Eudicia

Zahar Belanor


It had taken entirely too long to find the village of Soper. Perhaps it was the fear lining every inch of his skin, simultaneously speeding up and slowing down his every thought and action. Or the fact that he couldn’t sense any Shadow, despite the fact he had a feeling that somewhere in these woods Casters lurked. Night had fallen in earnest and on he flew, atop the gryphon Zaddi, eyes alternating between the canopy beneath him and the skies ahead.

Magnificent wings kept him aloft and out of harm's way of the encroaching Fog. But the longer they drifted, the more anxious he became. Would he catch up with his newfound companions? Would he ever find the village? What if he had passed it and the Fog was already upon them? Frowning, Zahar glanced behind him, wondering if he should urge the gryphon to turn round. But no sooner did he pull the reins to act did he see a pinprick of light down below.

Smiling, suddenly exhausted, Zahar and Zaddi maneuvered their way safely to the ground. By luck or the Maker’s will, they landed near the larger stables, and as if expecting him, two boys came to escort Zaddi in. Fiddling with the leather band over his ears, Zahar glanced around the small village, searching for a familiar face.

And one he found, alone against a backdrop of encroaching fog.

“Belhund!” Zahar called out, his tone pleasant but loud enough to carry. His stride lengthened and soon he was nearing the squire. “Did everyone arrive safely? Why are you out here alone? Do you need any assistance?”


 

Hadoume

As collected as Ender kept his composure, his mind paced with attempts at reasoning what caused the carnage outside the room designated for the night’s stay. It looked to have been for storage, it’s walls lined with sturdy shelves that held baskets and boxes of dry food stock and linens. Building up the beddings and stuffing the pillow cases could make for a more comfortable rest for the lot perhaps with them lining the floors around the central shelving unit. And it kept a welcoming cool from the summer’s heat denoting Estwyndian enginuity. It was a simple room, yet absolutely perfect for storage. Not even moisture could be felt in excess.

It was perfect, especially for their stay, but it was not good enough to calm his nerves. He stepped out of the room and down the hall towards the nearest window, fingers skillfully pilfering through the leftmost pouch along his belt for a particularly slender tin containing four cigarettes. A sigh escaped through his nose at the count, but it did not deter the spliff from his lips and the light that followed.

Smoke billowed from Ender’s lips thickly as he stared out the window that looked out on patchy grass and spindly trees. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the culprit of the viscera he vehemently ignored. Any one of them could surmise it to be the damnable fog that crept out from the Winded Woods. But he couldn’t figure out how it all worked. Everyone knew to run from the fog. Everyone knew it kills anyone within. Hadoume was a shining example of how dangerous the fog could be to any living being.

His cigarette couldn’t mask the smell. It seemed the only place remotely safe from any nuance of what littered the courtyard was the storage room. Estwyndian enginuity. Another drag and another solemn thought, each inhalation designed to calm yet only reminding him of what he didn’t want to think about. There were forces at work in the world; forces he couldn’t fight. Could it be that one day all of Estwynd would end up like Hadoume?

First watch began as soon as they settled. Ender found the kitchen in the fort, shoveling away what was likely the cook and cleaning off the counter before setting his mind to crafting a meal. Baking was his passion, but he still enjoyed a good plate of well prepared food. It seemed as though Hadoume had only been recently wiped out by the fog as not much in the kitchen had time to spoil.

Regardless of the kitchen stock, there wasn’t too much in the way of extravagance. There was just a large quantity and an unfortunate lack of livestock to pair with it all. It seemed he was left to pick from cured meats, electing for the pork tenderloin that carried the right amount of firmness to the touch. Perhaps a cooler meal was in order, and so he sliced the meat and a loaf of bread and set it aside to roast spears of asparagus and diced tomatoes for accompaniment. As he rummaged through the supplies for chives he spotted a shelf of cheeses, honing in on a familiar box that sent his heart fluttering.

Brie!

The meal was nearly done, but Ender now had a focus on baked brie with peach compote. He became lost in his passion, forgetting he was allowing a wanted and dangerous man roam freely about Hadoume or that a Blood Mage was accompanying them on their journey. He didn’t think of the compromising position he placed on the farmer as he ferried a criminal and a questionable man towards the Winded Woods. Not even the dead haunted him as the kitchen filled with the sweet smell of cheese and dough.

He was sure to keep the vegetables warm before setting them in a dish along with the meat and bread all in a basket to be more easily carried to the storage room for consumption by his travel companions. “I’ll have baked brie ready soon,” he promised to them. “Eat and get some rest and I’ll have the watermelon wake you again for the next watch.”

Abrecan’s own meal was brought to him on the wall. It was a clear view from the fort’s walls all around giving a perfect location to watch the sun set. Not a spot of fog in sight, nor any signs of wanderers or travelers along the road. Not that they could get inside Hadoume. Ender saw to t that the gates were closed once again and secured. It likely had been an uneventful watch thus far for Abrecan apart from the sunset. The indigo blanket of night began to consume the line of gold that banded the horizon.

Looking at the man as he presented his plate made him remember why the seedy man was even part of the caravan. It was the same reason why Maes and his cart was commandeered. They were targets of Eudicia, and he had left them both alone. Hopefully it would not give away too much.

“Perhaps we’ll be blessed with a cool night,” Ender said. “And an uneventful one. There’s only a sliver of moon tonight, so be on the watch for strange movements you can’t rightly make out. I’ll come up and help once the brie is done.”

They would find the night tense despite the calm. The smell outside the storage room didn’t help but to remind them of unavoidable dangers, or rather hopeless events they could not defend themselves against. But no fog would roll through, and no unwanted visitors would pass into Hadoume even after the the night’s exchanges in watch duty. The morning would be met with an eagerness to continue on.

@Bears @CloudyBlueDay @Red Thunder @Shizuochan

Currently
This is a fantastic opportunity for our characters to get to know each other. If you would like to collab for development, don’t be shy! Nothing spectacular is to happen yet as I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to have your characters interact a bit more.



The Village of Soper

Now with the crowd converging on the boy in shock, the hearth that nested the crackling fire seemed even more isolated. It was likely the only warmth in the room. No one paid it any mind, nor did they give Lady Dynagra another judgemental glance. Hayden and his bloodied form was the focus, the young lad’s body quaking from shock as he looked past everyone that lingered around him.

“She’s just a few doors down the road. The red door,” Betta said to Arabella and Marnia as she took the damp rag to Hayden’s face. The red splotches broke apart from the moisture and seeped into the rag to reveal the tanned skin of a young man often in the sun, but also from a tone more naturally dark than the others around him. Hayden gently reached up for Betta’s arm, fingers curling around the fabric of her sleeve, causing the older woman to pause. He didn’t speak, and she continued with the task.

Marnia left for the road that would lead her to Hayden’s mother leaving Alexander with a feeling of unease. The fog could come at any point, or not at all. It was a damnable and unpredictable phenomenon that was far too dangerous to disregard. He didn’t like her going off on her own even with how capable she was as his squire, and he hoped perhaps Zahar would find her and take it upon himself to join her endeavor.

But his own attention needed to be with Arabella and Saren. After all that had happened back in Redden, he had taken great risks to insure their safety. No word of the happenings would have likely reached Soper yet leaving Alexander and Marnia to continue with their assignment with civilians in tow. It was an ill fit, and a dangerous burden, but in his mind it was the only option, and still was. Eudicia could strike with skillful efficiency at any point, and the two women would be with little chance on their own.

Alexander approached Danielle with command, though he kept his voice more friendly and soft. “The room,” he reminded.

“Ach, yes!” the young woman said as she pulled her thoughts away from her friend. She placed a hand at her temple and shook her head. “We’ve no locks, but the door stop has a good heft to it iffen they want some privacy. It’s the last door on the right when you go up the stairs. The hostel is to the left.”

They discussed pricings with a flustered exchange. Danielle’s mind was a haze with her friend Hayden still in a stupor, and Alexander attempted to tip which only confused the girl further. Once ready, she escorted the trio up to the room on the second floor. It was a modest room for such a place, with two beds and enough room to walk about without having to bump into any of the furniture. It wasn’t much for a noble lady, but it was a far cry nicer than a bed of leaves in the open night. The window at the end only furthered Alexander’s unease, and he walked through and to it to inspect its frame. The glass was hatched with diagonal bars forming diamonds that plumed the window as it settled over the years. The locking mechanism seemed jammed to the point where Alexander feared he would break the contraption if he tried too hard to move it. It was satisfactory, but still not ideal.

“Don’t use the door stop to block the door,” he said to Saren and Arabella. “I’ll guard the door for your privacy and protection.”

Outside the road to Hayden’s mother snaked up a small incline around trees and homes either tucked a ways off or just on the dirt road. The house with the red door was just on the edge with smoke pluming from the chimney to denote occupancy. Much like the other houses seen in Soper, the windows were open to invite any breeze that may brush through their neck of the woods. They had no thought or mind for the coming fog.

@Starlighter @Elle Joyner @Doctor Jax @rissa
Currently
Another good opportunity to collab! Only if you want to though! Rissa and Jax, let me know if you want to collab the encounter with Hayden’s mother.
 
From his perch, Abrecan craned his neck out, vision diminished with the setting of the sun. With but a sliver of moonbeam to light it, the dim road blended with the rest of the outskirts, and the shadows of the sites before them faded into the depths. Ecksoh was far gone by now, and the village of Hobble too, perhaps. And so, the seedy sentry saw precious nothing, which was in turns ominous and relieving.

Watch, as it happened, also proved to be tedious. Allowing a chunk of warm brie to melt in his mouth, Abrecan stared at the steps along the fort walls, mind already set on awaiting relief.

He was not alone in awaiting it. All around the farmer was death and the stark evidence of violence. It was unthinkable, that any could be capable of such, and the casual lie he’d fed himself since coming into contact with this little coterie that all was well was fading as he yet refilled the mare’s feed bag. The small pile of sick not but a few feet from the grain barrels was evidence of that. As he secured her dinner to her muzzle, Maes thought of filling his own stomach. His wares were becoming increasingly the supplies of this little band, and any hope of making return on his investment of time and energy was disappearing.

