having forgotten several times before the battle in fact) that the speed amulet still dangled around her neck. With a loud growl, Aisha quickly touched it and blazed forth in a blur, raising her sword diagonally. Her feet flew, and she was ready to dodge any blow. The first thing she was going to try was to knock the weapon from the statue's hand...whether it worked or not, she was soon behind it, ready to come on for another try at slowly taking the thing apart blow for blow.
It would be dizzying, but with nothing but her sword to use, it was as good a defense as any.
As Cogidubnus negotiated with the demon apparently dwelling in Ketefe's subconscious, Keaton limited her role to that of a silent and uncomprehending bystander. Everything seemed to be so utterly beyond her understanding, from Cog's communication with the demon's demands, to how it came to nest inside of Ketefe's mind in the first place, to the point Keaton's frenzied, feverish brain made her want to scream in frustration. Instead, Keaton merely clenched her hand around Catastrophe's shaft and resorted to wringing at it, curbing her agitation through the gyration of her knuckles and muscles alone. The other hand still cradled Cog's charm.
That intensified once Ketefe pointed out the presence of the newly-manifested hallway. Pupil dilating, Keaton snapped her head in its direction, her mind reeling. Where did THAT come from?! she thought, then settled her gaze back on Cog somewhat fearfully.
Ultimately, when Cog ordered that they keep walking, Keaton weakly nodded her consent and summarily returned to her position in the back of the line. She didn't like where this was going, but she wasn't going to complain, regardless. It wasn't like she had anything better to contribute, so it was best she kept her mouth shut. As that thought came and went, Ketefe suddenly whirled around and yelled something to the darkness, apparently after detecting a presence which Keaton hadn't noticed in her reverie. Cursing under her breath, Keaton jerked her head toward where Ketefe was glaring, the core of her artificial eye flaring.
Something was there.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
At the first sound of noise, Cog's ear twitched, and along with the others he turned to face whatever had stirred in the darkness. He was vaguely annoyed, in one corner of his mind - walking for what seemed like hours only to find something right when they were about to get out of there seemed almost...malicious. Hell seemed to like playing games with them.
Cog raised a hand and sent the little ball of sparks deeper into the darkness, towards the noise, the ball illuminating the darkness like a fork moving back syrup, the viscous darkness almost closing back behind the little ball of light. Cog narrowed an eye, and brought his sword down and to the side in a low guard.
"Who'se there?"
Jeremiah shrieked like a small child as he met with the fifth statue blocking his escape. He parried it's first blow haphazardly with the axe, panicking more as he staggered backwards.
Gareeku's assault knocked the statue back a little, cracking a ragged gash at it's waist. It grimaced and retaliated, throwing it's superior weight into an attack on the wolf.
The statue that was intent upon Aisha paused momentarily, smirking as the balances met with her palm a final time. "That's about the sum of it, sweetheart. Truth be told, you're down an arm and some competent allies." She returned to her leisurely approach, raising the balances in one hand with a cruel chuckle, "I'm not too worried."
She should've been, as insofar as the statue could tell over the course of the next few seconds it was back in hell. "The fu-! Gah!" The sword dug noticeable gouges in the statue, even shattering a few fingers as it knocked the balances from her grasp. The statue whirled with a snarl and fought back, attempting to punch the offending demon hunter.
--
To the question "Who's there?" A multitude of replies are expected. These expected replies are "Nobody," "Who's asking?" or possibly "The plumber, I've come to fix the sink."
"Aisha."
Mildly less expected.
Cogidubnus's eyebrows rose, and stood silently on the rough-hewn rocks beneath him, unmoving. He continued to send the little ball of light further into the cavern, hoping to illuminate whatever it was that was speaking.
The voice didn't quite sound like Aisha, but...
Cog kept his sword ready, and ran a few spells through his mind, preparing himself. He spoke again, this time a bit more softly. "Aisha? Come out into the light then." Cog tightened his grip on his sword. He doubted it really was the melanistic feline - why would they find Aisha here? She hadn't followed them down, unless the group above had changed their minds. His yellow eyes narrowed, straining to see in the dark, and he attempted to see any sign of a blue glow through the eldritch vision of his glasses. Aisha's cape and sword should glow a definite blue, even through the hellish darkness of the cavern.
---
The individual stepped into the light. It was dressed like Aisha. It was Aisha's height, physique, it had the missing arm, it even had the embarassing birthmark she didn't tell anyone about.
Instead of a head it had a featureless, knobbly looking lump about the size of a tennis ball.
"Jig's up, guys! Come on out!" It's voice was very close to Aisha's, but had some sort of accent. So did the voices of the other two that came from down the two new hallways that sounded like Jeremiah and Ian.
"Ah, fuck. Already? You couldn't fool them for two minutes?"
"You're supposed to be the coward, YOU sneak around."
"Both of you are forgetting what's important here." The Ianesque pulled a firearm out of its jacked and slammed a magazine into place. "Me looking awesome."
"Shaddap."
The Aishathing revealed a sword identical to the huntresses while the Jeremiahly Individual pulled a large knife out of its coat pocket...
Ketefe paused at the shadowed figure's response. This was hell. Absolutely nothing was impossible. And the panthress probably could have been so quiet they wouldn't have heard her follow them. But the verity of the response was just improbable enough for the azure feline to be skeptical.
She weighed responses - if it was Aisha, attacking would be wrong and make her look stupid and bloodthirsty. If it wasn't Aisha, welcoming whoever it was would kill many of them and make her look stupid and naïve. She glanced back at the others, all capable and dedicated warriors, to see how they would react. Cog was asking whoever it was, Aisha or otherwise, to come out and show themself. Ketefe turned back to the shadows, unsheathing her sword and getting into an attack position in case it was the latter.
Big surprise. It was.
Whatever it was had brought friends along, "mimicking" Jeremiah and Ian. From the neck down, they were... almost convincing. But their heads were shapeless, bland lumps of flesh that weren't quite as grotesque as some of what she'd seen.
"Y'know, you guys almost had me fooled," Ketefe commented. "But I gotta say, hell is losing its creativity. You are the WORST mimics I've ever seen." She crouched, prepared to spring and attack whenever they did.
Within her mind, her demons snickered.
Mel turned to see the rapidly moving statues. She was taken by surprise at the speed that stone could move. She grabbed for the first spell that she thought might effect marble. Small bubble-like spheres, each the size of a small egg, left her hands and flew at the two closest. As each contacted a surface they would burst, rapidly releasing a powerful shockwave of air. Like an explosion only with magic as the accelerant.
Cog's eyes widened in horror at the grotesque mockeries of his companions, the very audacity of hell to impersonate the people that he'd grown to trust setting his teeth on edge - he didn't curse, but the ball of sparks suddenly tripled in brightness and illuminated the trio of dopplegangers completely, while the wolf grabbed his sword with both hands and ran forwards. His eyes narrowed, he watched the Ian-esque thing load a handgun, and the one-armed Aisha produce a sword just like the other Aisha possessed. Out of habit, he almost ignored the Jeremiah-esque thing, the frog almost never really engaging in combat, but he caught the glint of silver the thing produced from that ratty tweed coat.
That gun was the most dangerous thing there - closing the distance quickly, Cog tightened the grip on his sword and swung with a strike that flowed upwards in a silver arc aimed at the thing's gun hand before swinging over his head and falling back down upon the thing.
streaks of purpleish light wizzed by Cog giveing him wide birth but going for any targets he could get. "Pathetic." Ian said refering to the doppelgangers inabity to mimic them fully. "How could you fool us by mimicing me? You think we're morons?" The streams of light stopped long enough for Ian to reload. Depositing empty clips into the empty slots in his belt and slapping in two full clips.
Mel's blasts knocked the two statues back, but not far. Speedy though they were, they were heavy. The two exchanged a glance and came at the dragon again, this time on opposite sides of their target.
Jeremiah, if it really had to be said, was still panicking. One frenzied swing with the axe had managed to break a goodly portion of the statue's face but she was still coming, apparently unperturbed.
--
The accusations of mimicry provoked course laughter from the Ianesque. "Hey guys, I don't think they get it..." It chuckled as bullets fired around Cog's charge slammed into the walls around it. It raised its arms against the resulting shrapnel of stone but didn't stop it's mocking laughter, even as it brought it's gun forward to block Cog's strike with the barrel. It squeezed the trigger, in the hopes of scaring Cog into falling back as the lethal cough of the firearm showered the rest of the party with more stone shrapnel.
The Aishathing brought her hand to her pendant momentarily and rushed forward, that speed becoming kinetic energy to power a flying kick aimed at Keaton. "I'll not fail in my duty! Die, demon!"
The Jeremiahly Individual approached Ketefe cautiously, materializing illusionary doppelgangers to hide amidst. And, much like Jeremiah, it liked to talk.
"Mimics?" It was if Jeremiah was a caricature, a cartoon. The mildly nasal city accent exaggerated, the slight grin to the voice magnified into a permanent state of trying not to burst out laughing, "Nothing doing, love. Hell's outdoing itself. Jeremiah's still up where you left him, guarding the door, that's true..." The illusions milled around her, each talking in turn. Which was real? "And he's also down the hallway, and in one of the passages you left..." Another one, walking right by her, whirled around to try to bury a knife in her. Even it seemed surprised when it turned out that one was an illusion. "And he's right here, remembering how tight your grip was when you were about to feed him to some vulpie from hell..." Vulpie was a rather bad word for a fox, but that wasn't what was really noticeable about the statement. What really caught one's notice was how they were delivered. Would an illusion's words be accompanied by breath on the nape of Ketefe's neck? That Jeremiahly Individual raised it's knife...
"Man, how do I miss that badly?" Ian remarked as he took an aimed shot at Ianesque
Cog was rather surprised when the thing tried to actually block his strike with his very target - he was even more surprised when the thing kept a grip on his gun despite having a very fast-moving razor try and whack it out of his hands. Cog's sword slid down the rather short barrel and caught in the trigger guard, biting into the metal but not quite cutting through. Cog didn't curse, but his eyes narrowed.
He acted quickly.
Moving in a blurring motion, the wolf let go of his sword with his left hand and shot forward, grabbing the Ian-esque thing's gun wrist and pulling forward hard. As he did so, he shifted on his feet and his hips, using his right hand to bring his sword to his side and parallel to his body. Pulling forward and to the side on the Ianesques arm, making sure to keep that gun aimed at the cavern walls, he then reversed his hips and stabbed forward in a disemboweling thrust.
Ian popped off a few rounds at the jaramiahly. "They're wasteing our time. We have to pick up the pace!"
At first, it looked to be clear that Aisha hadn't heard anything the statue had said before charging. She was energized with her training and the will to fight, ignoring any kind of exhaustion that would come. That would be dealt with later.
But after a moment, the speed had caused the panthress to become dizzy...she stopped to see how much damage she had done. But she couldn't stand around long enough, for in just a few seconds the creature retaliated with a swift punch towards her. With a growl, Aisha wove to the side, bringing her sword down at the same time to try knocking the arm away.
The wind from the speed of the attack caught her though, and she was thrown back a bit, catching herself with her feet. Ears were swept back, eyes took on the same glow of determination. The huntress observed the damage that she had done...the scales and a few fingers taken, a few niches in the stone.
Then she replied. "You see? You shouldn't underestimate me, maldita, even with my arm gone. The last one who underestimated me was turned straight into ashes. And for your information..." she growled. "My allies are among the most competent fighters I have ever met, as well as most loyal comrades. Don't underestimate them either."
In the next second, she used her own natural speed, zig-zagging to the statue's side and leaping behind, and hoping to bring her sword down with as much force as she could to sever its arm...then perhaps it would be a more fair fight...
Stunned as Keaton was during the unveiling of the doppelgangers, she seemed to have no verbal or physical contribution, reduced only to numbly staring at the approaching, decapitated carbon copies. Impersonators? Well, wasn't the weirdest thing the Castle had thrown at the adventurers, although it was certainly one of the most ostensibly amusing, judging by the banter exchanged between the mimickers. Amusement didn't last long. The duplicates attacked, using their individual methods of assault. Keaton cursed loudly and jerked backwards as the Aisha-copy's body fluctuated and twisted in the darkness, materializing in front of her with overwhelming speed and aiming a kick at Keaton's body. The source of the speed was something beyond Keaton's currently frenzied comprehension - apparently it was somehow gleaned from clutching the amulet in the Aishathing's hand.
With her body lethargic and dizzy from earlier blood loss, Keaton was vulnerable to such a swift assault. Clutching Cogidubnus's charm in one hand and Catastrophe in another, Keaton prepared to weave to the side, but just barely and drunkenly jerked to the side before the Aishathing's foot impacted her shoulder with a sickening crunch. Shrieking, Keaton was nearly flung backwards, her grip around the objects in her hands nearly relinquishing instinctively. Keaton hit the floor back-first a few feet away from the ledge, aching profoundly from her agonized shoulder, then forced her body into motion, twisting her form to the side. Couldn't lurch to her feet without some effort. Normally she'd be almost instantaneous in reaction, but her movements were muffled to a sluggish extent in her injured state.
STUPID! Keaton mentally shrieked, rolling onto her knees and driving the end of Catastrophe into the ground, using it as leverage to help her to the ground. Fucking ASSHOLES! I was USING that shoulder! I'm going to fucking KILL THEM!
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The second the Jeremiahly Individual approached her and spoke, Ketefe realized she was wrong in calling the creatures mimics. They were satires. Parodies. Mockeries of her trusted friends, probably Hell's way of trying to instigate her and the others. She willed herself not to get too flared up about this, and focused on the illusion trick of the frog doppelganger. That knife was something she hadn't seen the real Jeremiah use that much, but it could be easily blocked once she found the non-fake faker.
The illusions spoke in turn, circling her and trying to confuse her. Her eyes darted from frog to frog, hunting for the real one. She flinched when one of them buried a ghostly knife in her, relaxing when she saw its surprise. Then another one spoke, right behind her - reminding her of the incident she'd been trying to forget for a while now. She paused for just a moment, a sneaky thread of guilt squeezing her heart for a split second as she remembered her friend's panicked eyes...
"Whatever this thing uses you for, it's not your fault! Just remember, alright?!"
That thought, and a few gunshots from Ian, broke the daze she was in. She spun around, ducked away from a bullet whizzing over her head, and aimed a thrust at the Jeremiahly Individual's heart.
As he stared at the living statue, Gareeku smirked slightly with satisfaction as he noticed the gash that his attack had made. However, it looked like it would take a lot more to defeat it. The wolf didn't have any more time to think about this though, as his stone foe moved in to make an attack of it's own. Barely having enough time to defend himself against the statue's attack, Gareeku was thrown back a couple of metres thanks to the statue's significant weight advantage.
Landing on his back with a loud grunt, the wolf warrior immediately flipped back up onto his feet, glaring at the statue. Instead of a grimace, however, Gareeku was smirking.
"Nice moves for a lump of rock." the wolf sneered at the statue, holding his sword in a firm grip. "But I've seen better."
Mel saw that her first assault did little but cause the statues to split their trajectory towards her. But the little explosions had done their work in creating a network of fine cracks across the statues surfaces. Her next spell, which had to be unfortunately split between the two, was water. A hard blasting spray to push her attackers back. And more importantly push water deep into the lacework of cracks.
Mel's attackers stood against the rush of water, bracing themselves and then slowly advancing. They snarled and grimaced, eyes locked on Mel.
"Thanks," the statue replied to Gareeku's compliment, "Yours aren't." She advanced more cautiously this time, favoring her unwounded side and holding the balances ready to block.
Aisha's blow sent more cracks racing along the statue's limb; it wasn't off yet, but it was close. With a yowl the stature whirled around to kick her assailant, shrieking curses.
Jeremiah, of course, was still panicking. It was just that now he had possible kidney damage to go with it. The statue had thrown her balances at him as he had tried to flee, and it hit HARD. He'd dropped the axe somewhere, and was just trying to keep the statue misdirected. Most of her attempted blows missed, the frog using his illusions to make himself appear to be one foot to the left or right. Either way he was dodging death, over and over.
Nex, now would be a REAL GOOD FREAKING TIME!
You lack power at this time. Bal has used too much. I would have to be insane, to risk us like that.
ROCKS ARE TRYING TO PUNCH ME, NEX!
--
The Jeremiahly Individual slinked out of the way of the blow with startling dexterity and lashed out with the knife, over and over as he tried to force Ketefe back. The bullets missed, illusions making him look as though he was somewhat off where he really was.
"Tsk tsk, out to get me killed again?" there was real venom in the Mockery's voice; it meant what it said.
"Yeah, everyone's out to get youuOUGH!" The Ianesque shouted as Cog disarmed it and sent it to the floor, and thus out of the way of Ian's other shots. "Help!"
"Already? My good man, I get the impression that we'd be better off using you as equipment sometimes." Something Coglike stepped out of the shadows, air singing as it drew it's blade. "Pardon me if I'm not so cliche as to introduce myself to myself."
The Aishathing charged Keaton, sword at ready...
The statues advance didn't bother Mel too much. The water was not to knock them away, just to soak them. Standing still and bracing against it was better for her purposes than falling back and away. She wanted the porous marble as full of water as possible, water driven deeply into the fractures her air-bombs had created. Rapidly switching spells the water was replaced by a freezing ray. She was using the same principle that could split the side off a mountain. Freezing water expanded and she hoped to significantly disassemble her opponents by fracturing them.
Cog's sword slipped into the Ianesque thing's ribs, and it was the work of a moment to twist and cut the blade free. No time to wipe the blood from the blade.
Just as soon as he'd cut one down, another had replaced it. A rather familiar looking opponent.
Of course, if his opponent really knew anything about him, he'd know that time spent talking was time better spent trying your damnedest to kill the enemy. Cog was all about speed, and hitting the enemy hard, and fast. And fast he was. While the grey lupine was confident in his ability to outfight this particular doppleganger, he didn't really have the time for a prolonged swordfight.
A quick dip into his pocket, and the wolf suddenly produced a minor sun in his hand - and just half a second later, as the wolf flicked his thumb at the Cogesque, the light shot at the imposter like a shot, going fast enough to crack the air and the coin hard enough to chip stone and break through bones.
Ian fired of some shots at the Cogesque to be sure the job was done, the streams of light tore through the imposter. "It feels kinda weird killing these things dosen't it, bud." Ian said reffering to how much it felt like Cog himself were standing infront of his bullets and how he felt as if he had been gouged by Cog himself.
Ketefe recovered quickly when her thrust missed, stumbling a little before regaining her balance and switching to defensive mode. She backed away from the Jeremiahly Individual, blocking its slices with her sword if they came too close. The illusion trick it used to dodge the bullets was a little dizzying, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. Another mockery showed up during the fight, this time, mimicking Cog. But Ian had it under control (overly optimistic), and in any case, the vigilante was distracted by her current opponent's hateful remarks. She did her best to keep her fury separate from her fighting, but some things just couldn't be ignored.
"SHUT IT!" she shouted at the Jeremiahly Individual, controlling her movements and blocking the knife as she spoke. "This is why I say you're a cheap imitation! Jeremiah knew I'd never hurt anyone without reason!" She shifted her stance and her grip on the hilt, aiming a particularly forceful parry to knock away the frog's knife.
Aisha saw the cracks in the base of her assailant's arm with a grin, just before her whole world dropped into a dizzying spiral when the statue made its counterattack. Just as the panthress made her landing, it came--a fast kick that nothing made of stone could otherwise have ever executed--and barreled into her side. She was quick enough to use the foot she landed on to leap back...but it still got her with force enough to send her a bit of a distance across the room.
She flipped so that she landed on her feet, but just barely, leaning to her left so that if she fell it wouldn't be on the side of her bandaged stump of an arm. A few aches made themselves apparent in her side, but thankfully they were dulled by the healing magic of the bracer. Yet Aisha's fatigue had begun once again to show itself...and she didn't allow herself to feel it. She wouldn't be taunted by a pile of minerals.
It took a moment for Aisha to get back to her feet...and then she noticed that the kick had weakened her grip on the sword handle, having it fly out of her hands after the attack. Her only weapon was lying right behind the raging thing.
Dammit...I have to keep running...have to get it back...
It was then that something happened that was completely unexpected. In the corner of her eyesight, somewhere in the dark ceiling, there was an outline...a flash of black that carried with it a glaring tint. The next instant something familiar swished through the air...past Aisha...and with a sickening CRACK, embedded itself in one of the statue's weak points.
The boomerang...which she thought had been lost. As if to confirm it, there was a corvid screech ringing above.
Cuervito, I dunno WHAT you've been doing or how you found it, but dammit, you're good luck.
The weapon serving as a distraction, she had already sprung up to her feet using the amulet's speed, took the sword back, and was rocketing like black lightning back toward the statue to finish the business of removing that arm...
The statue attempted to ward Aisha off with the undamaged arm, spitting curses at the bird that had sunk a boomerang into its eye and further equipped its adversary. It backed away, giving ground before this assault and going purely on the defensive... And still backing away, bumped into Gareeku and tripped, toppling the both of them in different directions. Gareeku's assailant smirked at her good fortune and advanced, raising her balances...
With two loud cracking noises the Statues fighting Mel were split, one cracking from armpit to hip and the other's damages spiderwebbing across her torso and left leg. The first screamed as it crumbled, the second snarled as it charged.
The last statue's fist punched through an illusion Jeremiah left behind as he stepped forward, hooking the head of the axe around his attackers ankle and tripping her. He quickly raised it over his head and brought the edge down upon her unprotected back as she attempted to stand. This worked once. Going for a second one was probably a bit greedy of him and, judging by the way the statue flipped around and knocked the weapon aside and out of his grasp with her leg when he tried again, possibly dumber than one would anticipate.
--
The Jeremiahly Individual started laughing, it's voice all too close to that of it's archetype.
"That so?" A curious sort of full body twist, shrugging out of it's tweed coat to wrap it around Ketefe's weapon in an attempt to jerk it away, "You know what goes on in that skull? What goes on in ANY skull? Even yours?" One lithe amphibian leg lashed out in an attempt to catch the girl in the gut, "You know why Keaton hates angels? Why Stygian's so dour? Why my mentioning that makes you so damn mad?" The creature's lump of a head momentarily twisted, became more real and akin to what the rest was based off of, "Because weeeee dooooo..." The Mockery sang obscenely.
The Coggish wasted no further time but it's insult to the Ianesque, swiping away Cogidubnus' coin with a flash of steel and bringing his weapon forward in a thrust at its foe's throat. Two bullets tore through the edge of its robe as it attacked. Meanwhile, the Aishathing met with its target with an almost feral, wild swing with it's sword and a battlecry.
The throat is seldom a good target - of all the parts of the human body, only the head and the neck can actively retreat while the rest of the body remains fixed - making it actually a good few inches more distant than it appears. Practically telegraphing his move from across the cavern, charging forward and simply holding his sword out...
Cog shook his head.
His sword slipped into a middle guard, sticking straight out in front of him. Psuedocog's sword slipped by his, and Cogidubnus brought his sword up, slanting it to his side. The thrust deflected to the side, missing his neck by inches, and the wolf moved his hands quickly. His hands continued on, his sword sliding against his opponents sword as he brought it just a short distance back, and then struck in a silver blur, the sword slicing in a slanted arc for the Psuedocog's neck.
Ian started shooting for the Jeramiahly's chest. "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!"
Mel growled her frustration that only one of her foes succumbed to her spells. Well, if the expansion of ice didn't do it maybe steam would. Small spheres of ball lighting appeared between the dragon's hands, one after the other being thrown at the statue, aiming chiefly for the fractured left leg. Hopefully when they hit the ice embedded in the cracks the extreme heat of the lightning would cause an instantaneous conversion to steam and finish the cracking apart.
For only a split second, Aisha was able to feel the relief of seeing her opponent hit in a vital area. Wherever the bird was watching from now, it was a strange thing to think that the boomerang was thrown with a type of aim in mind. She attributed it to pure luck that it struck the eye of her stone assailant. The panthress made a point to keep back away from her defensive attacks until just the right moment...
That moment wasn't long in coming, but unfortunately it was going to be a bit difficult...the statue was backing away towards where the wolf was in the middle of battle with his own opponent.
"Gareeku, look out!" Aisha called as she used her enhanced speed to dash across the arena, catching up to the statue as it tumbled...hopefully the wolf had heard her or had seen it coming long enough to get away. The point of her Dragonblade was raised then, and in a flash of metal, brought it down as soon as the weakness had been shown...she aimed to try breaking through the thing's neck.
Gareeku was about to make his move when suddenly he heard Aisha's voice call out to him, followed by something very heavy and hard bumping into him from the back. Such was the force of the collision, the white wolf was forced forward, the ground very quickly approaching as he began to fall.
However, no sooner had he been knocked over had he made another move. Putting his free hand on the floor, Gareeku performed a handspring, flipping forward and the right way up.
As he did so, the lupine warrior grabbed his sword's handle with both hands as soon as his free hand had left the floor and, with an angry battle roar, brought the blade down in a massive and very powerful vertical slash, the manoveur sporting a bright flash of steel as Gareeku's blade flashed down towards the statue's balances and head, the attack easily being powerful the cut not only the balances, but also the statue clean in half.
There are certain moments when you know beforeheand if you have done something just right. Important moments. Important decisions. Most often ones where you have only one of two choices, but sometimes more complex and hard ones. And you can just feel it in your bones when things are going right. That was precisely the sensation that came over Cog as he chose to make his last maneuver.
The only really clean way to dislodge someone's head with a single cut is by getting in a close and powerful, sawing stroke. And such a stroke mostly requires either a very slow target or a very great amount of skill and precision. Or luck. Cog didn't know which it was for him right then, but for that split second before he could feel the slicing, rasping and visceral force travel down the hilt of his sword and tell him of the clean cut, he merely knew that he'd managed to kill the Mockery cleanly and quickly. Or, at least, that's what he thought.
The force of the strike and their combined movements was easily enough to let Cog's blade pass without hitch through the Mockery's neck. The creature didn't have time to respond, before its throat was severed, and a slash of some black, tarry substance spattered out across the floor. What Cog hadn't expected though, after such a success, was that he would be given only a moment's pause, before the creature began howling and shrieking in some horribly mangled, grating voice through its severed windpipe. The sound made the wolf himself clamp his hands over his ears in sheer reflex, and left no one else around untouched. Even the other Mockeries seemed disturbed by its death throes. It was only to become worse though.
As great gouts of dark blood shot up through the stumbling and flailing hideousness' throat, its form began twisting and sizzling like strips of burning rubber. Still thrashing about, it fell to the floor, its blade clattering to the ground and dissolving into rock and ash in a few heartbeats. Sputtering and emitting foul noises, it clawed around, scrabbling in Cog's rough direction. Moving away, the wolf had no problem averting the blackening lump's attempts at grabbing him. However, before he could step away, it managed to touch his leg.
A hot twinge of something ran up Cog's twitching leg, caused his pelvis to shake and his stomach to churn, but didn't quite manifest until it reached his neck. Well there though, the feeling turned into a sharp, razored cut, that separated his neck from all the rest of him in terms of sensation. For a second, Cog was beheaded, feeling his tendons tearing from his neck, his muscles being sliced apart, his nerves nicked off and leaving nothing but pain. It lasted only for the blink of an eye, but it felt too real to be ignored...
Their stone opponents might have been tremendously strong and tough, but one thing they were not, and that was agile. Seeing as Gareeku managed to maneuver himself to safety, and retaliate with a seriously powerful attack in return, Aisha had an open shot. And while the statue might have been a great deal taller than her, her legs though tired were perfectly fine. She leaped and struck, and as Gareeku's blade smashed into the stone figure's midsection with a spray of shards of stone, Aisha's own line of attack crossed with his as she flew past the thing's back. The statue's face and limbs froze in an expression of desperation as it was undone, and even before both of the hunters' blades were out, the thing toppled to the floor in three pieces. They cracked and smashed on the marble.
Still, this left two apparently quite combat-worthy gray-white stone antagonists fighting. Or, well, one, as Mel's hope that the pressure building from the ice being turned to steam in the one she fought caused the thing to shatter at last. However, as the thing had been charging, and from quite close a distance, this meant that she was faced with a few hundred pounds of moving rocks nonetheless. She was knocked back in Jeremiah's direction as the largest still intact piece of stone hit her, and smoke and dust spread out in a cloud around them.
Ketefe refused to let go of her sword, not even letting her surprise get to her when the Jeremiahly Individual wrapped its coat around the jagged blade and kicked her in the stomach. She crumpled to the floor for a split second, taking a deep breath and keeping both hands wrapped in a death grip on the sword's handle in case the frog tried to jerk it away from her again.
As she caught her breath, she made the mistake of looking up. She gasped when the Mockery's blank face twisted briefly into something much more resembling Jeremiah's, jeering at her yet again.
She released her breath in a growl as Ian's bullets ripped through the air, not bothering to see whether they'd hit or not. "I - thought - I - said - to - SHUT UP!" she screamed, jumping to her feet and aiming a high kick to the Jeremiahly's chest.
The kick didn't miss, but the Jeremiahly made a very good move of deflecting it, shaming the genuine edition a bit with its adeptness at combat. And as it moved with Ketefe, the bullets from Ian's direction whizzed past just beside it. It sneered at her still, obviously caring nothing for the death of its comrade or how the odds seemed to have shifted. Then again, Cog was still on the ground, overwhelmed with the shock of feeling as if his neck were cut right through.
'Yeah, you're - omph! - just the one to talk, aren't ya?' the mockery hissed at Ketefe. 'Like you've been able to this time. And like you actually have anything good to say!' He grunted as he let fly a hard kick aimed for the feline's head. 'You're just another little stupid girl who's up to her neck in what she doesn't understand', the mockery continued, with a particularly vicious look down at her. 'It would be an improvement to have those things in your head work you instead...'
Cog's reaction to the impostor's touch was visceral - a kneejerk reaction away from the ink-bleeding mass, his sword slicing down at the thing in a clean arc. Wether or not it hit, he couldn't say - the strange feeling that the creature had imparted, traveling up his legs and through his body had finally reached his neck, and the wolf simply fell like a doll with it's strings cut. Blinding pain flashed through his neck and then through the rest of his body as he felt, for just a moment, that his head had really been removed. He hit the hard stone floor with a dull thud, his sword clattering down beside him.
His eyes dilated. He took a rasping breath.
His body felt as if it was on fire, and yet at the same time he was numb - he thought. For a brief second, he panicked, thinking that the thing had just stolen his body and limbs out from under him, leaving him paralyzed and helpless in the depths of hell. The wolf's eyes widened for just a moment, sucking in another breath through his teeth. His entire body throbbed.
Wait. Pain?
Cog tried to move his hands, and his fingers shut into a fist. The wolf's expression changed into one of anger, and moving his arm to grab the sword lying at his side he sprang to his feet. Taking just a moment to get his bearings, his gaze focused on the Jeremiah-esque individual fighting with Ketefe - using his coat like a shield and trying to kick the swordswoman into helplessness. The wolf spat to his side, and bringing his sword into a low guard ran for the doppleganger.
The statue came apart rather more violently than Mel expected. Showered with grit and pebbles she was hit dead on by the biggest chunk of the former statue. The impact knocked her down and the wind out of her. She hoped that it hadn't cracked a rib. This left her on the floor, with a too close view of the remaining statue kicking at Jeremiah.
Mel's tumble was actually a bit of a boon for Jeremiah; he jerked to look, moving his head somewhat out of the way of the statue's incoming foot. Of course this just meant that, rather than pulverizing the man's face, the statue's heel skimmed across the crown of his head, forceful enough to knock him to the floor clutching his skull and breathing through his teeth. He was scrambling away in a second, making several hasty hand signs to ready an illusion as he fled with more effort than grace.
Flat on her bruised back and unable to aim properly Mel sent a quick black ice spell across the floor at the remaining statue, hoping to at least slow it's chase. Then she worked on getting herself to her feet.
It was an earth-shattering noise that came to the ears that signaled the fall of the statues. Amidst a cloud of dust and debris that accumulated from their stone opponents finally shattering to pieces, Aisha landed back on her feet as she felt her off-arm strain from having to use the sword. But it was a victorious kind of pain, barely sensed, for this battle was over for them for the time being.
As the panthress stood for a moment to gather her breath, previous thoughts were coming back to her mind. Maybe this showed that she was indeed skilled enough to not have to give up adventuring just yet...just because of the loss of one arm. But she knew that more powerful things existed. And worse, it was still doubtful that she'd survive if they were to be chased down into hell...
She dismissed it and slowly made her way out of the dust cloud, putting herself in a coughing fit when her aching lungs met semi-fresh air. Carefully, Aisha replaced the Dragonblade in its scabbard on her hip and reached out for her boomerang. As it flew back into her hand, she looked around for Gareeku. "You alright, amigo?" she inquired of the wolf in another cough, before quirking her ears toward where Mel and Jeremiah were still tussling with a remaining statue.
I think they can take it without help...it's just one left...the assumption led Aisha to have some quick time to check if any of her bandages or wrappings had come apart. Dammit, I wouldn't mind having my shirt back. Or some armor maybe. Gladly make one out of a demon's skin...
Ketefe smirked once when her foot made solid contact, but that faded quickly when she saw that the Jeremiahly had blocked it and moved with her to avoid any serious damage. He continued talking, even when he aimed a hard kick for her head. Like the Mockery had, Ketefe moved with the kick and fell back without being knocked out. Her right hand still had a solid grip on her sword handle, but her left had let go when the Jeremiahly kicked her.
The Mockery looked at Ketefe with true venom, that was reflected in his voice; she fixed a glare on him and began to push herself up with her hands, not wanting wanting him to have the satisfaction of her lying on the ground looking helpless. At the mention of her demons, the girl's glare mixed with a look of shock. How the hell could he know that? What kind of demons was Hell aiming at them?
She stood back up, unsure whether to simply attack the frog-wannabe again or ask how he knew about her problem. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cog charging up to them. Rather than ask the Jeremiahly anything, she switched her sword-hand and swung to grab his arm, hoping that the newly-changed odds would finally kill him.
Tentatively back on her feet, her movements defying the aches and pain flaring throughout her rubbery and resistant bones, Keaton pried the bladed end of Catastrophe's pommel from the ground with a sluggish, yet forceful series of gesticulations; twisting the handle with a jerk, then uprooting the polished black blade from the masonry and mortar. Although she was hurt and bleeding, Keaton knew very well that there was still fight in her - and if there wasn't, she was just going to force it right back in its place. It was how she always operated. Keeping her eyes narrowed, as though she was trying to oppose the violent blurring writhing about her vision. Standing amidst the fire-licked smog was the ashen silhouette of the Aishathing. Could recognize Aisha's coloration and the mocking mutilations used to distinguish the clones from their original counterparts even among the dim glare of her eyes. Fire oscillated in the core of Keaton's artificial eye, almost analytically, as Keaton pondered this in-between her examinations.
A sweep of her sword and the demented doppelganger was charging at Keaton, a battle cry rending the air. Keaton's face fixated into a snarl as the Aishathing lunged, swinging her sword around in a practiced arc for her adversary's neck. Keaton jerked her arms upward, and Catastrophe was suddenly interposed between herself and the incoming blade, serving as an effective barrier. The sword clashed off of the handle with a vibrating strike, forcing the Aishathing back.
Taking advantage of that moment of vulnerability, Keaton swept Catastrophe around, aiming deliberately for the duplicate's stomach. The spiked head collided bodily with the Aishathing's stomach, as anticipated, complete with a graphic crunch as the many spikes encrusting Catastrophe's crown perforated whatever sufficed as the Aishathing's innards. Not stopping to marvel the aftermath of these gruesome effects, Keaton quickly extricated Catastrophe and spun around for another blow.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Though the frog-thing's skin was slippery, Ketefe finally managed to clasp down on his shirt and trap him there. She was rewarded with a most ungentle hand trying to practically wrench her arm apart to free him from her, and a knee viciously flying to try and get to her ribs.
'Don't... want to know?! Fine then, idiot! If... you want to stay... that way... aah!' the thing half hissed, half croaked. But its voice was desperate. It had seen Cog coming its way.
Mel's spell hit home, and it managed to slow the statue, as its back frosted over and little crystals formed in places of its body. But slow it was also all that she managed, and not much. The thing pushed on with a grim expression and carved teeth gritted, glaring at Jeremiah. The frog really had nowhere to run, and whatever it was he was doing with his hands, it might as well have been simply rude gestures. The huge thing's stride was fast also, thanks to the length of its legs, and when the weak little amphibian stumbled or ran short of breath it would easily catch him. It sent its hands out, clutching for him in anticipation.
Jeremiah finished the gestures for his spell, and three frogs were seen scrambling to their feet and fleeing. The real one was hidden in another illusion of a patch of open space, and fled for cover behind a remaining column.
Legs, work faster! Lungs, work overtime! Heart, just keep doing what you're doing and don't explode! Oh gods...
She's gaining-
BAL I SWEAR IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP I'M TURNING US AROUND AND MARCHING RIGHT BACK THERE! Fortunately, Jeremiah was just frantic enough to be believable. Small victories.
Mel rolled onto her hands and knees, hissing as she did. It felt as if she had indeed cracked a few ribs. With no time for the precision of pinpointed spells she hurled one big lightening bolt at the statue as it tried to reach in two different directions after two different fleeing frogs. She hoped Jeremiah was far enough away to avoid the inevitable spread that a bolt that size would affect. Lightning wasn't nearly as obedient a medium as ice.
Ketefe had the Jeremiahesque firmly in hand, although the way the doppleganger was struggling she wouldn't have a hold on him for long. Cog's steps echoed almost with an almost surreal sound, the corridor strangely quiet, with only the sounds of the struggling, ball-headed frog, and Cog's own footsteps breaking through the demonic silence.
About two paces away from the creature, Cog brought his sword over his head, stopping just short - the hilt stuck out horizontally just a bit in front of his face. Cog narrowed his eyes, and looking past the ragged hair that almost threatened to fall in front of his eyes he struck, a simple flick of his wrist.
It was a fast strike in setup and execution, designed to strike quickly at the head - it took a pretty powerful blow to crack through the skull, and a follow-up strike was usually in order. With these creatures, however, there was no skull to stop his blow. The sword flashed through the air, and buried itself quickly in the ball of flesh that served as it's head, cleaving it in two.
The reaction of the hideous thing was quite alike to that of its 'companions'. The second it was as good as killed, Cog's blade slicing through its vulnerable 'head', it stopped acting or even trying to resemble Jeremiah, instead reverting to a painful reaction of frantic thrashing and clawing. Black, seething blood spattered from the opening of its wound, and it threw its arms out and around, its shape hissing with acrid smoke. Cog was safe from its assault, but Ketefe, practically entangled with the thing, was struck the moment it touched her, skin to skin, like Cog had been. Pain flowed warmly up through her twitching and shuddering arm, and when it reached her head, it split. Agony gripped the feline, as if a thousand headaches had fused and then exploded in her head. In her distraction, the beast broke her grip, but already dead and blinded with pain it could only toss and delay its demise for a while.
Keaton encountered less of a problem with her victim. The crushing blow debilitated the mimic, and barely able to stand it received the next strike which destroyed the side of its ribcage and shoulder. It cried out in a grating moan which quickly turned into an inhuman cacophony of shrieks and noises all at once, but once it dropped to the ground it merely managed to crawl a bit on the ground and kick with its legs before its mockery of life gave up, and it began decomposing into ash with a foul stench as result. Finally, the tunnel was left silent again, save the hissing sound of the two things turning into nothing.
Not the best conductor in the world, the stone of the statue blasted outward and cracked, destroying its backside. It reeled forward, and had it been a living creature it would, of course, have died. Unfortunately, there was enough of the stone in its torso solid and undamaged to keep it up. It turned toward Mel with a groaning creak, features twisted in rage, and seemed to make a decision. Defying its injuries, and the threat of falling apart, joints and cracks leaking fine powder of ground stone, it charged the dragoness with a crackling roar. Its plan was simple; to crush her under it or possibly cut her up on the now jagged, jutting edges of its damaged hand.