No, food would not settle in his belly, and sleep would not come any time soon; the sight of dismembered and brutalized corpses had planted itself securely in his mind. So, to occupy it, he found company.

“I can’t sleep,” he said as he approached Abrecan, rubbing his temple. “You may as well.”

The emptiness of Hadoume did not bode with her well. The more silence a place offered her, the more souls of those long gone would try to grab at her. Pull her down under with them or beg for their cries to be heard. She was not ready to be alone with them, but Aveline did not trust herself to sleep in the company of these strangers.

Aveline lay down in a futile attempt to sleep and let the whispers tickle her skin, but they could not go any deeper. Eventually she could hear Maes moving away and the wafting smell of cheese and decided it was useless to try anyway.

“Is that brie?” She said with an empty smile.

“Indeed, pretty girl.” Abrecan beckoned for farmer and blood mage alike to approach, “I would sing and embellish its various virtues, such is my nature - but the scent likely speaks for itself.”

He offered the melty fare to his compatriots, before addressing the farmer with a wry smile, “I am afraid we share a plight. More than one, as it happens. No matter, what could be more enjoyable than night-watch with the finest of friends?

Both tone and subtext were lost to Maes completely.

“That’s very kind of you,” he said, returning the perceived complement with one of his own. A hand raised to decline the proffered cheese, and he leaned against the wall near to where Abe sat. His lute, formerly slung loosely across his shoulders, was removed with care. “Perhaps I can find a way to lighten the mood of our, er, present circumstances. For all involved.”

With a still distrustful but accepting glance toward the Blood Mage, Maes grasped the instrument’s neck with calloused fingers, their placement amateur but familiar, and he strummed out a single chord. It was middling in pitch, quiet but enduring, and it gave perhaps some modicum of life back into their otherwise lifeless surroundings. Taking a few tries to match the instrument’s pitch, Maes began to sing.

I dig a trench, a trench
A trench for the grain
I dig it wide, I dig it deep
I pray for a little rain

I make a plot, a plot
A plot for the tree
I dig it wide, I dig it deep
I pray it brings fruit for me

I build a barn, a barn
A barn for my mare
I build it wide, I build it deep
I pray it needs no repair

I draw a bath, a bath
A bath just for me
I draw it wide, I draw it deep
I pray of dirt I be free

I get in bed, my bed
My bed for to rest
I get in wide, I get in deep
I pray my sleep be the best


It was a simple tune, one Maes had sung for his daughter more than once. But the peace it usually brought him wasn’t present tonight. He fell silent with the final chord, unable to shake the distinct feeling of discomfort their location brought.

Credits to: @Red Thunder @CloudyBlueDay
 
Ignoring Abrecan’s comment, keeping her gaze ahead of them. She could probably just go back to the city. Return to her actual mission and face consequences. Or, suffer a few unnerving looks and -- oh. Oh. He was singing now. The farmer was singing now.

Looking quite a bit more uncomfortable, Aveline shuffled her stance as she put her hands awkwardly between her legs. The song was very long and her lips stayed pursed the entire time.

“Wonderful,” She mumbled after he was finally finished. “Ah… where did you.. Er.. learn to play?”

Abrecan, for his part, contributed hearty, throat-some laughter, “I heard that farmers are born with it: all the earthly, rippling manliness of the artiste, skilled with lute and plow alike. Well done, friend, well done.”

“Thanks,” Maes responded generally, his face showing quite readily his confusion at Abe’s laughter. He spent a moment or two simply looking at the man, trying to best to suss out the ridiculously poetic praise in vain, before turning with hesitation to Aveline. The Blood Mage. Could he tell her? Would she do … something to him with the knowledge?

“My wife taught me,” he finally answered. Perhaps he’d see what happened. At any rate, she hadn’t done anything to the crowd thus far, and they’d traveled a fair distance already. Maybe she could be trusted. “She’d sing lullabies to our little one, and I picked it up. Though I hardly play so well as she did.”

A small smile forming on her lips at Abrecan’s reply, she waited for Maes’ response. “Ah,” she murmured, keeping the smile up. He was quite terrified of her, the farmer. Aveline had learned to spot it, and it wasn’t uncommon. The glowing blue eyes did more than give away her identity.

“How lovely.” She said, almost unenthusiastically. She put her hand to her chin and her elbow to her knee. “How old is your child?” Then she glanced at Abrecan. “Might you have any other poetic quips to grace us with? Perhaps you want to give the instrument a try. I’m sure you’re a natural.”

“Lovely girl, poetic quips are my instrument of choice.” Abrecan’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, not keen to engage in a battle of scathing wit against the Blood Mage - for whatever reason. He quieted, allowing for Maes to answer.

Maes’ grip on the lute relaxed a touch at Abe’s dismissal of Aveline’s suggestion, and tension left his face. He pushed off from the wall, shaking his legs in an effort to renew flexibility to them, and let the instrument swing down beside him by its strap.

“She’s four, Blood Mage … Aveline. Starting to grow beyond the love of old lullabies, maybe.” The edge of his mouth pulled up in a wry smile, and turning away from the death within the city walls, the farmer stared out the direction they’d come. “But not so old that Daddy has grown tired of singing them for her.”

Aveline’s budding smile fell into a grimace as Maes tripped over her name for her title instead. “Your daughter must miss you, farmer.” She retorted, her feathers ruffled like an angry bird. “I’m sure she will want you to sing endlessly. As do we.” Now the sarcasm was quite evident, and Aveline back with a huff.

Abrecan chortled, the prospect of hiding his burgeoning laughter apparently far too momentous a task, “Oh my, you are being hurtful, my lovely doll. Does your soft skin crinkle because of a mere slip of his tongue? He means naught but kindness, I am certain.”

“You’re certain, hmm?” Aveline grumbled. “Tell me, Farmer… why would you leave your child behind to go on this mission when you could have simply given the soldier your cart?” Her eyes were narrowed unhappily.

@Shizuochan @Red Thunder
 
“She’d starve otherwise. Or go cold. Or get-“ His voice broke, and Maes didn’t turn back to face Aveline. He merely continued looking homeward, his expression inscrutable save for a bit of moisture in one eye. “-or get sick. The cart and mare are my livelihood. Well, the produce they carry is. And the best market is in Redden. It’s a yearly trip, Blo- Aveline. One I normally make on the sky barge.”

With a sigh, as if some tension bled out from him, or as if coming to some acceptance, his head twisted to the side to consider the cart in question some yards away. The trip had not been long, but in the past he’d have already been in the markets by now. The food was still good, of course, what remained that they hadn’t used for traveling stores, but it would start to become overripe soon. All too soon.

“I’m making the best of a bad situation: my parents can’t travel to sell it themselves, and Joy is too little to bring with me.

“A parent makes sacrifices sometimes.” There was no criticism or condemnation in his tone; only simple statement. “If you ever become one yourself, you’ll understand.”

Ender had almost regretted entering the storage room when he did. The tone and subject of conversation would not be sweetened with the plate of remaining baked brie and peach compote leaving him with a moment where he stood as still as stone in debate of leaving entirely. He glanced between the two in heated topic, giving Abrecan a questioning look before setting the plate of brie out on the shelf.

“It’s best not to judge someone before you get to know them,” Ender said as he looked at Aveline. “Blood Mages get judged all the time just for being what they are. Cold. Calculated. Separated from the rest of us. Pretentious. But there’s more to everyone than what we initially perceive. I brought the rest of the brie if anyone wants it before I head out for my shift.”

Her expression remained still as Maes spoke. He had gotten under her skin, with his inability to call her by name. She could frankly care less for his parenting skills, but his explanation did not do much to enlightenment her. Perhaps he was right that she would understand if she were to have a child. She did not have plans for it.

As Ender entered and spoke she smiled slightly at his words. It was surprising to see him stick up for her but nevertheless she wouldn’t be opposed to it. It was not a common occurrence.

“I’d like some,” she said gently, having been smelling it off of Abrecan all night and finding herself a bit jealous.

While Abrecan’s unfortunate note designated him as a target for Eudicia, it was not publicly known Maes was a victim as well. It didn’t seem like the farmer cared to share such information with the present company, and thus his parenting came into question. He could have, at any point, stated his predicament, and yet he instead remained silent. Ender knew. And he knew if he was anywhere near his home at this point it would put them in danger. Perhaps Maes understood this as well.

He did not. At least, not expressly. As a point of fact, it had never occurred to him. Rather, it was of far lesser concern than that of his wares. Their sale meant finances for caring for his family and bore far more weight than some vague threat against him. He was a simple farmer; what could some barely understood shadow organization want with him?

At Ender’s offer of the cheese, Maes lifted a hand in polite rejection.

“Thanks, but I’d rather not. Food before sleep messes with my stomach, and if you’re going to get the first watch, I’m going to at least try to sleep.” Driving the cart, while not hard work, was mentally draining, and even now his eyelids felt like lead. At last; the terror of their surroundings had seemed to guarantee no rest tonight at all. Lute still hung across his shoulders, Maes waved, smiled, and left to find a semi comfortable place in his cart lie down.

a collab between: @Shizuochan @CloudyBlueDay & @Red Thunder
 
  • Nice Execution!
Reactions: Effervescent
Into the Woods (Well - Town, Really)

a collab between @Doctor Jax and @rissa



Marnia felt a jitter of anxiety race up her spine as she surveyed her surroundings. She had filched a lamp off the tavern, promising herself she’d bring it back straightaway, and despite the fact that the town of Soper was small, she found herself looking over her shoulder to see if the fog had caught up with them as she knocked on doors and told the inhabitants to shutter the windows, bar the doors, the whole kit and kiboodle.

She heard a name calling out to her, and for a moment, she feared that the Shadow Wielders had once again caught up to her. Hand on the hilt of her blade, she turned around to see - not a shadowy figure. No, it was the foreigner. Marnia breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, jogging towards him.