Ketefe kept as firm a grip as she could on the Jeremiahly's slippery skin, in spite of the frog trying to rip her arm out of its socket and the knee thudding into her stomach. She still wanted to ask the frog a few questions, but she doubted he would answer honestly, and in any case, hesitation meant death at a time like this. She watched, grimly resilient, as Cog slashed through the creature's head and it began its death throes.
She would have continued her hold on him, had the Jeremiahly's blood not splashed onto her arm.
Pain shot like lightning through her arm and straight to her head. She let out a strangled shriek and was knocked off the frog's arm, landing on her back and curling up in pain. it was like having twenty burning crowbars trying to pry her head open at once; the feeling only lasted for a second, but it was almost worse than when she'd been possessed the first time.
After a tick of the clock, the pain subsided, and so did her screams. Ketefe relaxed, opened her eyes and scooted a good few feet away from the still-bleeding frog before standing, making sure not to let the thing's blood touch her again. She glanced around, noticing that Keaton had killed the Aishathing and all the Mockeries were dead now. The cat looked over at Cog, hugging her arms gently. "Thanks for helping me," she said, her voice quiet.
Mel was off her knees and backing up quickly as the statue changed it's path and advanced on her. Evidently disassembly was the only way to stop these things. A discus of sharpened ice hurled at the slender neck of statue, quickly followed by a second to the damaged torso. When the second disc left her hand the dragon called her staff to her hand. She was getting frustrated enough with these things to beat it to gravel if it didn't go down from the ice.
Cog's face grew grave as he watched Ketefe become splattered with the black blood of the doppleganger - he lowered his sword to his side slowly, watching as the feline struggled with the sudden outburst of pain she must be experiencing. The wolf's eyes darted away from a moment, Cog's face twisted into a suddenly displeased grimace.
He looked back up at her sharply when she spoke to thank him, but his gaze rapidly softened.
"I'm sorry." he said, taking a ragged piece of his shirt and wiping the rest of the black fluid off of his sword. He was quiet for a moment - everything in that cavern was deathly quiet, save for the hellish wind some ways off in the distance.
He brought himself to look back at the masked feline. "We...we need to keep moving, Ketefe. I...we all need rest. But we need to go. Soon. Before more...demons, crawl out of the stones."
Ketefe nodded, silently, at Cog's response. "All right," she said, looking down at her sword, which was lying beside the Jeremiahly's corpse. The frog had let go of her sword in its spasms, but its coat was still wrapped around the blade, and the garment was now covered in its black blood. Ketefe carefully removed her mask and wrapped it around the handle (relatively clean, but she wasn't about to take chances), shaking the coat off as gently and quickly as she could.
She stood, not bothering to sheath her sword, and turned to Ian and Keaton. "All right, let's get moving," she said, a little louder than her voice had been before. She turned to face the split hallway. "So which way is the quicker way...?"
Cog paused, looking around for a moment at the other's gathered in the darkness, and then turned back towards the small feline. When he spoke, his voice seemed somehow to become absorbed into the darkness.
"You're leading the way, kitten. Unless the voices in your head have...silenced." he paused. "In which case, I think it doesn't really matter which way we go."
Ketefe blinked once at Cog's response before remembering that she (or rather, her demon/s) was the navigator. "They were quiet during the fight, or if they did talk, I didn't notice them. But I'm pretty sure they're still there. If not..." She trailed off. If they had left, that was great; she was free. But that also left them virtually stranded.
She thought a message to them, getting a bit of a far-off look in her eyes as she did so. You guys still there? Which way are we headed?
Down as ever. Through the floooooor~... was the almost immediate response from within Ketefe's head, uttered in a sing-song-ish manner and accompanied by a feeling of insane mirth that made her giggle crazily for a moment before she could stop herself. Even with the feeling of dread brought on by this, she had to restrain herself so as not to let a mischievous grin creep onto her features. Truthfully, this was not just because of the influence the possession had on her, but also the knowledge of what she had to do in order to make them move on. They would have to pass through the floor like quicksand and come out above themselves, then climb a number of stairs to go
downward.
It was a classic scene. The statue saw the attack coming, stony eyes widening. But weighing hundreds of kilos and being made out of stone really does not add to one's agility. The head of the thing flew off with the force of the blast, and its body froze almost instantly, skidded, then keeled over and smashed on the floor. Dust and silence filled the surroundings.
Keaton watched with a grotesque sense of satisfaction as the decomposing victim of her bone-shattering blow disintegrated and flowed away into acrimonious mist, a triumphant smirk coloring her bloodstained muzzle. That was perhaps the most rewarding event which ever occurred in her favor during this day, even if murdering wretched duplicates didn't provide the same adrenaline rush as killing their real-life counterparts. Withdrawing Catastrophe and spinning it grandiloquently behind her, Keaton lowered the mace to the ground, watching as the melanoid surface started to swallow up the ichorous blood-equivalent staining its spikes. Within seconds, the final dewdrop of blood shriveled into a microscopic speck and vanished altogether, an imperceptible ripple along Catastrophe's surface heralding its departure.
Ah, mother's mace. So useful.
Nobody else seemed to be as self-congratulatory as Keaton in the group after further inspection. On the contrary, in fact. Ketefe had been stained with the deluge of blood her victim released prior to its demise, and Cogidubnus appeared disoriented at the least. Ian... well, Keaton didn't give a rat's ass (no pun intended) about Ian so she diverted her attention. At least they were alive. Even in her state of annoyingly consistent self-depreciation Keaton could appreciate that. Running her hand through her hair, Keaton tried to wait for her heartbeat to die down and her exhilaration from her earlier kill to fade, while she listened for Ketefe's instructions.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe listened to the creature's instructions, and their psychotic glee found its way out of her through a slip of laughter. She covered her mouth, willing herself not to grin. Somehow, that ambiguous little directive - which could've been interpreted so many ways - was perfectly clear. She looked back at Cog and the others with an odd expression, a strange mix of fear and suppressed amusement. This was all just too insane.
"We have to...phase through the floor, come out on the ceiling, and climb the stairs we'll find there to go down." She twisted her mouth in an attempt not to smile. "Either they need a psychiatrist, or I do."
Cogidubnus gave the feline a somewhat blank look, and then glanced quickly to the side. Ian and Keaton were both gathered around the small feline, seemingly in good health. It didn't look like the dopplegangers had caused any serious injuries.
Cogidubnus gave a tired sigh.
"And I suppose they didn't give any instructions? Well. Right then."
He felt like an idiot for even trying something like that, but the wolf let his sword hang lightly at his side, and exhaled lightly. Relaxation exercise seemed a futile gesture at this point, but he didn't know any other way he might go about it. He carefully didn't think about anything, and as an addendum tried to imagine himself floating downwards, or perhaps upwards. He wolf's brow furrowed for a moment.
He imagined himself going the right way.
The ice disk worked better than Mel had expected, taking the head off and finally stopping the statue. She finally had a moment to look around and to heal her cracked ribs. Both Gareeku and Aisha seemed no worse off than they were before. The frog was nowhere to be seen. "Jeremiah? Where are you?" The way he had been screaming he could be badly hurt. "Are you okay?"
Jeremiah dispelled his illusions and stepped out from behind the column, visibly shaking. These few seconds of peace after the destruction of the last statue had reminded him of the shot to the ribs he'd received, and the bruises were pointing out that they remembered him too.
"Okay as I get, lately," he grimaced and stepped forward, on hand pressed to where he'd been hit. It didn't actually help, but he felt the need to do so anyway.
Drama queen.
Shut up, Bal.
No. You're so damn concerned with how PAINED you are, you're not thinking. Who's the blunt instrument again?
The fuck are you talking about you waste of furrae awareness?
Just this, you whiney little cockbite. Why did statues wait to show up until AFTER the spider had left?
It's hell. It does this.
Which do you think is really more likely; that it's just a coincidence, or that you've fucked up again?
...
Which happens more often, Jeremiah?
...
"Hey, guys?" Jeremiah winced as he made his way over to the rest of the group, "Anyone else find it weird that the statues showed up only after the spider had left? I mean, we were standing guard near them for kind of a while..."
As the fight went on between Mel, Jeremiah, and the remaining statues, Aisha simply tried to keep herself on her feet as slight exhaustion took over, while shielding herself with her remaining arm when debris flew in their direction. Eventually the dragon's impressive powers of ice had won through...with the shattering of the final possessed piece of marble, the place became once again silent; as the interior of a chapel should have been.
Staying next to Gareeku in case he would need assistance, Aisha wondered just what the attacks had meant...more than likely it was thought that whomever was the cause of the trouble also knew that they were there. She wondered about the others...whether or not Sebastian had reached the place or not, and if her mentor was alright...
It's Rynkura, for gods' sakes...she has to be.
The panther looked up when Jeremiah spoke to them, eyes narrowing. "I doubt the spider has anything to do with the statues," she hummed, looking between each of her friends. "But I wonder what the one that does wants with us...if he is truly trying to kill us, or is trying to force us somewhere...either out of here, or down into that pit."
She let out a long sigh. What was there to do?
Once the statue had been disposed of, Gareeku turned to see hwo the others were doing. Watching the others battle their stone enemies, the wolf was willing to jump right in and help them if they needed it. Though battling the statue that he and Aisha has just destroyed had left him feeling somewhat fatigued, though he didn't show it.
Putting this down to the lack of rest that he had been having recently, Gareeku continued to watch the others, looking on as Mel disposed of the statue which had been attacking her. Jeremiah had overcome his stone foe too thankfully, and was somewhat relieved to see him reappear from behind a pillar looking relatively unharmed, save for a few cuts and bruises.
Listening to what he and Aisha said about the statues coming to life after the spider had left, Gareeku shook his head slightly.
"I'm in agreement with Aisha." the wolf replied once he had though the situation through. "Whoever animated those statues is more likely to be from down below, where the others have gone. At least, that's my opinion anyway."
Checking that his items of clothing and equipment were intact, the wolf pondered over what they should do next. Should they continue to hold the fort above ground? Or what the best move be for them to descend into the depths below and try to look for the others? The answers to these questions was something that the white furred wolf did not know, and so he looked to the others to see what they thought they should do next.
Perhaps it was the work of their imaginations, or perhaps that of some malicious will dominating the events going on in the castle, intent on tormenting its habitants for all the time they dared spend in it, some horrible, all-seeing evil watching and deriving a perverse joy from watching them all in pain as events unfolded... Either way, something seemed to lend strength to Gareeku's argument. It really did seem the best thing to do under the circumstances, to descend and to aid their friends.
We don't need anybody else. When we think about it we... The voices in Ketefe's head were no less strange or irritating than before. Yet through the odd twists and turns of the Hell-warped place, they led her on steadily nevertheless, sometimes by talking to her, and other times she suspected simply by imparting their knowledge upon her, since not a few times did she move on in the right direction simply by going after what she felt. It was impossible to tell for how long this went on; they were all too excited and on edge to have any clear time perspective. What was clear though, and both fortunate and perhaps the opposite for them, was that they were beginning to hint more intense signs of corruption. Fissures in the ground, cracks behind which fiery light hinted. And far below, some far, dark light, coming from a stronger source of this Hellish fire that steamed them as if in a sauna and occasionally singed their fur. They were getting closer...
Aisha pondered things over while listening to Gareeku, noting his agreement with her statement. The wolf was in the same mindset as her it seemed, though she wouldn't expect anything less from him. From the other two however she sensed much hesitance. It really was a question of just how much more they could take. If it wasn't monsters sent to the ones trying to hold the fort at the door, then it was the anxiety torturing their minds and hearts for any single word at all from their comrades.
"Alright...let's go over what we know..." Aisha started. Her voice was low at first, as if she were talking to herself, but then it elevated slightly so that the others could hear. "We haven't the faintest idea what lies down there, other than our friends and the force behind all this, but we can assume that it's gotten pretty much the same stuff in it as the rest of the castle. We can only guess if they stayed together, or became separated, captured, or killed. And up here, we are getting no answers but a bunch of..." her hand swept over the rubble, "...things, thrown at us."
Her hand returned to her temple, and she started to pace nervously. "If we go, that leaves us to the same dangers, and speculative chances that we'll find what we're looking for...same chances of ever coming back. Those are the cons. The pros: the exact same chance that we do find out what's going on, as well as seeing something done about it. But Sebastian is also down there, and the spider...one we could theoretically trust, and one we are forced to trust. Both know what's going on, at least. Not to mention..."
Think...just think. Your head recovered, didn't it? "...Not to mention that if we do succeed, they know a way out. If they can be found."
She stopped her pacing and turned back to the others, laying her arm thoughtfully at her side and her gaze to the floor. Things were looking difficult. All instinct told her to take the relatively safe route and stay upstairs. But there were more possibilities to be seen in the other choice. One thing was for sure...she was certain that the three before her (or at least Gareeku) were getting just as tired of standing around.
The panthress looked up again. "Well. Right now it's safe to say that nobody knows what the best choice is, sí? I don't know if we should stay up here or not. I don't know if we should even get any more split up than we are...I prefer we don't."
She sighed, laying a her hand on her waist. Aisha didn't even look like she should be in any condition to consider trespassing past the gate to Hell. The bracer of light on her wrist was what was keeping her energy alive. Her stump of a right arm was still bonded tightly, perhaps with the blood only starting to think of sealing itself. And yet, if she could fight...
"Wherever we decide to go...then I'm going along," she said with as much finality in her tone as she could muster. What more could Hell take, that anyone couldn't help but lose?
She waited for their opinions.
"I don't think we're really accomplishing much here."
Jeremiah spoke up, still shaken from the earlier fight.
"I mean, think about it. Things have been coming out of the walls this whole time. Nothing HAS to go by us to get to the others." He winced and rubbed his ribs again, "Here we're just divided from the rest of the group and, lets face it," he looked down at himself, at Aisha's mutilated arm, at the scratches on Gareeku and Mel, "We probably aren't in the best of shape for another attack like that. We're safer and probably more useful with the rest of the group."
Little emphisis on safer in your case, coward.
Bal?
No Jeremiah, that was you again.
Mel was torn but decided rather quickly. They had been tasked with keeping the gate safe and she hated to abandon her post, but not knowing what was going on was painful and helpless feeling. "How do we find them once we get inside? Do you have some way of contacting Madame Msh'taan, Aisha?" At the same time she was questioning she was fastening her long coat tightly and checking her charms against heat and flame. She strongly suspected that where they were going would test the workmanship of the charms.
Somehow, the voices guided Ketefe correctly. Even when the designated direction seemed impossible, the group managed to get through safely - to their own amazement and the demons' amusement. The voices were even silent on occasion, but during those times Ketefe's sense of direction seemed to sharpen; somehow the creatures could share knowledge with her quietly. They were still untrustworthy parasites, but at least they knew their way through Hell.
As time went on, Ketefe saw the cracks burning with light in the ground, and the air around them was getting hotter. The feline paused for a moment, withdrawing her foot from a small fissure upon which she'd almost stepped, then turned to look back at the others. "Everyone still okay?"
As she listened to the opinions made by Jeremiah and then by Mel, Aisha's prediction was still on the edge. Even when the dragon seemed quite hesitant, she was more than prepared to take the next step. And the frog had a point...but was the safest place really with them? It was hell, for crying out loud.
The panthress looked up as the dragon asked her question. Her ears pinned against her head briefly, and she bit her lower lip. "I...no," she confessed. "I actually never saw Mistress Rynkura leave...I was still resting when she did, I believe."
There was a pause as her head inclined, gaze dropping to the floor, trying to hide the expression that had arisen; shame. It was the fear that came again...the feeling of weakness that she had tried to banish with her training. Would she even be of any help in the very heart of the danger?
Aisha tried to shove away the feeling and shook her head. "I doubt she left any way to contact her. Still, I'm fairly certain that she won't easily be overcome. She's an angel, por amor de dioses (for the love of gods). How could she be..." Words failed to come to the huntress. Now even her own mind was telling her not to be optimistic anymore. She just sighed, narrowing her eyes. "Without a way to contact them..."
Then she glanced to Gareeku; he hadn't yet given his opinion.
Cog wasn't quite sure what had happened, and he wasnt' quite sure where he was, either - but he seemed to still be in one piece. Tightening his grip on his sword, he nodded silently to the feline.
The landscape around them was more familiar territory than the endless gloom - hellish light was streaming out up from the rent stone floor, and in the distance, one could see a great, lurid glow peering up from the depths.
Cog spat to the side. The spit sizzled a moment in one of the numerous fissures.
"Let's go." he said, his sword and wolfstooth charm steaming in the hot atmosphere.
"Personally I don't think it's a good idea to leave and go after the others." Gareeku stated, giving his views on the situation. "For one, its Hell. It would be pretty damn stupid to leave the entrance unchecked. I'm not prepared to run the risk of going in after them, only to find that even if this situation was resolved, we wouldn't be able to get back out."
Running a hand through his hair, the wolf sighed somewhat.
"Look, if you guys want to go in after them, then go ahead." the white-furred warrior continued. "But I won't be joining you. Ii'm' going to stay here and keep guard on the entrance, as was the agreement in the first place."
Aisha's reply to Gareeku's argument was an understanding nod, and a thoughtful look in her eyes. While it was true that maybe earlier they would have taken the choice to take a fateful step beneath the altar in a second, things had happened during their rest that were to make the small group of guardians think seriously about their job. What use would it be if, in fact, that small entrance was their only way out? No matter what, the chance couldn't be taken that everyone would be killed.
As the huntress looked over the barren, broken and tainted chapel, her eyes fell upon the altar itself. She was tempted to take a few steps over there, just to peer into the darkness. Even just a futile attempt at sensing some familiar movement would make her feel better...but she was set against it. Instead, Mel's point also struck itself into the core of their minds; they had no way to contact the others. It could as well have become a futile effort. Besides...they had with them a few of the best fighters, and Rynkura. There was no reason to doubt them.
That seemed to be the assurance Aisha was searching for. She hummed for a moment, and then turned around. "I guess some of us are a little anxious to see where our friends have gone...but Gareeku has a point, as do all of us. And anyway, I still don't want to have us split up...but if you think you're strong enough, yes, nobody's stopping you."
Her eyes met those of her comrades. "To be honest, I don't want to lose anyone...not friends, not other lives, nadie...not anyone," she said just as she set her gaze on Gareeku last...the statement seemed to carry quite a bit of meaning. To lose him...anyone she cared about again...she would have rather died. And in her state, all she could do was the duty set for them. "So...we're staying. Or I'm staying, anyway."
It was then that the black jaguar turned herself away from the central path and leaned against the edge of one of the chapel seats, her own mind made up. Far above their heads on a rafter, no doubt, the mysterious red-eyed raven was also watching them intently.
The group below was making good progress. Down and down, deeper they went, the stench of fumes and their discomfort getting stronger. Every so often they saw something move in the shadows, beyond clear sight, but their path remained unobstructed for the most part. Whatever guided Ketefe was helping them avoid the dangers of the place they were in as well. There was no telling what might have happened had she not...
Their relative success thus far was not to be untested though. It wasn't too long, before they came into a shadowed area right along the edge of a platform that led further down their path, and as things got out of view, Ketefe felt a sudden surge of alertness and caution, mixed with mad irritation.
Not here! This is not supposed to be... What is? Careful! We don't have time... the voices in the feline's head bickered among each other, some sounding almost as if they were critical of her for something. This, and the imperative to keep on moving forward, strengthened by a feeling of danger, distracted her. And then, her arm snagged on something, sticking fast.
Ketefe was nowhere near happy about being stuck in Hell, but the fact that the group hadn't been attacked again yet helped to raise her spirits a little. So far, their path had been clear-set with the ambiguous, but seemingly correct help of her voices. Not so much as a rock blocked their way.
After so much success, though, a little difficulty was anticipated. Sure enough, when they reached a shadowy place on a platform in the middle of another route, her voices started to argue. The cat held a hand up to the others to stop them. "They can't decide on something...it's like I took the wrong way," she said hesitantly. "They sound mad." Somehow, pausing, even when nothing had happened yet, seemed dangerous. She wanted, more than anything, to keep going, but the irritation felt by her demons was spreading to Ketefe, along with some sort of heightened attention to her surroundings. Something here felt threatening...
Just then, her arm stuck to something. The vigilante snapped out of her head and looked at her arm with a growing sense of fear. She tugged once. No dice. She was trapped. And if she was...
"Guys?" she called to the others, her voice slightly panicked. "Something else is here!"
As he walked quickly through the shadowy portion of the hellish path in front of him, Cog attempted to keep himself as focused as a razor, listening for any sound or any sign of some demonic creature. He nearly jumped when Ketefe yelled, the sound like a trumpet in his ears.
He cursed, and turned. The feline was caught on...something, but the wolf couldn't make it out. He didn't like thinking about what it might be, either. He fumbled in one torn pocket, and produced that same golden coin from before.
"Lux et veritas mundi... he murmured. The sun exploded in his hands.
Light flared up, and blasted away the shadows for a few moments, allowing the alarmed adventurers a glimpse of the next danger they faced. Or, more accurately, the one they had walked right into. Because there was no other way to describe it. All around, gleaming and glistening, newly woven strands of thick, tight silk clung to the walls of the cave and the overhanging pathway. And Ketefe was stuck on one of the strands running from the roof to the side of the path they were walking on. The light was only to last for a short time though. Because when Keaton spotted the shape lowering itself down behind Cog's head, hanging upside down, she was already moving.
The coin fell from Cog's hand and onto the rocky path, rolling a bit and stopping at Ketefe's feet with a clinking sound, as his arm was grabbed and twisted, and pulled right up, to the point where he was standing on the tips of his toes. At the same time, a hand placed itself on his other shoulder, and a voice murred into his ear. A slightly raspy, many-faceted, feminine and comely voice.
'Yeah, yeah... Light may illuminate the truth, but sometimes it just stings the eyes', Sal said, and then squeezed the wolf's shoulder. Hard. 'Just take it easy. Don't try to draw and I'll put you down. Okay?' she continued, her tone one of clear and self-assured factuality, and also of honesty.
In spite of her best efforts, Ketefe was still wide-eyed and tugging at her arm fruitlessly when Cog turned to help. She watched closesly as he cast a spell - and then turned away, knowing better than to look directly into a spell that bright. What the light revealed was actually far worse than she'd anticipated.
Thick, shining strands of silk covered the walls of the path around them. Ketefe turned to to look at her arm, and with a fluttering heart, realized that this was spider's webbing, and she was stuck to it.
The light ended as quickly as it had come, though, and Ketefe went blind in the abrupt blackness. She heard a coin rolling and stopping somewhere hear her feet, the sounds of struggling in Cog's direction...and a new, quiet, feminine voice. The feline's head whipped around towards the wolf, her eyes focusing in the murk and shapes becoming clear again. Something had Cog...
"Who the hell is that?" she said aloud, not shouting, but her tone containing surprise and a threatening note.
It wasn't so much the hand on his shoulder that made the wolf breathe in sharply, and his unhidden eyes to gleam dangerously in the low light, as it was the voice right above him. Cog was not someone given to fits of rage, but the look in his eyes was murderous, and a low growl emanated from the wolf's throat.
He stood stock still. He stood still another second. The growling subsided, or simply grew too low to hear.
Like a chip of ice suddenly touching her neck, Sal felt the edge of Cog's sword just lightly touching her - the blade not there one moment, and quite suddenly there the next. Sal noticed that Cog wasn't wearing a sheath a few moments later.
"I'd like nothing more than to kill you. Your spiders don't work on me. You're clever and strong, but I'm faster, and pissed off." he said, looking forward. "And the only good reason I can think of to not kill you is that you caught up to us, and we went in first. You know how to get places here. So."
He kept staring forward. "I'm glad you're not going to hurt me. I'd truly hate to think of what might happen. Why don't you let go, and I won't stab you, and we'll both be very glad that we're getting closing to our goal."
For the rest of the journey, Keaton was quite silent, even during the group's steady descent into the arid and desolate chamber. Apparently, after the group's skirmish, she had garnered the courage to start wandering amidst the party as opposed to on its outskirts, since she was trudging closer to her companions and with an increased urgency to her pace. That, or Cog's charm had succeeded in restoring her stamina just enough to make her of some use. Looking somewhat disturbed, Keaton eyed her surroundings warily, becoming so engrossed in maintaining her countenance of security that she didn't realize when her foot was suspended over the groove lacerating the rocks before her until it unpredictably expelled a great gout of steam into her face. Just barely keeping herself from yelling out of surprise, Keaton yelped and leaped over the groove, skittering after Cogidubnus.
Keaton found it quite fortunate that there were no steam-emitting hellpits in the next obstacle; a web-laden chamber. In comparison to their earlier surroundings, Keaton found the exchange peaceful, or at least up until a certain point. Out of the corner of her eye, Keaton spied Sal's silhouette lowering itself behind Cog's head, the familiar shape and its sinuous, clever movements triggering a horrid reaction in the back of her mind. In an instant flicker of emotions, Keaton felt the root source of her current emotional turmoil propel itself back to the front of her memory.
She only was able to speak after the spider finished, and when she did, she sounded nothing short of enraged, livid. "YOU!" Keaton snarled, her ears flattening and her teeth baring viciously.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. Oh gods help me, will the man make up his mind? With little else to do, save for perpetuating an argument that was unlikely to go anywhere new, the frog took to pacing. And thinking. And more pacing. And more thinking.
Eventually, when he'd finally settled upon leaning on a large piece of masonry near the gate, he reached the conclusion that really, Gareeku was probably right. While there was little they could do if anything threatened to close the gate, they could still do SOMETHING. Better than if they got their wounded selves in the paths of any demons. It was for the best.
Dear readers, it's okay if you see what's coming. Really, at this point, not even he was THAT surprised when he slipped and fell into the gate.
When Gareeku announced that they were staying put Mel set to the busywork of putting herself to rights. A small pulse of magic sent her cracked ribs into healing mode as she dusted marble shards out of the nap of her jacket and extended and refolded her wings a few times to make sure they hadn't been damaged. She was just digging the last of the bits of marble out of her boot tops when, with a rather resigned sounding shout, Jeremiah disappeared through the gate. Being closest Mel was the first to the gate. Peering into the shifting blackness she called, "Are you alright? Do you need help?"
After Gareeku had given his views on the matter at hand, he had looked to the others to see what they had to say about it. Instead, the wolf only received any kind of a response from Aisha, who also voiced her decision to stay. To this, Gareeku nodded his head in understanding. It wasn't as if he was stopping the others from going, they were fully free to do so. It was just that he didn't think it was a good idea to leave the gate completed unguarded, considering all the nasties that had been thrown at them outside of the underworld below.
It was then, however, that the white wolf watch with initial shock as Jeremiah tubled down into the gate, thanks to him slipped off of the surface that he was standing on. As he walked to the gate, however, when thinking about it, this was most likely to happen. After all, Murphy's law had an annoying habit on sneaking up on people when it could.
"Jeremiah! Can you hear me?" Gareeku called as he walked up next to Mel, peering below into the darkness as he tried to look for any sign of movement. As Mel called out, he waited for an answer.
Aisha idly bit her lip as she watched the others, leaning against one of the seats while contemplating (though it was still hard to keep her mind off of the fact that she was crossing her chest with one arm and one phantom limb). There wasn't much disagreement on the subject at hand; perhaps they had all kept to the fact that it was indeed a wise thing to do.
But when things were all turned around...when demons howled; when a building meant for great fortification was overrun by illusions; when the only sanctuary was in a desecrated chapel; when the gate to hell was right in front of them; it was hard to tell really what was wise anymore. Did the others down in those depths know too?
Then suddenly, it was like something decided to jinx them. Jeremiah, whom she hadn't noticed roaming around the gate itself, had taken a wrong slip right into the pit with but a quick yelp to signify the fact.
"Oh shit..." Aisha cursed and kicked away from her spot, rushing with Gareeku and Mel over to the edge. The claws on her bare feet were engaged so that she wouldn't slip on the polished stone herself. As they called, she strained her ears and sent a call down herself. "Jeremiah, where are you!" The darkness seemed difficult to penetrate even with those of good sight, but certainly the frog hadn't gone so far down to be out of hearing...
And yet, out of earshot he seemed to be. The frog was laying badly bruised and feeling more than dizzy at the very bottom of the stairway. Were he not in such a bad condition for it at the time, he might have considered how he could have fallen all that way without breaking his neck, and even more strangely so quickly. He couldn't hear the others from up above in the least. There was no one and nothing to bring him out of his painful near-unconsciousness.
Well, no one but those who were already with him, as always...
Great. Just bloody great. Someone else had entered from upstairs. Stygian couldn't tell who, or why, or even how, but the shadow that he had cast over the entrance to the place had been triggered, and in no way so that it had been removed or destroyed. Well, that was good, at least. That meant that he knew where the new ones who had entered were, at least for a while. But if they went and got themselves into danger as well... He'd already had to ward off three attacks on the group which had gone down. Now, at least, he knew that Rynkura was safe. But he had to check on them again, as quickly as possible. Why the old man hadn't reacted to them, he had no idea. He should have been able to tell that they were getting closer, and making progress. So why didn't he try to get rid of them? Did he think that Rynkura was hostage enough? Was he doing something else?
The bat berated himself for having done as he had from the very start, and hurried on. If the prey wouldn't come then it was just more of a waste using two pieces of bait instead of one.
The spider made a sound much like a snort, and then Cog was pushed forward, hard, while the tip of his sword was flicked away by clicking claws. The spider turned quickly in the air, and grasping the line of silk between her fingers, slowly lowered herself to the cavern floor.
'Yeah, very nice greeting. I thought mine was rude, but you somehow topped it...' Sal muttered, and then let her eyes shoot up at the wolf, scowling. 'Not to mention you're presuming things already. Do you even know if you really want to kill me? Or if you even
want to reach the bottom? Do you think I really know my way here? I'd say that this place is simply more "kind" to me than you because of who I am.' She tilted her head at him and blinked, her eyes eerily desynchronized. 'By the way, how
did you get down here so quickly?'
...
...
...
... Paaainnnnnnnnn...
This was pretty much the sum of what was on Jeremiah's mind for a considerable amount of time. It was all it needed to do. It was cool, quiet, and it wasn't entirely sure if the legs were working, so it was free to simply take its time on a simple task, for once. It put craftsmanship into its work, considering the nature and source of the pain from all angles. It went on to consider the pain's artistic implications and philosophical value before being interrupted by a new wave of searing agony when it tried to move Jeremiah's shoulder.
"Ahhhahah! Rrg!" the frog clamped down on what would have been a yelp. Through the red-hot haze of his damages the aforementioned mind was holding up signs to point out that, while it would be satisfying to scream his head off, things might hear that. Besides, it might hurt more to breathe that deep.
Get up.
Jeremiah blinked (Oh gods, even my EYELIDS hurt. What the hell, why not?). He knew that voice, but not in a sentence that wasn't simply one word, possibly rapidly repeated.
In?
Yes. Get up.
No, I'm tired. Let me alone.
A demonic bull with too many horns and made of red flame flashed into existence, and Jeremiah's mind went blank as lucidity was drained from him by the curses' power. In's power hoisted the frog to his feet with one swift and ungentle motion. The frog almost blacked out, and thought he might have screamed. Wasn't sure though. Wasn't sure of much at the time.
With further nudges and shoves, every so often provoking a whimpered yelp, In sent Jeremiah deeper into hell...
Cog stumbled forward for just a few steps before catching his balance, turning neatly on the ball of his foot to face the scrabbling spider. She didn't seem hostile, immediately, but the wolf wasn't going to take any chances with her - he kept his sword in a middle guard, one foot swept backwards for balance.
He narrowed his eyes at her question, and spat to the side. "We walked." he said, the brief sizzle of spit punctuating his sentence. "And yes, I'd like nothing more than to kill you. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...and people lose arms, don't they." he nearly snarled. "If it hadn't been for you, we might have been able to help Aisha before that demon tore her limb off. But instead...well. Here we are."
"So then. Do you know the way through?" Cog said, the obvious threat unspoken.
When Jeremiah didn't respond to their shouts Mel assumed that he was hurt too badly to speak. Stone steps were not forgiving. They couldn't leave him at the bottom of the stairs. It didn't take much debating with herself to know the right thing to do. "I should go down to see how he is. He undoubtedly needs healing." Nervously she lit the crystals in her staff in preparation for the descent into heated darkness. The ice dragon swore she could already feel the heat weakening her. She vowed that when she got out of this place she was going home and hiding under a nice cool flame-free glacier for at least a century.
When no response from Jeremiah came from their calls, Gareeku's concerns for the frog grew and more by the second. Turning to Mel as she said she would descend into the darkness to help him, the white-furred wolf reluctantly nodded his head in acknowledgment.
"Ok then...be careful though. And if you need any help at all, just say." Gareeku replied to Mel, watching her descend, and then disappear altogether, into the blackness below as it seemed almost to swallow her whole. "I just pray to the gods that they will be alright. All of them..."
Aisha became concerned when there came no reply from the darkness below. Her teeth clenched as she tried to listen...nobody's sharp senses could discern anything from it. It must have been such a distance fall...had the stairs disappeared, perhaps?
"Dammit," the panthress muttered, before glancing up to listen to Mel. She was prepared to go down after him, and although Aisha was still hesitant about letting the group split up, it appeared that there was no other choice...they couldn't leave Jeremiah down there hurt and at the mercy of Hell.
Aisha nodded to the dragon. She was the one with wings, perhaps she retrieve him once found. "Good luck, Mel. We'll be standing by if you need us."
And so they watched as she prepared and dropped into the shadows...to the dark and unknown recesses holding the castle up on its foundation. "I agree," Aisha said quietly as she heard Gareeku's statement. Her hand was gripping the amulet about her neck. "I want to say they're safe, but it's hard to be sure..."
Once her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, Ketefe had to clap her free hand over her mouth to muffle the shriek at her first glimpse of Sal. She vaguely remembered someone saying something about a creature like her in this castle... but she hadn't expected any more spiders to turn up. In any case, Cog seemed livid at the spider-woman, and Keaton was incensed into speech. When she asked how they'd gotten down there, the masked cat immediately thought a message to her parasites: If you use me to utter so much as ONE WORD - if you control me for even ONE SECOND while she's around - I will stab myself through the head, you hear me?!
At Cog's accusations, the feline's eyes widened, then narrowed into a murdersome glare. So this woman was the reason Aisha had lost her arm... She hissed softly and tugged at the webbing a little harder. "If you're not planning on killing us, was this necessary?" she spoke up. "Seems like a waste to set up such an elaborate trap when you don't intend to do any harm." Just because she wasn't going to kill them didn't make her trustworthy.
The air once Mel was past the gate was hot and dry and ashy and made her feel like she needed to cough but the half dozen charms against heat and fire she had secreted on various articles on her person kept her body temperature normal. The steps seemed endless and by the time she reached the catacomb at the bottom the frog was nowhere to be found. Only a few drops of blood marked his landing spot. Either the local wildlife were particularly neat eaters or he had wandered off. Doubting the former she cast about for the likely direction he had disappeared to.
Cogidubnus' answer seemed to disappoint the spider, because her face fell into a frown and she muttered. Her gaze passed between Keaton and Ketefe, with just a neutral, inquisitive look at the feline and a shake of her head to the jackal.
'I'd say as I said before; this place is just trying to mislead you', Sal commented, then looked up and back to Cog. 'But if I were to join you, which is out of the question, I'd count as one of you, now wouldn't I?' She looked them all over once more, eight eyes shifting back and forth. 'I might be able to lead you on your way though... if I know that you'll actually make it on.'
"I hadn't figured that out, really." Cog said, keeping his sword in-between him and the spider. "And yeah, it'd be out of the question." Fog smoked from Cog's sword, the superchilled blade out of place in the fiery surroundings.
Cog paused a quiet descending over the wolf, and he seriously considered just stabbing the spider right then, or calling down a lightning bolt on her head, or a thousand other ways of killing the arachnid assassin. She could not be trusted, at all, and Cog knew this, and in a toss up between trusting a demon and trusting Sal, Cog was almost willing to trust the demon more. Almost.
He bared one fang.
"We'll 'make it on', yeah. Or we'll die. But I think I know why you're here too." he said, glancing at her neck. "And we're going in the same direction. "So, whaty'll it be, then?" Cog shifted just slightly, his back foot twisting so that both feet faced forward. "If hell's being nice to you, well, we'll just follow. Or we can kill each other now."
Cog narrowed his eyes. "I shouldn't trust you at all, really. I'm comforted by this place, though. If I die, it's not like I'll have very far to go to find you."
For a while, the spider just stood there and looked between the three of them, thinking. Then, she let her head slump, and sighed. Turning a bit, she looked to Ketefe.
'You. You think I'd be down here without doing my best to try and take every advantage to survive that I have?' she asked the feline, then nodded toward the silk all around them. 'I didn't really expect to catch you, but...' Turning, the spider shook her head, and then looked up back to Cog again. 'Look, I'm sorry. Okay? But this is sort of difficult for me. I can't help you, but neither can I keep you here, even though God knows that's what I'd most of all like to do.' She looked at her hand - the lowest of her right ones - where already she had a few fine threads of silk hooked to be able to pull more out on quick notice. 'You shouldn't blame me for that, at least', she said in an accusatory tone, and looked between Cog and Keaton. 'I never had any business with you people from the start, and I still don't want to hurt you.'
Ketefe's arm was still solidly attached to the web from the wall. But then, for a second, it felt almost as if that web shifted a few centimeters, and the tugging feeling became just a fraction stronger.
"Let us go, huh?" Cog said, suddenly wishing for his shades again. As it was, however, being able to see Sal's blueish outline with the magical lenses of his current ones somewhat made up for the lack of secrecy. His eyes regarded her coolly, at first, and with somewhat with the light of recognition.
She didn't expect to catch us. So, she is trying to catch -him-...
"Let her go, then. And we'll be on our way." Cog said suddenly, his tone less hostile. His eyes, however, were just as venomous as before, and underneath his foot there was a glimmer of something round and gold...
Ketefe growled a little, but she couldn't deny the spider-woman's logic. Still, who had she been planning on catching, if not them? From Cog's look, she could tell he'd figured out something she hadn't.
Suddenly, she felt her trapped arm shift, just a little, as if the web to which she was attached had moved. The pull of the web on her skin was a little stronger too. She avoided showing any reaction on her face, keeping an even, dangerous look on Sal as the muscles in her free arm tensed. If she really meant them no harm, she'd let Ketefe go. If not... well, she was still an okay fighter with her left hand.
Instead of fixating her expression in a tense masque of fury, or even looking mournful, Keaton's lips were twisted in a perfectly, insidiously insincere smile which quite obviously didn't touch her eyes. She was looking straight at Sal contemptuously, like how one would assess a rodent or a bug squished beneath one's heel. Or, as Keaton had adopted during her childhood, the way one of her fellow Jyraneth Cubi would gaze upon a lowly Being. She was unaware of the subtle shifting and tension of the webbing; they just didn't register in her anger. Right now all she wanted to do was swipe Sal down with Catastrophe and start bashing away at her skull, or something equally grotesque, but for now she limited herself to a derisive rebuttal in response to Sal's apparent remorse.
"You're so full of shit." Keaton snarled in a low, guttural growl, then trudged angrily after Cog. There was still some use for Sal, but that was only temporary. Sal's usefulness would undoubtedly stretch thin after a while, and then she'd be all hers.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
In continued to bully Jeremiah down the hallway. It was easy; when the frog was all loopy from the stress of the curse taking hold you just had to give him a sharp nudge in whatever direction you so pleased that didn't contain loud noises or unpleasant relatives and he'd trundle along until something distracted him or got in his way. If In were doing this for pleasure rather than business he might even have made a game of it. However, In had Obligations to fulfill. The other personae had been scheming, Bal almost arrogantly overt in his objectives. Plic was off playing with treasures somewhere, and Cab was rather keen on pulling an agreement out from under you. He'd formed an alliance with what had seemed like the best choice; dangerous, resourceful, but without enough of the prior qualities to counteract his naiveity should he become inconvenient.
Jeremiah staggered on with a whimper, maybe three twists in the corridor away from Mel. Deep in his mind, In's ally laughed and played with its marionette. Two more drops of blood fell to the ground. The vagrant went on.
OOC: In other news, justice was served this evening when the internet of Jeremiah's writer was finally justly put to death in a fire started by ravenous, internet eating knife-birds (which are, as you know, much like normal birds save that they are made of knives and crave internet flesh). Seeing as nobody will particularly miss the deceased, police have called off all investigations. "It had just caused a double post on a forum anyway, the little jackass. Got what it deserved." A local creep was recorded as having said.
Mel increased the light coming from her staff. She risked attracting natives but coming down here in the first place had been the bigger risk. Casting around for a moment she spotted the first tiny droplet of blood. The dragon had excellent distance vision but the droplets were spread far enough apart that she had to search for each one. "Jeremiah?" she called softly, not wanting to attract more attention than the light already had.
But Ketefe hadn't noticed everything. Not yet. Then, as Sal seemed to turn to move further down the slope, the cat felt something prickle her. Not figuratively, but literally. A nearly tickling, skittering movement over her shoulder was much too clear to pass her by. But she did not manage to react. Not before she felt a sharp jab at the base of her neck.
No! You're not supposed to be...! Foolish girl, what have...?! Crawling! Creeping and skittering...! The voices in the feline's head snapped and snarled. But they were all pushed back, driven away by the sheer surprise and single-minded force of something entirely different. In an instant, the cat's thoughts became a violently thrashing mixture of anger and fear and conflicting desires. But something drove through them, like a blade, nailing them like still-squirming insects to a wall.
'I-I'm t-he one...!' the cat heard her own voice say, her body painfully stiff and her muscles almost cramping for some reason. 'I g-got us down heeeere...!'
Instantly, the spider turned on her heel. 'Thanks for that, sweetie!' she said with a smirk, before flashing out claws like kitchen knives. For a second, Ketefe thought she was dead. But then, Sal's weight collided with hers, and the silk around her arm snapped.
Feeling the hideous scrabbling of the little spider-like creature still attached to her neck as it fought with controlling her, Ketefe tumbled together with Sal over the edge of the path, and fell.
As Ketefe inexorably started babbling their secrets, Keaton jerked her head in the masked feline's direction, feeling her expression warp into a startled snarl. What did that girl think she was doing? Was it those demons inhabiting her head? Only when Sal snapped her wrist back, pulling the ensnared feline toward her, and smirked at them, did Keaton realize the arachnid woman's role. Pure rage flared inside the pit of her stomach, quickly consuming her insides, and along with that, her rational thought. Bruise-hued electricity swelled and swarmed around Keaton's fist as it clenched, Catastrophe surging with the same corrupted energy.
"You FUCKING WHORE!" Keaton shouted in Sal's direction. Before she could assail Sal with any further verbal abuse, or try assaulting her on a new level, the arachnid-woman rolled away from the path amidst her fury-fueled inaction and vanished from sight. Keaton felt whatever fire which was keeping her insides alive flicker, sizzle, and then extinguish altogether, almost anticlimactically. Panicked concern replaced it as she realized that Sal - she was taking Ketefe with her. "Oh - OH FUCK!"
Her heels slapped against the ground, propelling Keaton to the edge of the path in a few, quick strides. She was standing there, staring down into the abyss, desperate for any signs of life.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe continued to glare at Sal as she descended the slope... and then, in one fell swoop, nothing mattered. Ketefe had no time to swat the skittery little creature off her shoulder before a pair of fangs sunk into her flesh.
Her demons turned panicky, fighting for control against something unseen, something much more powerful. Once again, thoughts, emotions, and desires that were not hers whirled around her head - before something silenced them and seized control.
Ketefe felt her unwilling mouth open and heard herself say, "I-I'm t-he one!" She felt like a statue, her muscles feeling like they'd snap at any second. "I g-got us down heeeere...!" Sal pivoted to face her with a smile, and everything became painfully clear. The spider rushed Ketefe, gigantic claws shining and deadly. The cat shut her eyes, not wanting to see her own death.
After a time unit so small it seemed like an aeon, she was still alive. Ketefe opened her eyes just in time to see the silk holding her captive break as Sal crashed into her and sent them both toppling over the edge of the path.
"NO!" Ketefe shouted, struggling fruitlessly as the spider still skittered around on her neck, trying to wrestle Sal off her as they fell deeper into the suffocating blackness...
Cog was faster than the spider, but he wasn't that fast. He'd forgotten about the mindspider's, hadn't suspected the spider to use them as she had, hadn't through she'd...sacrifice herself like that, hadn't though she'd just tackle the feline swordsman over the edge, like she had. Cog wasn't able to move more than two steps before they both tumbled into blackness, and just like that, he'd been tricked again, and they had no guide and were down one party member. The wolf screamed.
"DAMMIT!" he snarled, and stopping just short of the edge tried to make out any sign of the two tumbling down into darkness. He couldn't see anything, of course, not even with his glasses. He snarled again, a vicious sound that could not be normally associated with the calm wolf - vicious, and nearly feral. Through incredible force of will, he managed to keep himself from hitting the walls and probably hurting himself.
He stalked away from the edge, certain that all the powers of hell were laughing at about that moment. He stood up straight, and closed his eyes, and took a breath. His hands shook. He stood there for some time, until the shaking in his hands stopped. He exhaled.
"Stupid." he said, muttering. "Stupid..."
The wolf paused. Something flashed in his eyes. She wouldn't sacrifice herself...not if there was another way...
He waked back to the edge. They could continue to wander through hell, he supposed, lost and without a guide, and probably would continue to do so until they died of starvation or thirst. Or he could chance it.
"No." the wolf simply said, and without preample jumped from the edge and into darkness.
Well...the light's gone.
Rynkura let out a slow and silent growl, the same kind that she had been sighing since she had released the little ball. Perhaps it had dissipated before it reached the top; who knew if it even found the others, if even magic could be fooled by the illusions wrought upon by hell.
Now, the tigress was just trying to substitute something--anything--for the worry in her mind. For example she allowed her curiosity of enchanted things to go over the chains she was bound by and wondered if they had any anti-magic properties. She certainly still felt drained of her power; any regular metal chains she would have destroyed or corroded even if she only had one finger free to move.
"By gods," she just shook her head, speaking in a normal tone. It probably didn't matter if the bat could hear her or not. "I wish there was a way to see what was happening."
At least the angel could be comforted by the fact that she wasn't dead. Only useful as bait, she'd be dead by then if nobody were living. Heaven help the ones to find her first.
* * *
There was a few long moments of just staring into the darkened pit, while ignoring the temptation to go after the dragon and frog. Aisha simply reminded herself that there was little point. After all, not a few hours ago she was fighting for her life, and it wouldn't be wasted again with a jump into the unknown.
She finally managed to tear her crimson gaze away from the gate, instead glancing to Gareeku. They were the only two left on the surface, in the silent and broken remains of a cathedral. She hoped that they were enough to guard the gate...she knew how powerful the wolf was, but herself...
The panthress stepped away from the altar and tried to take a deep breath. While she did, her hand went to the boomerang in her belt. With a quick motion, she took aim at one of the smaller motionless statues and released the weapon. The thing hit its mark, but when it returned, she only just managed to get it by the handle when a portion of a bladed side nicked her thumb. She put it back to her belt with a hiss...apparently there was more practice needed with her off-hand. Another demon would just laugh.
"I don't know about you, amigo," she said and turned back to him, her voice tinged with frustration on the whole matter. "...But I doubt I or one of the others will tell stories about this place, if we manage to get out of it. It's been too horrifying."
Like Aisha, as Gareeku gazed into the darkness which Mel had descended into, he too longed to go after them. To help them. And yet, thinking of Aisha and her condition, he couldn't. Going down after the others and either leaving her there alone or taking her with him was out of the question. He was simply not prepared to take the risk.
Gareeku would only look away from the darkness where he heard Aisha move away from beside him. Turning round to look, the white wolf watched as the pantheress released her boomerang towards one of the smaller statues that had remained motionless. Looking on as the weapon successfully hit its target, a look of concern then appeared on his face as Aisha nicked her thumb on the bladed side of the boomerang. It appeared she had not quote gotten the hang of only using her weaker arm as of yet.
Observing Aisha refasten the weapon to her belt, Gareeku listened to what the pantheress said, nodding in agreement as a grim expression made itself present on his face.
"Indeed. I will not be in hurry to tell of what we have witnessed and experienced inside this house." the white wolf replied, looking for Aisha gaze at the surroundings all around them, before looking back at the pantheress again. "I will be keeping what I have witnessed and experienced to myself. I would rather not share such a dark story, if we get out alive, that is."
The panthress nodded slowly, thoughtfully, as she listened to Gareeku's agreements. Unless there was a way to dispel the immediate curse on the Castle, or prevent any subsequent ones, none of them should have wanted to be responsible for letting the existence of the place reach the ears of other adventurers; of course whom would go far as to stumble into the place only to go through what their group had. Death, dark magic, possession...
"Nor I," Aisha assented. Walking back to stand near the wolf, she carefully licked the tiny wound on her thumb, pausing just to smile softly when he gave her a look of concern. "No adventurer wants to walk into this. I doubt it was even worth the prospect of coming. I forget why we did in the first place, actually." She sighed. "I just wonder if we will get out alive. And if we do, what will happen to us next?"
She lowered her gaze to the floor and hummed. Now that they had some quiet time to think about it, the latter question was a good one. "Well...I don't know what will happen to me, at least. It must the trauma talking, or the hellish crap all at our feet, but it's gotten hard to see any hope."
The skittering of either a very large pillbug or, in this situation equally likely, a spooked Jeremiah Ac'Gregor echoed down the hallway back to Mel. Someone was looking for him and, in his curse-addled state, this probably meant something bad. Most things that were after him lately did not have his best interests at heart. Several of them had too many teeth. One or two may not even be there, but he wasn't taking the risk of hypothetical monsters waiting under every third cobblestone reaching up and grabbing him by the ankle.
There is no high quite like panic.
In's job was comparatively easy; with Jeremiah hurdling along in fear it took but a minor nudge to send him in the appropriate direction. Eventually the frog ended up in a room full of, apparently, junk. It piled around the room, blocking off the other two doors. Boxes and open crates, spindely umbrellas with abnormally fleshy-looking tops resting next to a phone with a mouth and an ear sticking out of its receiver and speaker on top of a plushie of some sort of fetus (although most certainly not a furrae one). It was like the backstage area of some sort of play about the horrors of LSD, or the horrors of creative taxidermy. The most worrying thing in the room, however, was the Pipe Organ. The organ was made of body parts, not removed nor lashed together but seemingly grown from some seed planted in the stone itself. Teeth made up the keys, furrae arms reached up to hold the massive bone pipes in place. It was a wonder, a horrible wonder of this macabre place, in a half of the room clear of debries.
Jeremiah was simply very glad he couldn't play it. In his current state, he would have been far gladder to have noticed what dreadful repair the floor was in...
It really was a pit. A tunnel, bored straight down into the depths. And he was throwing himself down it. The madness did not pass the wolf by. Then again, for all they had seen he might just keep falling and falling forever, or until he found some unlikely way of slowing himself down.
Down below, or in front of him, however one chose to see it, Sal was obviously struggling with Ketefe. The feline had somehow found it less than too hard to break, or at least disturb, the control of the spider-thing on her neck. For the first time the voices did what she wanted them to, and that was to rid herself of this thing! But then there was the problem of the spider woman herself. Hissing, she thrashed, trying to hold Ketefe still while they caught speed through the ashy and gas-saturated air.
'Shut...! Stop! Hold still you little...!' the arachnid screamed, hissing and flailing as they rolled. Then, her eyes flashed upward, and an expression of shock struck her, though it was hard to see until she managed to kick Ketefe away for a second, and turn her grimacing face and narrowed eyes upward, toward Cog.
'You idiot!' the spider shrieked, barely audible over the speeding winds, her words echoing throughout the caverns. 'I'm doing you a favor! You bloody fool!'
This was madness. He was going to hit the ground and splatter his guts on the rocks like so much falling fruit, and Cog found it very hard to keep his heart out of his throat as he sped down, down, down, darkness closing down over and around him. At least, until he saw the spider tumbling along with Ketefe, still attempting to get control over the feline.
She saw him, and pushed the feline away, screaming at him. As the saying goes, however, there are none so deaf as those who will not listen - and six times bit by the spider, he couldn't listen to her anymore.
She'd pushed the cat away. Good - it made things easier.
No longer frightened, but instead using his rage to quench his fear, and fighting to calm himself into serenity even here, the wolf took a deep breath, and made a grasping gesture with one hand, his fingers taut as he drew his hand back, like claws pulling a rope. Making sure to keep the edge of his sword far from him, he nearly tried to throw a wave of force at the spider - then thought better of it.
Twisting, for just a moment he planted his ragged boots on the rock wall beside him, and thrust forward with his right hand. A wave of force slammed into the wall, and the airborne wolf rocketed away from the wall at an angle. Twisting, the wolf made a neat spiral in midair, raising his sword as he turned.
Headed straight for the spider.
His blade a silver blur, the weapon arced for the arachnid like molten silver, the wolf himself moving at a tremendous speed.
Tracking by both the skittery sounds and the widely spaced drops of blood Mel tracked the frog down corridors that twisted and turned in bewildering directions. She hoped they would be able to find the way back to the surface. If not she would have to try tracking either Keaton or Cog by the magical items she had given them. Eventually she got to a doorway that was left slightly ajar. Behind it she could hear gasping that she thought might be an injured, frightened frog trying to catch his breath. "Jeremiah?"
The speed of Cogidubnus' attack was more than impressive considering the circumstances, but so seemed the reaction time of the spider. Screaming, almost shrieking in the speed of the air around them, Salticia grabbed Ketefe painfully hard and threw her around, using her as leverage to get out of the way of the immediate direction of the cut. It glanced her still though; her and the feline. The spider gritted her teeth as she felt the blade graze over one of her arms and cut a long hole right into part of her garment. Likewise, while the overwhelming adrenaline rush distracted her, Ketefe was still aware of the searing pain as the blade bit into her leg and traveled up over it, onto her side.
'NO! STOP IT!' Salticia was screaming, watching Cog's back as the wolf sailed past, moving against the other side of the chasm. 'ARE YOU CRAZY?!'
Cog hit the side of the wall hard, rocks breaking off from the side as the Were tumbled down the sheer face for a moment. The rocks tore the wolf viciously, and sent rolling for a second the wolf dropped his sword, the thing gleaming softly in the darkness as it fell, like a crescent moon spinning into the black. Cog spat out a curse, his torn boots finding purchase on the rocks and pushing him back off - but the wolf had lost too much speed, and his sword tumbled into the black.
The wolf turned a vicious eye towards the spider above him, snarling, and growling at the spider's use of Ketefe as a shield - and his hands clenched on air. Weaponless.
He didn't have many options - although he then remembered something, something that had been useful against the spider once before. His hands clenched into fists, and then opened lightly, the fingertips just barely touching. Lightning sparked in the wolf's eye.
Not responding to the spider's scream, he began to chant silently, the wind stealing the words from reaching his ears, and with a final, silent syllable, produced a red-glowing orb directly in front of him - and manipulating his hands quickly, like a man flying a kite or controlling a puppet, sent it hurtling at the falling spider, dodging and weaving as it flew to meet the spider.
I'm fighting for my life, in freefall, in Hell. If I wasn't possessed, getting mind-controlled by a spider-woman, and unable to grab my weapon, this would be the coolest thing EVER.
Ketefe continued her struggle against Sal as the two fell towards certain death, the spider hissing for her to shut up and stop. The cat paid no attention, if anything, fighting harder. The mind-spider's control had been disrupted somehow, her demons actually helping her and overpowering the creature. But she couldn't reach her sword and hold off the spider at the same time...
That's when Sal paused for a moment, looking up. Ketefe's eyes moved to see Cogidubnus plummeting towards them. The cat winced as she was kicked out of the way by Sal, who took a little time to scream at the wolf. The glint of a sword became visible above then, and Ketefe was pulled back over by the spider - only to be sliced in the leg and side by Cog's sword. She growled, partly because of the pain of the slash, but mostly because of her indignation at being used as a meat-shield.
"What do you mean, is HE crazy?!" she hissed through her pain, trying to wriggle out of the spider's grasp. She twisted her head and watched as Cog's sword slipped from his grip, before shooting a glare at Sal. She was coldly curious as to why the spider would say she was helping them. Somehow, the cat never believed that people acted out of simple cruelty. No matter what a person had done, no matter how awful they were, they had the right to explain themselves at the end. But before she could open her mouth to ask the question she'd asked all her victims, she saw the lightning spell zigzagging towards Sal and herself. Immediately, she struggled harder to free herself, a ferocity in her motions now. Sure, she may not have wanted the spider to die yet, but that didn't mean she wanted to risk being a shield again.
Mel pushed lightly on the door and was kind of surprised when it swung easily open. This just seemed like the sort of place where the doors would open with a shiver-inducing screech. Glancing inside she didn't spot the frog at first, the decor was too distracting. She swore some of the toy animals were drooling. She definitely would not be asking for the name of the decorator unless it was to better avoid them. "Jeremiah? Where are you?"
There was a slight murmur from the organ, a tune that rose and fell in pitch as people got closer to it. One of those stuffed toys flopped off the crate it was stacked on and landed on the ground with a mildly squishy sound, although whether this was of its own volition or merely a delayed avalanche wasn't apparent. The umbrella twitched. The phone rang softly, as if testing the audience's reaction.
And there was Jeremiah, blending in with the junk and leaning on a wall and looking very tired. He felt it too, too tired to look up at In standing right over Mel in the doorway. Too tired to it to really register as the personae lashed out, once, at a spot on the floor before vanishing. And too panicked when lucidity overtook him again to notice the structrual damage to the floor.
"Mel? Oh thank gods it's just you Mel!" Trying very hard not to think about the fact that he was alone in hell with someone he'd assaulted only yesterday he darted forward, "Yeesh, I'm glad to see you."
...
"So... I tripped. If we don't make it out of this be a doll and let them know who to mail the Darwin award to. Any idea where we go now?"
"Jeremiah. Are you okay? I figured you had broken your neck after that fall." The dragon gave the frog a quick once over. He looked remarkably in one piece for the tumble he had taken. Fools luck she supposed. "We should head back up the stairs and see if we can rejoin Aisha and Gareeku." She glared suspiciously at the vaguely animate inanimate objects and decided she definitely preferred the chapel.
Incredibly, the spider saw it fit to answer Ketefe's question, even as she tumbled back through the air, hands stringing web and magic at the same time. 'Because I'm
saving you idiots!' she screamed, right before she flung her arms out. Thin, flat membranes of web shot out from four sets of hands, and flared out in the wind, breaking the spider's fall for just a few seconds but swiftly and hard enough that she could avert the bolt's blast for the most part. That which did not hit her was deflected by something, leaving only a bit of that web singed, before she let it go, now significantly higher up than both Cog and the feline.
The impossible chasm surrounding them all seemed to go on endlessly as if flew by at the highest velocity. Yet something, perhaps the growing heat and perhaps the jagged, tooth-like crevasses and cliffs, told them that they would not fall forever. They were racing toward something definite, something terrible. Against a darkness that would not merely devour them, but crush them into nothingness. And judging from the increasing amount of sounds, of scrapings and hisses and fiery flickers surrounding them, they might not even come that far before facing some other grim fate.
It was high time to find a way to stop.
There was no sign of them. The darkness before Keaton's eyes was nigh impenetrable, allowing her only the merest view of the cavern, catching some dim lights perhaps a hundred yards or so down at most. She thought she saw a flicker of a light down there somewhere that might or might not have been the result of a battle between the three who were falling, but anything more than that...
And then she was not alone. She didn't know how she could tell. Not immediately. All she had was a sudden spine-rattling chilling sensation to go on. And then she noticed that the surroundings had turned a shade darker, as if some shadow had been cast over her. She didn't have the time to turn around before a seething, scraping sound, low and hard to detect yet still as effective at raising her fur as nails on a chalkboard, came from behind her. And then, with a sweeping sound, a cold breeze hit her, effectively causing those hackles to rise even further.
'Why...' came a dark voice from behind her, slightly sinuous with some frightening
twist of corruption to it, 'did you
lose them?'
Keaton could feel Stygian's stare almost boring into her neck from behind her.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..."
Keaton remained up on the ledge, her eyes wide and dazed and her feet firmly planted against the ground, as though she was afraid she would somehow go tumbling down into the chasm as well. Staring down into the miasmal abyss became almost overwhelming and disorienting, as after a few moments of frantically searching for her comrades amidst the darkness, Keaton started to feel extraordinarily ill. She assumed it was her nerves kicking in. At times, Keaton had a habit of becoming so worked up that she started to lose control of her stomach. It felt like the floor was spiraling around underneath her heels, as though it was threatening to throw her into the pit as well.
Keaton saw the flash at the bottom of the yawning pit and assumed the worst. Before she could truly panic, however, the bone-chilling sensation started to crawl up her body, like thousands of ice-encrusted spiders had been released all over her back and allowed to wander over her form. Keaton felt her hackles raise and unconsciously bared her teeth, feeling cold sweat break out in beads on her forehead. She didn't turn around; for some reason she was petrified into inaction by her terror. Not long after she made this resolution, she heard someone speak and screamed, whirling around to face Stygian instantaneously.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The darkness that wreathed around the bat seemed to have intensified even further since before. Like wings it spread out, framing his pale, almost glowing off-white figure. He looked at Keaton unblinkingly, black eyes in a mask-like face.
'Why?' he echoed again, nearing her, almost as if gliding forth, those 'wings' sweeping out and all but around the hapless Cubi.
One look at Stygian and Keaton paled instantly, her pupils shrinking down to pinpricks and her ears drooping. She looked in pure horror at the bat, cringing away from his wings as they encircled her. Keaton squeezed her eyes shut, gripping Catastrophe close to her and drawing her body in, as though she wanted to shrivel up and disappear. "I didn't mean to," she squeaked subaudibly. "I - I can't f-"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Was that plush toy closer than the last time he looked? Nobody moved, but the organ rose in volume. Neither was so ominous as the quiet little pre-rumble beneath the frog and the dragon's feet.
"Damn near did, honestly." Jeremiah turned his face to reveal the nastily dripping bruise along his jaw, "Not fun. Nor is the inability to move my shoulder too much. Don't suppose you have any spells for that?"
A single brick fell out of the floor, down into infinate blackness below. Despite his interest in medical aide, this single motion held Jeremiah's attention with almost physical force.
"Wow, do I hope that didn't just happen."
Twisting in midair, using her webs to stop her momentum and change direction, Sal manged to avoid Cog's ball of lightning, and soon had attached herself to the rock wall. The wolf considered reversing the direction of the guided spell and trying to fry the spider while she was looking away - but then, he noticed the smoke beginning to wreathe around his form. The Pit seemed to be going somewhere quite fiery.
It was hell, after all.
Cog fought down panic, and let go of the lightning spell, turning to face down into the pit. A dull red throbbed up at him, and the wolf realized he had the rest of his life to learn how to fly. He racked his brain for an idea - he simply didn't know any spells for levitation, which left something indirect to try, and lightning wasn't known for allowing a mage to fly.
Lightning, bolt of lightning, thunderous chain, Mephistis's Charged Gesture, natural manipulation, summon storm...
Storm.
There was something the wolf could do, although it would require stretching a spell far beyond what it was ever meant to do - and more power than he had in his entire body. His glasses glinted in the dull ruby light, and the wolf removed them quickly. His lips mouthed the words to the spell, modifying them and changing the cadence on the fly. He could feel the heat billowing up from the chasm below.
He broke the glasses in two, twisting the bridge until it snapped, and then crushed the lenses into his hands until they cracked and drew blood. He finished the cadence of his spell, and with eldritch energy sparking and snapping from the remains of the magical artifact, threw the pieces of glass in front of him, a wave of force carrying them forward despite his great speed.
Each one shattered into dust, and almost instantly a storm more massive than than the one that had been haunting the castle proper for days billowed into existence, in the much smaller space of the tunnel - a tornado formed, and then another - and soon, the wolf felt himself begin to slow, and then move in the opposite direction. Nearly choked by soot and ash, the Wolf began to pick up speed, and attempted to find a way to attach himself to the walls, or if that was impossible, hope he would be blown back out the top.
Mel was looking at the swelling and contusions on Jeremiah's face when the particular scratching sound of brick sliding against brick gathered her attention. The silence of the brick not hitting a floor below seemed even louder. "Run," was her answer to the frog's questioning of the reality of the situation.
Cog's spell took effect both spectacularly and quickly. But if he had expected that it would do much good, he had been fooling himself. Because while a tornado may act as a funnel under good circumstances, pulling objects upward, the effect was quite diminished by the already dry and heated updraft. Meaning that the sudden stormy winds did more to speed the wolf up horizontally than slow him down vertically. And not just him. In the ashy streaks beginning to swirl around in the air, both Sal and Ketefe, tangled together by some misplaced web, began spinning. Hurled out and up and back in, small rocks pelting them and ash stinging their faces, the three figures spun wildly. Cog went a few laps, before his leg scraped against the rockface, and he felt a hard, snapping sensation. And then very little else. Except a horrible searing pain not far above his ankle.
The storm couldn't keep up forever, mostly because of the overwhelming heat of the dark pit. But before either Cog or Ketefe had any chance of starting to fall again, there was something that snagged them. Thrown against another wall of the dark passage, illuminated and almost gleaming with a fiery orange light, they were swung into it and hung scraping against the coarse, bitter surface.
Ketefe felt as she bounced up and down a little, as if she were hanging from a just stretched out bungee cord, before she heard a grunt from above. Looking up, she caught sight of a pulsating, bulbous and heavily scraped and bleeding something, hanging from behind a pair of blackish, clawed legs, next to which was an equally clawed arm, from which a trail of web hung down, clinging to her back. Sal was grasping a crack in the cavern wall with two hands, a pained expression on her face.
'Hold... hold still...! I think I've twisted something...' the spider groaned.
'You can't
what?' the bat-like apparition said, moving closer yet. Eyes narrowing, Stygian looked at the jackal hard until she almost felt herself shrinking, crumpling together as much physically as mentally. The bat... thing... looked as if he was about to say something again, when suddenly, with an echoing roar, a fearsome gust of wind rushed up against them from down below. Stygian stopped, walked over to the ledge, looked down, and then turned his gaze back to the jackal.
'Where... did they go?' he said, sounding quite as if he knew the answer already.
Again, Keaton practically withered under Stygian's glowering gaze, her body shuddering palpably, fearfully, as though she was almost convinced she was going to face some terrible ramifications for her perceived failures. Gripping Catastrophe in one hand and Cogidubnus's charm in the other, Keaton pressed her hands to her scalp, squeezing her eyes shut and lowering her head. "I can't fly," she managed to croak with a comparatively superior amount of clarity to her voice than previously. "I can't go after them, I ca -"
In a sudden upswell of wind, Keaton felt her hair thrash about as, behind her, the tornado brewed up by Cogidubnus spun to a crescendo. Momentarily forgetting her devastation, Keaton turned her head around and stared listlessly at the vestigial traces of wind, watching the imperceptibly thin wisps of wind distort and twist the air. Stygian approached the ledge and looked at her. "T-They went down there..." Keaton answered without thinking, "That -" Keaton started to become irrationally angry again as she remembered, "That spider twat came, and she took Ketefe. Cog went after her down there! I don't know what he was thinking -"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe was let go, moving quickly out of the bolt's path and snarling at Sal. She was still entangled with the spider, due to one of the webs she'd shot to evade Cog's bolt, but Sal was now far ahead of them And as they fell, things were getting hotter... and more threatening. They were falling into Hell itself...
She was about to try searching for a foothold when Cog created a tornado beneath them. Rather than blowing them back up, though, they flew around the chasm. Trapped in a whirlwind of ash, small rocks scraping her face and arms, and thinking nothing for once, Ketefe could only wait for them to stop so she could find a wall to grab.
The winds stopped at last, and then, realizing that now they had no choice but to descend into the hellfire, the feline missed the tornado. But neither she nor Cog went very far before stopping and swinging to meet a far, seemingly glowing wall of the pit. Helplessly dangling, Ketefe realized that whatever had broken her fall was stretched taut, and bouncing a little. Something or someone above her grunted with effort, and the cat turned her head to see...Sal. The arachnid-woman had saved their lives, clinging to the wall and catching them with webs. But that wasn't nearly enough to make Ketefe forget the smirk she'd given before tackling her, or how her leg still dripped blood from being forced into the path of Cog's sword.
Ketefe narrowed her eyes and growled softly. "Ordinarily, I'd thank someone who'd just saved me from plummeting into an inferno, but I can't help but wonder... First you say you won't hurt us, then you shove me off a cliff and leave the others with no guide. Then you use me as a fucking shield - " - her words gained a bit of a furious hiss at that part - " - while telling me that you're trying to help us. And now, you save us from a fire you basically forced us into in the first place. So before I thank you, I just want to know exactly how almost getting us killed is related to helping us at all." The girl's eyes were gleaming with rage, but her reason hadn't quite left her.
His spell hadn't worked nearly as well as he had hoped, and as Cogidubnus brushed the unyielding rock face of the wall, his legs dragged across it with the power of a massive tornado behind them, he screamed. He felt something snap above his ankle, like a dry twig, and then nauseating, agonizing pain shoot up from the appendage. Half-blind and nearly choking, pelted with rocks, the wolf spun was slammed into the walls until finally getting caught on Sal's webs.
He could barely think, for the pain. He heard Ketefe speaking....something, up at the spider, and Cog looked down.
Where his foot should have been, only ragged black, bloody cloth flapped.
The wolf's eyes widened in horror, and he bared his teeth before he seemed to simply slump. He watched his lifeblood pour from the wound and drop into the fiery inferno below him, his blood dripping straight into hell. He felt lightheaded already. It hit the wolf, suddenly.
He was dead already. Hemorrhaging blood, at the bottom of a chasm deep in the heart of hell, there was no time to staunch the bleeding, no way to raise the leg and stop the flow. He'd be dead in five minutes. He blinked, oddly slowly.
His career as a swordsman was over too. You couldn't balance on a single foot.
Somehow calm, the wolf looked up at the spider without blinking, and contemplated striking her down with a bolt of lightning before he died. He reminded himself of Ketefe...and shook his head. Another thought occurred to him, wondering if the spider could pull up two other beings up a sheer rock face while injured. His eyes, normally bright, seemed somehow clear as crystal at that moment.
"I'm sorry." he said to the cat, his voice somehow thick. "Lot of help I was. Tell the others...it was an honor. Tell Sebastian he's a bastard."
With that, he reached into his remaining boot, and pulling out the enchanted knife secreted there sliced the silk holding him up, and began to fall into darkness.
"We cannot think like that. We must not." Gareeku replied after listening to what she had said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "If we do that, then we might as well give up right now."
Looking at her for a moment before turning away, the wolf looked up at the gothic architecture all around them.
"All we can do for now is hold out here and guard the fort." Gareeku continued. "But if we lose hope, then our enemies win."
Turning back to Aisha, the wolf smiled gently. "Besides, what would Mistress Rynkura say?"
Aisha's gaze had been drawn to the floor after she spoke, thinking and even believing for the moment that it was a good place to be...her heart and mind seemed drained of everything. But upon hearing Gareeku's voice and feeling his hand on her shoulder, she couldn't help but glance up and smile slightly, his reassurance giving her a little more energy again.
She followed his glance up to the ceiling and the ruined stones and statues surrounding the two, with darkness in their every niche. Perhaps it was merely the somber atmosphere causing her to think that way. All of a sudden she felt like kicking herself for being so weak...hope was indeed the greatest weapon they had right then.
Listening to the wolf finish, she shook her head and emitted a quiet laugh as her good hand rested on his arm. "Hm, Mistress Rynkura would knock me right off my feet with that staff of hers and talk quite a bit of sense into me...which I quite richly deserve."
She smiled back, looking up into his soft blue eyes. "But I think you've done that better right now...my apologies. You're right...at least we're alive to face what may come next. That's something they haven't taken from us either." Her tone of voice briefly turned into a determined one. "And they won't."
Before Ketefe could get the answer she was waiting for, Cog spoke up. The feline looked over - and finally saw the blood gouting from where his foot had been. "Oh God..." she breathed, looking wide-eyed at the wolf. He had an odd look in his eyes... In her shock, what he was saying didn't quite register. Around his last sentence, it finally clicked. He was going to... Ketefe's heart began to pound. He'd dove down a chasm to save her, his holy charm was still looped around her neck, he'd helped her kill a Mockery who'd made her feel too guilty to fight properly... Her voice grew frantic as she spoke. "Cog, don't d-"
And then there was a flash of silver as the wolf's knife cut through Sal's thread and he plummeted.
Ketefe's scream echoed throughout the chasm as she grabbed desperately at the severed thread, her endless, pained cry ringing the walls of Hell.
Surprisingly, as Cog cut his lifeline, Ketefe thought she heard a little cry from the spider from up above as well. The latter didn't move, but simply stared as the wolf fell, and then snarled, uttering words that Ketefe could neither pick up clearly nor understand. A minute or so later perhaps, the feline at last felt herself being dragged against the cliff, while the spider panted and cursed above her.
'What was he
thinking?! Bloody... stupid... bastard...!'
Sal crawled onto the ledge with a bit of an effort, and took a few seconds to brace and to catch her breath, before gripping the threads connecting her and Ketefe tight, and starting to pull. The cat was dragged onto the offshot of a cliff, bruised and scratched, until she was safely on solid ground, at which point the spider simply gave in and slumped.
'Fucking melodramatic...! I can't believe...'
'He did the right thing', Stygian said, and Keaton felt herself being pushed forward. Not by something solid. It was more as if the cavern wall had closed in, or the floor shrunk away beneath her. She did not know how, but suddenly, she was at the ledge. 'Let's follow suit.'
Haplessly, the jackal was lifted into the air, hung by something very strongly gripping around her shoulders and neck. Looking to the side, she caught Stygian's off-white arm holding her straight out, right off the edge.
All Keaton could do was stare.
She watched, gazing over the edge of the cliff, as Cogidubnus drew his blade and severed the thread keeping him suspended, allowing him to drop into the miasmal, yawning pit beneath him, utterly helpless and utterly dumbstruck by the cataclysmic events that unfolded. She felt every drop of acid smoldering in her stomach simmer, then evaporate simultaneously into her throat, letting the petrified, shriveled remains drop to the bottom of her body like a heavy stone. Drop, just like Cog, who would undoubtedly be dead after this experience. Keeping herself from imagining his body crumpled like a soda can at the rocky bottom of the pit was becoming a hideously difficult task.
That spider. It was all her fucking fault. All she did was hurt people. All she did was - !
In the next moment, Keaton found herself being lifted by a strong, capable hand, starting to level her into an appropriate position. Ears perking and the tears clearing from her eyes, Keaton glanced up at the one responsible, looking quite befuddled.
Any and all traces of confusion vanished from her features after Stygian dangled Keaton from over the ledge. After that, Keaton screamed, thrashing a little in Stygian's grip, but not moving too drastically, as she was too afraid she would accidentally make him drop her. "S-STYG! What - what are you doing!?" Keaton exclaimed, trying to keep herself from staring down, into the abyss. "STOP! ARE YOU FUCKING - "
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe's scream died at last, replacing itself with wide-eyed, dizzy, panting shock. She searched the dark cavern hopelessly, as if trying to convince herself this was all some cruel joke and she hadn't just watched a trusted ally fall to his far-too-probable death.
She gave a little start when she felt herself being dragged up the side of the cliff, the web somehow holding her as she was scratched and bruised by the rocks. Sal grunted with effort, uttering little grievances about Cog's reckless decision. Ketefe said nothing in protest. Truth be told, the words didn't really register at all. It wasn't the first time she'd seen someone die; no, she'd seen that the first time she took the life of a criminal. But the thought that she could've saved him, if only she'd been a little quicker...
She allowed herself to be hoisted up to a small crag of the cliff, immediately turning and looking once again over the edge for any sign of life. When none came, she turned, shaking just the slightest bit, to Sal. "Why... did you push me?" she said, her voice quiet and a little raw-sounding.
The spider just laid there for a few seconds, looking at Ketefe with what seemed like incredulity. Then she slowly sat herself up, and hissed, clutching at one of her shoulders, obviously in pain. She returned the feline's accusatory look with harsh coldness.
'Because you were the one leading them down there', she said, not minding the slightest if the cat felt some sort of guilt for the situation. 'Because it would have stopped you from going down. Because it would have been better if you
stayed out of here!' she snarled.
In the bitter silence that followed, the low mumblings of rage and madness of the voices in her head seemed a cacophony to Ketefe, making the act of gathering her thoughts that much harder.
An expression of anger on his face, Stygian neared the edge of the cliff path with another step.
'Screw this', he said. 'No more games.' For a second Keaton was raised up, and then she felt the the terrible change to weightlessness. In a moment the air was rushing past her ears. And then, tumbling through the air, she caught a black silhouette with something white at its heart, diving down after her.
He was already dead, so why didn't he stop feeling? It was enough that he was as good as useless and bleeding to death. But it was the foreground to Hell, after all. Perhaps that was why he wasn't allowed to stop suffering right away.
The fall had been too long, and he had been out of it for the most part. So he did not know for just how long or how far it had been. He had stopped roughly, painfully of course. And then he had felt... something near him. Something that had examined him, and then manhandled him further, no surprise, lifting him and throwing him aside like a piece of trash to be discarded. From there, he didn't remember much. For some strange reason though, he felt as if things were getting better. The pain in his... where his foot should have been was gone. And he didn't feel quite as crushed as he had before. As he should have.
Barely at half the capability of his wits and senses, Cog was only vaguely aware of the angelic figure kneeled over him, attending to his wounds. Her voice and face were both familiar though, and he was too glad to be rid of the pain to care much.
A look of pure horror clearly embedded itself into Keaton's features at the sight of Stygian's anger-suffused face, the jackal renewing her thrashing and struggling with increased vigor. No matter how hard she struggled, however, nothing seemed to jostle his grip - not in a way which would positively affect her chances of survival. In fact, all she seemed to do was incense the bat further, much to Keaton's abject horror and slight betrayal. Seemed the jackal hadn't quite comprehended Stygian's purpose behind his actions, or was interpreting it as some sort of indirect punishment for her inadequacies and failures.
"STYG?! NO!" Keaton cried out, trying to pummel his wrist as he extended her over the ledge. "NO! S-STOP, PL-"
Keaton felt Stygian relinquish her, and the air came rushing up into her face as she fell. She plummeted like a stone, flightless and hopeless, her eyes wide and owlish as she stared in suspended shock up at the rapidly-disappearing heavens. She felt water swell in her vision briefly, then let out a horrified screech, long-delayed but containing all the terror in her body.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Back down in Hell's depths, Rynkura found that she could do nothing but let her weariness take over and give her some rest, but with senses still alert. The old demon was still there, for the entire atmosphere had his presence and every so often a pulse of light magic would bring back a shifting hole in the darkness. But there had been no replies to her small bouts of talk. She expected that.
What she didn't expect was a peculiar sound like something being tossed over the rocks...a resounding thump that came to an end when a body was thrown on the dark stone that she was on. And, thankfully, it had missed the pools of lava that made up the final span of the world beneath.
As she looked up with curiosity, her eyes widened. It was the heaped, crumpled body of a familiar silver wolf, with a rapidly-bleeding stump where one foot should have been. "Sir Mithlome!"
Rynkura had forgotten the chains that Asmodai had bound her with when she tried to jump up, her mind racing with questions and concerns, and nearly tripped. But when she did, she felt the repressive metal loosen and suddenly draw back. "Wh..." the white tigress murmured as she watched, slightly confused as to why she was let go. But, she'd have time to ponder over it later...help was needed.
Shaking her sore limbs, she rushed to look him over. He looked barely conscious...expected from such a fall. The first thing she did was remove the sash on her robe for a tourniquet to quell the bleeding. She was thankful that she still had a good reserve of healing magic, which she immediately used to seal his wounds, internal and external, while blocking the pain from his mind. "Just hold on," she said, doubtful if he could hear the Healer, but hopefully it would have done him good to have a rather familiar presence near. "This would go much faster if I had my staff, damn it all...but you are alive." I wish I could see to say enough for the others. I guess I will wait for those answers.