“Aye, e’ery soul is safe! I’m lookin’ for a house with a red door. A lad came in bloodied and sorry-looking, incomprehensible, and his mother has apparently been lookin’ for him. You mind helpin’ me? I could use another pair a’ eyes ‘n hands.”

“Of course not,” Zahar replied earnestly, brows furrowing with worry, but also resolve.

“Many thanks, then,” Marnia said, looking back forward. “Iffen I’m honest… it’s mighty eerie out here at the mo’. Feels like a gitchigoo might come out to pull ya in from the woods.”

Laughing softly, Zahar took a few steps forward and gestured towards the path. Continuing on with Marnia at his side, he took long critical sweeps of their surroundings, feeling just as on edge as the squire.

“Yes,” Zahar said after a few moments. “There is something unusual in the air tonight. Is the lad you spoke of-- Will he be alright?”

Marnia thought hard, biting her lip with apprehension. Something about the boy had not been… right. There was something familiar in his mental absence, a sort of shock that Marnie felt she had seen or experienced prior but could not remember.

“Not really sure. He were babblin’ ‘bout… ‘bout somethin’. No idea what, though,” she answered truthfully, glancing over at the man. She still had trouble reconciling the fact that he was just a bit taller than her.

“I have ta admit - it’s awful strange ta see some’n eye to eye, stranger,” Marnia said with a note of lightheartedness, despite the hand she held on top of the hilt to her sword. “Though I imagine I’m more spectacle to you than you to me.”

“Not really, Marnia,” Zahar said with an oblivious shrug. “I’ve known women who stood a great deal taller than me.”

“You’re not serious!” Marnie professed, eyes agog as she stared at the handsome foreigner. “Are the women where you’re from so much taller? That’s amazin’! All the time, here, I get called--”

She didn’t finish the sentence, realizing she perhaps did not want to expose such a sore topic.

“Women here’re more like Lady Dane and Dynagra,” she conceded.

“Of course I’m being serious! Though I must admit, I never considered them tall, just average like the rest of us.” Zahar replied, noticing the change in the squire’s voice.

“They’re a timid lot, though Lady Dynagra a bit less so. If it’s not rude to say, I feel more at ease in your company then theirs.”

“Really!” Marnie said in genuine surprise. She nodded appraisingly, obviously glad with that assessment. “You’re not half bad yourself. I don’t meet many from outside the continent. What are the women like where you’re from? I was always stylin’ meself t’be a castle’s wife, take care of the home ‘n all, though my mum always warned me my mouth would get me the lash of any husband I had.”

Just down the way, she could see the red door of the boy’s house, and she felt a sliver of disappointment. Already? She was having such a good time.

“Well they’re not like the Ladies, not exactly so. Less rigid, I suppose. Like you.”

Marnie stood just a little straighter, hiding a smile as she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “There’s the door! We oughta hurry it up and head back. Don’t wanna be near this fog for too long.”

Smiling fondly, if a bit clueless regarding the minute details and their meanings in Marnia’s demeanor, Zahar took a step forward alongside the squire, absently checking the leather band around his elongated ears. Swallowing back nerves, he struck out and rapped his knuckles twice against the red door.
 
An @Effervescent, @Elle Joyner & @Starlighter Collaboration

If not for the obvious magnet of the man being hovered over by every gawker and ner-do-well in the inn, Saren might have worried that the emptying of the space around her was the result of some fault of her presence. After the day she'd been through, it wouldn't have surprised her if she smelled the part of a diseased hog or some other equally repulsive creature.

When it came time to be drawn away from her warm corner, she rose with a scowl and followed their host upstairs to the room that they had been assigned. She kept her cloak wrapped close against her body to ward off the chill that permeated the air everywhere but in a small radius around the fire, and let her eyes wander over what few festive decorations were to be seen rather than meeting the gaze of the Dane woman or the Aegis.

Peering into the room, her nose wrinkled in displeasure. At any suitable establishment, there would be a hearth in every room for the comfort and convenience of the guests. Composing her annoyance, she turned to the girl who had led them up. "Would it be too much to ask if you keep extra blankets on hand?"

Dutifully, Arabella had followed, pausing inside the room to give it a scrutinizing glance. It was far bigger than her room at the palace and homey...

Her eyes shifted to Alex, as he tended to the window and a frown found her lips. The fog, she imagined, had him quite concerned, indeed. But there was still something else... Something about the man that weighed so heavy on his shoulders. She knew him. Somehow... She knew him.

He turned to address them and Bells turned away swiftly, cheeks flushed as she bobbed her head in a nod, then looked to Saren, "You may have my blankets, Lady Dynagra."

“Extra blankets in Spring?” Danielle blurted out, but quickly clapped her hand to her mouth. “Ah! Apologies, Miss, I’ll get your blankets.” The girl quickly scurried away from the room, brushing past Alexander in a flourish of embarrassment.

“I’ll have Belhund stationed in the room when she returns,” he added as he placed his hand on the doorknob, nodding over to a chair in the corner. “She’ll be fine there for her shift. You two should get some sleep. I’ll see if I can get them to bring you something to eat.”

Saren gave the departing Danielle a withering look as she hurried away. Spring can be cold, she thought with a quiet huff through her nose. She swiveled on her heels and marched the rest of the way into the room, shooting a glare at the Dane woman. "I have no need of charity from the likes of you, thank you kindly" she answered crisply.

She seated herself on the edge of a bed and folded her hands neatly in her lap. Exhaustion weighed heavy on her, and her shoulders drooped slightly more than usual, her stomach growling to remind her that she hadn't eaten since early that morning. Looking to Alexander she said, "That would be excellent, thank you."

Blinking, Arabella wrung her hands together, "I... I didn't mean to insinuate... I just... I don't sleep well and I thought--"

Trailing off and shaking her head, she looked to Alex instead, "Marnie should rest. She didn't look well after her trip."

Alexander eyed the contrasting pair with distance, his mind more on the list of tasks needed for their stay in Soper than the friction grating the air between Saren and Arabella. “I’ll be sure to check with her,” he assured. “For now I’ll be outside the room. If you need to go some place else, both of you have to go with each other. Belhund is just down the road, so when she returns we allow differently. I know this is not ideal for either of you, but try to get along.”

Alexander closed the door partially, leaving a sliver open so he could keep a better ear to the room while he waited for Danielle to return with more blankets.

Saren shot a withering scowl Arabella's way, then turned her attention to rearranging the blankets on her bed. If not for the fog creeping ever closer, now would have been an excellent time to go for an evening stroll.

That is, if she weren't bound to the Dane girl like criminals sharing a pair of shackles. She straightened her posture and leveled narrowed eyes at Arabella. "I suppose I might as well say it outright since we're all thinking it. I don't approve of your kind, and I'm not about to change my opinion - not for necessity, not for convenience, and certainly not thanks to any excuses you might have to offer."
 
  • Bucket of Rainbows
Reactions: rissa
2jzKIwJ.png

Blinking, Arabella shifted uncomfortably under the woman's gaze. She was accustomed to the judgement, but there was something different about someone being so upfront about it.

Rarely did Arabella find herself angry with anyone, but there was a twinge of frustration in her gut at Saren's words, and her hands knotted at her sides as she shook her head, steeling her emotions.

"My kind? I'm sorry, I not sure I follow...?"

Unconcerned with pretenses, Saren rolled her eyes and heaved an irritated sigh. "I'm sure you can't possibly be so dull as to genuinely have no idea what I mean, but since you insist, allow me to clarify. Your father was a Blacksmith, a criminal and most likely one of his generation's most beastly examples of the lowest levels to which humanity is capable of falling. One is not simply raised in the wake of such depravity to carry on....." she hesitated briefly, wrinkling her nose as one would to a foul smell, "Untainted."

Swallowing, Arabella's jaw tightened. She could have corrected Saren, but there didn't seem to be much point. The woman had her mind made up, based solely on a prejudiced preconception, and it wasn't anything the truth would change.

Eyes misting, she shook her head and turned away, "I'm sorry you feel that way. I will do my best not to cause you further offense..."

He wanted to burst into the room once again to defend Arabella's father. After the incident, he had done his research into the man and found him completely detached from the unsavory acts of the Blacksmith's Guild and was the man that still continued his business without complaint despite the backlash and fall of the Blacksmith reputation. But he couldn't keep rushing to her aid in such matters, especially when his focus needed to be on the hall or on sounds that were out of place. Saren's words were biting, and seemed to cause Arabella's retreat. He felt his jaw tighten as he bit back the urge to berate the noblewoman like a mother calling out to a petulant child. He was an Aegis, not a mediator. He longed for Marnia to return just so he could take a momentary break and collect himself to a more professional mindset.

He heard footsteps up the stairs, and his heart fluttered in hopeful anticipation. But it was only Danielle with the extra blankets, and she bowed to the Aegis dutifully. "The lady's blankets," she said, and held them out for inspection. Alexander paused curiously at the gesture and reached out to inspect the blankets. It was not a common thing for inn keepers to think of such details, but perhaps it was due to having an unlikely noblewoman as a guest that inspired it. The blankets did not carry an odor, and felt rather soft to the touch, well worn and cleaned as if in continual use despite them not being a part of the current spread.

"That should do," he said softly. "Pay no mind if there are any complaints. And see if they would like anything to eat. I'll pay for the costs."

Danielle nodded shallowly and entered with her eyes downcast. "Your blankets, m'lady," she said as she set them down on the trunk. "Would you like for me to set them on your bed for you? The Aegis would like to know if either of you are hungry, as well. We've got a good hot red beans and rice going. Very good sausage with a bit of spice. But if you're not feeling up to something hot we've got a good cold stew that's just as hearty."

The bitter response on the tip of Saren's tongue was cut off as the door opened and Danielle stepped inside. Her scowl remained, but she kept silent as the girl talked. For a forsaken no man's land inn, the service at least aspired to be adequate.

"Yes, if you would lay them out that would be lovely" she answered, rising and moving out of the way to allow Danielle to work. The list of available options by way of warm food failed to inspire any particular inclinations to test the quality of the kitchen staff, but her more rational side argued that opportunities to eat provided meals were likely to be scarce while running for one's life.

She nodded to Danielle, forcing a weak smile. "Something hot would be much appreciated. I'm not partial; surprise me."

Sinking down onto the edge of her own bed, Arabella pinched the woolen blankets between her fingers. No doubt, the good Lady would find them unappealing...

"Whatever you have to spare," She answered when Danielle addressed them about food, "Thank you."

TAGS || Collab with @Effervescent, @Starlighter
 

Hadoume

The night released the sweltering Summer’s heat to a comforting warmth brushed with a breeze that swept through the windows and courtyard of Hadoume. And while there was reprieve from the heat, there was nothing to save the stench of rotting flesh. Ender took to clearing the remains, shoveling them into a wheelbarrow and carting them out by the load to set ablaze far from the fort. He tried his best to complete the task as quietly as possible, but the scuffing and scraping of the metal spade against stone became a resounding dirge. There was a mess to clear, and he took it upon himself to complete the task alone.

“Did you plan on doing this all yourself?” Aveline announced, gently making her way through the path of rotting bodies. She hadn’t been asleep before, but the incessant shoveling noise had started to drive her mad. If it were anyone else perhaps she would have approached them with a more bitter tone. But Ender had offered kindness today and she appreciated it greatly. “At least let me help. Neither of us are sleeping anyway.”

The task was not paused as the Blood Mage approached, though he cast a glance over to her as he dumped a shovel load into the wheelbarrow. “There’s another shovel in the shed next to the barn,” he said as he nodded in the general direction.

Aveline moved over, a little bit defeated by his seriousness. She couldn’t help it if being surrounded by the dead was what her life generally looked like. She was a bit numb from it. Nodding, she headed for the shed, starting in the direction Ender had pointed her towards.

The shed had been left open, likely from when Ender had pilfered through its small space to find his shovel. There were a few items leaning against the wall or hanging from wall mounted hooks meant for maintenance about the fort, but the shovel would be an easy find as it rested in a corner along with three others. Ender heaved a sigh, looking back at Aveline curiously. It only gave him a clearer picture of how long his night would be in such a mess.

The shovel was not hard to find. She picked it up and tested the weight of it in her hand, looking at it unhappily. She might as well. If sleep hadn’t come to her yet it probably never would. She preferred the night anyway. Aveline walked out of the shed and back to Ender, glancing at the distance covered in death on the path to the burning fire, and got to work.

“Why did you come along?” he asked as she began to help load the wheelbarrow up. The monotonous task coupled with the lingering smell did no favors for giving the man a more pleasant expression or warmer tone. “Do you need any gloves to protect your hands?”

“Why did I join you now, or why did I come in the first place?” Aveline said with a strained laugh. “..gloves would be nice.” She murmured, pausing for a moment. “I thought the men with insignias would be of interest to High Queen Jashyr.” She finally used the correct term with a sigh. “And I needed something to bring back.”

Ender paused to reach behind him to a pouch on his belt, removing a pair of worn leather gloves. He handed them over to Aveline, looking down to her hands as if to dare to see her scars. “Wouldn’t your mission that had you in Ecksoh be of more importance?” he asked. “I understand your work is more fluid than that of a soldier’s, but two men targeted by those crazies seems… well, beneath you.”

Aveline caught where his gaze fell, upon her scarred hands. It was another oddity to stare at with her, yet it made her feel more insecure than the rest. She slipped the gloves on hastily. “It was a dead end.” She said, almost angrily. The thought bothered her, and so did her own choices. She dug her shovel into the ground with a renewed intensity.

He shoveled beside her quietly for a time, steadily making progress on the northeastern wall. Eventually the wheelbarrow had enough to cart it out of the gates. “Have you ever been caught by the Fog before?” he asked as he hefted the weight of the wheelbarrow and pushed it forward. “The things in it are nightmarish.”

Her brows furrowed at his question. What a strange thing to ask. It brought her back to a time before her eyes glowed blue.. the first time she had felt such a fear while still being just a child. “..Yes, I have. I do remember it being quite terrifying.” She glanced at him with a confused look. “Why do you ask?”

The wheelbarrow rolled across the compacted dirt with a slight low squeak with each turn, continuing the tune of the endeavor that carried across Hadoume. It was the only sound to come between them as Ender did not immediately respond. Rather, he waited until they were out of the gate and headed towards the bonfire to speak. “That’s what made this,” he said with a slight shrug. “This mess. I’ve seen it once before, but it wasn’t people. Seems it’s just...unbiased I guess? Have you been around the Fog after your Awakening?”

Aveline’s lips pursed as she gazed around Hadoume with a new glint in her eye. She stayed silent a moment after his question, trying to remember a time when she was still just a girl with her family. “No. Only before.” She murmured. “I was very young. Nothing catastrophic occurred. We lived quite isolated and we’d gotten the animals inside before it was too late.” She mused, memories come back to her the more she spoke.

The fire was a good ways out into the field next to Hadoume in a clearing to keep the flames contained. Ender overturned the wheelbarrow, dumping the viscera into the fire. He wiped away the sweat from his brow and momentarily covered his nose from the stench. It wasn’t as overwhelming for him now as it was before, but it was still quite pungent to the point where he longed for a deep breath yet couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“It’ll wipe us out if we aren’t careful,” he said. “We’re busy chasing phantoms picking the few when the Fog is killing hundreds.”

Out of the corner of his eye towards the stony facade of Hadoume, there was a shift in the darkness that caused Ender’s attention. He turned away from the fire to look directly at the fort just in time to see the dark silhouette of a figure slip inside the building. “Shade,” he murmured, and then repeated more clearly to Aveline. “Shade! Find the source! They won’t be far!”

Ditching the wheelbarrow, he took off running towards Hadoume. The Shade was no longer in sight, and he knew it would be searching for one of the others to claim as its victim. He had to trust Aveline could handle locating and handling the Shadow Caster on her own. Her eyes would allow her to see the soul of the Caster, and neutralizing whoever it was that conjured the Shade would end the spell entirely, and hopefully before it took too much of a hold on its victim.

Only there wasn’t just one caster. Whether out in the field next to a bonfire of bodies or inside the stone walls of the small fort of Hadoume, they would find themselves prey to Shades, each one seeping into their bodies as they slept or kept watch, for the night made it all too easy for the magic to work.

Rushing to the gate, Ender found himself pulled from the world in an instant leaving the others to fend for themselves.

@CloudyBlueDay @Red Thunder @Bears @Shizuochan

Currently
Your characters are being “attacked” by a Shade. These spells manifest themselves as silhouettes, or shadow like figures that move with shadows and can only bring harm through shadows. Once a Shade connects with the target, the target’s soul will be stricken, and they will fall unconscious as they’re thrown into a nightmare based off of fears, so you can get as creative as you would like for these prompts down in the spoilers.

You may choose to forego this experience if you wish! Or if you would like for her to experience it, you can have her experience as much or as little as you would like.

Firstly, Aveline may be able to make out 3 souls before afflicted by the Shade.

If possessed by the Shade, her nightmare will begin with her being dragged into the ground and buried alive no matter how much she tries to scramble. If she tries to call for help, she will find she has no voice. She can feel the dirt consume her and the walls of her box enclose around her as all light dissolves to darkness. And then there will come a pressure on her chest, the walls feeling as if they’re closing in on her. She will experience anxiety, loneliness, and a loss of hope.

But she can actually end her nightmare, unlike the others. Due to having been dragged into the Afterlife and finding her way back, so too can she pull herself away from a Shade as she is more in tune with souls, especially her own. She will be able to sense the absurdity of her situation even through the fear, and through this realization she can pull her soul away from the Shade even in her unconscious state. It will be painful, but when she wakes it will disappear quickly.

Her Blood Magic can pull the Shades from the others, but she will need to get close enough to put her blood on them to connect to their souls.

Good luck, have fun, and let me know if you have any questions!

Think the Supernatural Episode “Mystery Spot,” but with less slapstick death. Maes wakes up at home as if his adventure with the ragtag crew was all just a dream. But he finds himself in a constant loop with his child dying of the same sickness that took his wife and no one able to help her. Everyone in town appears to have died of it to, leaving Maes a lone survivor at the end of every day. Some days he may think he can find a cure and other days he will find it all futile, but no matter what he does, the day restarts when it ends.

There might be days where he can see a figure in a mask, especially when Maes finds out everyone has died of the disease. Anytime he tries to find the masked figure he will always find an empty corridor, alley, or room where it should have been. There would be an unmistakable unease about the figure, especially when looking at it, but he won’t be able to recall details.

Abrecan will feel like he is falling, a lurching sensation taking him as he falls on something that gives. The room is dark, but light would catch the soft, sticky flooring to reveal webbing. When he tries to run, it feels sluggish, and the spiders eventually hunt him as prey. Their legs are like scythes where if they touch him it will feel like fire and cut deep.

In the webbed liar he will find familiar faces trapped in the webbing. Perhaps it’s someone he double crossed or perhaps someone he actually enjoyed. They will wake, unable to move, staring at him with milky, dead eyes, and some may have things to say. It may be disapproving, or it may be a welcome to hell as if this would be his life for the rest of eternity. The objective is to make him feel as though he is dead and experiencing a possible afterlife similar to hell where his fears and sins would haunt him.

Anyone he runs into that he did actually like will tell him this: “don’t let the spiders catch you!”

Geirolf’s affliction will come in the form of feeling like he is the one to blame for the Fog. His sins created it, and he somehow knows the creatures within the Fog are formed from the sins of man. He would find himself within the Fog, surrounded and shrouded as if he, too, were a monster in the Fog. He would find himself with the intense desire to kill everything in his path, seeking out victims by the sensation of wrongdoings.

He would be a Monster, and aware of it, yet unable to avoid it. He would be trapped in a hunt he cannot avoid. He can’t stop what he is doing, and perhaps is at war with himself. The screams of his victims would be haunting and build in a never ending echo to remind him of what he has become.

Its up to Aveline to save the rest from their Shades, so they will be locked in their nightmare until she pulls their soul away from the Shade. If Cloudy posts first, you can write your characters being pulled from their nightmare in your post, but if not then you are free to write a second post of your character being pulled from their nightmare after Cloudy has posted!