Though she was too busy to feel it, there was an air of dark satisfaction in the underground. Doubtless, the demonic bat found it well in his favor to have two live hostages.
Numb and sticky with blood, nearly and yet somehow not dead, Cog looked at the figure above him with curiosity, as though trying to place her. His mouth moved, and the wolf spoke with a rasp.
"I'm...not dead, am I?" he said, staring at the white tiger blankly.
Listening to Aisha give her account of what Rynkura would say if she had heard of them losing hope or belief, Gareeku laugh softly, smiling at the pantheress as she apologise.
"There is no need to apologise. It is quite understandable how one can lose belief in a place like this." The wolf replied, glancing up at the dark surroundings again for a brief moment. "And no, they will not. For wherever there is hope, there is strength and courage."
As he finished speaking, everything went quiet again. The only sound even vaguely audible was the slight draft that blew softly from the mouth of the gate which Jeremiah had fallen into and Mel had entered. Thinking of how they were doing, Gareeku sighed softly.
"Well I hope Mel and Jeremiah are alright. Especially Jeremiah after that fall." the wolf commented, looking back at the entrance to the catacombs below with a concerned expression on his face. One would imagine a dragon such as Mel would be alright, but then again, this is hell we are dealing with."
Only a few moments after Gareeku had finished speaking had his ears begun twitching. There had been a sound nearby. Fait and muffled, but there had definitely been one. Whirling round to face the direction in which the quiet sound had originated from, the wolf stared into the darkness with his eyes narrowed, his hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed blade as his posture become one of almost combat readiness, even more so as more shuffling sounds were heard. "Maybe it's just me. But we may have company..."
Rynkura was well into her healing, taking attention to the major injuries and leaving the bruises, before she realized that the wolf had spoken. Her eyes had stopped their fierce emerald glow, but would Cogidubnus soon notice, he was still surrounded by a faint and comforting azure aura.
"Oh," she sighed with relief. "Good, you are conscious...and yes, you are alive," the angel, wings hidden, said as glanced back with a reassuring smile before she continued her mending. Soon all he would feel was just mental exhaustion, but it looked that he was slowly coming out of it. "Though I just hope that you will stay that way."
And that you wait to realize that we are in the copy of the ninth circle of Hell...
* * *
Aisha couldn't get rid of her smile as she heard Gareeku speaking, and of everything she agreed with. They still had their lives and their hope, and they would not be getting rid of it anytime soon. Her resolve was once again strengthened, helped along by her comrade, with whom she once again felt grateful that he had chosen to stay with her. Surely, they hadn't seen the end yet.
The quiet that followed however still felt disconcerting. Her gaze moved briefly to view the gate at the altar in the hopes that Mel and Jeremiah were making their way around just fine. Surely it couldn't be too far, all they had to do was turn around...
"Hell's got a lot of tricks to pull, sí...but I doubt they could fool Mel or Jeremiah; I seem to remember they're both pretty good at tricks themselves," she grinned, briefly in her humor actually imagining the pit freezing over if the dragon were to be angered enough.
The lightheartedness wasn't long-lived, however. She tilted her head when she saw the wolf become more alert, his ears turning to listen to a sound. Incidentally it too caught her sensitive hearing, muffled and faint though it was. Aisha slowly glanced around for anything that could sneak up on them from their position.
As Gareeku went for his weapon, she slowly went for her Dragonblade, adopting a grimace on her face. The shuffling continued, and her tail ring could be seen blinking steadily. "You're not alone..." she muttered in reply. "I hear it too."
How predictable is this place...you let your guard down for just a few seconds...
As they watched the darkness and waited for something to emerge, it was as if a sudden chill ran through the chapel and started to catch the two adventurers in its grip, with a shudder sent up the spine as they became more alert. It was supposed to be near dawn, but the shadows felt like they were lengthening, making the place sink deeper into night, as their patience wore thin. Finally there was a tingle at the back of their heads...one that would make them feel as if something was definitely not right. The instinctive thoughts that could come up when one's thoughts are read...or if there were a mind-spider trying to control them...they felt a foreboding, like from their own nightmares...
The shuffling grew louder. There was a blur at the edge of both of their visions. "Gah, show yourself!" Aisha yelled, for she hated that kind of deadly suspense. The huntress drew her sword and held it up, trying not to let her fist quiver, and she could sense Gareeku tensing up next to her as well.
"Oh, how amusing. They're scared," a voice came up suddenly from the shadows...a voice that was both eerily familiar and not familiar at the same time.
"The little whelps," came another one. "They call themselves adventurers? Cowards."
"Cowards..."
Then, two of the shadows seemed to come up and materialize, each into a shape that the other recognized, shredding around them black droplets of mist like hellish ghosts. One grinned at Gareeku, a very familiar demon, with blood staining its claws and carrying in its fist what looked like a bloody white pelt, and its face twisting into what seemed a sickly triumph.
The other, Aisha saw as her heart caught in her throat, and her eyes widened. "Oh, no way, no...no, you're supposed to be dead..." she stuttered.
The ghostly version of Asal, as obscured and dark as he had been the first time, just grinned and held something up in his palm. "I have your father's heart...come and get it..."
"I got him...you can't save him, whelp..." The other mocked towards Gareeku, as the monsters came closer, and looking so very real although they knew they were dead...and all around, more blurs moved swiftly at the edge of their vision.
Ketefe winced a little at the spider's anger, although she did feel the slightest touch of indignation. I only came here to help, she thought, not that I'm very good at that either. She stared at the ground in front of her for a long time, torn over arguing with Sal or working with her, and still feeling a little guilty. On the one hand, she had apparently caused a lot of trouble with the others even before this - but on the other hand, she had just saved the feline's life.
The voices in her head were too noisy for her to think straight; grumblings against Sal mingled with the usual insane switch-personality rants. Be quiet for a second, you stupid bastards! she thought, a little forcefully but more out of tired exasperation than anything. They had to get out of here, and Sal probably wasn't safe to climb right now. Reluctantly, but without very much animosity, she turned to the spider. "How can we get your shoulder fix-"
At that moment, the echo of a scream hit her ears. That voice... oh Gods dammit!
"Keaton!" she shouted, standing immediately in spite of the protesting scratches on her legs and searching the darkness above them for the jackal. No way am I letting another one die!
"Ah." the wolf said wetly, and coughed once. A bit of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "A fall that far, onto solid rock..."
He laughed, and then coughed again, his eyes closing.
Staying on his guard, Gareeku's eyebrows raised slightly when he heard the voices. They sounded...familiar...yet not at the same time, like he had heard the voices before somewhere. Just what the hell was going on?
Then, he saw the silouettes gradually appear from the darkness. Initially blurry as they were on the edge of the two adventurers' vision, they gradually became more defined in their shape, until they started to reveal what they really were, causing Gareeku's eyes to widen in shock and horror at what he saw.
Approaching the two warriors were two very familiar figures. One of which was Asal, the demon who they had defeated some time ago in this very house, now appearing well and truely alive, holding something in his clawed hand...a heart...Aisha's Father's heart, as the demon himself gloated about possessing. But the other figure...
"I got him...you can't save him, whelp..."
"No...you're dead..." Gareeku managed to utter, shaking his head softly as he stared at the demon now in front of him. "I killed you myself, Tilun. You're dead."
"Yet you see me standing here." the lizard demon in front of him replied, a sneer on his face as he spoke, still clutching what looked like a bloody white pelt. "You did not kill me, runt...You are too weak to kill me...You will NEVER kill me..."
Laughing, Tilun held the pelt in his hand higher up, causing Gareeku to look on in horror. There, dangling from the demon's grip, was his father's body. Bloodied and battered, its dead eyes gazed into space as it hung from the Tilun's claws. "As I said, you can't save him. You never could. You're too weak!"
"What's the matter, girl? Don't you want this lovely little momento?" Asal sneered as he held the object in his palm, before holding it up to his face, sickeningly licking it with that smug arrogant smirk on his face. "Mmmm...tastes delicious...you should try some...
Just as Gareeku surely couldn't take his eyes from the Creature in front of him, a beast from his nightmares that looked so fearfully alive, Aisha faced her own demon with a look of such horrendous disgust...her pupils had been swallowed within the red of her eyes to the point of pinpricks. At the sight of the heart, dripping blood through Asal's fingers and disappearing in wisps of shadow on the floor, her stomach felt like heaving.
"What's the matter, girl?" He had said, his voice seething and unnatural, an echo in the air. "Don't you want this lovely little memento?" And then he had proceeded to run his tongue over it...gloating more and more.
Something had snapped in Aisha. Taunting, she could handle. Insults, she could handle.
But against this thing again, the thing that took her arm, her father's life, and nearly her own...she was more than glad to send him back to the grave if she had to.
"Bastard!" The panthress growled in a very feral voice as she suddenly leaped forward. "I KILLED you! You should be DEAD!" Her sword swung in a deadly arc, to cut off the hand holding the heart...
And it missed. The sword had cut through nothing but air and black fog...Asal had disappeared from in front of her, and reappeared behind. She barely caught a flash of a familiar dagger before it almost caught her in the back...Aisha quickly rolled the other way so that it drove itself into the floor instead.
Facing the apparition, it sneered at her. "How about this...I give you the heart...and I take your other arm..."
"You're just an illusion!" she roared and surged forward again. "You all HAVE to be an illusion from hell! How else can't I touch you?!" She looked toward the wolf, and the reptilian that he was faced with. "Gareeku, it's not...AH!" she interrupted herself as she dodged away.
Tilun meanwhile was laughing in that same kind of echoing, ethereal tone, still sneering at the wolf before him as he held the dead body of his father up like he was a trophy from the hunt. "I'm immortal, little fool. Look at what happened to him when he challenged me. And now..." He unceremoniously tossed the body aside and started towards Gareeku. "Now it's YOUR turn."
The apparitions were fast...too fast for the eyes to catch up with. But as the air and the chapel itself looked to be turning into a blurry outline, the same thought had to be going through both of their minds. It's not real...
* * *
Rynkura looked up from her healing to glance at Cogidubnus when he answered. His cough, and the trickle of blood that resulted, told her that he certainly took a more nasty fall than she thought. Most of his internal injuries weren't sealed yet.
She just kept to her work, hoping that she could seal them fast enough.
As the demon before him gloated, Gareeku continued staring, that same look of horror on his face, not being able to take his eyes off of the lifeless body that Tilun held in his grasp...the body of his own father...
"I'm immortal, little fool. Look at what happened to him when he challenged me. And now..." Tilun continued, throwing his father's body off to the side as he began to advance. "Now it's YOUR turn."
"Shut up..." Gareeku muttered, his voice shaking not with fear, but with rage. Both his fists were clenched tight and shaking, his teeth bared in snarl as he glared at the demon before him with pure hatred, yet still the demon continued to gloat. "I SAID SHUT UP!!"
With a roar, the wolf charged forward, unsheathing his katana as he ran forward, before leaping at his foe and bringing his sword down in a powerful two-handed slash. However, he hit nothing but air. His foe had seemingly vanished into a cloud of black fog...
"Boo..." a voice said suddenly said to the side of him. Before Gareeku knew what was happening, Tilun had grabbed the scruff of his neck, with his razor sharp claws digging through his skin, and flung him away with such force that Gareeku bounced off of the floor and then off of the side of a nearby stone column like a rag doll, with the force of the blows causing a large crack to appear in the stone column.
"Like I said...too weak..." Tilun sneered as he walked slowly towards Gareeku, like stalking prey. The wolf meanwhile was trying to get to his feet, winded from the blow as he coughed up a slight amound of blood.
"You...bastard...you're not real..." the wolf managed to utter as he got to his feet, before spying his sword lying a little distance. "You're not real..."
Sneering evilly, Tilun looked at Gareeku, seemingly knowing what he wanted to do, and before the white took one step toward his sword, his demonic foe was upon him, throwing him into the side of the stone column with his clawed hand around his neck, choking the lupine warrior and smiling evilly.
"Oh, I can assure you, Manoko..." The demon whispered into Gareeku's ear. "I'm as real as you can get..."
At Aisha tried to fight him, Asal laughed manically as he sweared and dodged her attacks like they were nothing.
"The reason why you can't touch me..." the demon roared as the two of them fought. "Is because you are too weak!!"
Then, before Aisha knew what was happening, she found herself being swatted away like she was an insect, before landing hard on the floor and skidding for a couple of meters, her weapon luckily landing next to her.
"Absolutely pathetic..." Asal sneered, laughing cruelly as he approached her. "You couldn't beat me with two arms, so what makes you think have a chance with just one?"
Meanwhile, a good couple bajillion feet over several pools of lava deep in the bowels of hell.
The floor excused itself from the proceedings. This kinda sucked for Jeremiah.
Weightlessness overtook him, and the frog tumbled through crumbling mortar and stone no softer for its being in midair. He didn't have time to yelp as they hit him, because the sight that met his gaze below was far more attention grabbing.
A chasm. If the gate he'd tumbled through was the mouth of hell, this was almost certainly its gullet. The single point of red on the bottom didn't bode well either.
He tumbled through the air, profanity after profanity tragically cut short by mid-air bludgeonings until he grabbed hold of one of the falling crates, bracing his knees against it and stabalizing himself as he plummeted downward. Eyes bugging at the drop that he could now consistently see below him there was but one proper reply.
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
The depths of Aisha's frustration couldn't be measured. As they fought, the beast kept disappearing from her sight and reappearing to catch her off-guard. Even with the use of the speed amulet to make the dizzying blurs even more pronounced, her blows were coming away empty. No blood, or flesh, only wisps of gray smoke. Deep down she knew that the...things... that she and Gareeku were facing weren't real.
But while they couldn't touch their opponents, their opponents could hurt them. How was that even possible?
"Augh!" she grunted, trying to twist herself in midair while she was slammed away so that she wouldn't land on her bandaged side. But with the debris lying around on the chapel's floor, her wrappings were becoming damaged, and cuts and bruises appeared on her body; injuries that couldn't be healed fast enough with the bracer she still wore. The air was knocked out of the panthress as she skidded, the sword landing beside her.
"Absolutely pathetic..." Aisha heard Asal growling, nearly hissing, as she tried to pick herself up. "You couldn't beat me with two arms, so what makes you think you have a chance with just one?"
The panthress shook with rage. "I did beat you with one arm...you were burned to a crisp. I can remember it."
"And yet you don't know how..." the demon snorted. "You're even weaker than your pathetic father, if you can't even fight properly! With your power!"
"I'm not weak!" Aisha snarled, rising quickly and grabbing her sword to swing up at him.
But once again he disappeared in a thick cloud with a laugh. "If you are not, then can you still save someone?" the voice crowed. Looking around, she couldn't find any sign of Asal...but she could see the wolf's plight, the demonic reptile holding him up by the neck, against the cracked column.
Aisha's eyes widened. "Gareeku!" she snarled, momentarily forgetting her own trouble as she took her boomerang and aimed to impale it in Tilun's back. The demon however, seemed to notice what was happening, and disappeared into a fog...instead letting go and putting Gareeku himself in the way of the blade.
"No!" the panthress gasped and flung her arm back, also calling back the boomerang just in time. She let it fly past her, not catching it, but she put her hand up to her mouth...in absolute horror of what she had almost done.
"BAH!" Scoffed Asal from behind as he tackled Aisha, pinning her to the floor by her remaining arm while his dagger glimmered in the subtle light. "Fight your own fight, Cabre bitch! Just as I thought, you can't save anyone. You couldn't save your father, or your village."
The jaguaress sneered back with wide jaws and teeth. "I was too young to do anything. I had to run!"
"Run, run, run, like the sniveling little child you still are," the black feline crowed, raising his dagger. Aisha, her rage getting the better of her mind once again, had her claws outstretched and palm glowing...at which point, suddenly, the eyes of the apparition finally held something akin to hesitance...
Tilun had reappeared behind Gareeku after he dropped the wolf, once again kicking him away like one more stone. "What's the matter, puppy? Useless without your blade? Can't you face me? Too afraid?" He kicked him again. "Is that all?"
The floor dissociating itself from acquaintance with her feet didn't provoke a yell from Mel. As a flying creature the feeling of dropping through air was too familiar to discomfort her. Being caught in a hail of bricks and other debris and losing sight of the person she had come to find did provoke several archaic but ladylike curses from the dragon. First she threw out a shielding spell to keep from ending up more injured by debris. The bumps and bruises already accumulated were nothing compared to what would happen if hit by a brick once it achieved velocity. Relatively safe from a broken wing she spread them enough to slow her fall and get above the falling junk pile. Then she tried to locate where amongst the mess the frog's shouts were coming from. At least the volume of sound assured her he wasn't badly hurt yet.
As he fought to breathe under the demon's tight grip, Gareeku's eyes started to roll back as he slowly suffocated, trying his hardest to push the demon away, but only meeting air as he struggled. Suddenly, however, Tilun disappeared once more, causing the white wolf to collapse to his knees, gasping and coughing violently as air was allowed back into his lungs.
Looking up, Gareeku's eyes went wide as he saw what was in front of him. Floating there for a second, barely two inches from his face, was Aisha's blade, having nearly flown into him rather than it's intended target, watching the weapon fly away again.
"Aisha!" the wolf cried out as he saw Asal reappear and tackle her from behind. However, before he could do anything, Gareeku felt a hard blow to his ribs, causing him to yell out slightly as his body was sent skidding along the floor thanks to a kick from his demonic foe.
"What's the matter, puppy? Useless without your blade? Can't you face me? Too afraid?" Gareeku heard Tilun gloat, his voice getting nearer as the wolf tried to pick himself up off the floor, before feeling another hard blow, this time to his head as Tilun kicked him once more, again sending the wolf skidding along the floor.
"Is that all?"
"No..." Gareeku growled, getting back to his feet, renewed energy beginning to flow through his aching and bleeding body as he looked Tilun square in the eye. "It sure as hell isn't."
Noticing this, Tilun stopped in his tracks, looking Gareeku in the eye as well. Hesitance was evident in the demon's face. He could see the hatred in the wolf's eyes, only this time, there was no fear.
Looking at Aisha as he had her pinned down, watching her glowing hands, Asal showed hesitance. Not only that, but he began to back away.
"What is this..." he muttered, before seemingly getting a hold of himself, snarling angrily. "Stupid little wretch! That won't save you!!"
As he dove after the jackal, some unseen force propelling him faster down to catch up with her, Stygian barely growled at Keaton. This sneaking around and stealthy business had turned into something messy and farcical. Probably like the old man had wanted from the very start. By then, he wondered why he hadn't just kept them all from going down in the first place. Even in the worst case I could have died down here in relative peace and taken down this Hellscape with me...
Catching up to Keaton was not a problem. Catching up to the others, or stopping in time if they had somehow managed to break fall might have been. But things appeared pretty much ruined anyway, why he didn't care too much. And it wasn't the hardest of tasks for someone - something - like him.
In the thickening clouds of mist and ash and cinder, he almost missed them. But the moment he spotted the two ragged yet familiar shapes on the outcropping, Stygian hooked an arm around the flailing and screaming Keaton, spreading wings wider than his length many times over, and breaking their fall. Nearly yanking the Succubus up with him, he shot forward toward the cliff, and turned upward in a sharp hook, letting the jackal go so that she was carried just over the edge and then fell together in a heap a little past it. His wings then folded in, their tremendous size almost disappearing, and his feet slammed down into the rock as he landed carelessly, a scowl already on his more and more ghastly face.
'Cog. Where?' were his first words.
Right then, it was as if a light had gone on in both of the warriors' minds and spirits...and thus the room had started to cease its spinning and blurring. Their foes looked less and less like the menacing things that they had once been in life. To defeat the body was victory over the demons. To defeat the soul, or the memory, was victory over their own fears.
Aisha had been surprised to see the glow on her hand. But when it caused Asal to suddenly back away, when it seemed he had his prey right in his sight, the understanding clicked. I knew it. Damn it all back to Hell, I knew it.
The panthress stood up slowly as she heard the feline Creature's words. "Stupid little wretch!" he had snarled. "That won't save you!"
She just watched as the glow faded. But her resolve hadn't gone with it. Summoning a growl from deep in her throat, her red eyes locked onto his ghastly, pupil-less green. He was nothing. The huntress beat him once...she could do it again.
"Oh, yes it will, you piece of filth," she said with a level voice. Then, before the apparition knew what was coming, she had rolled to the side, grabbed the Dragonblade from its place on the floor, and leaped into the air towards him all in one fluid movement.
With a snarl, Asal used his own familiar incomprehensible speed to dodge away from the enraged panthress, with only an inch of air between himself and the sword's tip. "Hah! I still have the upper hand. Old Luc wasn't much faster either," he gloated, still trying to hold on to his bravado and to use it as a weapon against her spirit...but now it almost seemed a futile effort. He came at her in a counterattack...
And his dagger caught nothing but air. Aisha reappeared in just a millisecond...and with the flash of metal, it had actually gone through the thing's side, causing a slight wound as if he were really made of flesh. Though there wasn't as much power in a swing with just one arm, instead of blood, there leaked a black, oily fog. He hissed and roughly pushed her away...but now it was impossible to deter the determined adventurer. She could finally fight back.
Aisha ran to Asal's side and came at him again, the sword coming up in a horizontal arc...
The wolf's eyes...there was something different. Something stronger, in the countenance that hid behind the scar on his brow. The satisfaction that the now-paling Tilun had gotten from managing to inflict his pain on Gareeku was starting to wane as the hatred made itself present. That same hatred...but a different energy.
"Ha-h...don't hide it, you Manoko pest," the reptile snarled...for a second he looked almost as if he stuttered...as he raised his bloody claws. "Just because you can fight doesn't mean that I still can't hurt you! I made a fur coat and meat out of your father, and I'm gonna do the same to YOU!"
Tilun's feet flew, and his claws flashed, in an attempt to attack...
Ketefe watched, like a deer in the face of an oncoming car, feeling helpless yet again. Keaton fell through the misty, soot-laden air like a screaming, panicking rag doll, the feline powerless to save her ...
And then a familiar-looking figure plunged down after her. Keaton was caught and saved by ... was that ... Stygian? I'm sure all this will make sense if I live.
Stygian spread out wings unlike any Ketefe had ever seen, even on dragons, swooped up towards her and Sal, dropped Keaton in a stunned pile on the edge of the cliff, and landed roughly, his face darker than half of what Ketefe had seen that night and his wings folding in neatly.
The cat's gold eyes were wide and uncomprehending. For a moment, she was quiet, a little too shocked at the display to respond to the bat's question at first. Then she blinked, gathered a few of her wits, and pointed off and down the cliff, into the abyss. "He - he fell..." she stuttered out, every muscle tensed in fear.
The 'bat's' pallid, deathly visage turned toward Ketefe as the feline spoke up, but only for a moment. The next, Sal sprang up as if she had been shot from a cannon, claws out and snarling. She only managed to nick Stygian's arm though, before he struck it out, and a piece of the darkness still floating behind him stabbed out. The spider was nailed to the wall, a spear of gleaming black shunted through her shoulder, just under her clavical bone. The spider gasped and gritted her teeth, moaning in pain.
'She says he fell. That means that you didn't throw him. Which is the only thing keeping me from killing you right now', Stygian said harshly, black eyes fixed on the spider, a tiny green gleam to the empty holes they appeared as. I the terror that struck Ketefe didn't seem to affect Salticia nearly as much though.
'T-the only reason... I'm not fighting you unti... until you do...' she rasped out, and then forced a smile through sharp, clenched teeth, '...is because I know you're way worse off.' She hissed, a sound almost like a bitter laugh, and then made as if to move again. The bat preceded her though, stepping closer.
'Yeah. Sure', he said, even more bitterly. 'Goodnight.' A swift, clean twist brought that dark spear back, falling in with the rest of his darkness, and then he kicked the spider in the head. She jerked to the side and slumped, unconscious, to the ground.
Keaton was almost prepared to die. Well, almost. She hadn't quite formulated something akin to silent resolution amidst her hysterical caterwauling. In the middle of her plunge, behind the blind darkness of her sealed eyelids, she felt someone's arms wrap around her and felt her heart balloon maddeningly in her chest, inflating until she was nearly choking on her stifled screams. In the next moment, she was lifted in the same motion and carried over to the outcropping of rock, unceremoniously deposited in a safe spot. Keaton almost thought that she had somehow hit the bottom of the cavern, only for that theory to be dispelled when she opened her eyes. Stygian was menacing the spider bitch, leaving Keaton somewhat stunned, her hair disarrayed and her face cadaverously pale.
Then, Stygian knocked the spider unconscious by kicking her in the head. Keaton was too nauseous and ruminating on her vestigial panic to feel satisfied at the swift output of pain the spider issued. Nervously, Keaton remained plastered to the ground, her pupils pinpricked and her mind emitting nothing more than a terrified equivalent of an output of static in place of rational thought. She still hadn't quite grasped the fact that she was alive, judging by the way Keaton's pallid fingers curled inward as they gripped the disrupted soil and stone beneath her.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe shivered a bit in Stygian's momentary gaze, then winced as he started to fight Sal. For once in her life, she was sick of violence. The feline turned her attention to Keaton; the succubus seemed to be in a bad way. Now that she could say from experience that falling off a cliff was not a fun experience - and seemed to be worsened by sudden stops, even if they were life-saving - she understood.
The swordswoman slowly walked over to Keaton and crouched down. "Are you alright?" she asked, her voice quiet, partly from her own shock, and partly so as not to distress the jackal any more.
Keaton only seemed to be half-aware of Ketefe talking to her when the masked feline approached her. The Succubus was still shaking a little bit and struggling to register her surroundings, as though she was still maintaining the mental illusion of descent and was finding it hard to believe that her environment was remaining in the same place. Up until Ketefe crouched beside her, Keaton stayed this way, after which she blinked and stared quizzically at the orchid-striped feline. She seemed a little bereft of speech.
"M-Me?" Keaton asked. She then blurted with genuine concern, "What are you asking me for? You're the one who got abducted by that spider bitch! Are you alright?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe was almost surprised by Keaton's concern... and then she remembered that the jackal had watched her get shoved off a cliff and Cog dive after her.
"I'm not hurt that bad, just a little scratched up," she assured the jackal. "But... Cog ... " she paused for a moment, a lump rising in her throat.
"We were about to fall in... and she saved us - " at this she gestured to the uncoscious spider - " - but Cog... he'd lost his foot. It got scraped off by the cliff when he summoned that tornado to get us out. Then he cut the web and..." She couldn't go any further than that. The memory had robbed her of her voice. She bit her lip and looked at the dirt, afraid of how Keaton would react.
Far above
The crate he was braced against shattered against the cavern wall in a shower of splinters and knicknacks contained within, sending the frog careening across open air. He briefly wondered why all the bricks HURT so much when he was falling WITH them. Then again, just because I'm moving under the same amount of acceleration wouldn't exactly mean that I'm moving under the same amount of energy. The terminal velocity of a furrae body is less than that of a brick, isn't i- And then a piece of masonry smashed his jaw as it went by. "AULGH!" Jeremiah tumbled onward end over end, his profanities now intermixed with blood. And all he could think was So many other people could deal with this better.
Oh, not this pity me shit again.
Bal...
... You didn't reply with a shaddap.
We're fucked. All of us, well and truly fucked. We're dead because I'm a fucking clutz. 'Whoop, sorry, fell into hell!' Just thump.
You need not feel guilty for all our deaths, sir. Although if you only listened to me more-
I don't feel guilty about all our deaths. Hell, I've pretty much been looking for ways to kill you lot for a while. My death's going to suck though.
No.
You don't think it will, Nex? I dunno, high velocity impact sounds pretty awful. I hit and this pencil neck's gonna snap, I'm gonna get to find out if a head actually does stay alive for eleven seconds-
Not waiting for Jeremiah to get it, Nex fired up. A woman of blue fire, falling alongside the frog. Then just the art teacher wreathed in blue flames.
In and the Lunacy exchanged a Look.
Mel, her wings flapping gently to keep her descent above the debris field, tried to locate Jeremiah. This wasn't as simple as it would seem as the moving mass also contained all the stuffed toys from storage room. Eventually it was the screams that betrayed his position. She was just flipping herself over into a dive to catch up with him when he burst into flames. Staying back she tried to think of some way to stop his plunge without actually coming into contact with the fire. A half-remembered childhood spell tried to surface. She cast it at the frog, hoping her memory of it was accurate. It was supposed to slow and cushion a fall, a safety spell for young dragons just learning to fly. But the spell was never intended for a crash from such heights and she rather doubted that frogs had the same crash tolerance as dragons so she had to keep thinking.
Something, a blue flame, flickered in the dark, and Stygian's face turned, his white hair flowing around his face as if immersed in water. Looking up, he narrowed his eyes, and growled beneath his breath, before returning his gaze to the two girls in front of him.
'We must continue. Down', he said, voice steely cold and hard. In its chill, his look seemed almost contemptuous as he stared the two women down, as if somehow blaming them for not being able to fly down on their own. Whether if this was the case or not, there was no way to tell. 'If you stay and cower here, you will die.'
Turning on his heel, his wings sweeping a thin gust against them, Stygian moved toward the edge.
Under Stygian's accusatory glare, Keaton withered palpably, her shoulders crumpling inward pathetically and her ears wilting. She shook; water seeming to swell into her vision momentarily, as though she somehow wholeheartedly embraced the brunt of the blame Stygian distributed. After a moment, she felt irrational rage swell in her again, and she grit her teeth, suddenly feeling spiteful toward the bat. If he was so fucking powerful, why didn't he come and help them to begin with instead of pinning the blame on the poor, weak little INSECTS!? Bastard! She -
It wasn't my fault, you piece of shit, Keaton thought miserably, then stood up, folding her arms over her bosom. Catastrophe was still gripped in her hand, and Rynkura's staff was tucked in Catastrophe's holster on her back.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The brief relapse into her guilt was interrupted by Stygian. She looked up at him, her face mostly blank, but fear still in her eyes. It was getting to be too much; she'd only wanted to stay in the castle long enough to figure out what was going on two nights ago, not get dragged into Hell itself. No, that wasn't the worst part; she'd walked in willingly, and all she'd really managed to do so far was get possessed and cause a comrade to fall to his death.
The quasi-hateful look in Stygian's eyes wasn't really helping either, but after a beat, she stopped dwelling on it and stood, albeit shakily. "Okay," she said, almost whispering, and took a small, unsure step toward Stygian.
Watching down into the depths a bit, Stygian raised his eyes, and peered upward next. There was that blue flicker, yes... And he could feel the ward that he had laid earlier coming closer. So he waited for a bit, focusing, collecting his thoughts and blocking out the heat as well as he could. He felt as bad as Keaton and Ketefe looked, both scraped and torn up and looking as if they could use both a shower and perhaps a splint or two. And then there was Sal. As a last measure, he turned, and conjured up some darkness that wrapped itself tight around the spider's form, taking the shape of chains. He left it at that. He doubted those were going to hold her too.
The pallid blue light above at last came into such range that it was visible for both of the girls, and they understood at last what Stygian had been looking at, though not really what it was. The bat though, seemed to take this as a sign, watching the burning thing storming downward, about to pass them in just a few seconds. Turning to Ketefe, he looked down at the feline.
'What do you prefer? Freefall or that I hold you?' he asked. He didn't give her any real time to answer though. As soon as he finished the sentence, he swept his wings back, and they extended with a rush of air and dust. Placing a hand on Ketefe's back, he pulled her to him, and then did the same with Keaton, except with his wing rather than his hand because of teh distance. A quick push toward the edge, and they were plunged off the side of the cliff, plummeting downward again.
Ketefe said nothing for the most part, just looked up at Stygian expectantly. A few drips of sweat trickled down her body, but because they somehow avoided the cuts and scrapes all over her, she didn't mind. She was acting a bit more unresponsive than usual, looking at her surroundings without really taking much in. It had been a long time since she'd felt powerless. This was different from simply knowing she wasn't strong enough to take on an enemy... this was an odd sense of helplessness that typically only children understood. She looked with detached interest at the dark chains holding Sal before something shiny worked its way into the corner of her eye.
She turned her head and saw the blue flames falling through the air. It was getting closer by the minute, but somehow the feline didn't think this was Hell's doing... She looked back at Stygian quickly when he asked his question, but before she could so much as take in a breath to answer, she felt a hand on her back and realized she didn't have a choice in the matter. She and Keaton were pulled over to Stygian and then found themselves both plummeting into Hell for the second time that night.
Ketefe reached out quickly to grab Keaton's arm, grit her teeth shut almost painfully and tried to twist her head up towards the cliff face that was getting smaller by the second. She was sick of screaming; it made her throat hurt and it didn't solve anything. And Stygian's question, pointless even if it was the polite thing to do, revealed to her that he didn't intend for them to fall to their deaths. Meaning he'd be following shortly... right? Right?
Surprisingly, Keaton didn't resist or scream after Stygian threw her off the cliff again, considering he had given her fair warning, and she was within his range with the assistance of his wing. There was just a short exclamation on her part as she was thrown off, bluntly tapering away into immediate silence as Stygian used his wing to shepherd her to his body. Whether or not she actually screamed, however, did not determine Keaton's fear. Clutching Catastrophe tighter and squeezing her eyes shut, Keaton tried to keep herself from flailing pathetically in mid-air, attempting to regain some semblance of direction even when falling. Hopefully, she thought, the bat would follow both her and Ketefe.
Keaton felt Ketefe's hand grab her arm and her eyes shot open. Pupils pinpricking, she felt one of her hyperventilations catch in her throat and balloon painfully, to the point her throat ached. Admittedly, having Ketefe hold her arm came of some relief, as embarrassing as admitting such a thing was, because at least it reassured her that she wasn't being thrown to her death.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Already moving after the women, Stygian cast one quick look at that burning blue torch, falling through the black around them, and then folded his wings in, stepping over the ledge and falling after the jackal and the feline. He immediately struck out with his darkness, using it to defy the greater drag that his clothes and larger form imparted, and to propel himself downward to catch them both in flight. When almost level with them though, he spun mid-air, and turned his gaze upward to watch the blue fire, which was getting closer somehow. From the start, he had anticipated that someone might come down after them, but not a single person. And blue fire was not something that he immediately associated with anyone out of the people who had entered the castle. Thus, whatever it was that was closing with them, it might have to be destroyed...
The further into the pit they dropped the darker it got. Soon Mel was having trouble staying away from the falling debris and the walls of the abyss. The only things she could see were the blue flames around Jeremiah and spots of orange in the distance that she had the alarmed idea were lava. She angled her wings to slow her descent. A river of fire was a nightmare. If Jeremiah fell into that there was no rescue. She had better start thinking of ways to stop the plunge.
As he stood there, staring at his demonic foe with that mixed look of hatred and determination, Gareeku listened as the apparition spoke once more, only this time it seemed as though the creature stuttered.
"Ha-h...don't hide it, you Manoko pest," the reptile had snarled. "Just because you can fight doesn't mean that I still can't hurt you! I made a fur coat and meat out of your father, and I'm gonna do the same to YOU!"
As soon as the demon had finished, he was fast approaching, his claws were ready to do damage, stained with the wolf's blood as the creature moved in for an attack.
"No..." Gareeku stated firmly, before his hands were suddenly surrounded by bright magical energy. "...you won't."
Hearing this only enraged the demon, and roared as he swiped at the wolf with his razor-sharp claws. However, the attempted attack was clumsy due to Tilun's rage, and Gareeku was able to dodge to the side, seeing that the demon had left his midsection exposed. Lifting his leg as hard as he could, the wolf sent his knee crashing into Tilun's midsection, burying itself into the demon's gut as his foe gasped for air, having had it completely knocked out of him.
No sooner had his knee struck his foe, the wolf then sent a glowing fist crashing into Tilun's jaw, before quickly opening his hand and letting fly a bolt of magic, the force of which caused the demon's body to fly back a few metres. Getting back onto his feet, Tilun snarled with rage, furious that he had been floored by his lupine foe.
"You WORM!!" the demon roared with fury, his "blood" seeping from the corner of his mouth in the form of black fog. "How DARE you!!"
"What the matter? Afraid from a few hits from a 'weakling' like me?" Gareeku replied in a firm level voice, standing there with his eyes fixed on the demon as his hands continued to glow. "How embarassing for you."
Snarling, Asal watched as Aisha began to make another attack. Quickly stepping back, the demon watched as the blade missed him by less than an inch, feeling the disturbance in the air the weapon made as it moved. Frustration was beginning to grow more and more within him; frustration over how someone like her could be this formidable.
"Time to say goodnight!" Asal roared as he made a counter attack, bringing his dagger and claws in towards the pantheress' throat as he looked to end the battle.
An adrenaline-soaked Aisha was only vaguely aware of the bruises she had gotten from the battle, as was Gareeku, their focus having returned. The room was returning back to its normal state, a decrepit and destroyed chapel with these damnable ghosts...spirits...demons...whatever they were, starting to lose their powers over the warriors' minds. But though they had started to bleed black fog, there was still a little bit of fight left in them. Whoever sent them after the two, they certainly made sure of it.
Aisha's sword was a blur as it came down with great speed, but only half the force...the last move made no dent in the creature's "flesh". Instead, Asal felt the wind from the shining blade as it barely reached him. He saw an opening as the panthress stumbled. She was exposed, and couldn't easily speed out of it.
"Time to say goodnight!" the other feline declared, his claws and dagger just a mere few steps away from tasting blood. It was almost like slow-motion for them both all of a sudden. She couldn't run...
But she could duck. And that's just what she did, his dagger just an inch from slicing her scalp as it came in. At the same time, she jammed her sword back and up into his stomach as he flew over.
She was showered with the blood that came of it, and her ears rang with his scream. Though the entity wasn't truly living, he had another shot...which came with his dagger driving itself part-way into her leg. Then it was her turn to cry out in pain, both of them shoving each other away.
Facing her, Asal held his open midsection, and Aisha's trouser leg was beginning to rapidly stain. "Aren't you going to give up yet, adventurer?" He scowled. "Aren't you feeling the sting?"
Aisha drew in a harsh breath. Yes, she was. But that didn't mean she was out. She held her arm, still holding the sword, outstretched. "No, but you will." Then, in a fluid motion, brought it back again. When she sidestepped, he could barely hear the boomerang whizzing from where it lay behind him, about to embed itself in his back...
Just like Asal, Tilun couldn't understand it. He thought had the wolf. HAD him! Had his mind right in his clutches only to have it melt right out. But the demonic lizard was far too determined for his own good, and the wolf stood there, brazen and defiant...foolish...
He tried to ignore his own blood as he got back up on shaky limbs after that attack of magic, and started to laugh. "How dare you embarrass me," he hissed. "I'll pay you back. I'm always going to be there in your nightmares. Never to be rid of. What's more, I'll give you TEN more scars like the one on your head, before the night's through!"
The beast licked his teeth, ready to taste blood, and dashed towards Gareeku with a good amount of speed...leaping into a kick with one clawed foot, ready to eviscerate his foe...
As stood there, Gareeku listened to what Tilun said; declarin how he would always remain in the wolf's nightmares, how he was going to give him ten more scars like the one on his forehead before the night was through.
"Back up your words, demon!" Gareeku roared in defiance. "Come and get me!"
And so Tilun advanced, dashing forward before bringing into a kick, the razor-sharp claws on his foot ready to deal out maximum damage. Gareeku, however, had other ideas. Barely managing to get out of the way of the kick, the wolf would then be taken by painful surprise as the claws on Tilun's claws caught his face, tearing the flesh and leaving him with three very painful-looking gashes on the side of his face as he was sent crashing to the floor. Breathing in sharply from the pain, the wolf brought his hand to his face as his demonic foe looked on with a smirk.
"You see? You can show all the bravado you want, be defiant all you like..." The demon sneered beginning to walk towards the downed wolf as Tilun's hand dripped with his blood. "But you will NEVER be rid of me...I will always be there, laughing at you, and you will always know that you are nothing more than a pathetic weakling. Just like your father."