Soper - The House with the Red Door

There were murmurs inside the home, one of a woman’s and the other a gruff, gutteral, and deep voice struggling to keep its tone low. Their conversation halted at the sound of two knocks, and it took only a moment before the woman cracked the red door open, greeting Marnia and Zahar with a warm smile.

She was older in appearance, but not by much as her pale skin still held somewhat of a youthful appearance. The door was kept ajar only enough to reveal herself. Her eyes cast back to look behind the pair at her door, and before she could greet them and inquire into their business, fear took her over, and she practically pulled the pair inside.

“The Fog!” she hissed. “Get inside before it comes!”

The presence of the Fog set the woman’s nerves on edge, and once she yanked the two into her home without another word, she began closing all doors and windows. Her home was quaint and small, stacked with an upper floor and creaky wood boards. The lower level was all one room, and by the fireplace stood the likely source of the second voice: a Gar’m.

He was an intimidating figure of fur and stature, his beastial fangs jutting from his maw and horns curling from his skull as he stood nearly eight feet. He had to hunch somewhat to avoid scraping the ceiling. The Gar’m snorted at the strangers, tail lashing as he watched the nervous woman secure each opening to a close.

“So afraid of the damn Fog,” the Gar’m said, “yet you bring in all manner of strangers. What business does a… mmph Aegis? Have in Soper?”

“Is it for my boy?” the woman asked. “Hayden. He’s gone missing. Well, he…”

As her voice trailed off, the Gar’m stepped in to complete the sentence. “He ran off with the Northfold Gang,” he said. “Which is bad in itself, but I’m fairly certain they were taken by an organization known as Eudicia. Ever heard of them?”

@Doctor Jax @rissa


The Soper Tavern and Inn

Danielle spread the blankets out on each bed, working quietly around the women and the tension in the air. Her gaze flecked over to the window as the thick grey veil blanketed the surrounding woods. “The Fog’s come in,” she observed, and drew the curtains closed. “Shouldn’t last but a few minutes. I’ll be back with some food for you.”

The girl left the room in quiet steps, sparing a soft, empathetic smile to Arabella as she closed the door back to its sliver and turned to face the stalwart Aegis. “I’ll be gettin’ their food, sir,” she said. “Would you like anything?”

“I’ll take the cold stew,” he said before quickly changing the topic to what interested him more. “You said the Fog’s come in?”

“Aye,” she confirmed. “It’s all around the inn by now.”

“Did the rest of my party make it back with the boy’s mother?”

Danielle shook her head no. “They’re still out there,” she said solemnly. “Hayden is still-“

Her voice was cut off by the sound of cries coming up from the lower level. It sounded like Hayden, and the notion kicked Danielle into a rush down the stairs without anymore formalities towards Alexander. Compassion took him over as he intended to follow, but his dutiful instincts halted him at the stairs, hands bracing the walls as if to prevent him from stepping down, as if to resist a natural pull to aid.

But his duties were in the protection of the two women in the room to his left, and as Hayden cried out in a fit he looked over at the doorway, door slightly ajar. He couldn’t leave them no matter what his heart felt compelled to do. It sounded as though the patrons and keepers were trying their best to help Hayden, shouting above him as they tried to figure out how to handle the boy and his fit.

“THEY’RE COMING!” he cried. “THEY’RE COMING FOR ME!”

Alexander pushed himself away from the stairwell and made for the door, entering without introduction and shutting the door behind him. No doubt the two women heard Hayden’s screams downstairs. Even with the door closed the boy’s voice carried, muffled yet discernible.

“It’s the boy, Hayden,” Alexander explained as he tried to keep a calm tone. “I’m not sure what he is on about, but to be safe, we are staying in here, understand? Don’t open the door for anyone.”

The shouts and cries crescendoed as everyone seemed to be calling out at once, and followed by the jolt of something ranking against a wall that shook the foundation slightly with its force. More screams followed more in panic, footsteps racing across the floors and up the stairs. Sobs could be heard as doors slammed, and screams of pain echoed through the establishment.

“Oh god please someone let me in a room!” called a voice. “He let in the Fog, please! I don’t want to die!”

@Elle Joyner @Starlighter
 
Abrecan Scand, part one.

Against all odds, Abrecan had found the allure of sleep creeping upon him. The brie had played its role, certainly. True to his nature, he had perhaps indulged overly much, and with the fullness of stomach came a weariness of mind; a blissful, much needed one. A simple rest, and come the new day, all would be well. Perhaps the foul matter of the insignia would be revealed as little more than a passing dream. Perhaps some stroke of inspiration would strike him as if the first ray of sun, to show him how best to turn wolf, farmer, mage and mark alike to his ends.

The specifics mattered little. All would be well, he genuinely believed. Savoring the last vestiges of brie upon his tongue, he allowed himself to pass into sleep.

When he awoke, all was decidedly not well.

It took, perhaps, a moment too long for him to realize that what lay beneath him was not floor, not bedding, but rather precious nothing at all. Longer still, perhaps, for him to fully capture and understand what that entailed; he was falling.

And even longer, before he finally felt the burgeoning scream escape from hi-.

Something stopped his fall, catching him upon the back, cutting his scream off at a single shrill note. Soft, like a fine bedding. He thought, perhaps, that it was simply the falling sensation of a wakeful twitch. Thought, with great optimism, that he had returned, back to the meager assembly of linens and bedding that Ender had fashioned.

But what lay beneath him gave, offering a grimy resistance as he pulled his forearm away. What it was, he could not say, could scarce imagine, in the obscura of night. Holding in a silent, insincere prayer, he turned his head side-face to search for some flicker of light, braving the sticky touch upon his cheek. He regretted it almost immediately, for he heard the wet sound of chewing.

An eye, with a mad glint, stared back at him. An open mouth, gnawing at white-grey strands that adhered more and more to his teeth and jaw with every ravenous bite, until eventually the sounds of chewing slowed to an almost imperceptible clicking. The rest of him was obscured by the bonds of white, yet he recognized him. ‘Nail’. The scoundrel’s smith, who fenced scrap metal and murder weapons. He had been a slow, almost mindless sort, who hammered away mindlessly as his colleagues conducted their business, and who spoke in throaty, suffocated croaks.

“Duuuuuun… let… the… spiders… caaaaaahtch…. yuuuh!”

Nail’s mouth and jaw unravelled in a burst of phlegm and displaced viscera, as realization dawned upon Abrecan. Legs of black reached out from the ruins of the smith’s skull, ridged like a line of blades. He felt the words come to his mouth, begging to be released, as a whisper, a whimper.

Spider’s web…”[/hr]
 
Maes Harrow

He woke with a start. His legs ached horribly, as if he’d been running for his life from some unseen threat. Sweat drenched his brow, and his eyes shifted wildly, searching for some anchor to reality.

But Maes was in his bed, the patchwork quilt pushed aside from his nightmare driven thrashing. The hearth still glowed hot, flames having shrunk to embers against the chill wind that leaked into the cottage with persistence, and by the firelight he could just make out his daughter’s small bed. Furs were piled over her form; it didn’t look like Joy had moved at all.

A sigh bled from the farmer’s chest, sucking the panic out to make way for relief. What a dream. Had he really been pursued by some cult or something? Worse, had he really been delayed from making it to Redden? He could almost see it in his mind, and his nostrils seemed to sting from the odor of rotting produce. It’d been left behind, surrounded by corpses, as he’d fled. He and others.

Maes sighed again. It didn’t matter; it was over. Grunting with an effort from the stiff limbs of sleep, he rose, shuffling to the fire to warm his hands. Satisfied, he eased up to Joy’s bed to check on her. As usual, the blonde locks covered her face. He shifted it back.

The noxious stench of his dream returned to him, and a weight dropped into his stomach. Her skin was ashen and gaunt and it clung tightly to her bones. Joy turned her head, meeting his year filled eyes with dim empty ones.

“D-Daddy?” The words escaped her bleeding lips like gravel, and she coughed up red. “It hurts.”

Joy wheezed once more, than fell still. Shivers began wracking Maes’ form, and his knees buckled under him. He fell to the floor, retracting his hand in terror. Memory of his wife’s death filled his mind, and a whimper escaped in spite of himself. It’d returned. It’d returned to claim what it had so generously left him before. His Joy was gone. Taken, with nothing left for him to do to help her.

It was coming for him next.

Arms and legs flailing, the whimper in his throat rising to a scream, Maes fled his house, ramming through the front door in his desperation to escape his own impending doom. Help; he had to find help. Had to warn to village. It didn’t matter that he was not dressed for the frigid weather. It didn’t matter that the stones and thorns of the fields tore at his feet, shredding them as sole beat earth. All that mattered was heading off the plague. All that mattered was the village. But it didn’t matter. Maes, for all his strength, was too weak. Maes, for all his speed, was too late. Maes, for all his desperation, was too inconsequential. It was like his nightmare was coming real. Corpses lay about the streets, gray and drawn from the sickness that had taken his own family. No one greeted him. No one called out in pain. No one moved. All were dead. Maes was alone. And within him, his soul snapped.

He woke with a start. His legs ached horribly, as if he’d been running for his life for some desperate, horrible purpose. Sweat drenched his brow, and his eyes shifted wildly, searching for some anchor to reality.

But Maes was in his bed, the patchwork quilt pushed aside from his nightmare driven thrashing. The hearth was still warm, embers having shrunk to nigh dead coals against the chill wind that leaked into the cottage with persistence, and in the dark he could just make out his daughter’s small bed. Furs were piled over her form; it didn’t look like Joy had moved at all.

A sigh bled from the farmer’s chest, sucking the panic out to make way for relief. What a dream. Had he really been screaming after something, terrified of … something? The memory was fleeting. His nostrils seemed to sting from the odor of rot. He had been surrounded by corpses, as he’d ran. He and others.

Maes sighed again. It didn’t matter; it was over. Grunting with an effort from the stiff limbs of sleep, he rose, shuffling to the darkened hearth to warm his hands. Satisfied, he eased up to Joy’s bed to check on her. As usual, the blonde locks covered her face. He shifted it back.

The noxious stench of his dream returned to him, and a weight dropped into his stomach. Her skin was ashen and gaunt and it clung tightly to her bones. Joy turned her head, meeting his year filled eyes with dim empty ones.

“D-Daddy?” The words escaped her bleeding lips like gravel, and she coughed up red. “It hurts.”

Joy wheezed once more, than fell still. Shivers began wracking Maes’ form, and his knees buckled under him. He fell to the floor, retracting his hand in terror. Memory of his wife’s death filled his mind, and a whimper escaped in spite of himself. It’d returned. It’d returned to claim what it had so generously left him before. His Joy was gone. Taken, with nothing left for him to do to help her.

It was coming for him next.

Arms and legs flailing, the whimper in his throat rising to a scream, Maes fled his house, ramming through the front door in his desperation to escape his own impending doom. Help; he had to find help. Had to warn to village. Had to-

Maes halted, pulling up short. Between him and the town was a figure, a robed figure in a mask, and it looked like the figure was clad in shadow, despite the darkness of the night. It filled him with dread, a dread far worse than even Joy’s death brought, and he quailed. But the figure disappeared with a blink, and Maes shook his head, wondering why it was he’d stopped running. Again panic gripped his heart in fear for the village, and he again sprinted on.

He woke with a start.
 
Abrecan Scand, part two.

And so he ran, as the swarm-beyond-counting vacated the cavernous ruins of Nail’s chest cavity, crawling through ruptured lung-sac and ruined ventricle. The rippling muscles upon the smith’s arms, sculpted from decades amongst the forge, bubbled as the spiders clawed from beneath the skin, searching for an escape. All at once, an arm came undone, the horrors leaping outwards amidst the arterial spray.

So he ran.

The stick beneath his feet gave, but it gave less and less with each step.

He ran, nonetheless, knowing all the while of the incontestable truth: the swarm would envelop him eventually. His legs would give against the web’s resistance, the fire of his aching muscles rendering them a brittle stone, and the needles in his lungs would stab at him with each breath and-. His lungs flared as he allowed a single shrill note of laughter to escape amidst his labored breath, the note of a sudden realization: he hadn’t the slightest inkling of a way out, did he?

Still, he ran, his frenzied pace turned barely more than a walk. Brief notes of maddened, unfathomable joy - fits of laughter smothered at first breath - sounding with each step. He laughed as the first of the horrors dug into the tendons at the back of his heel. He laughed as he fell to his knees, and the ravenous swarm clambered upon his back, and the small of his neck. He laughed even as his eyes ran over with tears, and his jawline tensed into rigor mortis, and he fell stony upon the mass of spiders that caught him in their embrace.

The swarm carried him upon his stomach, and only then did he notice the faces, poking through the grey-white of the webbed ground. He came face to face with them all as the spiders cradled him, them and all their condescending visages. Mother dearest, father who knew best, reputable uncles and aunts, teachers and friends from a more respectable youth - looking up with all their scorn. They, who abandoned him - no, he resolved, they who he had left behind to pursue his own way.

He would have laughed, if his jaw had not been turned to stone. They were the ground! They were the ground he had trodden upon! And they were the web! The web spun to bind him!

He felt a bite upon his neck, and, for forgotten moments, faded.



He came to before a table of oak, and upon the table of oak, the sculptures. Wintermelon swans and flowers of carrot and apple, ornate ridges carefully etched upon their skin with a knife the size of a sliver. The work and labors of his mother, Abrecan recalled, fruit sculptures for the banquet. The wedding, the bride of the Galthase family, the groom from the Farrow clan.

And before him, upon the table of oak, a watermelon - pristine, untouched - and the knife the size of a sliver.

And so he carved. Even as his fingers ached and his legs numbed from inaction, he carved. He carved past the rumblings of his stomach, and the parching of his throat.

He carved, even as he felt his flesh slough off of him in his hunger, and his legs atrophied from disuse. He carved, as his hair, turned long, wispy and white, fell before his eyes. He carved as his bones creaked, and his wrist cracked with every motion. He carved as his lungs grew heavy, and his eyes glossed over.

And as he carved, and grew older, and carved, and grew older still, he begged for the spiders to return and feast upon his body.[/hr]
 
En Gar'm! in collaboration with @rissa and @Effervescent

Marnia was rudely pulled into the house with little preamble, and the squire was hardly ready for any of the events that transpired thereafter. The Fog, she was familiar with, though she had foolishly taken her eye off the coming weather, but the thing standing in the corner, beastly and altogether uninviting…

“Five bloody blue hells!” Marnie shouted in surprise, unsheathing her short sword quickly and moving Zahar behind her before standing in a ready stance, sword pointed downward. Her heart raced as she stared at the creature she had only ever heard of in her father’s bedtime stories, of beastmen six ells tall and hungry for the flesh of young women.

“Get behind me!” Marnie ordered the other woman in the house, for the moment completely forgetting her original purpose in coming to the house with the red door.

A chuckle rumbled from the gar as he shifted his stance to face Marnia. His broad chest, covered in thick black fur, was adorned in chainmail, leather, and pieces of plate, but nothing close to a full suit. There were patches where the fur wasn’t as dense due to scarring slightly discolored where what one could see of its skin. He looked to have been through tribulations of his own that etched their stories in hashes and lines, and he looked at the pair with a bit of amusement flared in his eyes.

“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” he growled with a huff of a laugh.

“Marnia, please,” Speaking softly as he laid a gentle hand against the squire’s shoulder, Zahar broke the awkward and perhaps uncomfortable tension. “We shouldn’t be rude to our hosts… I believe we have word of the woman’s son…?”

He posed the question so that hopefully Marnie, the Aegis squire, took precedence in the questioning that was sure to follow. With a rather self conscious glance down at his worn, mismatched attire, Zahar realized his worries were probably for naught. Still… hearing the Gar’m speak of Eudicia had piqued his interest and he itched to learn more… About the esoteric organization and the gar himself.

“And thank you for sheltering us. If there’s anything we can do, anything at all, please… Let us know.” Zahar said after a moment, bowing his head slightly to both the nervous woman and the gar standing before him.

Marnie, despite Zahar’s soft words, did not lower the sword. Her feelings towards magical folk were all too apparent.

“Yer son… He’s back at the inn. Safe. Bloodied, but safe,” Marnia said, her eyes still trained on the imposing gar in the room. “But if the Fog’s out there, we best not be walkin’ outside. Wouldn’t do. What do you know ‘bout Eudicia?”

The gar snorted as Hayden’s mother turned from the final window. “Only what Korvakt has told me,” she admitted solemnly as she motioned over to the Gar near her hearth. “Would any of you like any tea or...anything while we wait out the Fog?”

“Mmf,” Korvakt huffed, declining with a shake of his head. “I know Eudicia’s been targeting muscle. Sellswords and bandits and highwaymen. My band has been investigating the disappearances since it’s been involving some of our contacts and our enemies. Which all of that led me here. Hayden didn’t join the Northfold Gang initially. I hired him as part of the Blacktalon to infiltrate the Northfold Gang and discovered after he failed to report the entirety of that miscreant band has gone missing. Only one organization is capable of that.”

Marnia, after hearing the beast’s rather adroit summation, slowly lowered her sword and sheathed it, though her hand remained on the hilt. That explained why she hadn’t seen the Northfold gang around, but… if Eudicia was trying to gather muscle, that meant they had something to muscle against. But why mark the two girls?

“Wait… we left Hayden at the inn. If he was marked… Great Mother’s tits,” Marnia cursed as she walked towards the window. “We’ve got to head back to the inn! Three Eudicia targets, under one roof.”

“We won’t be any good to them lost in the Fog, Marnie.” Taking a few hesitant steps forward, Zahar spoke kindly to Hayden’s mother. “I think some tea would be nice, thank you.

“By ‘here’ did you mean Soper specifically or just these parts of Estwynd?”

Marnia, still itching to head back, not in least part because of the gar in the house, sat down in a chair by the door, waiting with fidgeting fingers tying and untying the end of her shirt sleeve.

Hayden’s mother seemed transfixed on the door once she heard her son was at the inn just down the road. Were it not for the Fog that enveloped her home outside she would have rushed away as soon as Marnia uttered the words. But she couldn’t without inevitably dying by whatever lurked within the murky grey mist, and it brought her to tears that released into sobs.

“Damn this Fog!” she cried as she pushed herself away from the door. Korvakt watched the woman, ears flicking as his lower lip pushed upward against his fangs.

“Here as in this house,” he finally responded. “And I guess Soper too seeings how it’s part of it. Had to come back to break the news and all that since it’s my fault the boy got taken by Eudicia. It’s a good sign if he’s back, but only in that he gets to live. People that come back get messed up in the head. And I’m willing to bet Eudicia isn’t done with the lot of the survivors. As soon as the Fog lifts I’ll need to take Hayden under my protection.”

“Under your protection?” Marnia spluttered, standing to her feet. “This deal’s better left to the Majesty’s Aegis. None of you kind are gettin’ nabbed by Eudicia, ‘n as far as I’m reckonin’, you don’t got any skin in this game neither. What in the five hells’re you wantin’ with the kid?”

“I don’t think you’re listening,” the gar grumbled. Hayden’s mother stormed into the kitchen in frustration and muffled sobs to put a kettle of water on the stove.

“I won’t repeat myself,” Korvakt continued. “None of my kind is bothered by Eudicia. I don’t intend to argue.”

Marnia quickly realized she’d get nowhere fast this way, and she huffed with frustration. Aware of the poor woman who was distracting herself making her guests comfortable, she instead turned to pace at the door, which wasn’t much of a space for the long-legged squire.
 
GEIROLF WOLF

Geirolf had the blood of countless men and women alike on his hands. Soldiers that came to recapture him, careless hunters who stumbled upon his camp... time and time again they fell to the the Wolf. There was no discrimination in their death, each one ultimately received the same fate, with only the way his blade entered them to differentiate one from the other. Geirolf had fallen far from his time as an Aegis and despite the certainty he had displayed before they set off, a part of him truly doubted whether he'd be able to rise again.