Now standing over Gareeku, Tilun looked down and smirked, raising his clawed hand for the final blow.
"Any last words, weakling?" The reptilian demon asked mockingly, snickering as he held his clawed hand ready.
"This weakling..." Gareeku growled, raising his head to look Tilun square in the eye; hatred and defiance evident in his face. "...will END YOU!!"
Watching in surprise as the white wolf suddenly sprang foward, Tilun suddenly realised where his foe had landed; right next to his katana. With a roar of defiance and anger, Gareeku gripped the weapon firmly in his hand and drove it right into the demon's thigh, creating a wound that caused the black fog-like 'blood' to spill out in abundance, before swiping the sword to one side and then to the side, completely severing the leg from the body and causing even more 'blood' to spew forth.
Crying out in pain, Tilun tried to step back, but instead fell to the floor, clutching what remained of his leg as he hissed in pain and rage.
"You little shit..." the reptilian demon hissed with demon as he looked up at Gareeku, both of their eyes filled with hatred for one another.
"This ends now!" the wolf roared, holding his blade above his head before bringing it down for a finishing blow. However, much to his surprise, Gareeku found that Tilun still had more than plenty of fight left in him, managing to dodge Gareeku's attemped stike and getting back onto his remaining foot, before lunging forward at the adventurer in an all-or-nothing attack.
It all happened so fast...a flash of metal...the swipe of claws...
"It's over..." Gareeku muttered, holding his blade steady as he looked Tilun in the eye, who's face was inches away. The wolf had reacted swiftly to the reptilian demon's attempted attack, and stuck his katana out so that Tilun impaled himself on it thanks to the momentum he had created in his attempted attack. A look of pure shock was on the demon's face, looking down at the sword, which was inside him, before looking back up at Gareeku; a look of steady hatred on his face.
"No...NO!"
In one swift movement, Gareeku brought his sword up in a powerful upwards slash, causing Tilun to scream in pain as the blade sliced vertically right through his body, cutting the demon almost clean in half, before bringing down the blade in an equally powerful downwards vertical slash, ensuring that his foe was sliced completely in two... as his midsection became a pool of crimson...falling to the floor...
"...Be gone from my nightmares..."
The look of anger on Asal's face turned to one of slight confusion when he heard pantheress speak of him feeling the sting.
"Not likely, Cabre bitch." the demon snarled angrily. However, it would be then that Asal's face would turn to one of shock and agony, screaming in pain and stumbling backwards as Aisha's boomerang hit home, slicing into his back. The black fog-like 'blood' was now gushing from both his back and his midsection.
"You...BITCH!! the demon roared in fury. His anger had finally gotten the better of them, and in his rage and desire to kill the pantheress, Asal charged at his foe, razor-sharp claws ready and looking to end the battle there and then....
As the Tilun apparition faded from existence, his final thoughts were nothing but curses...wondering how this weakling of a wolf could have bested him...but all that could come out was a garbled scream as the black foggy "blood" engulfed the space and he started to be swallowed into the air in front of Gareeku, slowly out of existence. With one of them dead, the nightmarish atmosphere started to fade...
The boomerang hit its mark, to Aisha's brief but eternal relief, causing Asal to stumble. The panthress had been waiting for the look on his face to turn into one of agonizing pain...and to show the fear that came from knowing that he was about to be bested. Fog was pouring forth from both sides of his body. He looked ragged and weak, more like a feral demon and less of the eloquent, smooth-talking bastard that he once was.
His expression then turned to one of rage, and she braced herself...he wasn't down and out yet, but he was quickly getting there. The huntress had to end it, and soon.
"You...BITCH!!!" He roared, his ghastly voice fiery and venomous, as he brandished his claws and charged for Aisha. The panthress could barely register his speed as he flew at her...all she could do was dodge by ducking to the side...which caused his claws to dig into the uncovered skin of her left side and leave prominent scratch marks.
The momentum of the blow caused her to be tossed off to the side, landing hard on her back. Bleeding and in pain, a little too much for her bracer to fix quickly, Aisha looked up to see a harshly-breathing Asal approaching her from the shadows. He looked insane, mad with rage, poisonous eyes glowing. "You're gonna pay for that...I'll be tasting YOUR heart while you're still alive!" The demon raised his claws...
Snarling, Aisha summoned the strength to hold her hand out again, fingers clenched. Asal paused, feeling the boomerang moving in his spine.
"I got a better idea," Aisha simply answered, and pulled her arm back. With a sickening lurch, the bladed tip embedded itself further in his spine, its magic enchantment answering the call to come back to her. Then, before he could attack, something moved...
The flash of the Dragonblade filled the air...and the demon found himself down one limb. A cloud of fog poured out from where his left arm was once attached. The scream that followed was more out of shock than pain. He reared back, facing a grinning panthress with wide green eyes.
"You little insect! What have you DONE!? I'll KILL you, insignificant little beast of a Being, I'll KILL...AUGH!"
He was interrupted when her sword drove itself through his neck...his words turning into incomprehensible gargles instead. His other arm went lax and limp. That fear finally crossed his eyes. Aisha could smell the "blood", but she was far from caring anymore. Her blood-red eyes were up close to the demon's, dark and fueled with vengeance.
"I'm through with you. Go to hell, and don't come back."
Then in one swift movement, she twisted the sword and sliced through the demon's neck, severing his head. The black foggy blood showered from his wound and covered the ground as the apparition fell to its knees, and then to the ground. The scream it released was ear-shattering, echoing through the warped air of the chapel and hurting both warriors' ears.
Slowly, too slowly, the screams from both of the demons faded. It soon became quiet again...the nightmarish world was almost gone, turned back into the real, worn-out chapel with Hell's gate still guarded at the altar.
Aisha, breathing harshly, watched her foe turn into dust before her eyes, a smirk crossing her pained and sweating face. "It's gone...they're gone...idiot demons, what'd they think they were...ugh, shit..."
The panthress briefly dropped to her knees, exhausted. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the reality of her injuries came back. She glanced back towards Gareeku, hoping that he was faring better.
As Gareeku watched Asal and Tilun disappear, their screams of agony piercing through the air, the wolf closed his eyes as the nightmarish environment faded into what it was before.
"It is finished..." the warrior muttered quietly. "...Gone back to where he came from..."
Gareeku slowly one step back, then two. His sword dropped from his hand to the floor.
"...Be gone...from my nightmares..."
The wolf's legs then gave away, causing him to fall to the floor, his midsection and his hand covered it stained red.
As soon as she had turned to look, hearing Gareeku mutter and his sword clatter on the ground, Aisha's eyes widened in shock as her friend collapsed to the floor...covered in blood. Real blood.
"Oh no...no, Gareeku!" The panthress cried, instantly forgetting her own injuries as she stood and half-ran, half-hobbled to the wolf's aid. Urgency swept through her mind and a curse kept itself on her tongue. She couldn't let him be hurt, and certainly not in this place. The chapel was quiet...but by now it was learned that quiet could be deceptive. Aisha hoped and prayed that for the next few moments they would have peace and solace.
"Gareeku, are you alright?" She practically fell on her knees next to him, breathing fiercely from a mix of her exhaustion and pain, looking him over and shaking her head as she gently removed his hand from his midsection to look it over.
"Gods, this is one of those times I wish one of the healers would've stayed behind..." she muttered and looked around quickly. Aisha was supposed to know something about healing, certainly there was something to help... "How hurt are you? Can you sit up?" Aisha asked, looking down at his face with worry in her tone and concern in her eyes. She spotted his cloak, and strained to reach and grab it, and see if any bleeding needed to be stemmed.
Breathing heavily, Gareeku's eyes were shut. It felt like his whole body was on fire. The damage caused by the recent battle had just caught with him, and dear Gods did it hurt, especially his midsection, which was now well and truely stained a deep crimson colour.
When Aisha asked her first question, the wolf only groaned softly as she gently lifted the hand covered his midsection. When she did so, blood poured more from the deep gash now present in Gareeku's midsection for a couple of seconds, before the lupine warrior clamped his hand back over the wound again.
"How...hurt am I...?" Gareeku managed to utter, he teeth bared as he grimaced in pain. "Take a...wild guess..."
When Aisha asked if he could sit up, the wolf attempted to do so, only for him to growl loudly in pain when he tried to do so. Rolling over, Gareeku managed to bring himself to his hands and knees, his limbs shaking weakly as he did so. "Are...you ok...?"
Aisha watched Gareeku while she took his cloak, and gritted her teeth herself upon seeing him in such pain. She could definitely guess, from the look on his face and his voice, that it was more than agonizing. But she could breathe a sigh of relief that he was indeed alive...and she was going to help keep it that way.
"Hold still..." she softly muttered, carefully wrapping the cloak around his midsection. Hearing his voice, Aisha smiled. "Don't worry about me...I just got a few...erg..." she winced once, shifting her injured limb, easily seen with the blood on her trouser leg. "...A few scratches and a pinprick. It's you I'm more worried about. I'm just glad you're alive." Carefully she tied the fabric around him, tightly like a large bandage.
When she finished, her hands too were stained. "There...and here, you'll need this more than I do right now..." Aisha said as she tried with a bit of difficulty to open the healing bracer with her teeth. As it fell from her wrist, her eyes squinted as the magic was fading from her, the pain of her own injuries more apparent. But if it helped him, then she didn't care.
"Your pain will be lessened. A lot. And it protects from infection..." she said, and offered it to him to snap it on. "And...you just relax," she said, managing a smile on her battered features.
As Aisha replied to his question, Gareeku looked at the injuries she has sustained in the battle with the Asal apparition, in particular the stab wound she had received to her leg. As Aisha tightened his cloak around his waist like a large bandage, the wolf grunted as a sharp pain very briefly made itself present in his midsection.
Watching the pantheress take off her bracer and speak of how he needed it, a look of concern became evident on Gareeku's face.
"But Aisha...your injuries...I..." the wolf began, but it was plain to see that Aisha wasn't going to take no for an answer, and so he took it from her and fastened the bracer to his wrist.
Looking back up at pantheress, Gareeku smiled weakly through his battered features. Cuts and bruises were littered all over his head and body, and his clothes were severly damaged; his top was in tatters, especially, exposing the beaten and bruised torso underneath. Looking at the wound on Aisha's leg, the lupine warrior then ripped off what remained of his top, before bending down on one knee and, before Aisha could protest or anything, wrapped it around the wound, fastening the fabric tightly around the leg.
"I think I need to sit down..." the wolf muttered, before limping over to a nearby seat and, wincing as he did so, sat himself down, breathing heavily as his body continued to ache, though not as much as it was thanks to the bracer. Looking at Aisha, Gareeku smiled somewhat, though there was a look of concern in his eyes. "...you ok?"
When he took the bracer, Aisha smiled, relieved. She wouldn't have let him carry on his pain like that if she could help it. The way his bruises littered his body, and the deep scratches on his face; he was in worse shape than she was, that she knew.
But then, before anything else could be said, Gareeku had taken what remained of his shirt and started to wrap up the stab wound on her leg. Her reply was a sharp intake of breath, testament to the pain in her nerves as the injury was sealed with the stained and tattered fabric. Still, she allowed him to finish, and the bleeding there was stemmed. "You didn't...have to do that..." she said with a wince, though the look she gave him was one of grateful thanks.
As the wolf started to move to a seat, the panthress kept with him, helping him to keep his footing. As she moved too, though, it was apparent that she was not only feeling the fatigue from this battle, but a small remnant of the previous ones, as well. In her mind, she prayed that nothing else would dare come after them...and wondered what the others were doing back underground...they seemed to be taking their sweet time.
At least right now the warriors were at peace...one battle behind them, and for them both, one more nightmare gone. As she sat down beside Gareeku, Aisha chuckled as she heard his words, lightly holding her leg as she lay back on the seat and glanced over to see his concerned look. "I'll be alright, Gar, thanks...I just need a little rest too, promise." She moved her hand up to lay it on his shoulder, smiling. "Long as you're okay. You fought a fierce one."
She closed her eyes briefly, gritting her teeth and trying to forget the stinging for the moment. "They could've had us."
The lack of a response, of time, and of patience with pretty much anything at this point, settled Stygian's mind for him. Folding his huge wings in, and turning his back against Keaton and Ketefe below, he struck out with a clawed hand, darkness following his command. A shape swirled, took form, solidified and threw itself up against the blue flame, greenish eyes opening and gleaming in the nothingness and fangs the size of daggers, churning and sizzling, snapped apart as it headed for the falling light, intent on swallowing and crushing whatever the source of it might be.
Jeremiah was rather happy, at the moment. Lucid, no, but happy. A small blessing of his curse was that when he was woozy from energy loss he may very well be too dumb to tell how much trouble it was getting him into. Isolated as Nex was keeping him, all he could really tell was that everything was moving fast and wooshing. He was worried a minute ago, but it was probably over something silly. Nothing bad was happening right now.
Then something tried to eat him.
The frog looked up (that is to say, at his feet) at whatever he'd just crashed into. Some toothy thing with green eyes was looping around for another go at him, ignoring Mel as something other than the primary target. Its shape wasn't really a constant feature; at the apex of its arc it was already changing from some perverse hybrid of an anglerfish and a bicycle to something lamprey-mouthed and shrieking.
Jeremiah wondered what it wanted. The monstrous Stygian Fragment slammed into Nex's shield again, ricocheting the shielded frog off the chasm wall before falling past.
Still hanging back and away from the blue flames Mel almost didn't see the first attack on Jeremiah. Her night vision wasn't as strong as some of the party members and it was only when the glowing acid-green eyes came quite near that she realized hell was finally acknowledging their presence. She didn't think she could stop the creature going after Jeremiah without harming him more than it. Hoping to draw it away she folded her wings and dove downward, through the layer of bricks and rubbish and rapidly away from the frog. If she kept the orange glow in sight hopefully she wouldn't crash into anything big enough to break her neck.
Clenching his teeth and snarling to himself, it was with an expression of grave irritation that Stygian at last realized the situation, and dissipated the rushing darkness right before it had another snap at Jeremiah. Twisting, he watched Mel falling along for a few seconds, before calling out.
'Stay with us! I have the girls, but something has to stop Jeremiah before he hits the bottom!'. He spun half another lap and then tucked his arms in, diving like an arrow. Somehow catching up to the jackal and cat falling below, he at last reached out, and then grabbed them both firmly by the back of their pants, gripping their belts. The sudden slowing of speed as the bat spread his wings again was almost a jerk, but it wasn't so much the cut in speed as the slowly, yet all too quickly approaching sight of fire, in massive amounts, that stole the air from them.
As he sat there, Gareeku breathed slowly in and out, his eyes closed for a minute or so, before opening them as they looked up to the dark ceiling above. After the loud sounds of battle, the chapel seemed almost eerily quiet as he and Aisha rested their aching bodies.
When Aisha replied, the wolf smiled, glad to hear that she would be ok. Listening to her speak, Gareeku nodded his head in acknowledgement as the smile disappeared somewhat, thinking about what the pantheress had said.
"Yes...they could have..." he said softly, before a slight smile appeared on his face. "...but they didn't."
The unholy feeling that the chapel had just wouldn't go away, it seemed...after the fight, she too could see how the almost-dead silence was unnerving, bar for the comfort of their own voices as they conversed despite the pain. Aisha listened to Gareeku's breathing, and her own, as they took their much-needed rest.
Glancing up at the wolf, she nodded in solemn agreement with a slightly victorious smirk. "Yeah, sí, they didn't...and, it's a pretty good feeling if...you can brag, that you not only defeated a monster...but also its ghost...if that's what they were." She grimaced briefly from a sting in her side. "Bold demons. If they want us to go to hell...too bad, we aren't moving."
Aisha was quiet for a few moments as the dust was settling. Sometimes a portion of marble would crumble from the force it had seen, and sometimes she thought she could hear a fluttering of some sort, the result of a ringing in her ears. "By the way," she said, glancing up. "Losing control of my boomerang, back there, and almost hitting you...sorry about that...I don't know what I would have done if I had...lost someone else."
With the glow from the lava below making the passage increasingly brighter Mel was finally able to get shadowy glimpses of things again. Vague sight combined with his shout told her that the figure confronting them was Stygian. At his command to stay with Jeremiah she spread her wings to slow her downward progress so she could pace the frog. She was still trying to think how to slow his fall but a sudden stop from magic wasn't really much better than a sudden stop from stone.
Listening to Aisha, Gareeku smirked as she spoke of sending the demons they had just finished fighting back from where they had come.
"Indeed. They are back in hell." the wolf replied. "Where they belong."
It was then that the pantheress spoke of nearly losing her control, almost accidently harming him as a potential result. To this, Gareeku shook his head.
"It is best not to think about it. It didn't happen, and it is in the past. You have nothing to be sorry for. Tilun moved out of the way, that's all." the lupine said. "Don't worry about it. You didn't lose me. I'm far too stubborn for that."
As Aisha listened to the wolf, reassuring her that the incident was indeed in the past, she couldn't help but smile at his words. "Yeah...what am I worried about...your stubbornness is legendary," she teased Gareeku with a soft laugh, before letting her expression become slightly serious again.
"It's just something I can't help but fear. Since I lost my mother...father...brother...everyone I've truly cared about...and now my mentor, with the chance of being trapped down there..." the feline said with a glance toward the altar. It could easily be discerned, without really being said, that the only thing Aisha really feared was having it happen all over again. Especially with her mentor, and especially with the one sitting beside her.
She shook her head with a thoughtful hum. "Maybe I'm just letting this place get to me." Aisha then put on a light smile once again. "Know what though...if this all ends and we all survive...I like to imagine there's gonna be a hell of a party."
Swinging both Keaton and Ketefe up as he made a long, sweeping turn, leveling out, Stygian aimed for a platform far off to the right. He slowed down, and pulled up just when he flew up over the edge, but it was still a rough landing. At least they landed with their feet to the ground, but neither was probably as used to hard hits as the bat, and both were still going forward somewhat fast. Stygian however simply spun in the air, and then slammed down to a dead stop right past them, wings disappearing like smoke. He didn't miss a beat. Standing straight, he walked past them both, solid-faced and grim.
If Aisha knew just how prophetic her words were, regarding the situation of those trapped below, perhaps she wouldn't have spoken.
Though he was out cold, a sensation of warmth could have been lightly sensed by Cogidubnus as Rynkura's healing energy kept itself going, slowly but surely repairing his injuries inside and out. Any sensation of pain or bits of pressure was blocked within his mind.
The tigress herself however was frustrated. The question of whether or not the others have survived wouldn't let itself rest. Of course she knew that Asmodai, hiding somewhere, may have known. Not that she would bother asking...the very clue that they weren't destroyed yet was the vital one.
Rynkura paused for a moment then, letting the glow in her eyes fade as she made a decision. Without the power of her staff, she would have to rely on her own, and just hope that she wouldn't bleed dry. A tap on both gems from her sleeves was all that was needed...her pearl and striped wings reappeared, as too did the rest of her energy. Things would go much faster...she figured there was time to rest herself; and the first priority was always the injured. Then the glow on her hands and in her eyes came back.
Blood stopped. Cuts sealed. Bruises dulled. The end of the cut leg would be protected from infection for as long as her volition or his sleep.
Finally, after she was done for the moment, she placed a barrier of light over Cogidubnus's body similar to what she used to protect her student and sir Manoko. Whatever corruption Hell had at the bottom more than likely wouldn't touch him.
"Brilliant," the angel muttered, satisfied with her work for the time being, and glanced up into the dark, unending sky of an interior. The tigress stood up and strained her hearing to see if she could pick up even the slightest disturbances in the air that signaled the other adventurers. Part of her wished that they wouldn't follow the bait. The other part knew they had no choice.
"May they all be aided by the speed of the gods," she prayed as her wings drooped to a cape-rest on her shoulders.
"AUGH!"
Startled by the heavy impact against the ground, Keaton, after being released, stumbled and swayed on her feet once Stygian rocketed past. She nearly lost her balance, but in a rapid demonstration of metamorphosis, quickly restored her wings to their rightful place and used them to steady herself. After Stygian landed and walked away, abjectly ignoring both her and Ketefe, Keaton grit her teeth and miserably glowered after him.
Keaton looked somewhat exhaustedly at Ketefe. "C'mon, Mask." She said, droning out the nickname without even realizing it.
Keaton walked off, following Stygian closely behind, while she sunk her wings back into her body, their forms melting effortlessly into her blood-drenched outline. As she walked, Keaton assessed her body, noticing how covered in blood she was. Most of it had flaked off and coagulated in her fur, and some of it was starting to burn. Cogidubnus's charm, which she still clutched, had helped, but she probably needed to return it to him anyway, given his possible condition. At the moment, she just hoped he was alive, because if he was dead, that would be another mutilated person on her conscience.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Listening to Aisha speak of his stubborness, which was apparently legendary, Gareeku laughed softly.
"I'll take that as a complement, then." the wolf replied with a smile, before noticing the more serious expression appear on the pantheress' face.
Listening to what Aisha said, Gareeku nodded his head in understanding.
"Hey now...your mentor may not be lost. We don't know that." the wolf replied in a reassuring voice. "Have hope, Aisha. Without hope, then all might as well be lost. We must be strong; for ourselves, and for those we care for."
When the pantheress spoke of the party that she imagined would be thrown if they all got out of this situation alive, Gareeku laughed again.
"Yes, I imagine there would be." the wolf replied with a smile. "I would be very surprised if there wasn't. I would certainly want to celebrate, anyway."
Jeremiah craned his neck and looked down. People were stopping off on a ledge. How quaint.
Wait, something bothered him about these events. Consider, wait.
Oh give it up Cab. Nex has the little Shitwit loopier than Jim Morrissy, you're not going to get a reaction.
I didn't say anything.
Deep within the frog's subconscious two personae did the psychological equivalent of looking at each other for exactly as many seconds as it took to put two and two together.
Sounded kinda like you.
We don't sound like things; we communicate in pure thought. I dare not suggest you need pay closer attention, but-
If you try to bullshit me I'll tie your wings together.
Very well.
In the same part of the mind, away by just a little bit, a masked frog snickered. It was just so easy sometimes.
Meanwhile, a frog made a mental leap that, given his current state, was practically superhuman.
Stopping on the ledge means STOPPING. There were quite a few negative connotations with stopping suddenly at these speeds, and the stopping being against stone wasn't good either. But going PAST the ledge is bad too. It was a most debilitating conundrum, that he didn't really have time to solve. Things will turn out fine. Yeah. Sure. Jeremiah smiled languidly, Life threatening things have been happening to me a lot lately, they haven't killed me yet.
As the edge of Nex's shield first brushed the ground the frog thought This should be fi- That shouldn't cave in that mu-
The shield buckled and was dispelled. Nex wasn't going to risk any magical power to keep him comfortable at risk of his not having what was needed later, whatever may happen. Just enough to keep him alive. Dispersed kinetic energy wracked the amphibian's body, enough to keep him a foot above the unforgiving stone below him for one and a half seconds, shattering bones as Nex frantically reallocated its influence so that it didn't snap his neck or crush his skull. As the last of the blue flames vanished, he landed on his face.
"Oh fuck you....." Consciousness slipped away again, lying in a shallow crater in the ledge not ten feet from Keaton.
Where Jeremiah's arrival at the ledge was rather spectacular, with blue flames, disturbing crunching sounds, and a cloud of rock dust, Mel's was silent and very unspectacular. She simply landed. Folding her wings neatly she dropped onto the edge. Looking around she noticed how much smaller the group had become since leaving the chapel.
Listening to the wolf's reassuring voice, a small smile formed on her features. He was of course right...to lose sight of that hope, she couldn't let that be easy to do. "You really do know how to make someone feel better, you know," she said, with a great amount of sincerity. "Thank you."
Then Aisha's mood had started to lift, and she found herself laughing softly along with Gareeku. Thinking about celebration during a time of dire events...there were some who thought that such a thing was foolish...too soon to say if anyone would have come back. But for every such person, there were always more who wanted to look forward to better things, which made their situation much lighter in tone. Aisha then was no exception...she was striving for the light side.
"So would I," she chuckled. "I can see it now. The music and dancing, and for some, the drinking...and this'll all be laughed at for the whole the day and night until everyone collapses. There'll be food...I'll make my fried fruit and rice again maybe." There was a faraway look in her eyes right then, in which there was no sight of the pain she endured. "Infierno, I'll go into town myself and get them. I don't care that I've been told to never show my face there again, I still will."
It was then that she glanced down at herself, and at the arm that she had almost forgotten she was missing. "Hmh," she snorted in ironic laughter. "Or maybe I'll stay in bed first. I know everyone's gonna insist I do...I forget what time it is anyway..." she said, shaking her head so that her eyes would stay open.
Unable to twist very far without flipping herself and Keaton over, and unwilling to let go of Keaton's arm just yet, Ketefe had to settle for looking over her shoulder every now and then before twisting back to see how much closer they were to dying. The a[[roaching flames, and the fact that Stygian seemed to be caught in some kind of midair fight, weren't really reassuring her that they'd be caught and saved anytime soon.
That is, until she felt a hand grab her belt and nearly got the wind knocked out of her.
Letting go of Keaton's arm in surprise at the unexpected lift and fear at the fire closing in on them, her claws came unsheathed and her muscles tensed in reflex. She might have actually twisted around and tried climb to safety had sanity not prevailed at the appropriate time. She felt herself and Keaton swung sharply to the right and dropped rather unceremoniously on a safe platform, the feline falling forward onto her knees and bracing herself with her hands from the sharp impact.
Uttering nothing more than a very quiet, gritted-teeth "ouch," the azure cat picked herself up and examined herself quickly and gently for injuries. More bruises than earlier, maybe a scrape or two she hadn't noticed before and a few jammed claws from the landing, but at this point, as long as her legs could move, her sword-arm was attached to her and her heart was beating, she judged herself intact.
She looked up at Keaton, noticing that the succubus, like Stygian, had retracted her wings. She blinked at the new nickname the jackal had for her, as if she was unsure whether to be offended or not care. Least it sounds more threatening than Teffy, she decided, hesitating to catch up to the others just yet in lieu of looking over at a very battered Jeremiah.
"Is he alive?" she asked, the first question half-directed at Mel and half to the air. "I can help carry him if you want."
Walking to the end of the platform and glaring out over the blasted pit that was digging itself deeper even as he watched, Stygian narrowed his stinging eyes, and ignored the tremors he could feel through the soles of his feet. That the safe spot they had found would break and tumble into the rolling magma and flames below there was no doubt of. It was only a matter of time. Fortunately, they were elevated enough that they did not have to endure the full scalding heat of the lake of fire, but it was still enough to make one begin to sweat and sting. Ignoring the amphibian impact nearby, the bat kept gazing out over the hellscape, trying to make out where any others might be. But the vastness of the place coupled with the light of the flames and the noxious clouds of smoke and hissing sounds that dulled his senses made any such attempt futile.
'We're alone', he said over his shoulder, dark voice eerily strong through the rumbles and hisses as it reached back to the others in spite of his low tone. 'But it will not stay that way for long. Get moving.' Harshness entered his voice, as he walked to the side, and peered out along the cavern wall they were situated next to. 'You are there, Mel, yes? Can you see to it that the others are fine to move?'
Mel nodded acknowledgement to Stygian's suggestion of getting everyone at least partially healed up before anything else went wrong. Jeremiah would probably take a lot of time after that crash landing so she decided to begin with the girl's injuries. "Who first?"
Seeing Jeremiah's battered, bruised, and quite possibly broken body lying in front of them, Keaton cursed loudly and broke into a run, trotting up beside Ketefe. The masked feline had kneeled beside Jeremiah's body, and was already making offers to carry him. Since Keaton was already encumbered with Rynkura's staff, which was safely tucked within Catastrophe's holster, and Catastrophe itself, gripped in her hands, she decided it would be wise to leave Ketefe to the job. After all, Stygian wasn't exactly volunteering - instead, the bat was walking ahead and observing the area nearby, somehow fueling Keaton's further ire for him.
She already hated the bat - or at the very least, was infuriated with him - for treating her like garbage after Sal possessed her. She was going to be glad to get out of the castle.
"Yeah, just keep walking, asshole. Douchebag. It's not like one of us is hurt or anything, fuckface." Keaton muttered, just loud enough for Stygian to hear. Fortunately, Mel was around to treat their injuries. Feeling a little sickened and very close to tears, Keaton trudged over to a nearby outcropping of stone and dropped on top of it, sitting down as though the rock sufficed as a chair. She stared down at some of the wounds she had sustained from the earlier altercation with the bat-demons, then slumped a little and closed her eyes, deciding to rest until Mel tended to her. She was feeling sick anyway.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Turning half against the others, glaring still, Stygian intercepted Keaton's sullen look and comments with a lethally cold gaze of his own, and seemed just on the verge of returning in kind with the same stinging effect that he had after their earlier fight. He spared the comments though, as something tugged at his attention immediately after. He turned around just in time to see something moving in the distance as the gases and smoke parted for a moment, not far from the direction of the deepening black hole that was the gate spewing more and more of the Hellish taint forth. Then something seemed to take the sound out of the air for a moment. The bat's voice came in a growling hiss back to the others as he tensed, and slipped into a low, broad-legged stance.
'Run!'
There was a scrape from his soles and a burst of darkness, flowing out like wings and beginning to evaporate like smoke almost immediately, his body disappearing in a blur, before a crack shook the ground, and the flicker of an eye later, a curving lance of fire as thick as a man's arm tore through the edge of the platform, spreading spiderwebbing cracks around it and cleaving the rock before flaring out. The pressing air stood still for a couple of moments, and then a pair of wails split the silence, closely followed by a third.
Looking rather snide, Keaton reciprocated Stygian's razorbladed glare with a nasty sneer of her own, her expression looking particularly deranged thanks to the coagulated smears and streaks of blood tarnishing her yellow-black fur and outlining the indentations of her grin. Probably from blood loss, she looked a little too delirious for it to be too threatening or even genuine. Cradling Cogidubnus's charm, which was still supplementing her remaining energy, in her hand helped the weakness, but it did little as a permanent antidote to her predicament. At the moment, her mind was essentially a jumbled slate that any Cubi who was capable of penetrating her mind-shields would have gawked at, just a kaleidoscopic jumble of assorted negative emotions, angry thoughts, and the occasional utterance of being oddly numb, almost like an abstract painting with no meaning or artistic guidance.
Ultimately, Keaton wasn't going to ruminate on other ways to verbally assault Stygian or provoke him. He seemed to ignore her, although Keaton had no idea that he was turning around to look at something which caught his attention. Instead, her mind seemed to go blank for a moment, and she let her eyes roll in the back of her head, vision going black. She just hung in limbo for a moment, until she heard, distantly, something like a voice.
When Keaton's sight was restored, she could only stare in absolute shock as Stygian disappeared into thin air, then a spear of fire split the stone, gouging through the rock and lancing into the air, its form pervading in cleaving lines through the earth. Keaton found herself quite fortunate that she as on the periphery of the platform instead of the center. Letting out a choking noise and backing up against the outcropping above the one she was using as a seat, Keaton groped and grabbed, nearly dropping Catastrophe. Even when the air petrified, her mind kept replaying the event, only for a new sound to split the air. Shocked, Keaton nearly dropped onto the stone, her legs failing her a few times as she forced her body into motion, pumping energy back into her muscles.
Run, he says. Where the fuck do I RUN?! Keaton thought, hyperventilating slightly. Ultimately, she gathered up Catastrophe and Cogidubnus's charm before she glanced over a few platform-shaped stones floating on the lava. Using them as stepping stones, Keaton ungracefully leaped and staggered over the flowing magma until she reached the opposite bank, gasping, exhausted from the normally-menial physical task. Biting her lip a little, she raced after Stygian, finding that resentment was a very inadequate excuse when it came to refusing any help for survival.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Ketefe crouched beside Jeremiah and did her best to ignore the tension between Keaton and Stygian, opting to pay attention to Mel instead. Had the past few events not been so nerve-wracking, she'd have curled up and fallen asleep right there, but her body was stuck in survival mode right now. She could be tired later. She was about to suggest that Mel treat Keaton first, the jackal having lost a lot of blood and under considerable emotional stress, from what the feline could see. But before she could so much as open her mouth, something very strange happened. And then everything was terrible again.
For a split second, everyone went silent. Even the air seemed to still for a moment. Then Stygian yelled and disappeared, just as the ground began to rumble and a thick tongue of fire broke the edge of the platform. Cracks ripped through the ground, the platform fractured completely, and a few pained, tortured cries split through the air.
Ketefe swore loudly, hauling Jeremiah up on one shoulder and looking around for a path to safety. She whipped her head around just in time to see Keaton spring across a few stones floating in the lava. Acting on pure adrenaline, she practically flew across the jagged rocks, supporting Jeremiah with only some difficulty - her own exhaustion couldn't have mattered less right now.
Once she reached the other side, she stopped. Her eyes darted back and forth as she waited, ready to run at any time, but keeping track of where Stygian and Keaton were headed and making sure Mel got to safety.
Keeping check on the bat proved to be more than manageable at the time though. After his first vanishing, he blurred into sight at a few places over a not-so-linear course, leaping and dodging obstacles and the occasional gout of flame, until he seemed to recall the others' exposure. Cursing, he changed directions in a snap and did a high overhead leap. Darkness moving with and around him, he blurred out of the air and behind Ketefe and Jeremiah next, throwing himself at them and lifting them both in a leap for the next platform. Another slash of molten red and orange split the air behind them and cut a large section out of a higher ledge, toppling it with a rumble.
'
Don't stop! Keep moving, whatever you do! Follow Mel!' the bat shouted over the noise, eyes focused at the distance and the origin of the blasts of fire hunting them. There were burning and twisting shapes moving through the air as well, chasing, snaking and twining as they approached, each one but a speck within their field of vision as it were, but from that distance it meant that they were most probably a dozen meters long each. It seemed that the old man was using his whole arsenal. How they were going to get through the barrage once they came closer was a considerable problem.
From his vantage point right before the gate, Asmodai stood, broad-legged and tall, darkness and flame seething around him, the ground laced with cracks and the sea of fire roiling beneath the rock he stood on. One long-hafted sword in his hand, the blade having melted and turned into a lash of fire, his fiercely burning eyes were focused on the shapes moving in the dark, past the parting fumes and across the magma. His mind was with his vision, far away from his physical shell, extended throughout the burning hatred and pain that welled up from the gateway and twisted the area around it, with the fiery spirits that snaked through the air, closing on their target, and forming every lance of unholy flame that he drew from the lake and threw at them.
The old demon's teeth ground together, his presence and power stretching out. He was going to
finish this.
Screams. Heat. Pain. Bright... Something's... wrong?
Am I dead?
Slowly, painfully, Cogidubnus's lids retracted from his eyeballs, like a possessed man opening his eyes after the demons were gone. He felt...consumed. Utterly.
Rynkura's ministrations and magic had healed the wolf's body, even as it seemed every bone had shattered, and every organ burst. Yellow eyes, bloodshot with stress, stared up at a cavern ceiling that danced with lurid shadows and dull red light. His eyes stayed still, unseeing.
I've got nothing. he thought, the out-of-place coldness of the rocks beneath him chilling him. What was left of his clothing was in tatters, barely enough to keep him decent. His body itself was in patches, portions of newly healed flesh mismatched with old scars and miraculously undamaged tissue. His hair, a vanity he was loath to admit, would need to become a great deal shorter if he survived this ordeal. His sword, his treasured possession, was lost to hell. Gone – like his foot. His magic was spent. His charms were scattered. He couldn't focus on the ceiling, let alone focus enough to throw waves of force. He was spent.
The wolf's mind drifted back to days when he didn't have any of those things – when he was lost, confused and fearful, terrified of himself more than anything. He'd survived then too.
In his mind, he turned, staring into the darkest spot of himself. It was quiet in his mind, quieter than the limited deafness that stopped his ears in the outside world. He could see the familiar shape moving in that darkness, the little thing he could keep at bay but never truly destroy, never really free himself from.
He could feel the Wolf's breath, feel its presence on his skin. He opened his arms wide, embracing the darkness. The creature fell upon him in his mind, devouring him in an instant, consuming him utterly.
Outside of his mind, Cogidubnus grinned what he knew could be his last grin. "A-woo." he said, laughing deathly quiet.
* * *
The Wolf crouched, snarling. Both of his feet clawed gouges in the rock beneath it, it's claws gleaming wickedly sharp in the lurid firelight. It paused for just a moment, and then leapt, legs like coiled springs launching the creature into the air. It landed with a crack, and was instantly scrabbling forwards, eating up the distance between it and the demon it could smell – the wolf had been let out to play. It would kill the one who tried to kill it first.
Keeping up with Stygian was a greater challenge than Keaton, in her disoriented state, had imagined. Scrambling and flailing mid-motion, Keaton nearly tripped gracelessly over her own feet and landed on the magma-encrusted ground once or twice, but managed to keep herself both upright and in motion. For a moment, Keaton speculated that Stygian would simply desert her and leave her to die, but this was probably an exaggerated caricature of the actual truth. Besides, when she had infuriated him as she did, she didn't want to underestimate his ire.
Behind her, she heard a thunderous sound reminiscent of rock rupturing and the bellowing of fire upswelling from the splintered stone, but she didn't realize what was responsible until she glanced over her shoulder.
Keaton stopped for a moment, overcome with lethargy. In a momentary burst of frustration and fear that Stygian would leave her behind, she nearly started crying, and for a moment contemplated simply lying there and dying, since she lacked energy. Catastrophe sparked violently in her hand. Keaton heard another rock explode some distance away from her in a spectacular deluge of fire and lava. She nearly tumbled over again, and had to resist the urge to vomit as her thoughts flipflopped from one event to another.
With no other option, Keaton swallowed and pursued Stygian as fast as she could, heaving.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Listening to Aisha thank him for his reassurances, Gareeku smiled and nodded.
"You're welcome." the wolf replied. "I know you're stronger than that, anyway."
Listening to the pantheress speak of what there would be and what she would do after all this was over, the wolf smiled.
"Indeed...I could do with my fair share of rest, too." Gareeku commented, notably wincing at the sharp pain coming from the gash he had suffered. Aisha's cloak was starting to become a darker shade of crimson, and even though the bracer was helping greatly, shots of pain made themselves present every now and then. "First thing is first; we'll need the healers to work their wonders."
A voice had suddenly spoken, albeit quickly and quietly, causing one of Rynkura's ears to swivel back towards where Cogidubnus lay in the barrier. The tigress relinquished her attention for a moment and glanced over to the wolf, whose laughter had faded by the time she did, and then he looked peaceful once more...before suddenly, he had changed. Before she could make anything of it, he had vanished...confused, she rushed forward and looked around as far as she could...to no avail. "Sir Mithlome, wait!" she called, only to be answered by silence. She was alone again.
Her eyes narrowed. There was something in the air...something had changed. She wondered all of a sudden where the dark presence was. And everyone else...and what she thought she heard...the struggling of a fight.
The Healer didn't know what to make of anything...but she did know one way to find out. Kneeling on the ground and spreading her wings out, she sent pulsations of light magic through the ground, again as like echoes bouncing off of objects...these echoes were to find sources of life. If they traveled far enough, perhaps she would get an idea of where the others were.
And, just perhaps, as the fleeting idea was too enticing to bypass, a good escape route.
* * *
As Aisha listened to Gareeku's voice, taking comfort in the presence of someone so familiar to her, she closed her eyes every so often. In her experience, micro-catnaps were a good way to regain some lost energy. Notably, the pains that she also felt herself from the previous battle were doing perfectly to keep her alert.
"Mm," she murmured in agreement to the wolf's mention of the healers, glancing up and watching him with concern on her face when she heard and felt him wince. As she sat up and gently looked him over to make sure that his red-stained cloak was still secured, the panthress replied. "Yeah, it would be nice to have them back. For now though, I guess I take comfort in the thought that maybe they're keeping the others in one piece to finish all of this."
That was when she hissed through her teeth, having leaned on the area where her leg was stabbed. Thankfully, the wound was holding up through the tattered remains of Gareeku's shirt wrapped around it. The claw marks on her side had scarred over as well, though they still stung. Despite that, she managed a chuckle. "I can hear Mistress Rynkura and Mel though, scolding us for getting into trouble without them."
Caught right in the middle of unleashing another barrage of flame, Asmodai was taken by surprise when something ran into his side and sank its teeth into his side. A massive, shaggy shape of fur and muscle and claws and teeth rammed him, and sent them both tumbling back, sizzling cinders singeing both their forms. His blade dropped, the demon struggled with the larger creature, a snarl of fury and frustration echoing far as he cried out.
It seemed that Cogidubnus' plan had worked out, if one could call it so much as a plan. However, if there was anything that Demons were reputed for, it was toughness. And at his age and power, Asmodai was the epitome of Demonhood. The moment he collected himself, the Wolf began feeling a much greater resistance to his clawing and chewing, and an increasing strength fighting him back. Flames twisting, closing on the thrashing shapes, the Demon erupted into a blast of fire from his mouth, aiming to knock the wolf away. Hands wrenching the wolf's limbs off him, Asmodai twisted like an alligator, scraping them both against the rocks, before kicking the Were away. With a curse in some twisted, dark tongue, he sprang for his blade.
The interruption in attacks was sudden, but more than welcome. Slamming into the ground together with both Jeremiah and Ketefe, Stygian had narrowly avoided the crumbling of the cliff behind them. When he heard Keaton cry out though, he cursed loudly, and with a leap that had his knees aching in protest after having absorbed the shock of catching the frog and feline, he flipped over as he sailed in a high arc above again, kicking off a protruding rock as he caught the jackal beneath. With a grunt and a snarl, he landed behind her, and immediately ran into her back, lifting her as he sprinted forward. It was with another hard slam that they both landed, yards away and below.
'We need to get closer! Get a move on! And don't stick together!' the bat snarled, tone harsh and his eyes flaring.
The response was so slight and frail that Rynkura didn't feel it at first. But like a scent that is so miniscule and unnoticeable that one has to close in and focus all their attention to actually feel, it very slowly became distinguishable. Shapes. Life. Amid the echoes and refractions from the hideous and unnatural things around, the darkness that moved and crawled and concealed, she thought that she could sense living, vital things, far out in the darkness. To sift the feeling of their presence from the all-encompassing, unliving blackness around though, was like sticking one's hand in a barrel of maggots swimming in crude oil, to reach a pearl at the very bottom.
Jeremiah probably wouldn't have appreciated consciousness, his battered and still broken frame being tossed around as it was. His chiropractor alone would have a heart attack, and then advise a procedure the poor frog could never afford. But hey, it's safe to assume things were looking up for him in that case, wasn't it? While the world was going to hell in hyperbole around him he was blissfully unconscious, happily tucked away in his own thought-
Oh, yeah. Well crap, that wasn't gonna help...
A mask in a pitch black room. Parts for a marionette, switching out so fast they were blurring. The Lunacy wiped its brow, even though it didn't sweat. It did a lot of things just for the look of it. A green, webbed fingered hand reached back into the mess of parts and moved more things around, the marionette starting to take on the appearance of some geometric algorithm that had moved beyond mere numbers to include shape and light. And laughter, the room always filled with laughter...
Bal closed the door and stepped back, feeling slightly ill and not knowing why. Let the crazy thing have its fun, there's some shit you just don't want to involve yourself in.
Pinpricks of white flame blossomed across Jeremiah's form, accompanied by wisps of smoke...
Mel, although she was capable of flight and not in danger of falling like the others, was in as much of a panic. The gouts and sprays of lava had her on a winding descent to stay the furthest away from them. She did manage to remember to shift her coloring from shining white to a dull mottled grey and black to make herself less visible against the cliffs even as she powered on all of her anti-heat charms. Despite her distracted state of mind she managed to make a reasonably light landing near Ketefe and Jeremiah just as Stygian called out for them to move.
No matter how much wouldn't have surprised Ketefe at this point, she still gasped when Stygian materialized behind her and Jeremiah, scooping the two of them up and practically flinging himself and them to another platform. A gout of lava tore through a cliff right over where she and the frog had been and sent the rock tumbling to the ground, but Ketefe was too frazzled and shocked by the destruction around them and the suddenness with which the bat had saved both her and Jeremiah's lives to thank him.
The only thing she did catch was the command he gave, and even that didn't make sense. Follow Mel? What's to guarantee she's even alive at this point - Her thoughts were cut off by a very hard landing and, a few moments later, the sound of Stygian yelling to someone else.
Pushing herself up quickly from the ground in spite of the pain from her battered form, the azure cat was about to pick up Jeremiah again when little points of white fire lit up randomly over the frog's body. "What the hell?!" The feline backed away, her leg muscles taut in an instinctual warning to run. Soon. Now, if possible.
Mel landed right near her and the now either very-hurt or possessed-again Jeremiah. The cat sighed in relief, even though her eyes still darted about nervously and her muscles were tighter than piano wire. "Thank goodness you're okay! Something's wrong with him..." She cautiously, but quickly, leaned down to yank one of Jeremiah's arms over her shoulders, mindful of the flames and looking like she'd drop him at the first sign of bad intentions. "We've gotta get out of here before..." There were too many possible endings to that sentence, and not enough time to pick one. She dragged the frog and herself in the safest-looking direction as quickly as possible, looking back at Mel to make sure she made it alright.
The wolf was not incapable of advanced thought or planning. Most of the time it simply contented itself to mindless rage and bloodlust, but when confronted with a challenge, it was very quick on its feet when applying problem-solving skills. Sometimes it only seemed the creature didn't think - however, when so many solutions are answered with quick and easy brute force, it can sometimes only appear that no thought is involved.
The wolf understood what it meant when the demon dove for his burning sword.
Taking advantage in the Demon's lapse of balance, the creature jumped into the air, and with enough force to crack stone slammed into Asmodai's back, trying to knock the demon to the ground. Gleaming, moon-white teeth tore at his throat, and jaws that could crush iron shook the demon's neck like a ragdoll while long, wicked claws raked down his body. Desperately.
The Wolf itself was aware it was fighting something that might be stronger than even it. It fought with rage and bloodlust, but also fear, the urge to kill before it could be killed surging through the beast's muscles and urging it on to greater strength.
Already well on his way, Asmodai swept out viciously with his sword, but only managed to make a shallow cut across the wolf's flank, before the beast smashed into him again. By now he had managed to harden his skin enough that it did not matter much though, and he was merely thrown back. So he had no trouble compensating for not being able to cut the wolf's head off by simply burning it up instead. Grinning madly, he swept his hand out in the Wolf's direction, and fire moved with him. Cracks spiderwebbed through the ground underneath the werewolf for a second, before it shattered and the monster was thrown upward in a blast of rock and flame and scorching lava.
It seemed that the others had not listened to him, and though his attention was barely on them, Stygian cursed loudly enough for them to hear, his voice twisting and seething and making the already foul words unpleasant enough to make hair curl, and then set off. He had the most direct firepower to bring to bear. So if he could save at least someone for Mel to heal while she tended to the rest of the troupe, perhaps they would have a chance. Avoiding a splashing gout of fire as he threw himself over a ledge, he spun in the air, and massive black wings swept out to his sides, carrying him up and allowing him to pick up speed. Teeth gritted, his thoughts racing, and hunger aching within him, he pushed himself forward as fast as he could. Whatever had caused Asmodai's barrage to stop had been a blessing. Of course, there were still those snake-like shapes closing in. And the rising sound of voices and whispers could only mean that some of the evil was taking notice of them at last, instead of just desperately trying to claw its way out of the pit. That was not good...
It was with shock and a distinct feeling of unpleasantness that Rynkura watched the tail flames of the hideous serpent-like thing that had been called up from the lava depart. The creature had splashed fire about so that she had almost felt her fur singe. Yet even as she was relieved of its hungry gaze, which had lingered on her unnervingly long before it set out to its new purpose, she began feeling as if she had only been spared momentarily. There was something turning the darkness around inward, something that had distracted it from its desperate craving and hunger, which had drawn its attention upward before. She could practically feel the shadows growing eyes, and though free of her bonds, she was far too close to the Hellish gateway that it seemed a wise decision to prick that attention even further by using light magic.
As the Angel suddenly heard a rattling, inhuman sound to her side, deeper in the dark that she had formerly taken for safety, where she had been placed relatively high and secure from the flames, she suddenly felt that it might be too late for such concerns...
It was like trying to see through molasses. The waves of the echoing light magic raced across the dark, hellish rock with each pulse, bent more and more on finding the essence of those whom the angel looked for.
But soon it was easily seen through the layers and in the heights...past the seething darkness that the demons and creatures hiding in the shadows were made out of, to sense a true life force. With her eyes closed she could see where they were and the struggles they made, fighting through Hell to reach the final layer. Like a heartbeat the magic came back to her and slowly, but surely, mapped out their status and location. Yes, still alive. Yes, still fighting. There were two more there who shouldn't have been. Only two were missing, and she hoped, were still safe.
And she also noticed that Asmodai wasn't down where she was. He was more than likely orchestrating the trouble; away from her. And not for the first time that night, Rynkura wondered if the time of reckoning for her and for the others were soon to come. The warping darkness around her, the farthest away that she could sense, it was turning its attention away. But it did give the white tigress an idea for a chance. And she wasn't above taking chances.
That was when her thoughts were interrupted. Her true vision returned to see what had risen out of the flames below...a massive serpent whose essence radiated flame and intense heat that threatened to scorch her. Its gaze only passed over the prisoner for just a moment, before it took off where it apparently had been summoned. Her eyes narrowed. How long was that thing down there? Watching me? Then, Rynkura glanced back into the darkness. How much longer would I have...?
Her answer came in the form of a sound, just nearby in the black of the cavernous lair. And after a few moments of listening, she was beginning to inwardly wish that it was she who had been asleep.
She knew where the others were, as far as she could sense. It was time to get out,...and hopefully, join the others in the fight.
Rynkura's moves weren't at all hesitant...against her nature. But at that point nothing more mattered. She extended the barrier again around herself, the other one having been broken out of. Then her arm coursed with electricity, a great lancing bolt of light, which was released into the darkness to impede whatever it was. And then finally, the Healer flexed her wings, running out and leaping toward the air. Practiced in flight as she was, the angel found no trouble extending enough of her power out to protect herself from creatures that could charge them.
And with the map in her head and her magic at the ready, she set out in their direction...
The Wolf was thrown backwards, the sudden eruption of flame from the ground catching the beast off-guard. A high-pitched yelp echoed through the dim, yet hellishly illuminated chamber, magma and cinders alike burning its flesh as rocks ground themselves into it also. It spun once through the air before landing like a ragdoll on the rock floor.
It was still, and then shifted at once, finding its feet almost immediately. Yellow eyes burning with hatred stared at the large demon, eying both his burning blade and the ground beneath it. Large patches of fur were simply missing or burned into sludge, and blood flowed freely from some portions of it's flesh - it seemed that pain, however, didn't affect something as animalistic as the wolf's mind. Pain was a teacher that said to watch out for the volcanoes underfoot.
The wolf was aware enough, however, to know when something was bigger and strong than it.
The wolf had no tools, and darkness wouldn't save it - instinct told it to run from the bigger dog and fight another day. Rationality, however, told it that running wasn't an option. Adrenaline flooded it's veins as the fight-or-flight equation turning towards fight.
The wolf nearly lept, launching itself forward at a blinding speed, and darting quickly to the side hid behind a massive stalagmite. Clawed hands and burned arms reached across the waist of the rock, and squeezed. The wolf yelped again as the rock began to crush beneath it's arms and splinter into the burned flesh beneath, but it kept going, until an earsplitting crack echoed through the chamber. A fracture at the bottom of the column of stone, a clean break.
The rock tipped forward, slamming into the ground and sending violent vibrations throughout the chamber. And then, it began to move.
Not rolling, but moving to the side and then a bit backwards, the former stalagmite moved in a circle. As the rock's path reached the quarter-circle mark, the cause was obvious. The werewolf, in some sort of sickening display of strength, has dug its claws into the base of the rock, and was proceeding to build momentum as it attempted to throw it.
The rock moved faster. The Wolf's arms strained. It moved farther, faster. It began to skirt the floor, kicking up a bit of dust. By the time the wolf had completed one circuit, it was off the ground and flying. It continued, continuing to move the massive piece of rock until finally, with amazing dexterity and timing, it released.
The rock didn't fly through the air, not high - but it did arc for just a second, maybe a second and a half, before bouncing off the rocks once and tumbling for the ancient demon, positioned to hit the ground like some divine sledgehammer.
Mel took a quick head count as everyone started running again. Ketefe was dragging the still unconscious Jeremiah ahead of her along the ledge and Keaton hobbling along behind. The fireballs had momentarily stopped but things were now taking advantage of the lull to approach. Hell-twisted flying serpents, bigger even than Mel's formidable grandmother, were eyeing the group hungrily. She began pulling up power and preparing force waves to push the serpents back when they got too close. She was not sure if the group combined had the ability to fight off the four serpents and whatever came behind.
Goddamnit, Nex, you couldn't have held out a little bit longer?
Heheheheheheheh...
We are alive.
Freaking barely!
Hehehehaheeehahahahahah...
Which is by far preferable to not at all.
You could have broken my hands! My HANDS!
We can check on that later, what matters is that you live.
Heehahahoohaheehehehehaheheeh...
Great. Fucking perfect. The great circle of bullshit is complete. Shouldn't Bal be around to verbally abuse me soon? If we're sticking to theme.
He has been uncharacteristically quiet...
HeeheehahahahahoohoohehaHAH...!
What on earth-!?
Oh gods, get him AWA-!
HAAAHAHAHEEHOOHAHAHEHAHEHEEHAHAHEAHAHAAAAAAAAH!
Eeheheeheehoohooahahahahahaha...
---
Ketefe could feel something solid shifting under Jeremiah's coat, like he was just clothes filled with an erect-a-set. Details were hard to make out; so much smoke was pouring off the frog in oily clouds it was only her memory telling her what part of him she was hanging on to. There were gristly popping and stretching noises as he was warped and changed, the process expedited by the cursed amphibian's proximity to hell. Within seconds, the transformation had reached a boiling point and subsided, revealing what had been made of Jeremiah by the Lunacy's meddling this time.
The first noticeable feature of the creation was its posture; hunched, but not in a manner relating to deformity or injury. It was more akin to the structure of a hyena, the thick neck sloping forward to the head. It looked as if it were made of porcelain or ivory, some smooth white substance comprising a carapace. A carapace that, if one were to get a good look at the joints or eyes or the narrow slit that was its mouth, would appear to contain nothing save for the occasional flicker of white fire and tuft of smoke. Some mineral had been carved, woven or possibly grown where hair would be found on a normal furrae, swept back and lying neatly along its neck.
It was also heavy, but fortunately managed to catch itself after it was dropped. The third not-Jeremiah rose to its feet and looked out at the situation before it, its eyeless gaze eventually settling on the serpents.
"Interesting. Very... Interesting..."
His attention turning toward the others approaching from farther away in the pit, Asmodai did not quite notice the Wolf getting back up at first. He did not credit the creature with such toughness. His focus went into initiating a new summoning spell instead, glyphs forming in fire around his hands as he began weaving the dark magic. The sound of stone crumbling was all around, and not enough to bring his attention, but when he caught the massive motion of the rock in the Wolf's grip, his head snapped to the side, and he took a step back. He almost grinned, laughing incredulously for a second. The next one, he began forming up fire, and tried to lash out with his blade, dashing to the side. That's when he was struck by the massive rock, and crashed along with it into the edge of the platform behind him, tumbling into the magma.
It was not without difficulty that Stygian spotted what was happening in the distance, between the Wolf and Asmodai. And it was not something that he could do anything about, nor something that he would not be distracted from. Headed on a collision course with the fiery serpents twining themselves through the air, and having to dodge flames and more manifesting attacking
things, whether they be of darkness or fire, he raced on at what was now ludicrous speed. Sweeping past one of the charging serpents, he narrowly avoided its snapping maw, slicing a long seam through its side and splitting it, even as he rounded it, tumbling to avoid another. To his surprise though, they did not follow him. Nor did they die. The cleaved halves of the serpent began to fall, the scorched scythe of darkness that he had summoned up being burned away, and then they twisted. Twining and coiling, the flames re-knit, and the fiery thing was born anew in two smaller ones, exactly like it. If Stygian noticed that development though, he did not show it. He raced on, approaching the site of the Wolf's and the Demon's confrontation.
Mel stole a look at the newest incarnation of Jeremiah. There was no knowing what his abilities were now. Ketefe was a swordswoman and this was not a physical fight, and Keaton appeared to be bled white. Mere defense would not be enough to save them. Time to stiffen her spine and act like a dragon of multi-millennial years. The forcewaves she had been creating were unraveled to begin again. Fog began to appear around her as the temperature in her immediate vicinity began to chill. With a throwing gesture serpents of her own appeared.
If the demon's creations were travesties of the form the dragon's were sparkling crystal fantasies. More slender than their fiery counterparts yet almost half again longer they seemed to slide through the air towards their prey rather than fly. Yet the icy creations weren't just pretty as shown by the glitter off the jagged blade-like edges of each scale and the mouthful of man-long backcurved teeth that gave the appearance of a mobile cave full of icicles. As they dove downwards they left trails of fog in their super-cooled wake. The heat only seemed to make them more foul-tempered rather than diminishing them as they approached their opposites.
The Wolf stood tall for a moment, breathing raggedly, and then fell down to all fours, nearly collapsing onto it's stomach as it stared at the spot where Asmodai had stood only moments before. Yellow eyes brimming with hatred stared at the lake of lava in which the demon had fallen incredulously, the beast's brain not quite believing that all danger had yet to pass. Claws dug into the stones like fingers into butter, ready to launch itself away at the first sign of retaliation.
Coins of blood pattered onto the stones beneath the Wolf, nearly black in color. It suppressed a whimper, instead letting it's stomach hug the stones beneath it, the relatively cooler rock relieving a bit of the burn from its wounds.
The colorful shapes that twisted and twined through the air rushed forward, fangs opening in echoing roars, like the growls of volcanoes and the grinding of glaciers. They locked, and instantly, the fumes and drifting cinders suffusing the bottom of the pit were blasted away. The collision became a fireworks display of massive proportions, sparks and flames and steam detonating in arcs and clouds. None broke through to the other side. The tearing force and the explosions were massive enough to rip through them all. They had bought a lot of time.
A shadow fell on the wolf's back as something settled high up above it on a cliff outshot. Folding giant wings, glints of wicked green eyes hinting around it for a moment, the shadows deepening and extending from where it sat perched, it peered down at the wolf below, and then at the last crumbling piece of rock sinking into the molten slag. Perfectly still, Stygian tensed, and narrowed his eyes, glowing darkly from within the shadow he cast. Far from convinced that the old Demon was out of the action, he watched the magma run and roil, stretching his influence and quietly wondering how pissed the old man would be when he got back up, and what he would do...
Mel held her breath as she watched the two groups of spells impact. They made quite a show. Aside from the sparking discharge of magic the explosive release of steam from the impact point of fire and ice was enough to rattle rocks loose from the sides of the pit. Thankfully none of the fiery beasts emerged from the clouds. Now she had a moment to look around at her companions. Ketefe and the latest Jeremiah seemed fine for the moment but Keaton was wobbling where she stood. The dragon addressed Ketefe, "Please watch and tell me if anything else starts this way." Then she took the rather glazed-eyed succubus and helped her to sit so that a healing spell could be woven around her.
When Jeremiah began to shift, Ketefe could only watch, awestruck, as the frog turned into some sort of porcelain, fire-tongue-covered golem, and became too heavy for her to support. She dropped him and backed up, unsheathing her sword reflexively. His attention shifted to the other side, and when she looked, she finally noticed the fiery serpents she'd been too confused to care about earlier. Mel took care of them with an icy, impressive assault of her own, leaving the room at a more bearable temperature, and they once again had a moment to spare.
Ketefe nodded at Mel's request, leaving the dragon to take care of a very dazed and sick-looking Keaton. The feline advanced, just the slightest bit, on the translated frog-creature.
"Okay. Whatever you are, it's pretty clear you're not Jeremiah, and given where we are, whether myself or anyone here can trust you is a big issue. So explain to me why you're here, and it won't be me who kills you." She glanced around meaningfully before looking back at the thing.
Stygian had barely readied his first trap, before a rumble shook the cave, like a giant turning in his sleep underneath them. A slow, long, grinding noise rose up from the sea of fire, and a crack ran through it somehow, making the magma tumble and splitting the platform down in front of the wolf nearly to the middle. Slumped to the ground and tired, it could not see when the fire began moving, and something shot out of it, scraping and clawing digits splashing droplets of molten rock to scar the stone beneath it and then become one with it. A hand, large as a man's head when clenched, dragged a body to the edge, then helped it rise as ridged muscles pierced by horns and spines, bare of clothing, of skin, rolled forth from the lava. Spikes like the attempt at wings jutted out beside its backbone, and the ground shuddered when it stepped heavily up onto the platform. The stone caught on its almost liquid skin and in strange, bristly fur cracked and fell as it cooled off, if it so much as cooled in the first place. Breathing ash and hot, poisonous fumes, Asmodai turned, stark naked and burning, and watched the darkness encroached nearby.
'If there was a way to contain you, I'd be ever so glad. You haven't been punished nearly enough', he rumbled, his voice more ground-splitting than ever. Flames and dust gathered to him, ashes and cinders swathing themselves around his form, taking on the shape of a robe of some sort, fire in the tracks of his steps as he walked closer. 'You will face torture nevertheless, but not by me. Not where you're going. So, I guess I'll settle for second best.'
The demon's arm whipped out, his hand directed right at the adventurers across the span of the inferno, and the lake of fire rolled with it. Instantly, a splash of magma and horrid, writhing shapes within it manifested, and began rolling against their targets like a tidal wave. The ash and fumes at the Demon's back were set ablaze too, and again his wings manifested, stretching out and sending fire out in waves, before curling around him. Shrieks and ghoulish howls filled the air, malevolent spirits hinting within every flame and sooty shadow.
'The path to Hell is open again, filthspawn. It's time you return where you belong!'
A rhythmic ticking went along with the thing's movements as it turned to look at Ketefe. Its own memories were disjointed, nonsensical and warped, almost an acid trip of the frog's entire life packed into an instant.
"I Am Not Sure." The Whatever-it-was-this-time didn't speak so much as enunciate. It sounded like it was reciting out of a book. "I Recall What Has Led Up To This Point, After A Fashion, But Details Are Hard To Make Out. I Think What I'm Doing Here Has Something To Do With Curses. And Masks." It reached out and prodded the cat's mask with a dull 'clnk', as if it reminded the creature of something. It considered it's snapshot memory a bit further. "And Part Of It May Have Something To Do With A Pair Of Shoes Lost In Third Grade, Although I'm Assuming That May Be A Misinterpretation Of Matters Beyond My Ken As Of Yet."
The oncoming wave distracted the creature from the contemplation of its own origins, drawing its complete attention in a full-body jerking motion.
A wave of molten rock, either containing or comprised of creatures of similar coloration with body types seemingly ranging from serpents to some manner of betentacled creature. Some odd form of magic- A word jumped forward from its memory, Infernal in nature. Of respectable physical and nonphysical power. There are many of them.
"Pardon Me, I Shall Answer All Questions Shortly."
Three seconds after it had noticed the creatures it had already hunkered down on one knee, gripped the edge of the ledge they were on with its long neck and head leaning out over empty space, and arcane sigils were flashing in a circle in front of its face. Anyone magically inclined would be able to see a LOT of energy being orchestrated for a complex spell with a very SIMPLE effect.
Even the non-mages could probably figure out the creature's intentions. Positioned as it was, it even looked a little like a canon.
"One Moment, Please."
Lethargic and blurry-eyed, Keaton leaned rather listlessly against her knees from where she was seated on the stone, apparently quite unaware, or at least delirious to most of the events which were occurring around her. When Mel touched her, a strange surge of purified energy coursed through her veins, electrifying her blood, and Keaton heaved, gasping and leaping, as though a sudden awareness had returned to her in that instant. This return to rational thought didn't last long, as Keaton felt her mind reel and buckle in the next moment, momentarily disoriented, only for it to be shunted back to focus by that concentration of healing magic. Gradually, Keaton felt some of her wounds disappear, closing up like zippers, the skin fixing back together and the lost fur re-encroaching upon the bare flesh. Still a little shocked, and still waiting for the remainder of her wounds to vanish, Keaton started gazing back and forth rapidly, squinting as she struggled to distinguish something amidst the smoke and darkness.
She saw something like a silhouette in the distance, covered in horns and spikes. Keaton's vision was still blurry, so she couldn't recognize who or what it was, especially not with the additional subterfuge. However, when flame and smoke leaped in billowing gouts from the shadow's back, Keaton no longer cared about discerning its identity and yelped instead, backing up against the stone wall in a sudden outburst of fear. Quite a sight to witness just when one was saved from dying of blood loss.
Keaton heaved and gasped, her ears flat. "I-I-I-Is... Is THAT...?!" she hissed to Mel tremulously, struggling to form her sentence. She spat out the rest, "Is THAT Asmodai!?"
~Keaton the Black Jackal
Aisha found herself nearly nodding off as her wounds healed. For once it seemed that the cathedral was going to be quiet and peaceful, while there was a war raging on more than likely miles beneath their feet.
Her concern should have probably been sated, but still somewhere deep down there was such a feeling of darkness...in fact, if she didn't know better, it was stronger. Even the little raven that had been watching for a while from the rafters of the unholy church was cawing a little more often.
The panthress shook her head, dismissing the worry, and finished checking on Gareeku's wounds. "You feeling better, amigo?" she asked with a little tiredness, but nevertheless concern, in her eyes.
* * *
Up through the shadows, seeing lesser demons charge and step back through her barrier of light, Rynkura's wings took her through Hell's levels as fast as she could be carried. And as she drew closer, she could feel the dark power growing into unimaginable heights. It threatened to block and, most certainly, take out the life energies that she had sensed. But she was coming ever closer to them, and thank all gods, they were still alive.
When she thought of them all, standing against what they all probably knew was certain death...and when she thought of those left behind, Aisha and sir Manoko...the angel was determined to keep them alive, whatever it took.
The demons she dodged, the attacks she blocked, until there they were in a space just below her, where a sea of magma met their short-lived shelter in a perilous wave...even the tigress could feel the heat from where she was, looking down from the underground "sky" far above. They were watching it with apparent fear and apprehension as the very rock all around them quivered and crumbled.
And then, he appeared out of the molten depths, and set its sight upon the adventurers. His seething voice even reached her own ears. There was only one for whom the words were meant, but all of the adventurers were branded targets. And then the demon made good the threat and sent all manner of creatures from the wave of fire and shadow out of Hell and all around.
Rynkura grimaced, and let down her barrier in favor of a more powerful spell. Her eyes glowed, and holy lightning coursed over her body. With a powerful charge, she was launched from the rock upon which she perched, down past the demon and towards the adventurers...straight through a horde of damned spirits and with a flash, sending several lances of electricity across his form.
She landed beside them with a gust of air, on her hands and feet, less dignified than they have seen her in rather burned and torn robes. But nevertheless steadfast and formidable with her teeth bared and emerald eyes still fiercely glowing.
"I seriously doubt it, demon," the healer nearly hissed, before standing up again and looking over the exhausted-looking group with warm, but serious eyes. "Right...is anyone hurt?"
Having closed his eyes, Gareeku had said nothing for a while now, staying quiet as he tried to let his body heal. Pain was still surging through his body a little, mostly originating from the wound he had received to his midsection. Thanks to the bracer that Aisha had given him, the healing process was moving much more quickly, though it still hurt like hell.
"I'll be fine." the wolf murmured in reply to Aisha's question, breaking his silence in doing so. Opening his eyes, Gareeku looked at the pantheress. "How about your leg? How's that holding up?"
Aisha smiled with relief as she saw that Gareeku was mending well...with the bracer's magic working, it would be able to keep him from getting any worse or catching infections, until the healers returned to patch them completely.
At the mention of her leg, the black jaguar nodded and shifted herself comfortably so as not to lean on it. The fabric of the wolf's shirt was now completely covered in her blood, for which she thought to apologize...later, at least...being dirty and bloody took a back seat to the concern of being alive. "It'll be alright too, I think, thanks...don't worry, I can be just as stubborn." She joked in reply. "'Course...I can't think of any worse situation outside this castle right now, but..." she snorted. "So long as we don't get in any more fights tonight, I think we'll live. And we still have each other to look after," the huntress finished with a soft smile as her hand rested carefully on his shoulder, cautious of jostling the wounded wolf.
Leaning back on the chair and looking up at the ruined ceiling, her eyes then started to close again. Just what time was it anyway...? Doubtless it mattered to Aisha at the moment, even with the raven still making a few noises. "I think I might just sleep for a little bit..." she murmured.
Mel looked over her shoulder in the direction where Keaton was staring. Her eyes widened, the demon had to be at least her size in her natural form. "I believe it is," she responded out loud while mentally she was running through all of her grandmother's favorite curses, and not the genteel ones she used in public. Ryn's abrupt appearance amongst them hardly rated a blink at that point. "I am just finishing a healing spell on Keaton," was Mel's automatic answer to the angel's question, "I have not had time to check Ketefe or ..." she stopped, unsure how to address the newest incarnation of Jeremiah.
It was only as she looked at, then past, the Jeremiah-thing that their most immediate concern came to her attention. She stepped up to the edge of the ledge and debated her next spell.
Snarling, eying Rynkura's incoming attacks with an air as if they were merely a nuisance, a distraction, Asmodai swept his hand out, a burning wing following it, and immediately fire rose to follow in a torrent that shook the air throughout the whole of the pit. The singeing bolts of light struck and pierced it, but were reduced to mere residual sparks, petering out in the air and dispersing.
'Pest! You Angels are nothing but!' came the echoing, booming voice again. He extended his hand, and streams of fire, arrow-straight and thick as a man's wrist, cut through the air against the fleeing tigress and the adventurers. The next second though, something black whipped out and smashed its teeth around that hand, drawing blood before it was engulfed in fire. The Demon's gaze snapped up, and he roared with indignation.
'Don't forget who you are dealing with here', Stygian growled from above, his voice having turned as hideous as the darkness that concealed all of him but the fiery glow of his eyes. The others were the perfect tools for hampering and striking at Asmodai where he could not reach. It was hard to believe, but Stygian knew the bastard to have even better crowd control than himself. So he had to make every effort to keep him off the others, while bringing all firepower he had to bear. 'If you are going to actually finish this, I suggest you do so before I rip your ugly countenance from your skull!' A few shark-toothed, oily black things began crawling down the rock face against the Demon, and the blackness clawed its way further forth, smoky tentacles turning more solid as they gripped the stone, cracks spiderwebbing it.
'Wholly the wrong person to speak!' Asmodai roared in return, an instant before sinuous, concentrated lashes of fire snaked up, beheading those first signs of darkness beginning to reach down. Green eyes flared up, and a unison of terrible voices cried out in fury, before slivers and slices of black began raining down amid the flames in return.
Ketefe kept her eyes narrowed as the once-Jeremiah spoke, though she was fairly certain this new form wasn't dangerous. Her look took on a curious cast when the thing poked her mask, and her puzzlement deepened when its speech became slightly pointless. But then it looked away, and Ketefe turned her head and saw the wave of hellish magma quickly closing in on their "safehaven" (a term which she used very loosely). Any and all concern about the Jeremiah-thing went out the window as the feline backed away quickly and tightened her grip on her too-useless-here-for-comfort sword. And then, of course, at Keaton's exclamation, her gaze shifted to Asmodai's form. Distant though the demon was, finally seeing him was terrifying, even keeping where they were in mind. He was at least twice as huge as Khimara in dragon form, and if the tidal wave of molten rock was anything to go by, he was ten thousand times more powerful.
But just as she was hitching in her breath to shout to Mel, Rynkura showed up and saved them from immediate death. At this point, Ketefe's brain had gotten so used to surprise that Rynkura being alive was only a minor thrill. The cat's eyes flickered between the group and Asmodai, focusing when the demon aimed another assault at them and widening when it was stopped by a familiar black and twisting power. Still, her primary concern was not what was attacking them, but how she could possibly be of use right now. She wouldn't be able to look at herself the same way if she was completely incapable of helping. I need to know that I'll be useful against something more powerful than a thousand Shapeshifters...
At that moment, the lightning-bolt bracelet Mel had let her keep crackled with a few minute bolts. It wasn't a lot of energy, but it was enough to grab Ketefe's attention and keep it for a few seconds. She stared at her wrist in shock... then her face grew purposeful and just the slightest bit pleased. It seemed she would be of some use after all...
Keaton flinched against the rock wall as she helplessly watched Stygian and Asmodai exchange attacks, one utilizing shadows, the other brandishing fire and flames. Against the hot stone, Keaton could feel her skin blister and tingle, but in her desperation to avoid being hit by the blitzkrieg's periphery, a few burns was the least of her problems. At the moment, she wanted to be helpful, but wasn't sure if she could find a suitable opening to exploit. Not yet, at least. Plus, Asmodai's fire kept the vicinity brightly illuminated, which made darkness considerably harder to conjure up. That alone eliminated most of Keaton's most improvisational and unpredictable resources.
Amidst the torrential downpour, Keaton noticed a familiar white blur standing nearby, its shape and identity chiseled into clarity by her improved vision and restored health. Instantly, Keaton's attention redirected itself to the staff nestled in Catastrophe's holster, which she quickly unsheathed with her free hand. She started to formulate a plan: she'd throw Rynkura her staff, and charge in when Asmodai was preoccupied with Stygian.
Keaton pried herself away from the rock, and dove around where she could reach Rynkura, or where she was, at least, out of the range of the warring bats. She spun Rynkura's staff like a baton, increasing its momentum, and shouted to get the tiger-Angel's attention. "RYN!" she exclaimed. Once the tiger was at least, aware, of her presence, she chucked the staff toward Rynkura, hoping the tiger would catch it. "CATCH!"
Keaton didn't stop to witness the results of her plan. She stormed forward, starting to feel blackened mist encroach upon her bloodied form, coagulating into a thick layer encapsulating her body. Her eyes flashed white, and she snarled as she drew Catastrophe back. Pitch-black tendrils of darkness arched and writhed around Catastrophe, sparking lividly, and when Keaton felt all that darkness culminate, she thrust the mace forward, watching the spectacular bolt of purple, interwoven with spades of black, lance in jagged streaks toward Asmodai.
~Keaton the Black Jackal
The Not-Jeremiah finished making its assessment of the circumstances. The big issue was that it was roughly a mile away from the only place he could hit that would really do anything. After much consideration, it finally decided to fall off the cliff.
Fall was really the wrong word. After the initial tumble, long spindley legs started seeking footholds in the rock to push against for some control, eventually stabalizing out and running town the side of the rock wall. The Not-Jeremiah pushed off to another rock spire sticking out of the lava and continued like that, leaping from place to place with surprising agility as it made its way toward the combat, spell still glimmering around it as it readied itself.
Just A Bit Closer, Quickly, Before It Goes Off...
EEEheheahehaeheahAhaheheaheah...
The first few hits did not seem very dramatic, or very clear. The combination of fire, smoke and deep blackness was not easy on the visibility, and for a few seconds it was as if the Demon and the creature of darkness were wrapped up, sealed away in their contest from the rest of the cavern. Then, the first shockwave split the fires and shadows both, cracking through the air, and the ground shuddered. The Demon reeled for a moment against a broken rock, before stamping the ground with his foot, and bringing up a wave of fire that cracked the ground and sent shards and splinters of stone flying. The torrent of flame tore through the onslaught of shadow, driving up more flames through the cracks in the rock below, and as a finisher a gesture from the demon's hand created a final, circular blast that turned the darker creature into a mere silhouette of black before being blasted back into the rock.
Not that the Demon himself had much time to finish off his work. For while he did not notice or care about the skittering, loping danger which was beginning to approach across the few 'safe' paths over the lake of fire, the shadowy, shimmering bolt that struck him in the neck caused him to twist and clutch at an open wound. Immediately, the flames intensified with his rage, and his glowing eyes swept to find the source of the attack. In the unclarity and heat of battle, he only glimpsed Keaton, but with his anger boiling he saw neither time nor need to specify an attack. He hurled flames with his fist, and immediately, the nearby surface of burning magma began to rise and thrash, coming alive.
If the lava was the demon's tool the most effective use of her energy, decided the dragon, was to deny him as much as she could. She couldn't cool everything around to a nice sensible temperature but she could make it harder for him to shift the molten rock around.
Mel chose the area nearest to the fight and began pouring cold into it. At first it seemed a fruitless expenditure of her magic, but as she continued the lava darkened, then began to skim over with solid rock. It was at that point Mel realized that she had no way of knowing how solid her work was. There was no way to tell from this distance if the solid layer was as thin as the skin on a pudding or continued down for meters. She was going to have to keep blasting away until she got confirmation of success or failure by other means.
Despite the fierceness of the battle, and a mere curse from Asmodai at her attempt at hurting the demon, Rynkura calmly listened for everyone's confirmation on their state of health. Truly though, she had only heard two voices, very few reactions at all to the angel tiger's swift return...the others she could easily see for herself. For a moment though, Jeremiah's appearance made her very curious...as did Mel's...were they not up in the chapel earlier? It made her worry for the two left up in the chapel for a moment.
She shook her head...none of the adventurers could be blamed for being distracted, either. They had a monstrous battle going on in front of them, and the magma and fires of Hell continued threatening to devour those near it at the giant bat's volition.
"Good, then..." Rynkura growled, her voice still unnaturally fierce as she quickly pushed herself from her knees to her feet, trying to dodge whatever Asmodai could throw at the adventurers while Sebastian distracted him. The only one that still didn't seem to be there was Cogidubnus...or whatever he had turned into.
As she moved away from the fire, further up the alcove, she suddenly heard her name called out. It was the succubus, Keaton...bearing her staff.
Eyes widening, the tiger's hand reached out and grabbed it from midair. And as the jackal seemed to turn into a mass of shadow, Rynkura herself was feeling a flood of relief while reunited with her treasured talisman...and weapon. A great, unending source of light magic...having lost it, she not only felt a weakness, but also incomplete as well. She shouted a quick thanks to Keaton, and prepared herself.
The fires raged, the shadows roared, the magma surged. And while everyone was preparing their own attacks...while Mel's ice looked to do a fair job of cooling the lava into mere rock...her staff suddenly flared. Gentle blues, greens, yellows, the colors of a great bounty of magic was being tapped into...the angel was gathering power that equaled the kind she would have gotten after five or ten thousand years of life, maybe more...
Strength gathering in her veins, lightning encompassing her entire body like a crackling suit of armor, holy energy moving through the cracks in the rock like rivers through a valley, Rynkura knew she probably wouldn't match the demon in his own strength. But damn it all, if this enchantment did its job, she would come close enough to cause the bat some good injuries and help to turn the tide in their favor...and in Sebastian's favor.
I will be so exhausted after this...she thought, feeling such power that she hadn't felt in a few hundred years...But by the gods' will I hope it will be worth it.
With speed only bested by the bolts that she used for power, no longer was the angel standing on the rock. She had shot herself towards Asmodai just as Keaton had, unleashing a mighty amount of power and shock into any piece of flesh she'd be fortunate enough to touch.
The not-Jeremiah managed to grab hold of the side of the pillar of stone that Asmodai was on, having managed to evade notice thus far. This was Good. This was going According To Plan. True, it didn't know that the next part of The Plan was yet until it completed the prior one. Nevertheless, it was a Plan. The not-Jeremiah liked plans. Plans made the world go round. It scrambled around the side of the stone, getting behind Asmodai... And then it heard the crack and boom of two attacks, Keaton's and Rynkura's. Now, while he's still reeling... The not-Jeremiah scrambled up and crouched at ready, the spell it had been preparing creating a whine growing in pitch to a shriek and then halting, completely...
Light.
And there was. A single blast; flash, Bang...