The cart came to Hadoume and when they were greeted by a courtyard of corpses, Geirolf could not help but wonder if one were to line up every body he left in the valley would the sight really be any different from what they witnessed now? There was a difficulty in swallowing that thought and it was haunting enough to put him off from interacting with those around him any more than necessary. Indeed, the Wolf retreated into the dark recesses of his mind for awhile, responding only with a gruff sound to anything that may have come his way.

He did not indulge in conversation. He did not indulge in Ender's brie. He considered asking for a cigarette, having peeked at Enders slide a case from his pouch before retiring into the store room, but decided against it. Geirolf simply attempted sleep in the corner, eyes coming to a close but brows clearly furrowed in thoughts that refused to relent.

Eventually, when it became evident rest would not come, Geirolf decided to wander. The Wolf hoped that he might find a weapon among all the carnage as he was certain that his fists alone would not be able to defend their little band of misfits from whatever raged through the very fort they were resting in. Geirolf had found the barracks when the heaviness behind his eyes began, and he had gotten his hands on a decent blade when it became unbearable.

He was nearly impaled as his body crumbled underneath him, jaw hitting the stone with a solid thud and the clink of metal ringing through the air as his hand was forced to part with his weapon. He was lucky to have not died by his own initiative, but as the nightmare began... well, falling on a blade seemed like a mercy more than anything else.

The Winded Woods. He never had the pleasure to see it for himself and for all intents and purposes he had intended to keep it that way... and yet, as his eyes flew open and suddenly he was on his two feet again, Geirolf knew that was exactly where he had been led. The grey that hung in the air stripped him of his clarity and in his mind the faces of those he murdered came to him again.

With each strained scream that rung through his mind, with each streak of blood that ran across the images, the grey seemed to grow thicker and soon enough his physical body was lost to the Fog. All that remained was his sins and the sins of all men he found himself forced to bear. The insatiable lust came, a want for retribution and violence unrelenting, and then the sound of leaves rustling.

Someone had come into his woods... and that someone would be stripped of their life and soul alike. Just as Geirolf was.

He came for the poor soul on all four limbs, moving with brutal efficiency but acting in a desperate frenzy. The images of his kills plagued his mind and the screams would not stop ringing out in his ears. As soon as the first wanderer was dead he heard another never too far off. Each stranger he tore through brought relief, but only for a fleeting moment before he required another kill.

The chorus was deafening and Geriolf could not count how many corpses he laid in his wake. He pounced on a young woman, snarling, and only then seeing his reflection in her terrified blue eyes. He was no longer a man, instead a wolf whose features were contorted and twisted into something sinister, something undeniably wicked.

Geirolf had become a monster... and the sickest thing about it all was he never felt more true.​
 
Maes Harrow

He woke with a start. His legs ached horribly, as if they were two pillars of lead. Sweat drenched his brow, and his eyes shifted wildly, searching for some anchor to reality. His throat was dry, and he coughed.

But Maes was in his bed, the patchwork quilt bunched tightly about him despite his nightmare driven thrashing. The hearth was cool, the imperceptibly dim red of dying coals a futile resistance against the chill wind that forced its way into the cottage with persistence, and in the sickly moonlight he could just make out his daughter’s small bed. Furs were piled over her form; it didn’t look like Joy had moved at all.

A sigh bled from the farmer’s chest, sucking the panic out to make way for simple exhaustion. What a dream. Had he really known Warmth? A … Sun? The memory was fleeting. His nostrils seemed to remember being unaffected by the air about him. He had been surrounded by open fields, as he’d ran. Or ridden in a cart. He and others.

Maes sighed again. It didn’t matter; it was over. Grunting with an effort from the stiff limbs of sleep, he rose, gathering the quilt about his frail frame against the chill. Unsatisfied but unwilling to shift it better, he eased up to Joy’s bed to check on her. As usual, the blonde locks covered her face. He shifted it back.

She didn’t move. Her skin was ashen and gaunt and it clung tightly to her bones. Where shining eyes had once been, a wriggling mass of maggots had burrowed, finding sustenance in the rot. Shivers began wracking Maes’ form, though he could not tell whether it be from horror or the cold. He took a step backwards, retracting his hand in hesitant confusion and disconnected sorrow. Memory of his daughter’s death filled his mind, and a weary grunt of resignation escaped him. It’d never left them. It’d claimed what it had so generously left him before. His Joy was gone. Taken, with nothing left for him to do to help her.

It was coming for him next.

He had to leave. Had to … get away. Had to warn … others? The door blew open; convenient. A guided path; he didn’t spend the mental energy to determine what might have guided him. Propelled by instinct more than functional desire, Maes forced one foot in front of the other, finding purchase on first the aged wood floor and then the frozen soil outside. Wind buffeted him, yanking at the blanket, but he pressed on.
Pressed on.
Pressed on.
Pressed on.
Pressed on.
Pressed on.
He continued, forgetting what lay behind, with the uncertain thought that he must reach a place for a warning of some kind.

Sickness. It was finishing them off.

Maes halted, a sort of miasma filling his head. The gates of the village lay before, flung open haphazardly. On the frozen earth lay scattered corpses, haggard and drawn and twisted unnaturally in intense pain. Within the city itself, piles of rotting bodies blotted the streets, and about them lay others, having apparently dropped dead in the task of piling them. Within the gateway itself, and just beyond it, lay more corpses. We’re they fleeing the plague that had taken the others? Fleeing in blatant futility? Was he the only one left with health in his bones? He lifted a hand, examining it.

It looked as shriveled as those of the bodies. Where the skin drew back from his fingernails, blood had started to squeeze out. But even that dried as soon as it contacted the air, turning to dust and blowing away. Then he felt it encroaching upon his frame in full force, as if suddenly beset by the total weight of the disease that his wife and child had suffered over a period. His mouth opened to scream, but no sound issued forth; like his hand, his throat and lungs had shriveled to nothing, and he feel to his brittle knees.

He woke with a start. His legs ached horribly, as if they were two pillars of lead. Sweat drenched his brow, and his eyes shifted wildly, searching for some anchor to reality.

But Maes was in his bed, the patchwork quilt bound tightly about him despite his nightmare driven thrashing. The hearth was deathly still, flames having given way before the bitterly freezing wind that forced its way into the cottage through crack and crevice without resistance, and by the sickly moonlight he could just make out his daughter’s small bed. Furs were piled over her form; it didn’t look like Joy had moved at all.

A shivering sigh sputtered out from the farmer’s chest, leaking some of the precious warmth he cradled within his form, and with it, some of the panic that his determination to stoke the fire against the winter had birthed. What a dream. Had he really been walking into lands unknown? With complete strangers, no less? He could almost see it in his mind, and his nostrils seemed to revel from the wholesome perfume of untamed fields. It’d been he that left some behind, surrounded by corpses, as he’d fled a life of Home. He and others.

Maes sighed again. It didn’t matter; it was over. Grunting with an effort from the stiff limbs of frozen sleep, he shifted, staring at the pile of ash some feet away with passionless eyes. Unsatisfied but uncaring, he turned his head to Joy’s bed to check on her. As usual, the blonde locks covered her face. She never shifted it back.

Why should she? She was dead and had been for some time now. Months? Years? A decade? It didn’t matter. They were dead, Maes knew for a fact, all of them were. The plague hadn’t been content with the death of his wife … whatever her name was. It’d taken … what had it taken? Did it matter?

It did not. Better to just sleep. Sleep. Let the disease take him, too. Better that way. Better to fade into the cold of Stillness and Solitude. He shifted minutely, trying to find comfort in the quilt. But it didn’t give an inch, still wrapped tightly about him.

The door blew open; convenient. A guided path; he didn’t spend the mental energy to determine what it might be guiding. A figure, shadowed and inscrutable, stepped into the cottage. It seemed to fill the small house with its presence, robed and masked, and were Maes cognizant, he might have felt the thing’s eyes on him. But he was not. Resignation filled his heart, and he merely lay still, waiting.

Within his wrapping, his body shriveled.

He woke … but only just. And still the figure towered over him.
 
An @Effervescent, @Elle Joyner & @Starlighter Collaboration

Watching Danielle as she worked, Arabella was struck by a sense of how surreal it all was... being at the inn, her circumstances being what they were. Never in a million years would she have thought it possible, leaving the city - let alone under the watchful eye of the Aegis... rooming with a noblewoman. In it all though, perhaps ironic, the oddest notion of all was how strange it felt to have her bed made for her. And how difficult it was not to insist she do it herself. But the task was finished quickly and Danielle was out of the room faster than a swallow after a fly.

Settling on the edge of the bed, she looked around the room, her eyes pointedly avoiding Saren as she considered the woman's harsh words. It was hardly the first show of hatred she had received, and certainly not the first in light of her father's voice of occupation, but it hurt, nevertheless... to be so judged by a stranger. A stranger that, under any other circumstance, she might have liked to get to know better. What was her life like? Her family? Was she happy? Did she have hopes? Dreams? Fears? Was the as frightened as Arabella of all that was happening?

A sudden cry pierced the uncomfortable silence in the room and Arabella jumped to her feet, heart pounding in her chest as she started for the door. She paused when Alexander entered, but as she opened her mouth to ask him what was the matter, he interjected with a definitive statement and dropping back onto the bed, her hand moved her chest... The Fog. The same fog that they had run from. But how could something that was so perceptively innocent, so natural, be so dangerous...?

"What is--" Whatever she might've asked was forgotten a moment later as she screamed grew more intense. All at once, it was outside their door and rising again, Arabella looked to the Aegis, eyes wide and frightened as she shook her head, "That... that's Danielle... We can't... we can't leave her out there!"

Saren sat perched delicately on the edge of her bed, alternating between nervously picking at the edge of it for loose threads, and wringing her hands like soaked sponges. With several quick flicks, her eyes darted from the Aegis by the door, and back to the floor at her feet. Part of her wished he would go take on the ruckus and quiet everything down, but at the same time, she felt safer knowing he was near.