Ketefe flexed her legs just a bit, more out of habit than anything. Even if she wasn't using her sword, reflexes and quickness meant survival right now. She moved quickly out of the way of falling splinters of rock and embers, and watched Keaton re-arm Rynkura and fire a successful blast at Asmodai. She almost screamed when the Not-Jeremiah let itself fall of the edge of the cliff, but she soon saw it leaping among rock spires and heading for the combat. If it wanted to get close to attack, even when the power of Asmodai and Stygian's attacks didn't need to be felt to be obvious, it must have known how dangerous that would be. And no-one puts themselves in danger without at least the feeling that they'll survive...usually.
When the bat retaliated with a wave of magma, Mel cooled it and turned it into simple stone. Immediately, Ketefe saw her chance. She only had a hunch about how this was going to work, but it was the best shot she had. Nothing was in the way; and if she was right about her hunch, she wouldn't need to see Asmodai clearly for this to work. She lifted the arm that had the bracelet on it and thought as hard as she could: Fire a bolt at Asmodai! A strong one!
But as the lightning bolt left the bracelet and traveled toward the demon, there was a blinding flash. Ketefe winced and squeezed her eyes shut, unable to see if her best hope of being useful had worked...
It was nearly as if their attacks had all been timed together. Keaton's bolt struck to the left of Asmodai as he dodged it before the stream of power drew after him and took him in the shoulder. The Demon growled fiercely, flames intensifying and thickening to a shield near him, dust and rock drawing up. Roaring faces in the flames screamed their fury at the attackers. The next second though Rynkura's attack turned that rage into anguish. Her attack was more easily directed, and the sheer release of power was enough to weaken the Demon's defenses down to near flimsiness. Flimsiness that was broken when Ketefe's bolt cut through it, hitting him in the head. He cried out, clutching a hand to his face and dropping down on a knee, swiping at the air.
'You will burn! All of you!' Asmodai snarled amid the faltering flames, crouching and tensing up, the effort and strain of calling out more Hellfire to aid him obvious. He was trying his utmost to kill them now, all stops pulled. Mel felt the heat beginning to rise again. Her cold was being fought by just too much heat welling up from below. She could keep it down, but not completely, and not for too long. The bat seemed to be on the way of giving another big push; he had no clearly visible wounds yet.
And then, something hit him in the back, right beneath his neck. Something hard and cold. With a hard, meaty sound that few recognize but that those who know always signifies an impact and a clearing of all air from a pair of lungs, the Demon was hurled forward, spinning slightly. He landed on a patch of cooled lava with a crack, grunting, and laying nearly still for a couple of seconds before straining to get up.
'...burn. All of you. All of us', he growled, rasping worse than ever. 'At least I can bathe in the flames...'
The darkness that was Stygian had drawn back before the attacks impacted. After the Demon got up and spoke again though, it seemed to freeze, tensing up. And then, it lunged. But not before Asmodai had managed to punch his fist into the ground.
There was a loud, crackling sound, and then a silence much like the one before, when they had just arrived. This time though, it was followed by a groan. One that underlined the voices in the air and just kept on growing. Suddenly, the heat began to rise again. Yet now, it seemed that there simply was no stopping it. And at the same time, a clinging, grabbing sensation filled the place. As if something were clutching at the shoulders of anyone there, trying to drag them down. Whatever he had done, Asmodai didn't seem to consider it the end though. Spinning on the spot, he swept his arm out, and unleashed a thick wave of flame back at the adventurers.
Mel could feel the heat pushing back against her cold. The demon had the natural elements to play with while the cold was entirely of her creation. Her second idea was to just drop a glacier on his head but since everyone had closed in on the fight all of her grander spells were off the menu. Then she felt the spell to paralyze the fighters in place. A trivial spell to dispel if one had time. Of course the one who used it never granted it's victim time. She saw the wall of fire and hoped someone close could affect it, meanwhile she increased her efforts with the cold, adding freezing rain to the mix.
The demon was great and formidable, that was certainly apparent. But as Rynkura darted around the flames and the attacks of the others, still looking less like a tigress and more like a glowing, electrified true angel looking to close the gate to hell, it was easy to see that he wasn't unbeatable. The shadows that were Sebastian and Keaton, the weapons from the adventurers, her own magic of light...there was, after all, only one of Asmodai.
It was the other bat's attack that came last, and that seemed to turn the tide of battle into a much higher level. A hissing threat escaped his mouth...then, his fist struck the ground with the force of a comet. And in an instant--it is probably redundant to say that hell broke loose--but that's what it did.
A force permeated the room...a feeling. Rynkura was familiar with it...the same kind of illusory fear that they had all been facing since taking the tentative steps below the altar, and perhaps even to the castle itself. Even the angel, powered as she was, could feel herself being dragged out of the air. But it was easy to shake off, when one knew how. Her glowing eyes and body only seemed to intensify when the voices broke out.
And then, the wave of fire. "Look out!" The tigress had suddenly roared towards the others...her voice having an echo to it as well, through the energy coursing out. "Take attacks further away...!"
The wall nearly overtook her. The intense heat was horrid. She didn't know if anyone heard her, but hopefully they would protect themselves any way possible. The electricity was gone, but there was still the light...which she used to its fullest and more than possibly hurtful power. As soon as she could, Rynkura's wings took her up higher and a little further away.
Her next attack wasn't as strong, but it came in sheer numbers. The darts of light, each sharper than any sort of blade when it ran against the opposing magic element, rained upon a part of Asmodai. It would be hard to tell exactly where she was, for the angel was changing attacking positions as much as possible...and making sure to show no signs of fatigue until the battle was over.
* * *
Far above the actual chaos, the raven was still uncomfortably ruffling its feathers in the rafters of the cathedral. The open altar was emanating all sorts of evil that any living creature wouldn't like, at least when it came to natural senses.
It stopped cawing loudly, at least. Aisha, or the simple black cat to the corvid's view, was sleeping gently on the arm of the white wolf, and their wounds were healing as swiftly as they could, so long as both were in the vicinity of the bracer. So far the adventurers had held their own and, it seemed, had nothing else to worry about...for the time being.
As if it were of truly intelligent design, the raven's red eyes locked on the head of the church. Something was bound to end...at one point.
A thrill ran through Ketefe when she saw her bolt strike Asmodai square in the face. That and the other attacks combined subdued him for a moment, and Ketefe could almost think that the fight would be over soon...
Then the air grabbed her shoulders and held her still. Her eyes went wide and blinking - what was this? Before she had any time to figure out what was going on, though, Asmodai launched a wave of flame at the group. Ketefe came close to screaming as pure panic raced through her. In her paralysis, all she could do was watch, helpless, as the fire came to her. HELP!
As the wave reached its peak, she braced herself for the impact. But instead of getting her flesh scalded off of her and feeling her bones melt, all she felt was the intense heat of flames... passing over and past her. She opened her eyes and saw what had saved her: a glowing wall of white energy had blocked the attack. ....Oh. Mel did say there was a shield charm in this thing...
As the flames passed, the feline carefully and quickly maneuvered herself to a spot that was farther back and a little higher up, stepping on a few scalding spots and jumping as she did. The shield stayed up, and she moved her wrist to block any more oncoming attacks. Once she was satisfied with her position, she focused on the battle again, waiting for another opportunity to strike.
Yet, even as they fought to shrug it off, that dragging, clinging sensation seemed to be growing stronger. It wasn't so much that it slowed their movements or weakened them. Rather, it seemed to be sapping the very will to move from their limbs. The darkness was thickening around them, and even as the stinging heat grew it was getting darker. The ground was shuddering, and a roaring noise was growing in the air, the cavern seeming to lengthen and expand, and the dark gateway behind them to grow along with it. It was almost as if it were coming closer, or as if they were being drawn to it, like a horrendous maw sucking them in. The very space around them seemed to be thickening and expanding at the same time somehow. It was as if time itself were gradually, slowly but still observably and in the most dreadful manner slowing down.
Stygian had smashed into Asmodai, the already unsteady demon now fighting from down on the ground. His strength seemed to have faltered somewhat, because something burning was pouring out of wounds that he had previously sealed up, some magma-like substance that might be called blood dribbling down his limbs and dripping onto the floor. One hand gripping around the darker creature's head, he was returning Stygian's swipes with his other hand, clearly not seeing well enough to make clear shots. Stygian, meanwhile, kept slashing the larger creature's ribs and face, hacking and stabbing with vicious swipes, dark and sharp and lashing things interrupting flames in the exchange.
There was something wrong though. And it was clear to see, amid all the flames and the sprawling, clawing, groping darkness. The fire flowing through the air was rolling slowly and unnaturally, and very clearly in one direction. The burning blood seeping from Asmodai's wounds was making near-straight trails over the ashen ground. And the darkness oozing from Stygian's form and all around was being driven like smoke before a wind. Whatever was trying to drag them all down was very palpable. The only solid points of light around left seemed to be the beacon that Rynkura represented, and the glints of energy still sparkling around Ketefe.
By then, even with her rejuvenated energy and even after she had been brought back from the brink of death, Keaton was finding staying on her feet a difficult task. Launching so many dark spells in a row, while satisfying, was momentarily exhausting; especially as that heavy, invisible influence bearing down on her body pushed and pulled at her form. Even if she was in the company of her darkness-based ilk, she felt nauseated, overwhelmed. This was unnatural. This was Hell.
In spite of this, Keaton kept her body upright and conjured up another gout of energy to fuel her next assault. Livid darkness coalesced in a wreath of black particles around Catastrophe, moving faster and faster, synchronized with the accelerated pulse of her heartbeat. Gripping Catastrophe's shaft tightly, Keaton spun about, swinging the mace in a wide arc, cleaving a giant, electricity-laced arc through the air. A flurry of flat black crescents, composed of shadows, whirled toward Asmodai like airborne blades. Just in case this attack failed, she had the energy for an additional attack prepared. Summoning the strength necessary was difficult, especially with the backbreaking atmosphere, but Keaton resisted.
A few frantic beats of her wings put the dragon above the fearsome wall of fire. It was quickly followed by the spell of despair, but fear of the lava below gave her wings a strength they might not have had above cooler ground. Mel saw that her ice attack was doing little in the tide of the battle, aside from making the combatants a fraction more comfortable. Her magic wasn't the kind needed here. Mistress Rynkura's light magic was probably the most hurtful to the demon and she seemed to be flagging. The dragon flew closer to the angel and lent her some magical strength.
It was hard for Rynkura to tell just how long her energy would be able to stay. She could not use electricity due to the overwhelming heat; the light thrived though, and for all it was worth the angel was still hitting the fallen Asmodai with her powerful darts...coming down like a vengeful holy rain.
Sebastian's strength also seemed to be more than enough power for the large demon. As he fought, Rynkura's luminous green eyes narrowed with concentration, though the very environment now seemed to be twisting against them. The beast was injured, bleeding fire...did he even really HAVE blood?...and she felt the pull of a kind of vortex, a siphon from the bowls of the earth, pulling them further and further down. Still, the Healer's strength refused to give in...hopefully the others hadn't succumbed yet to the flames, surely there was some way yet...
Rynkura had barely noticed just how far down she was being weighed, before she was rocked back with another burst of energy. This didn't come from her own adrenaline, her own stores of magic...this came from another; and it wasn't destructive. She recognized it as the sort to lend power...
Looking to the side, the glowing white tiger saw Mel. The ice dragon's very presence and magic was a cooling force to match the lava below, or it should have been.
"Try not to exhaust yourself, Mel..." Rynkura said with concern, her voice still energized and echoing more within itself than the chamber around them. She gave her a nod of sincere gratitude, and spread her wings to keep aloft nearby...if she could use the opportunity to its fullest...
The cold magic lent from the dragon gathered in her fingers and surged between her claws. Ice and light, brightness and cold, became one with her will. And with a great heave, it released like several lancing beams, with the intent of striking Asmodai...
Keaton's attack, sickling through the air like a giant reaping blade, flashed across the two fighters, and seemed to cause them pain, Asmodai more than Stygian, as the burning creature was shot through by a spasm of pain that momentarily threw Stygian off him. The blackened thing was still held fast by his throat nevertheless, and in response he stamped down with the hooked claws of his feet, spearing them into Asmodai's flesh. Flames licked his legs and the wounds hissed as the Demon's burning blood scorched the blackness, making it singe and flake, floating on heated air and turning to acid cinders that were inevitably drawn toward the hungry maw of the gate.
Barely audible, Stygian's tainted voice scraped forth through his strangled throat, acrid and smoky.
'Y-you've... lost...!' he rasped. Blood sizzled and dripped from the corners of Asmodai's mouth as he bared his teeth in return, in a hideous mixture of a grin and a snarl.
'So have y-'
It ended there, quickly and with neither flair nor regard for either of the dark creatures wrestling on the ground. Asmodai's words were immediately cut off and turned into an inarticulate roar, as a silvery spear of light stabbed through Stygian's side, blasting a hole into his chest. Not a fraction of a second passed before the next one came, followed closely by a next one, and more following that one. They impaled the duo like huge needles, shearing one of the Demon's arms and riddling him and the dark abomination with holes. They shuddered, smoke rising and frost crackling off the open wounds.
Stygian managed to stand, the last he did, turning and looking back at the others with an expression that, while so dark that it was practically faceless, seemed confounded. Then he staggered, the acid green of his eyes flickering, and fell to the ground, the blackness rolling like fog off his body. Asmodai was already dead, the fire in his veins visibly cooling and dissipating, fire twisting from his husk of a body which was cracking with a sound like rotten wood burning. A wailing flame rose from his body, twisting and snaking, burning features struggling to cling to his dying form. Yet, no matter the desperate scrabbling of its ephemeral, fiery fingers, it could not resist the drag of the hungering Hellmaw. Spiraling as if caught in a vertical tornado, the howling wraith was dragged from the corpse and hurled into the darkness, flaring like a torch in strong wind as it vanished into the distance, before finally being swallowed up by the blackness.
There was stillness for only a moment, before the heat and the groaning sounds grew once more.
Keaton admitted that there was a great deal of triumphant satisfaction in watching Asmodai suffer from her attack. She didn't want for Stygian to be caught in the crossfire, but he seemed largely unaffected, so she didn't let it concern her terribly. Not unless he started to exhibit side-effects or demonstrate any sort of pain. Asmodai seemed on the brink of death when he finally climbed to his feet, flames belching smoke and crawling up the length of his legs, eating away at the detritus of the ground. Keaton claimed the opportunity to scramble away, yelping unintelligibly, as though she expected for Asmodai to direct his vengeance toward herself. Instead, he seemed distracted by his grandson, and was exchanging insults with him. Keaton dropped against a rock, pressing her back to the giant stone.
Shit, this asshole just won't die! Keaton thought in regards to Asmodai. She grit her teeth together and pawed at the rock again, grabbing for an outcropping so she could assume a more upright position. However, she didn't need to fire an attack - someone else did. She didn't see who, but a shot of light that instantaneously lanced through both chiropterans ended the fight.
Both chiropterans was what ruined the moment for Keaton. As Asmodai's body collapsed, starting to disintegrate into ash and smoke, Keaton watched the pallid bat stagger and sway. Her attention was drawn to Asmodai's shrieking, apparitional aftershade being dragged into the darkness; she watched him disappear with some satisfaction. She didn't know what had happened to his soul or where a hell-beast like him would go after its death, but the fact he was dead finally brought a conclusion to this nightmarish episode. And for once, in the group, Keaton felt genuinely useful and not like a useless adjunct, unlike what she had been told she was all throughout her later years of servitude. She felt elated, but before she could elaborate on this simplistic and inexplicable upswell of happiness, she noticed Stygian's body.
"FUCK!" Keaton shouted, "Sebastian!"
Shuddering, the bat lay on the scorching rock, fist clenched in the dust and claws trying to find some sort of purchase against the ground for no real reason. His eyes flicked back and forth irregularly, his chest somehow still moving in futile defiance of the holes that had been seared right through it.
'Wasn't it... warm down here...?' he said, his voice so low that it was doubtful whether if anyone could hear. Black smoke seeped from his wounds and the oily something running from them, drawn as inevitably toward the horrid maw as Asmodai's flames had been. Something splashed at the edge of the cliff they were standing on, behind him, and rocks clattered on the ground.
Keaton twitched uncomfortably where she sat, gradually prying her body away from the protective surface of the stone. In spite of her recent altercations with Stygian, she didn't want anything bad to happen to him. Somewhat hesitantly, she started to approach Stygian, and, after checking the environment for any potential threats, quickly sheathed Catastrophe and charged toward Stygian. Her wings materialized and unfurled from her back, instantly adopting a form that would be of some use. The membrane of her wings pervaded into several, individual tentacles and hooked themselves underneath Stygian's body, hefting him into her arms. While Keaton couldn't hold Stygian on her own, she kept her wing-tentacles unsheathed and available to support his body. She stared balefully at the hole gaping in his chest, and started to resist the urge to grimace.
Keaton tried to run back to the group, running through her memories of earlier events. Stygian was able to heal his injuries by channeling some of her darkness magic, so maybe she could repeat the same process to get rid of that hole...
It all happened quickly.
Though it was far too late for Rynkura to call back her attack as soon as she saw it hit Sebastian--as well as the near-death Asmodai--she did when their banter ended and the great demon bat fell with his last breath. Skin crackling, the fires inside and outside eating up his overpowered flesh, there he was, claimed by the pit of the evils that he had opened.
The monster was gone, and the angel, still hovering in the air with the power surging throughout, was glad. Never had the Healer really been glad for a creature's death without a hint of pity, but this time she was. Now he wouldn't make good on his threat to harm anyone...especially Aisha, whom she hoped was still alive along with sir Manoko back up in the chapel. Soon enough the plague of creatures would end, and the Castle would hopefully return to normal...
...Except there was still a gaping hole to close. The walls all around them rumbled and rocks started to fall, but all still looked stable enough for a quick rest.
Rynkura searched out the others. Mel should have been nearby, and she saw Keaton from the air running to those who were left, picking up the bat's tattered but living body along the way...and they still needed to find sir Mithlome...was anyone else missing? Hopefully not...
The tiger's energy was spent. Her wings took her to the edge of the cliff where the others stood, and the staff that was the source of it was floating back into her hand. The electric glow dissipated as she fell on hands and knees to the rock, leaving the just the old white tiger angel with her striped wings dropping at her sides. The place was still rumbling, the hole was drawing in clutter, and she had barely the strength to move.
"We need...to get out of here..." Rynkura murmured with urgency, drawing in as much breath as she could. She didn't know how much of the area was still Asmodai's hellish trickery, but it was still going to be a long way back up.
It all seemed to happen so fast, and at the same time, every detail was painstakingly clear, as if someone had stopped each moment to paint it in Ketefe's mind.
In the first picture, a heavy feeling. Everything becoming difficult, and her shield beginning to fade just a little, Asmodai and Stygian hacking and slashing at each other furiously, Keaton whirling around to fire a dark assault at the fire-bleeding demon.
In the second picture, a sidelong eyeview as the feline glanced up from her frozen position on the rocks. Mel flying up to Rynkura, two glistening forms of magic coalescing in the tigress's hands, blasting once again towards Asmodai.
In the third picture, the finale of this amazing, infernal triptych, Asmodai and Stygian each screaming as the attacks hit full force, Rynkura's spearing right through both of them. A howling spirit being pulled from Asmodai's corpse, being pulled irrevocably into the endless dark - and, most frightening of all, Stygian giving one last bewildered look to the group before crumpling to the ground.
Keaton's scream pulled Ketefe from her shock. The shield winked out completely as her mind refocused on the others. She started to run to Keaton and Stygian, but stopped, realizing this was a wound that her basic healing knowledge couldn't comprehend. Rynkura's words got her attention, and the feline began to look around and notice that while the walls were sturdy enough for now, they wouldn't last. She did a quick head-count. Jeremiah was missing, and Cog... well, no-one could know, or so she thought. She had seen something fighting Asmodai, but the connection hadn't formed in her head.
In the meantime, there were other ways she could help. Light, she thought. Immediately, a small, glowing sphere began to crackle above her bracelet. It was a little dim, but it was enough. That task out of the way, she took a few deep breaths, trying to smell out Jeremiah and anyone else she could through the burning air.
As Mel hovered above the lava pit, her wing beats keeping a bubble of cooler air around her, she scanned below to find her allies. Stygian and Keaton were easy to identify near the demon's body and she picked up Jeremiah's form close by. Ryn, a spot of brilliant white in the gloom was landing near Ketefe. Then she noticed something unusual off to the side. A spot of grey against the obsidian rocks. A familiar shade of silvery grey.
Folding her wings and dropping she found that she had located the missing party member, Cog. He was burned and crushed and limp and it took a scan with her magic to ascertain he was even alive. "Rynkura. I have found Cog. He is not in good shape."
More and more, the group began feeling the clinging, horrid sensation of the place strengthening, clutching at them. Behind them, the vile dark, cavernous maw leading deeper seemed to stretch, its craggy and toothy edges like teeth wanting to snap into them. The pressure around was growing, and as the fire and darkness both fluctuated wildly, the ground cracking and the heated gases and flames and the liquid rock flared and flickered with heat.
If Keaton had hoped to heal the bat's injury though, then it was a futile hope. She could actually feel his form seething and disintegrating, his skin turning into some ashen, crackling material in her fingers. A pallid glow emerging from somewhere deep within the sooty darkness, he looked as if he were withering, aging years in a matter of seconds. The green glow in his dark eyes flickering, he slowly shifted his gaze to the jackal.
'No...' he rasped, head trembling as he shook it. He could feel it. Weakened by his injury, he'd gone far past the point where he had the strength to hold on to any sort of physical form. And then he would be exposed to the ruinous hunger of the cavern. Unless... 'I'm sorry.'
Letting go of the already quickly slipping grasp he had on the shadows around, the bat finally dissipated, the mass of his body breaking apart and turning into slowly rolling black fire and dust, seeping right around and past the Succubus. Flares of green, yellow and white broke out from the heart of the cloud, pallid flickers of light licking against her, a hint of a hollow-eyed face forming amid them before they too slipped away somewhere.
The Not-Jeremiah hung from the dragon's grip, still trying to assess what in the HELL had just happened, albeit not in so few words. So, The Large Creature Is Dead. I'm Not Sure How I Feel About This. It Was A Constant Throughout My Entire Existence, Brief Though It Has Been Thus Far. Sort Of. It tugged at Mel's sleeve and turned its expressionless face toward her. "We Need To Go Up, I Believe. Very Fast. Who Is Not Yet Accounted For?" Not waiting for an answer it turned to search out anyone who could be found. It saw Keaton standing in the middle of some sort of cloud of smoke, cast its eyes about for anyone else. It had no idea why, but it was VITALLY important to it that everyone get back alive.
It took a few moments for Rynkura to rest, digging up the will to get back on her feet. While the angel took in breath after quick breath, feeling more and more like she was going to be choked to death in that horrid underground. The darkness still surrounded them with such intent...if they didn't go soon...
But she saw the others soon accounted for. Jeremiah, turned still into some sort of creature from only out of the most interesting of nightmares...Ketefe was just close...and Sebastian was dissipating in Keaton's arms. Though she had very neutral opinions about the bat, it was in the Healer's mind to feel pity as he slowly wasted away into dust, his presence seemingly altogether gone. His being of a...unique nature, Rynkura wasn't sure of what was truly happening. But still her head found itself bowing slightly.
Then one of her ears swiveled backward, hearing her name called by the ice dragon. Upon the news, she stood up and turned around to see where Mel was...where a very exhausted and very wounded Cogidubnus lay in full form once again.
"By gods," Rynkura hummed and walked over, using her staff more as a walking stick while her muscles slowly regained their energy. "And here I had already finished healing him before...he was injured, deposited in the prison alongside me by Asmodai...wicked bat," she snarled slightly and bent over to help pick him up, then looked around at the others. They were shaken, and disjointed...well past the need for rest...but there was just another trip to make, and the Healer would definitely be there to make sure they all got out alive.
Of course, Jeremiah echoed her sentiment as she saw he was there with them. "We do, and we will. Everyone!" Rynkura addressed, her mind trying to work quickly. "I want all who can use their wings to help carry those who can't, fast upwards. As fast as possible, if we cannot teleport," she glanced towards Keaton, knowing that 'Cubi often possessed that particular skill, though she hadn't yet known if the jackal herself did. "Back to the paths, where we can run if we cannot fly."
Stretching her wings, and still feeling the effects of hell, she finished. "We can heal everyone once we are safe back in the chapel. Or perhaps, outside of it, back into the Castle itself."
The tiger's serious emerald gaze locked on the others. One could see how easily she seemed like a mentor. "Unless there is an objection, or a better idea, it would be advisable to decide who to carry and go, now."
With a nod of agreement to Ryn's escape plan Mel stepped a bit to the side where there was more room and changed to her full sized form. "Grab on. I can get us as far as I fit, anyway."
Keaton instinctively turned her head to look at Stygian as he murmured, and immediately tried to reassure him. Keaton had little to no experience with consoling the half-dead, but she was relying on what she had witnessed Stygian endure thus far to substantiate what little confidence she had. "H-Hey," she said woodenly, trying to energize her voice with what could be interpreted as something encouraging, but failing, "Don't... don't exhaust yourself. You'll be okay. You'll -"
Contrary to Keaton's empty reassurances, deep down, she did not suspect that Stygian was going to be anything close to okay. She had never seen anyone survive an injury to the degree of what he had been inflicted. As Keaton ruminated over the impossibility of Stygian's survival, she gradually felt herself sink into desperation, which she just barely prevented from bleeding into her voice. She was so preoccupied with trying to keep her increasing frenzy in check that she didn't notice the instability to his form; not until it became obvious, at least. When he let go, she could do nothing to stop him, and could only watch helplessly as his body suddenly broke apart. He seemed to spasm in her hands, and then he was suddenly gone, leaving only rolling gouts of virulent smoke trickling through her fingers and her now-unencumbered wing-tentacles. Where Keaton's eyes were once fixated on his face, she was now just staring at her hand, smeared with ichorous blood.
Keaton felt something very cold, like a big, concentrated glacier, drop into her stomach. She was very quiet, but her mind was racing with guilt and doubt and shock and thoughts of what she was going to tell Cogidubnus, if he was alive after this mess, and for once she didn't feel responsible for Stygian's death but she still felt sad and empty. She wasn't sure why, seeing as Keaton was only in the Castle for a few nights. Although she was shaking a little, still unnerved and still digesting the gravity of what had just occurred, Keaton forced herself into motion as she realized Mel and Rynkura were departing. She chased after both of them, waving and gesturing for herself to be lifted, as she couldn't fly.
Fissures cracked and shook the cavern as the pulling sensation grew stronger; it was starting to reach the point where Mel had to really concentrate to keep from succumbing to the force of hell trying to go back to hell. Greasy smoke smelling of sulfur and ozone billowed up around them as the magma rose...
"... It Sounds Like Home..." The Not-Jeremiah said, watching the advancing tide. "Like Home I've Never Been To..."
Its mask cracked, slightly, chips of it being whisked to the center of the pit where something involving angles that hurt the eyes was taking place. Sounds of people and things that couldn't POSSIBLY be people in torment or some sort of madly perverse joy echoed up from below; regardless of what the spindley thing in Mel's grip was hearing, the sound pretty clearly said out. In no uncertain terms.
Leaving Cog to the care of Rynkura because she could carry the gravely injured wolf more carefully Mel grabbed her remaining three comrades up in her arms like a bunch of kittens. "Sorry. No time for dignity." With a jump and a bit of a protest from wings not designed for a vertical start the dragon fled the advancing lava.
The response was as close to immediate as what had Rynkura satisfied. With Cogidubnus safe in her grip, and the others within the dragon's, the lava was churning around them and no longer felt like holding itself in.
Gods willing...the angel tigress pleaded, flaring her wings and willing them to lift her to the air alongside Mel. The added weight combined with her intense exhaustion kept her behind for a small while, but as hell seemed to collapse upon itself and the earth started to complain and right itself again (or so it was guessed), it was all the incentive she needed to speed straight up and into the vast upper levels.
There was another incentive, too. The will to make sure that all of the adventurers got out alive. The Healer had to admit that she was in desperation to do that, and even more so to see if the ones they left upstairs were safe.
Up and up they went, shooting straight past and through darkened paths of stone as things shifted in the corners of their eyesight. Staff carried along, Rynkura was like a small beacon in the dark. And the dark seemed to thankfully lack any remaining demons to hinder them. She just kept her deep emerald eyes locked on the path ahead, darting the obstacles while maintaining speed, and awaiting the moment that they would lay eyes on the paths that led right back up to the chapel...
* * *
Back up in the peaceful chapel, the raven on the beams noticed that things seemed to feel a little more normal, though it had done so quickly, and the mess was still there.
The feeling was only slightly lost on the slowly-healing adventurers too, it seemed. Something was making the floor rumble, and Aisha could feel it under her bare paws. It was as faint as the rumble of a hungry stomach, but it was there and noticeable, coming and going at intervals. It awakened her from her slumber with a bout of curiosity, lifting her head from Gareeku's shoulder and glancing around.
For that moment, she'd forgotten her wounds. "Something's happening..." she muttered, still trying to wake up and contemplate things fully, eyes narrowing. Was she just dreaming? "I think...something's happening..."
The Not-Jeremiah crumbled, its shell cracking and fading to be sucked into the maw of hell that resonated with it. This left a significantly less useful frog hanging from Mel's grip in a gibbering panic. Where once was a merely eye-aching point had expanded into a huge patch of a thing indescribable; it was something the eye was not meant to register, not a presence or absence of light but light that was in some indescribable way wrong. It grew and pursued them, more of the cavern being sucked into it and going away...
--
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
The floor shook. This was not in and of itself terribly exciting, but the happenstances that it seemed to trigger seemed to have quite the result. Something brushed Aisha's foot... Rats. Or something that used to be rats. Or things trying and failing to be rats. All heading OUT, as fast as they could go. Some were trailing a sort of vapor, leading behind them in the direction of the hellmouth.
Nothing wants to go back to hell. Even the things from there.
Clutching her three hitchhikers tightly Mel was very glad that her wings were large for her size and that she had spent her university years on the racing team. This was a race for higher stakes than a gilded trophy. She knew she was making frightened little squeaky sounds in her paniced flight but the howls of the things both chasing and bypassing them were drowning it out. Jeremiah was squirming dangerously in her grip but by the look in his eyes as he looked back over her shoulder Mel decided to neither protest nor look back. The things swirling around them, also fleeing, were enough to horrify her without seeing what they were afraid of. Each time one brushed against her stung and burned. Luckily Ryn was keeping pace as Mel drove upwards for the exit that was hopefully still open.
On and on, as more of Hell was swallowed in that maw of darkness, Rynkura's wings strained, her eyes narrowed against the ceiling. Occassionally the tigress veered away from the spirits straining...not against them, but with them...to get out. In a roundabout way it was like getting out of a cave by following the bats to where they flew outside...or following birds to shore. If there was an escape route, they seemed to know where it was...
But far be it for Rynkura to let any more of those beasts out.
Gritting her teeth, the angel glanced to Mel as she kept a tight but gentle hold on the still-unconscious silver wolf. "I don't suppose anyone knows any good holy sealing spells...or perhaps you, Lady Mel? Because once we get out, it looks like we may have to take precautions to...AH!"
She exclaimed while trying to dodge another barrage of creatures wheeling past, righting herself from a barrel roll before trying to speak again. "We may have to take precautions to make sure nothing else comes out or the entire place isn't swallowed...!"
And sure enough, there it was...the path, too crumbled and worn to walk on. The hole was just about in sight, and it became a race to reach it before anything else happened...
* * *
Aisha twitched and lifted her feet up to the bench quickly as soon as she saw movement on the floor, and against her fur. She wasn't afraid of rats of course...but then again, these didn't even make the effort to look like rats.
So long as they weren't attacking, at least. There was more fear than aggression. Lots of fear, from the quivering floor.
That was fortunate. Neither she nor Gareeku looked like they had the energy to participate in any more fights just yet...watching the altar, Aisha silently hoped that they could hold out.
He did not know how long he had been out for. Slowly his eyes has closed completely, his body giving in to the wave of oncoming unconsciousness.
"Wha...what's going on..." The white wolf murmured with a drowsy slur as he slowly came to. Seeing those...things...scurring along the floor. Like rats, but only a grotesque mockery of them. Though the way they were moving. It didn't seem out of anything else but fear.
"What the hell..."
Aisha's ear twitched as she heard Gareeku stirring, her attention momentarily diverted from watching the macabre spirits scurrying across the floor. Despite the uncertainty of the moment, she gave him a light smile. "Hey, good morning mi amigo," she said, although it was hard to tell whether it was morning yet.
Not saying anything else except for releasing a grunt, she unsheathed her sword and held it in front of her near the floor. The rat-things still didn't seem to notice them as they ran straight out from beneath the altar in fear, but she wasn't about to let anything attack them just in case; though she still felt a bit of pain from her wounds and fatigue from some blood loss.
The floor still quivering, she looked on in concern...what was happening? Were their comrades coming back? Or was something else coming for them? Seeing lesser creatures from Hell itself running from something didn't seem at all like a good sign...
"I'd like to know what the hell's going on too," she said, gritting her teeth. "Part of me wants to go push the altar back over the hole, and part of me wants to wait...I don't know what we should do..."
Wanting to banish the worry (hard as it was to try), she glanced back toward the wolf, her face softening. "How're you holding up? That bracer been working for you?"
He was almost dead.
Visions danced in his head, half-nightmares of grotesque spirits and darkness, explosions of light like he'd been pressing on his eyes, nameless terrors and fears and dreams that all at once impressed themselves on his mind.
He wasn't aware of himself in the least. Broken, naked, and bloody, he lay like a dead weight. He would not awake for a long, long time - if ever again.
The wolf in him, for the first time, slept, overwhelmed.
In response to Ryn's question Mel shook her head, "Holy seals? I only have theoretical knowledge. I would do better trying to crash a section of the castle down to slow their escape."
Light of a dim and watery grey showed ahead of them. The contrast of the natural light to the living red light of the hellscape made it seem beautiful to the dragon and she redoubled her efforts to reach it.
Jeremiah shook his head, trying in vain to clear it. Everything was rushing and yelling and...
Mel flew through the watery lights; a bank of some sort of smoke from the hellfire below, weakly clinging at the ascending adventurers before falling away. Above them the hellmouth pulsed like some profane living thing.
--
More things from hell were streaming from the castle whatever way they could. A few of the half-headed doppelgangers from before scrambled through the hall outside the chapel, one of them tripping and falling in a patch of light from the door. A robust creature with white fur, and a well tailored suit... Bits of it looked like they were burning or dissolving or streaming away. Two of them ran back, amidst cries of "Leave him!" "The original's gone, there's no hope for 'im!" One grabbed at the white doppelganger's shoulder and tried to drag him away before he dissolved... And then they caught sight of Aisha and Gareeku.
"... You." The Mel double snarled, more loathing put into the word than could ever be heard in the original's tones.
"What did you-? Oh fuck!" The Keaton double turned and saw the two adventurers. "HEY!"
Well, great...the tigress thought, her wings straining to fly. I guess all we can do when we get back is to just close the altar.
Rynkura kept a hold of Cogidubnus, though he felt almost like dead weight, as she kept up alongside Mel through the threshold of Hell's almost unending levels. She held her breath at intervals through the smoke, just keeping her eyes on the area above...escape that was now so close...
* * *
Before Aisha could get an answer, her eyes went instantly back up to where the creatures were still flooding out of the entrance.
The rats were one thing.
But these...
At first, Aisha immediately thought that their comrades had finally made it out of the altar, at long last. Mel, and Keaton, and perhaps...but looking closer, one could surely feel the adventurer's heart sink and her anger rise. They were grotesque...half-formed. They let one of their own dissolve away before turning their eyes to them. And if Aisha couldn't tell that they weren't their friends by appearance, then certainly, it was the way they spoke to them.
The not-Mel's voice was not gentle, and the real Mel certainly didn't always curse like that. And the not-Keaton...
Aisha growled and tried to stand up, pointing her sword at each of them. "Don't you dare come any closer to us," she said, showing her fangs. The warriors were clearly injured, one glowing gently with a healing light courtesy of the bracer, but for certain nobody was going to stand down. "I've had enough of hell creatures trying to confuse and kill us all. What the hell are you and what do you want?"
Everything happened so quickly and yet was understood so slowly...
Jeremiah was found safely by Mel, as was Cog. The latter... well, had it not been for everything already overwhelming her, Ketefe might have broken down and cried out of relief. But none of this mattered after about three seconds. The badly injured Stygian spoke up, something uncharacteristically quiet and sorrowful about his voice. Then, slowly, he dissipated, leaving Keaton empty-handed and the others extremely confused and upset - even after spending a night in Hell.
Ketefe was immobilized, her emotions like scattered pieces of nine separate jigsaw puzzles trying to fit together. She heard the chaos around her, and saw, but nothing really registered. Stygian was dead. Cog had never been dead. They were all very close to dying right now, herself included. Her mind kept retreating to more familiar places, hoping to avoid the enormity of what was going on.
She felt a cold arm scoop her up, and snapped back to attention, startled by the sudden change in temperature - and altitude. Mel had scooped her up, along with the normal-again Jeremiah and a distraught-looking Keaton. They were all heading out of Hell as fast as they could. Ketefe looked around, looking like a lost kitten who's wandered into traffic. The exit was up ahead, and she found herself growing more and more tense as they headed ever coser to that normality which seemed so long ago now...
We're going home....
Mel saw the exit rapidly approaching and suddenly realized that she was going too fast to brake in time to drop off her passengers and change size. "Guard yourself, Lady Ryn," shouted the dragon as she started a spell. She created a heavy shield in front of herself and those she carried as she shrunk herself down and slimmed herself out as much as possible while still being able to firmly hold her three friends. Aiming carefully for the center of the door she still heard the cracking and grinding sounds of rock being violently removed from their former locations. For a moment she thought that she would expend all her momentum before the rock gave way and end up stuck, but with a final loud crack the door enlarged and Mel found herself hovering in mid-air in the chapel, a few blue blood droplets flicking from scraped up wings as she fluttered, trying to reorient herself.
"We're... You?" The Keaton-thing replied confusedly. "Or bits of you, I think..." It tugged on the Mockery Mel's sleeve. "Hey, what are we?"
And then the portal exploded, erupting with a goodly sized ton of severely stressed dragon. The Mel double's reaction to the original was immediate, a spell sparking in her hands...
"No." A white hand reached out of the shadows and grabbed The Mel-thing's arm, another double bearing a strong resemblance to Gareeku soon following it. "I think, for the time being, there's been enough of that." It's faceless head turned to quickly whisper something to the Keaton-Double, which nodded awkwardly and ran off...
Stones from the roof began landing around them, but the Gareeku-double simply stood there.
"Part of us?" Aisha repeated in almost a mutter, then snorted, keeping her sword up and keeping herself between them and Gareeku despite her pain. "Right, and I'm the queen of the freakin' castle. Now for the final time, tell me what you want from us, or I swear I'll drop you where you stand."
It was just then that the floor rumbled with even more of a violent crease, and all attention diverted to the altar...
* * *
Rynkura's wings couldn't take much more of the hectic flying. She was slowly starting to fall behind the dragon and everyone else, still carefully but firmly holding Cogidubnus in her grasp like the most fragile thing in the world. At least for that moment he was.
That's when she heard Mel's warning and saw the shield rushing around her body. Looking up, nearly dazed, the tigress spotted what she was aiming for...the stairs, and above it, the end of the line. The exit out of the altar.
Oh, there was no more a heavenly sight than that...
But Rynkura wasn't dazed for long. With a quick invocation she too summoned a barrier around herself and the silver wolf as Mel slammed through with a few ear-shattering CRACKS, leaving a cascade of rock to tumble in her wake. The healer's own shield kept her alive as rocks pummeled it...but any demons behind them had little chance as they were hit and thrown back into oblivion.
There was a rush of air as she finally pushed herself out, and the tunnel of rock and fire was no more in front of her.
As the altar exploded outward, Aisha found the incentive to duck next to Gareeku and place her only remaining arm over her head as shards of marble and stone flew outward. When she could look again, there they were, she knew it...the real Mel, and Mistress Rynkura, carrying all of their comrades with them, finally escaping the pit.
There was no end to the relief and amazement that the panther felt right then...surely what both adventurers felt right then. They were alive, as they knew. And thus they must have gotten rid of the demon bat...
In fact, Aisha had almost forgotten about the not-beings around them. One fled. Two remained, including a faceless false Gareeku.
Which Rynkura noticed as she was landing and finding a safe place to put Cogidubnus. She had shaken herself out of her daze and was looking around in the chapel for the ones they left behind...only to find them injured from her vantage point and surrounded by the most hideous of ghouls...
Which of course, the healer had enough of seeing.
"Aisha, behind you!" the bedraggled tiger roared, putting Cogidubnus down on a bench and raising a hand crackling with electrical light energy in warning to the mock Gareeku.
He did not entirely know what was going on. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the white wolf saw something really quite large crash through the portal; something dragon-esque. Had the others finally returned?
It was then that Gareeku noticed a couple of features; distorted versions of his allies and himself. Before he could try to say or do anything, however, Rynkura had appeared, putting a very injured Cog on a bench before before raising a hand to the bastardised version of himself, ready to strike.
"...Wait..." the wolf managed to utter, his voice strong enough that Rynkura would hear.
The Mel-Thing muttered something cultured and caustic-sounding, starting to grow to a size more befitting a dragon... Until the GareekuMockery swatted her about where her nose would be, if the doppleganger had been more complete.
"I said enough." The double reached for its swordbelt and unbuckled it, letting its weapons fall to the ground, and raised its arms. "Listen to me. This whole place is going straight BACK to hell and it's bringing everything inside it with it. We don't want to go back, and I bet after seeing the place you don't either." It stalled off, seeming to think, "I know you don't have much reason to trust us. If it's any consolation we don't either. But if we stop to fight now chances are we're DEAD." There was a groan from the direction of the hole Mel and the group had burst out of, the stone and morter of the chapel floor crumbling outward. "Listen, anything we can offer you is yours if it'll stop a fight here, we just want to survive."
The Mel-double glowered at the Gareeku-Mockery, the knot of flesh it had in place of a head momentarily shifting into Mel's expression to match.
Jeremiah missed all of this, as he was still waiting for the room to stop spinning.
Except for the rumbling threatening to cause the chapel itself to topple over, things then seemed to freeze and go silent between the adventurers in the room, both real and false.
Rynkura, who was on the verge of attacking the pseudo-Gareeku, stopped and managed to spare a glance towards the real white wolf as she heard is voice, strong though only barely awake. There was a pause before the Healer regained her composure and dispelled her magic. She had gotten the idea for the reason of his urgency and stepped back. "My apologies, sir Manoko. I believe my short time imprisoned has temporarily changed me somewhat."
Aisha however was still on guard, staying nearby and listening to one of the creatures finally give a reasoning. It's true, there seemed to be a bigger danger looming ahead. "I don't think there's anything you could offer us, really," she said with a bit of a snarl in her voice. "Unless you could give me a new arm or find my lost holy sword. And honestly, I don't see how you could pull off surviving outside this place. You're bastardized versions of us from Hell, who'd as soon be attacked as take a step out."
"Aisha," Rynkura softly chastised. "Any creature that would first negotiate before an attack at least deserves a chance to speak; though," she said, turning to the thing. "My student has a point. And if you're so intent on all of us surviving, then is there anywhere in the rest of the Castle we could go for a moment at least? There are many of us who are injured or exhausted and in need of healing and respite."
She gestured towards those in question with her staff. Aisha with an intensely blood-stained cloth tied around the upper portion of one leg, Gareeku with a slowly-closing gash in his abdomen bandaged and also stained red, Cogidubnus unconscious and near death, and the others with various bruises and cuts...
And the almost-forgotten raven on the rafters, which had decided to fly to avoid any more falling debris and was now staring intently into the void, as if contemplating it.
The not-Gareeku shrugged, a gesture disturbingly akin to that of the original.
"With your reputations you're just as likely to be attacked, but I'm pretty sure that regardless of that, if given the decision that we ourselves face, I believe you too would decide that you would rather not die." The Mel-Thing grumbled something about insane bigoted beings that, thankfully, wasn't too distinct. "As for a place to rest..." Part of the roof above landed next to Mel with a crash, "I wouldn't count on it. But if you want a token of good faith, I believe a sufficiently good healer could be found to help." The mockery-wolf turned in the direction of Rynkura, with what others would call a grin tinging its voice. "However, I believe it's understandable if you require more and anticipated that..."
There were footsteps from further down the hall, the Keaton-Mockery returning with the body of the Aisha-Mockery slain earlier.
"You said an arm, yes?"
Mel, still hovering in the midair in the thankfully large chapel, looked down with a bit of horror at the almost-things, in particular the twisted version of herself. She tightened her grip on Ketefe, Jeremiah, and Keaton, feeling a bit protective. With multiple large broken windows behind her getting at least three friends to safety was still an option until the goal of these hell-creatures became clearer. She wondered if this negotiation was just to delay them until escape was impossible.
When she heard the sound of other voices, not the cacophonous background of hell, Ketefe finally opened her eyes and let her muscles relax just a bit (she was still in Mel's arms with Keaton and Jeremiah, and knew that relaxing totally would feel heavy to the dragon).
What they saw in the chapel was simultaneously relieving and worrisome. Aisha and Gareeku were all right, but there were more Mockeries facing them - a Keaton, a Mel, and a Gareeku. Feeling Mel's grip tighten, Ketefe guessed that the dragoness wasn't about to let her drop down and help. Besides the potential of the feline's injuries becoming worse, there was still the frog and jackal to worry about, and the likelihood of escape decreasing if any of them were let go. For the time being, she simply twitched her hanging tail and narrowed her eyes, listening to the negotiations taking place below. There was a chance that Aisha could get a new arm...for the panthress's sake, Ketefe was willing to hold her peace.
Keaton had remained in a state of shock all throughout the escape. She just remained slack and unresisting in Mel's arms, strangely unblinking, before her eyes finally settled when she seemed to grow tired of simply staring into oblivion. After all of the trials and fights that the group had encountered in the underworld, Keaton was mostly caked in blood and detritus. The yellow color of her fur had been almost entirely covered with splatters and smudges of crimson, some of it half-congealed and the rest flaking whenever the jackal stirred. Some of it had started to burn by the time Mel was mostly out, which was probably what awoke Keaton: some sort of evidence to remind her that she wasn't actually dreaming or dead. Keaton's eyes snapped open and she let out a terrified caterwaul just as Mel spiraled out of the tunnel and into the chapel.
"Lemme go! Lemme go!" Keaton exclaimed, not really thinking - she was just blind in her horror. Only after a moment, she realized how stupid that request was when the floor blurred and shifted into focus, and she understood the distance. After that, Keaton clung desperately to Mel's jacket. "...Don't let me go."
Keaton wasn't thinking rationally: she didn't realize, entirely, how her surroundings had transitioned from a hellish atmosphere to the thanatoid cathedral. Keaton recognized it as the place they had used to enter the catacombs from the state of ruin and decay they had left. The nearby window was still broken from where she had been thrown through the glass. All she remembered, beyond her somehow falling into a catatonic state, was that Stygian had died along with his grandfather. She didn't want to recall the rest of her experience, since she presumed it was going to be a very unpleasant memory. As Keaton looked around, her eyes suddenly locked on the Keaton-Mockery's shape and she narrowed her eyes in confused indignation.
"What the hell is THIS?" she asked, as though offended by this impersonator. She was very dizzy and her speech was slurred, so she wasn't thinking very clearly.
Rynkura's eyebrows quirked, listening to the mock-Gareeku's answers to her questions. There seemed to be a short period of quiet, at least after Keaton was heard making an exclamation. The healer had to admit that he seemed to be answering them as helpfully as possible, however truthful or not they might have been. And all the while, the entire chapel felt like it was about to tremble at its base. The tiger growled to herself as the events unfolded, even up to the offering of a new arm from a dead bastardization of Aisha.
"So...you're saying that if we are to be allowed any respite, it would be right now and right quickly, or until after we're all out of here? You want me to just heal everyone's scrapes and bruises and great gaping stab wounds right now? It takes more than magic, it takes rest on the part of the others, or else they would be sorely fatigued into fainting! And what of this arm you offer, how do I even know it's real flesh and wouldn't poison my student's blood? If I have to--"
"Señora, I'll take it."
More than not, a few surprised eyes must have turned to a frozen Aisha at that moment. The panthress glanced at the body, and back at her blood-ridden bandage that hid the stump of a right arm, and again to the white tiger. "I'm suspicious too...but we have just a little time left, and for the moment they sound honest. Besides, I'd jump at anything to leave this place and give Asal one more reason to turn in his burnt-out grave...it's the least this place could do after all the gods-damned trouble. If they mean to help, let 'em. We're more than capable of fighting if they go turncoat on us all anyway."
Rynkura sighed, calming herself and letting the feathers on her wings smooth out again. She was right. There was no reason now to keep tarrying any longer. And by the look in Aisha's eyes as she leaned against Gareeku to help him up if need be, she wanted more than just herself out of the line of trouble.
There was only a short pause before she turned back to the mockery of the white wolf. "Fine, then. I despise to ask the advice of a hell-creature...but allow me but a moment to quickly see to the ones most wounded. And then, please do tell us what to do next. The rest of you, lady Mel and her charges, can land and grant yourselves respite; it would probably be much easier!"
With that, Rynkura placed her staff near the bench and took to mending the wounds of the panther and the wolf first. "I am simply glad that the both of you are still alive up here," she said, readying the magic. "And young Gareeku, once we get out of here, I am quite indebted for your help in keeping Aisha safe."
Aisha simply lowered her head, suddenly in thought. Meanwhile, the raven, surely unnoticed, turned and flew through the castle hallway out of the chapel without another squawk sounded.
As it now looked as if Mistress Ryn was negotiating for the help of the hellbeasts Mel cautiously landed, setting her charges firmly on their feet. She was near the bench where Cog was resting. He looked bad, he was going to need more than field healing. Hopefully the hellbeasts wouldn't distract them from escape for so long that he became beyond care. She didn't trust that the duplicates motive wasn't to keep them there until whatever was down below caught up. The dragon settled in to carefully watch.
"Absolutely," the not-Gareeku nodded. "Just see to that, for now. And, Ms. DeCabre..." the creature gestured to Aisha, it's tone of voice sounding very much like the original Gareeku's indeed. "Could you step over here so we can begin, please?" The Mel-thing had already removed the deceased Aisha mockery's arm, with a sucking noise that gave the impression that it was held on more by stubbornness than sinew.
The Keaton-Mockery glared up at the original's outburst. "Geez, aren't you quick on the uptake? Tell you what, give you three guesses."
Jeremiah opened his eyes halfway, dazed and confused. "Gnn..." He blinked a few times and looked up at Mel. "Oh... I'm alive. Huh." He blearily looked over at Ketefe in the dragon's arms. "We safe yet, or should I start panicking?"
Mel regarded Jeremiah for a long moment. Safe? She wasn't sure that any of them knew the meaning of the word was anymore. The hellgate had obviously made them all deranged and susceptible to unsafe behaviors, like extended conversations with hellspawn while the building collapsed around them. The only answer she could frame was, "We are still in the castle and unwillingly allied with... things. Make your plans accordingly."
Ketefe was a little twitchy. Though she was happy to be on solid ground again, it was hard to be facing creatures that were related somehow to those that had attacked them earlier (and messed with her head quite a bit) and keep herself from attacking. She wriggled and tightened her fingers a lot, almost embarrassed at how antsy she was. She knew they were allies right now and there was no reason to attack them, but the events of the night had set her on edge, and she kept feeling like she needed to be doing something right now. Sure, later she'd be tired, but right now, withs rocks falling around them and monsters in front of them, her survival instinct was in mild overdrive.
She looked over at Jeremiah when he woke up. "We're not safe yet, but please don't panic or you might make me start doing the same. We're getting help from ... those," the cat tilted her head at the Mockeries, "as long as we don't fight them. So, all of us will still be alive as long as nothing happens." The affirmation of this to herself and the frog calmed her nerves a little, but it didn't stop her from keeping a steady eye on the Mockeries while glancing around to dodge rocks every now and then.
Looking on as Rynkura and the hellish mockery of himself talked, Gareeku looked to the side to see that the Keaton Mockery had returned. With an arm, no less. One of the arms that had belonged to the Aisha mockery.
Though the wolf said nothing, the look on his face easily showed the wariness he felt towards these creatures, remaining silent as Aisha voiced her decision to agree to take the arm. But if it meant that they could escape this unholy place, then so be it.
It was then that Rynkura had turned to Aisha and himself. Listening to what the tigress said to him, Gareeku smiled weakly.
"That will not be necessary..." the wolf replied, his voice sounding exhausted and lacking the strength it once had. "I would do it again a thousand times."
Rynkura's only response to the Mock-Gareeku's answer was to just sigh quietly. It was apparent that the angel was still uneasy with the dark creatures around them. But she had decided that if they wanted to hurt them, they would do so simply by leaving them there to fend for themselves. Instead she took the cathedral's still falling apart around them as a good incentive to move quickly--but still with as good a job as she could manage--to heal the ones most injured.
She pressed her glowing hands to the stab wound in the real Gareeku's midsection, letting the soothing healing energy be felt over the sting in his nerves. As he spoke, the tigress simply smiled, the glow in her green eyes having not once wavered.
When Aisha heard his words though, she blushed and looked on him with a smile. The panther was hesitant to leave her companion's side, but she knew that he would be back in shape soon with Rynkura's capable magic...to be able to escape the hellish place with him--and everyone as well--was all she could ask for.
Hissing as the adventurer stood to face the Mockeries with the arm, the wound in her leg having since closed from being close to the energy of the bracer, she started to unwind the bandages that held the right stump closed and free of infection.
"Not that I'm not grateful," she said to them with a quirked eyebrow. "But if that thing turns out to be poisonous or hurt me like hell for life, I'll vow to spend my days hunting you down."
Meanwhile, Rynkura swiftly closed Gareeku's wound and had left her staff with him to let its light magic do its work to restore his energy, whilst she checked around to the others to lift their ailments...wherever she heard the worst of it.
"How could we expect otherwise?" The Melthing said sarcastically, placing the arm against Aisha's stump and sending tentrils of magic into it. The black substance filling the arm stung at first, but quickly began to fade and become normal muscle and sinew.
With that in mind, it still felt damn strange.
The Not-Gareeku simply stood and watch, it's expression unreadable and its stance equally so. It seemed to be keeping itself from looking at the Aisha-Mockery's corpse.
"Hell," Jeremiah sighed, although whether he meant it as an exclaimation or a simple statement was debatable. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, making sure everyone was accounted for.
We all are.
Oh, JOY.
Partway through the Melthing's work the stream of demonic "refugees" dried up, leaving the party alone with the crumbling castle and the hellmouth. It was around when the floor started crumbling into the portal that people began to feel the need to rush...
Suddenly realizing that the sound of stone against stone came from below rather than above Mel glanced at the spot where she had just exited and noticed it was growing alarmingly.
"Looks like our respite is over." She looked down at the unconscious wolf on the bench. "Someone help me with Cog."
As Rynkura quite literally worked her magic, Gareeku could feel a soothing sensation wash over him, gradually overriding the pain that had plagued him since he first suffered the injury. Looking down, the wolf could see the wound closing, the tissue repairing itself as a remarkable rate as the healing magic provided with all the help it would need.
Before Gareeku knew it, the healing process had been completed, and he no longer had the injury, like it never existed. Save, however, for the exhaustion that was still hanging over him like an illness. Almost as if she had read his mind, Rynkura gave him her staff, the orb sitting on the top of it glowing softly as the aura of magic it emitted began restoring his energy. Closing his eyes as he held the staff, Gareeku could feel the much-missed energy returning to every aching muscle in his body, until the exhaustion was no more.
Rising to his feet, the newly healing and revitalised lupine warrior looked around the others to check their condition. Everyone seemed relatively alright, considering what they had just been through, though no doubt they could probably do with the healing and energy to get them back into shape. Cogidubnus in particular was a bad way, Gareeku frowning as he looked over at the wolf's unconscious form resting in Mel's arms. There wasn't much good he could do though, and knowing that Rynkura would no doubt do her very best, the wolf was quietly confident that thy would be ok.
Gareeku would not have anymore time to think about this, however, as he noticed that the flow of demonic creatures who had been fleeing the portal while they were there had dried up. Quirking an eyebrow at this, the wolf then noticed with slightly widened eyes that the very chapel itself was beginning to be sucked into the portal itself. It was most definitely time to make exit.
"Hate to point out the obvious, but I think we should scram." The lupine said to the other, swiftly picking up his belongings, including his sword.
It was in the small moments before chaos had once again erupted. Aisha stood as still as possible, ignoring the now-dulled pain in her leg and trying not to look at the barely-bleeding stump of a right arm as the pseudo-Mel came to her with the replacement. The panthress was still in some doubt as to whether it would work...but by then it seemed that the now-ragged group of adventurers had little to lose.
When skin touched skin, and magic flew across to her like a shot, Aisha flinched and gritted her teeth as the forces did their fast work. A part of her brain felt itself regain feeling in that region, as if the sacrifice she suffered had never come to pass. And then it was done...and then, they were gone. All around them, demons hellbent on escaping were gone, ground to dust. The chapel was cleansed of darkness and seemed to return to a decayed and destroyed state.
Aisha cautiously rubbed the wrist of her new arm. It felt real, even if it was sacrificed by a dead mock-up. It even had begun to feel in her mind like...hers, again. She moved it, flexed her fingers, and aimed a punch through the air. "Dios mio..." she simply breathed, for once devoid of words. But when her arm returned, so too did most of her own energy. Mentally, physically, spiritually, and finally.
She didn't have long to even think of celebrating, however, before she heard everyone else exclaiming in surprise. Swiveling to look behind her, the jaguaress's eyes widened at the hole that had formed where once there was an altar...which was quickly being sucked in.
Rynkura had already finished healing the others, bar for a very unconscious Cogidubnus. As the angel noticed the anomaly, and the abrupt disappearance of every other demon around them, she now knew that was the cue to finally rid themselves of the place. Her wings flapped in urgency, lifting her from the air as she snatched her staff from nearby. "Alright, you heard them, get out of here...window or door, either way leads right outside! Mel, I will help you with sir Mithlome."
Aisha, thus, wasted no time. She too gathered her trusted boomerang and sword, placing them on her belt. "No need to tell me twice, I'm with you!" she replied to Gareeku and made to swiftly follow beside him, hoping that the others were also just as ready to make tracks...
As the group made a break for it there was this overwhelming sense of deja vu, as if they had been in this circumstance before and would be again. There was where they'd killed the flaming, coiling creature when they'd first arrived. There was the remains of an arachspearian that had never been cleaned up. There was a skittering from overhead; the spider woman from before, or some other denizen of the castle that had realized it was time to leave?
The mockeries ran amidst the rest of the group, the Mel-Thing supporting a Keatonesque who'd injured by the falling rocks as they ran. The Gareeku-Mockery stuck close to Aisha.
--
Gina leapt from one crumbling structure to another, cursing at the floor giving out under her. She just had to make it to where Fenrir had fallen and everything would be fine...
Mel stole an extra moment, risking the collapsing floor, to create a sort of magic sled to make moving Cog smoother and faster. Blue-white light braided itself around the unconscious wolf, gradually lifting him from the bench. As soon as it lifted Mel gave it a gentle push towards the door. It was like steering a ping pong ball in a storm wracked sea, but was gentler on the injured were than dragging him along. Hopefully they'd make the exit and the care would make a difference.
As they fled, Rynkura had kept her word and stayed near Mel just in case she needed help handling Cogidubnus...but of course, fear often made for quick thinking. To the angel's fascination once again for how resourceful dragonic magic is, Mel had created transportation to hopefully keep the comatose wolf from harm. With that, the tigress kept to the air and dodged falling debris left and right whenever possible, keeping an eye on the adventurers as they ran--quite literally--from Hell.
And ran they did. Aisha in particular was keeping pace very well, as far ahead as anyone was if not a little further...as if she was being nipped in the heels by vicious dogs. She wanted to get this place far behind her as fast as possible...it didn't matter what the town would do them if they had to pass through it--considering she was banned along with a few of the others. In a roundabout way she wondered if they'd be hailed as heroes for enduring and fighting for all that they did, instead.
She paid no mind to the skittering noises above, or the half-formed versions of themselves that came with them. But one thing she did instantly recognize was an area of charred and dusty rock that had once been a room. And the thing that shimmered nearby. Aisha slowed in her running just slightly to notice the gleaming blade of a sword sticking just out of the sheath--the one she'd lost after defeating Asal, only to find again as if by divine intervention. On impulse, she picked it up by the hilt and caught up again with Gareeku and the rest.
Probably not a good time to be grabbing a souvenir, chica, she thought, re-strapping the Holy Blade onto her back. But I first came here for treasure and discovery and nearly didn't leave with my life. If I'm going to be keeping anything in my collection from this, it's going to be the sword that reclaimed it all.
"Lo siento, nearly forgot something," she said in a harried breath to any incredulous looks cast her way. "How far are we to the exit, anyone know?"
As Aisha received a new arm, Ketefe watched, half-impressed and half-mistrustful. But it went well, and apparently, the panthress was pleased with the results. But after that, everyone seemed concerned with something else. The cat turned - and realized they were nowhere near safe yet, even if they had all caught their breath now. The floor around the portal was breaking...and it was getting quicker with every second.
Ketefe didn't need to be told twice. The moment everyone took off, she sprinted after them, only looking up to dodge falling rocks and periodically do a head-count to make sure no-one had fallen behind. The other creatures around them were following too, but at this point, the feline really couldn't care less. The only time she looked confused was when Aisha stopped to pick up her sword, but she paid it no other heed, knowing she would have done the same thing for her father's sword (still strapped safely to her back).
But at that moment she realized something. She may very well be taking more of a "souvenir" back than she wanted. So as she ran, she thought a message to whatever may have still been lurking in her head:
All right. You helped me and the others get through this place, and though I can't believe I'm saying this, I thank you for that. But if I'm going to take back any reminder of what went on here, it's not going to be creatures living in my damn mind. So with all due respect, get out. NOW. Because if you're still in my head when and if we make it out of here, you're gonna regret it.
And so Gareeku ran with the others, keeping with Aisha as they dashed to get to somewhere comparatively safe. Though he was not as light as someone like Aisha, what with feline reflexes generally being somewhat more agile than canine reflexes, this did not stop the wolf from keeping perfect pace with Aisha. Even he could be fast when he wanted to.
It was then, however, that Aisha slowed down somewhat, having noticed something shimmering in some upcoming rubble off to the side. Gareeku had noticed it too, keeping his pace steady while he waiting for her to catch up. And catch up she did, along with her sword that she had claimed while in this cursed building.
"Always nice to have a souvenir..." The wolf commented to Aisha with a smirk as they ran. "Makes me regretful I didn't pick something up myself...I don't think a piece of rubble would suffice somehow..."
As Aisha ran, she continually made sure that nobody had stopped in their tracks...though catching a glimpse of Rynkura flying overhead, she had no worry of that. It was all a matter of getting out and fast...although seeing the various hallways of the castle's interior falling apart, all the places they've been...it seemed rather sad to see it fading before their eyes.
She was brought out of that train of thought however at Gareeku's words, regarding the sword she grabbed...and the fact that not everyone would be leaving with something to remember the adventure by.
The panthress grinned back, a little out-of-breath as she kept running and leaping over various obstacles and looked for any sign of an exit. "Heh, perhaps not, amigo. Most of us seem to be taking something from this place...but you have the memories to take away, of more worth than this weapon or anything else, as do I."
Her smirk turned into a smile of genuine warmth; perhaps a little out-of-place on her exhausted features, but it was there nonetheless. "If it's not too much for me to admit right now...the ones in which we fought together would be my personal favorites."
A piece of falling masonry removed the Keaton Mockery from their midst, the others not slowing down for a second.
"Heartwarming," The Mel-Thing hissed, keeping pace with the rest of them as best she could; the corridors being too narrow to fly in. "Can we save it until we're not about to be killed?" The knot of flesh the replica had in place of a head twisted briefly into Mel's features, sneering, "I'd appreciate it."
"Save it." The Gareeku Mockery panted out breathlessly, "Just keep..."
There was a roar down the corridors of the castle. An appallingly familiar one. Coupled with the voice of a girl Jeremiah remembered from the floor of a chapel, what seemed like ages ago. There was a blast of heat as something approached from behind them...
Jeremiah swore. Sometimes that was just all there was to do.
--
Ours! OURS damn you! We were close! We were this close, you ungrateful little BEAST Ketefe's interloper railed against the confines of her skull but seemed to be losing its grip, somehow, as if it was being naturally drawn to something outside her mind. No! NO!
The masonry falling around them...the rush, the sounds, the intense heat and the roaring...one could have sworn that the group picked up the pace much faster. In fact they had, as they passed through so many passages in the labyrinthine halls that reminded them so much of the past goings-on of the past few days. Rynkura was forced out of the air above and ran with the group, wings clutched tightly against her body as she had little room to replace her jewel-embedded sleeves yet. Whenever something was about to hit another one of the group members, she quickly cast a barrier over their heads so that the rocks bounced away. But if they didn't leave soon, not even her magic could save them from having an entire castle burying them alive...
Aisha, meanwhile, hadn't waited for an answer to her statement...as the fake-Mel had said, that moment just wasn't the time for relief, celebration, or dwelling over memories. She berated herself for losing her focus. They had to find the exit first, and then, perhaps...
"...The foyer!" Rynkura had shouted, hopefully loud enough for the group to be heard. "I see the doors!"
It was those words that the group had been waiting for. Finally, they were leaving. Finally, everything was being left behind.
Finally...
Someone had shoved the door open with their weight. The warm, blinding rays of the dawn sun were upon their faces. And behind them, Castle Caeruleus was ever the faster falling out of existence...or so it sounded.
Mel wasn't sure if her transport spell was simply flawed or if the hellish atmosphere was taking control but the sled of magic containing the injured wolf seemed determined to hang up on every piece of rubble and try to skitter down every dead end. It was hard work keeping up with the others. It didn't help that the rubble was coming down and she had to dodge it as well. Dragon hide might be nearly impossible to cut but it didn't stop bruises and broken bones. It seemed like an eternity before she heard Rynkura announce that the doors were in sight.
The hallways seemed endless. Gareeku had started to wonder if they were going to even make it out at this rate. there just seemed to be no end in sight. Things were made more desparate when behind them came a roar, followed by the onset of heat fastly growing in intensity from behind. Yep, things were definitely worse.
It was then, however, that Gareeku's eyes saw the one beacon of hope, of escape; the castle's foyer, and with it, the doors. This was it. It was over. This was confirmed as the wolf and the others rushed through and to the outside, the fresh air hitting his face, the warmth of the sun reassuringly flowing down onto him...
Running was becoming nearly impossible; Keaton was intoxicated on a poisonous cocktail of adrenaline and exhaustion. Most of her companions were a few feet ahead of her; a disturbing distance given her panic and the urgency of the situation. A few times, she felt like collapsing and remaining in that state of futility, but that wasn't an option, not unless she wanted to perish along with the castle. At least blood loss wasn't bothering her anymore, and was no more of an impediment than the torturous aching and burning of her legs. It remained that way for a while - the excruciation was just an inconvenience, compared to the grander repercussions of delay, until she could no longer ignore her fatigue.
"GUYS! Guys, wait!" Keaton shouted uselessly, her voice disappearing beneath the uproarious crumbling and quaking of the tremendous structure around them.
Somewhere nearby, a marble pillar, formerly impregnable, ruptured from the roof. Keaton had to leap to the side and stagger backward in order to avoid the massive chunk of ceiling that fell where she once stood. Suffocating plumes of smoke mushroomed from the splintered wreck; swiping and clawing away the encroaching dust, she bounded over one of the broken chunks of mildewed marble with a clumsy maneuver. Despite this impressive recovery, she was still lagging behind her less encumbered partners.
'Fucking hell! Fucking hell!' Keaton's mind-voice was wrathful and angry and cursing, like every invisible syllable contained a pound of acid. Keaton felt like her vision was tunneling, and would have anticipated another panic attack if she didn't beat herself out of her furious reticence.
She didn't know what to do, but she couldn't rely on herself physically to accomplish her task. Keaton pervaded her influence to the following shadows, rapidly expanding as darkness began to swallow the castle. The darkness was invigorating. It was exhilarating. Like how she created the web that saved her life when she was thrown out of the castle window, she summoned a swarm of blackened mist and leaping, jagged tendrils of solid black ink that closed around her wings. She kept running even as she dedicated part of her concentration to weaving together what she wanted, out of her sight. Her wings were completely encapsulated in a virtual shell of membranous black, enormous and gnarled and curled like abstract bat-wings; much larger, more capable than her original set, they would probably enable flight if she had the strength to use them.
If I can run, I can fly, right? Keaton reasoned hastily. The only answer she received was the rumbling of the buckling castle. Once she was certain that the muscle of her wings had effectively materialized, she experimented by flapping them. Dust and crumbs of mortar swirled around the room from the breeze she was stirring up in the midst of her pace. Her boots clapped against the ground as she pushed herself harder -
- and eventually she was gliding at a rapid pace, accelerated by a low-level wind magic spell. Once she was off the ground, she didn't need to really lift her wings anymore - she just needed to renew that spell every so often. Light was breaking through the entrance far ahead, and with a look of almost insane triumph and relief on her face, Keaton soared out of the castle as the doors were smashed open.
Jeremiah clung to Mel, still in full dragonic form as she carried him and the others out of the building. Flames licked at her heels as she brought up the rear, and something TERRIBLE howled with fury in a thousand voices behind them. Torrents of fire flicked from upper windows. One of them the frog recognized as the one he'd spent the night in. Things attempting or failing to escape, old curses and monsters and all the other legends wrapped up in the haunted edifice could be seen, trying to leap out windows or succumbing along with the crumbling castle.
Something in Ketefe's head howled in fury and faded, plummeting away for the last time. In Jeremiah's skull the Lunacy laughed louder. Deep down in the corridor they'd left one could almost see a pure white ferret, riding a beast of flame behind them. Of course, she was far too far away for one to say for certain it was poor Gina or that the look on her face was twisted into some determined mask. One wouldn't even have the time to squint and check before even the corridor that had taken them to safety crumbled. Soon little stood of the tower but the rubble of the outer walls, a door, and a pit leading deep into the earth.
The mockeries didn't stay long. They looked over the castle once and walked into the forest, off to contribute to the world's mythology in their own manner for a time.
Jeremiah simply fell out of Mel's grip and dragged himself over to the nearby bushes. It had been a hectic and jarring flight to escape, and was probably a bit more than his constitution had been ready to handle. Thus, the somberness of the moment was only slightly disturbed by the sounds of his retching.
Oh gods, what, what just, urgh gods...
... Broken.
We are safe.
We are rich.
We are in control again.
No, no, and no. We aren't. We never are.
HehaheeehaahahaheheahahahAHA!
Mel passed through the blue-painted front doors and kept going. She moved down the walkway until she had passed through the large gates that had denied their original entrance. Even they, so far from the hellgate, were succumbing to the taint and were now rusted and collapsed. Only when she was beyond the gates which defined the castle's boundaries did the air seem to clear and the defiled magic lose it's grasp upon them. After a moment to catch her breath she turned to look at the rubble that had once been a building and ask, "Did everyone manage to make it out?" She shook her head a little, there was little hope of survival for anyone who hadn't.
Ketefe sprinted through the building, paying little attention to anything but that which was right in front of her and that which was in her head. She growled furiously as the demon clawed at her mind, frantic as it was losing its grip. She wasn't about to get an exorcism done, and she refused to take the thing out with her. When she saw the light ahead, she stared into it full force and thought as powerfully as she could:
You aren't welcome here anymore! You never were! You've caused me pain, you nearly killed myself and the others, and now you're going back on your word?! We have a DEAL! And it still stands! I refuse to let you control me ever again! Now GET OUT!
And as she thought these words, the doors were broken open, and the cat flung herself into the light and onto the ground. She was still bruised and cut up, her fur was dirty, and she'd seen people die and come back to life around her. But she was safe. She slowly stood and gazed around once, seeing Mel, Rynkura, Jeremiah, Keaton, a still-unconscious Cog, and Aisha and Gareeku - all in about the same condition as her, but all alive, and all out of Hell. Suddenly, Ketefe's exhaustion started to catch up with her, her near-constant adrenaline rush from earlier fading. She walked slowly down the walkway and to a grassy spot, pulling her sheathed sword off her back and dropping it on the ground. Not caring the least about what time it was, she curled up, propping her head on the blanketed sword, and her eyes closed.
The last thing she heard before falling asleep was a howl of anguish, as the demon faded away completely at last.
Aisha landed on her stomach in the grass, still soaked with dew, supported by her arms. Behind and beside her she could hear and feel the impact that each body belonging to her friends took as they too jumped and rushed out of the way.
And above, the castle was ablaze and crumbling, and they were watching until nothing was left but a hole in the ground and the ruins of a once-proud building, long lost and forgotten, now succumbed to history and to the most unnatural of forces. Memories rushed back to the panthress of the battles fought and the good times had, however few there might have been. She stayed silent and thoughtful, fingering the speed charm around her neck and sitting upon what had been the courtyard...and behind sat the remains of the gate and shrubbery that she, Gareeku, and Mel sneaked through from the very beginning.
Rynkura meanwhile had landed hard on the lawn, using her wings and staff for leverage. She too was out of words as the castle virtually disappeared.
But finally she let out a sigh, just as she heard Mel ask everyone if they had gotten out safely. "I believe we're all okay," the Healer answered and stood up straight, taking out her jeweled sleeves and replacing them on her arms. The striped wings on her back vanished as a result. "If a little bruised, but if that is the worst of the injuries, we should all be very, very lucky."
Looking at the ruins, Rynkura couldn't help but feel...responsible. Her imprisonment taught her that the giant demon deserved it all, and what history of the place she knew was off her shoulders. But that didn't mean that everyone who was there needed to be a victim. From Sebastian, to their missing comrades. She placed two fingers to her heart in a brief stance of prayer, and then turned to the others. "So...what shall we do now, and where shall we go? Unless there is any reason to say so, my business is done here."
Aisha glanced up at the Mistress, then down to her replaced right arm. She hadn't a chance to thank the Mockeries before they left, but she figured they must have known. "...Well, first, I think I might try to find some better clothes," she said with a chuckle, indicating her tattered trousers and shirtless form, save for the strips of cloth binding her chest. "And then...I guess..."
The panthress looked unsure, biting her lip. "I don't know. I accomplished one of my life's goals. The next would be finding my brother...but until I know where to start, I guess I have a vacation to take...back home."
Rynkura spared a little smile, and then nodded while standing at the gates. "Then I shall wait for you, chica, once you compose yourself. As for the rest of us..." her eyes passed over each of the adventurers in turn, and finally settled on the unconscious Cogidubnus in the ice dragon's protection, wondering. And Aisha still sat in the grass, sorting out every event that had gone on in her mind...simply waiting.
Mel looked around and it appeared that everyone who had survived past the fight in hell had survived the collapse of the building. She was quiet for a moment remembering those that hadn't before focusing on the one whose fate was not yet decided. "I believe that Cog needs far more care than can be obtained anywhere nearby. Unless someone has another suggestion I think the hospital in my home city is his best choice." She paused for a moment and looked at everyone one more time. "Thank you for an interesting few days, for rescuing me and amusing me and everything in-between." After digging for a moment in her pouch of endless items she pulled out a handful of small coin-like charms made of clear crystal with a design of a wing and snowflakes somehow magically suspended within. Each person got a hug or handshake as appropriate to their nature and one of the little charms. "If you ever have the notion to visit the chilly end of dragon territory that will get you past the guardians."
With that the dragon set about making Cog's hastily and haphazardly created bubble of magic secure enough to survive a teleportation spell.
Falling to his hands and knees initally once he and the others were away from the castle, Gareeku got back to his knee and turned to look at the castle crumble and implode, saying nothing as he stood there, eyes fixed on the crumbling building before them. Once the building was no more, the wolf remembered the mockeries, looking from left to right to see if he could spot them, but to no avail. They had disappeared.
Choosing to forget them for now, the white lupine turned to the others, hearing Rynkura and Aisha speak in particular.
"A new attire would be the priority on my list" he commented, referring to the fact that the outfit he had on, or what was left of it, was in tatters. "Though what I shall do afterwards I do not know, but I suspect trouble will have a way of finding me. It usually does."
No sooner had Gareeku finished had Mel given him one of the crystal coin-like charms. Looking at it in his hand, the wolf smiled slightly.
"Thank you. I shall be sure to take you up on that offer. Be sure to give Cog my regards. I'm confident he'll in the best hands." he said as he put the small charm away in his pouch.
Rynkura stood patiently near the gateway to what was once a grand courtyard, watching as the adventurers said their goodbyes. Certainly it felt like only yesterday, rather than a few days, since the healer arrived at the Castle to be greeted by the rather unique bunch. Not to mention having had to heal the dragon. She was now passing out charms, voicing her intent to take Sir Mithlome back to her own realm for professional healing. The tigress nodded in assent as she accepted the charm and returned Mel's hug. "I am quite confident that the dragons can take care of him more than even I ever could. Fare thee well, Lady Icewing, I shall keep this invitation in mind for someday. As I extend the invitation to visit my monastery and healer's school in the Shadowed Depths." The angel looked around at those who were left, and decided to reach into her own pack and forge a gift of her own for everyone. "All of you are welcome."
Meanwhile, Aisha chuckled as she heard Gareeku's assent, that his situation was rather similar to hers. Her eyes also caught the shining pendent given to her by Mel, and the black jaguar considered herself honored...not to mention very interested...at the thought of visiting a dragon's kingdom. If it was anything like Icarus Stormclaw's kingdom was once...
"Give my regards to Cog as well, when he's well again, amiga," the huntress said as she stood up from the grass, having finally gathered her breath and her wits. She straightened herself out and went around to shake hands with the others in farewell...Mel, Jeremiah, Ketefe...everyone. "It'll be nice if I see any one of you whenever I go traveling again. I wish I had anything to give you guys other than my best wishes."
When finally she rounded back to Gareeku and took his hand, Aisha found herself hesitant to say goodbye, even for a little while. The wolf had been one of her greatest friends since a long time, and a great ally since the whole ordeal started. He helped to keep her alive and had lent his strength when she herself felt weak, and was more than happy to fight by his side when he too needed her. And thus she felt closer to him than ever before...she had her thanks to give at the very least, and finally, it was an opportune as ever a time to do so.
She shook her head and snorted, a little unsure of what to say. "Damn it all, I'm no good at these kinds of silly, sappy goodbyes, Gareeku, but..." she embraced him tightly, looking for all the world like one friend saying farewell to another...yet her next words were whispered and soft. "You don't have to come with us now if you don't want to. But, if you ever have nowhere else to go...there will always be a place for you at the monastery. Not just at the Mistress's invitation, but also at mine. And should our paths diverge here, I hope we meet again, sooner than later...and I wish you the best of luck. And thank you again, with the sincerity of my life and...well, my heart."
After a moment or two, Aisha broke the embrace and gave Gareeku a lingering kiss on the cheek, also leaving him with a warm meaningful smile. Then, she turned slowly to rejoin Rynkura.
The tigress meanwhile had given everyone a cloak, each with different colors to their liking, with the Mayan-pattern markings of the healers in her trade etched upon them as a parting gift. She gave Gareeku one second-to-last, the same brown shade as the one he lost, with a polite bow of the head and a smile of her own added. Finally, she put one more around Aisha's shoulders...the same shade of red as her old one. "Whenever you are ready, child," she told the jaguar.
And indeed when they were ready, the road opened ahead of them, along with whatever else would come on the way home.