Watching Arabella with slitted, calculating eyes, her face gradually shifted from slightly pale to blazing red. She bolted from her seat and crossed over to Arabella with a decided stomp, where she grabbed the other woman's wrist in her fiercest grip, and firmly guided her back to her bed.

"I swear on my life" she seethed, eyes blazing with fury, "If you so much as touch that doorknob, I'll kick you senseless in the head! Now sit down," she finished emphatically, giving Arabella a firm nudge in her desired direction.
Shocked by Saren’s display, Alexander rushed to intervene and placed himself between the two women, his stern gaze a warning to the heiress. “You will not touch her again, Lady Dynagra,” he said. “And I will remind you both that I am sworn by oath to protect both of you. Which means I will determine the safest course of action for us to take. The door stays closed.”

Turning to look at Arabella, he adorned an apologetic expression, yet finally met her gaze in his sincerety rather than looking away as he had before. Danielle still pleaded out in the hallway, begging door to door while turning each knob frantically. “I don’t like it anymore than you do,” he said, “but if the Fog is truly in this inn, we could die if we open the door.”

Shock waged war with grief as Arabella met Alexander's gaze, rubbing her reddened wrist. Anger didn't enter her mind at Saren's display, only pity at the woman's desperation. She was afraid... And fear made people ugly.

But there was a life at risk, and Arabella could not block out the screaming. Tears lingered, threatening to fall, as she shook her head, "But if we don't open it... She'll die."

Saren stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, aghast at the severity of the tone the Aegis had taken with her. She bit back a sharp reply and marched to the side of her bed, her face twisted into a ferocious scowl. The desperate cries from outside the door were difficult to tune out - at least her raging anger afforded some form of distraction.

She folded her hands tightly, hoping their subtle trembling would go unnoticed. "Oh, do be sensible; if we let her in, she'll just die along with the rest of us in here instead of out there." She swallowed tensely, briefly glancing away before adding, "We can't help her."

With Saren’s sullen retreat to her own side of the room the tension was released, and Alexander relaxed his stance, fighting back the twinge of guilt for having to act so forcibly towards the noblewoman. He agreed with her. There was no saving the woman outside the door even as she continued to plea, but it wasn’t because he felt they would all die in here.

“Just ignore what you hear,” he said quietly. “The Fog will soon pass.”

As the sound became more and more desperate, Arabella wrapped her arms tighter around herself and a soft sob escaped, stifled as she bit her cheek.

"I can't!" She finally cried, "Please, Alex... Please. We have to do something! We can't leave her out there! It... It's our fault. The Fog. We brought it here..."

Saren sat up a bit straighter and opened her mouth to speak, but quickly thought better of it and remained silent. She would have happily insisted that the fog would have come anyway, that their presence had nothing to do with it.... but was that really true?

Her searching, questioning gaze fell on the Aegis. "Is that true? Did we..." she hesitated, taking a moment to clear her throat, "bring this on those people?" It was a haunting thought, one that brought his gaze to look away from them in shame as he moved back to the door to guard it from both Arabella's desperation and whatever lingered outside the room. Had the Fog even truly entered? His gloved hand gently pressed against the door, breath catching, unable to release as he reflected on the voice he heard pleading down the hallway of the tavern and inn.

"We don't know enough about the Fog to say," he finally replied, and then looked over his shoulder to the two women under his protection. "But I know enough to tell you that isn't Danielle. It's not her voice I hear behind the door."

Shuddering, Arabella shook her head, as if she simply couldn't believe Alex... And why shouldn't she? She'd only spoken to the woman a few times, but she knew the voice...

"How do you know?? How do you know it isn't her??"

He shook his head against the question and stormed for the window as he searched for a reason not to give his answer. The glass pane was dark and grey as he pulled back the curtains as the Fog continued to swirl.

But it’s opacity diminished somewhat, the cool light of dusk breaking through little by little. “I think it’s clearing,” he said.

They could watch the Fog lift, or rather shift across the land, its edges caressing the glass of the window as it skulked away with the fading light of day. Alexander positioned himself nearly against the wall to see if it all had left the vacinity of the tavern and inn.

Saren exhaled, her shoulders sagging slightly. The echoes of Danielle's pleading, desperate cries now seemed much more difficult to ignore than they had been previously. What kind of excuse was it to say there simply wasn't a way of knowing whether or not this was their fault?

"It's about time," she huffed quietly, grateful for the change of subject. Anxious to see for herself, she stood to get a better view through the window of the receding grey tendrils. "Will it return?" she asked, looking to the Aegis for reassurance.

Resuming her anxious pacing, Arabella did not look away from the door, shredding the cuticle of her thumb nail as she continued to fight off tears.

"How do you know it isn't Danielle, Alex? Who did you hear?" She asked, desperate for reassurance, paying little mind to the notion that the fog was passing... What did it matter if everyone inside the inn but them were dead?

By this point Alexander clung to the topic of the receding Fog rather than Arabella’s inquiry. It allowed him to push it all away, pushing it as far back as his denial would place it. “I’ve never heard of the Fog back tracking or stagnating,” he said to Saren, and turned towards the door to the hallway.

All had fallen quiet. His footsteps boomed as he walked steadily to the door, hand upon the doorknob hesitantly. “Just give it another moment,” he said in almost a murmur, taking in a breath in anticipation. He waited, Arabella’s question now completely gone from his mind as all he couldn’t think about was when to open the door.

“Stay close,” he said as he looked back at the pair. “I need you to come with me.”
 
Lancelot
en gar'm! - dos

in collaboration with @Doctor Jax and @Effervescent


Frowning softly, Zahar absorbed all the information that he’d been given and then turned towards the gar. “Is it a natural defense?” Zahar asked Korvackt, taking a few paces forward as if to place himself in Marnie’s line of sight. “Or have your kind struck some deal?

“I mean it in no disrespect, I’m simply curious. Any information you feel comfortable sharing about Eudicia will be an educational experience. I’ve only heard whisperings and rumors.”

Korvakt nodded his head, a gruff, yet thoughtful hum escaping him as his tail flicked. “No deal struck,” he stated flatly. “Don’t know why they overlook my kind to take. Not many of us in Estwynd to really take a scientific approach.”

His eyes turned to Marnia, watching her a moment in consideration before continuing. “If you can get over the shock I’m willing to work with any officials,” he said. “But if you’re going to judge me I’ll do my job on my own.”

Marnia turned her eyes on the gar, and her gaze seemed hard as ice. However, for all her distrust, she knew better than that. They couldn’t risk a lead, especially one this powerful.

“I’ll work with ye, aye,” Marnia said, leaning back the door, keeping her distance. “You’ve a name?”

Snorting through his snout, the gar held back his aggravation in demeanor as he crossed his arms over his chest. The leathers and plate across his form creaked and clacked as he moved to a more comfortable stance, the claws of his feet tapping against the wooden floor boards. “Korvackt,” he replied. “I’m the head of Blacktalon. We’re a legitimate mercenary organization, before you get your panties all in a bunch.”

Harsh, frustrated footsteps stormed into the room accompanied by the sullen mother of the boy named Hayden. She held out two cups of tea, one to Marnia and the other to Zahar. Her eyes were puffed and reddened from a private cry, lips thinly pulled to a line as she held her composure and took in a calming breath.

“Fog is still outside,” she stated flatly. “My boy is alive at least. I don’t want any of you going and agitating him once it all clears, though. Understand? He needs to come home.”

Marnie softened ever so slightly, taking the proffered cup of tea in hand.

“We’ll do that. We’ve time in abundance,” Marnia said, looking over to her traveling companion. “Be free to do as you wilt, Zahar. Feel no need to stay your course for us.”

“I’ve no course to alter, Marnie and I believe my time is well spent helping whoever is need of me.” Zahar replied softly before offering his thanks and reassurance to Hayden’s mother. Turning to Korvackt, Zahar spoke again. “Once the Fog has lifted, will you accompany us back to the tavern? I’m sure the Aegis will be keen to hear what you’ve relayed to us.”

“If that’s where Hayden is, that’s where I’ll go,” the gar replied with a slight nod of assurance. Hayden’s mother pulled her shawl around her tightly once the tea cups were taken, a frown overtaking her expression as she looked to the windows closed shut with wooden shutters. Most of the homes in the area were like hers, glassless windows with nothing but wood between the interior and the elements outside.

“This is the second time this season that Fog’s come through,” she remarked. “It’s an evil thing. I suppose it fits in around these parts. Soper attracts evil people. All of us innocent yet on the road to the Winded Woods. Makes us easy targets. We’ve been imploring the senate to station more soldiers here, or at least to patrol these parts a little more.”

She quietly approached the nearest window to peer through the seam between the shutter and the windowsill, attempting to look out at the Fog as best she could. “Blast this damned Fog,” she muttered. “I want to see my son!”

“We’ll make sure of it, if it be in within our power,” Marnia assured softly to the woman. “First place we’ll go, the minute this fog lifts.” The squire placed her teacup and saucer on the mantle of the fireplace, having sucked it down post-haste. She glanced at Korvakt, and she said, “Name’s Marnie. Marnie Belhund. Squire to an Aegis. ‘Pologies fer m’ rilin’. Enemy of my enemy, all that.”

After all, Zahar seemed to act as if he knew of the gar’s sort, and he reacted with little ill will, and Hayden’s mother seemed no worse for wear. If she were honest, distrust and phobia were not in her nature, though it were very much part of her nurture. Buried beneath the fear, there was a spark of curiosity.

“Your band, Blacktalon - who’d they take of yours?” Marnie asked seriously, composing herself.

The gar sniffed before snorting in response. “If you mean Eudicia, then they took an officer of mine,” he answered. “Got her back, but she’s not the same. That’s the only one. If you mean Northfold, though, none of them have the skills to take from Blacktalon.”

The Northlyn native made a small trek across the floor, listening to conversation being held as his mind raced to try and find a pattern in Eudicia's marks and kidnappings. Turning to Korvackt and then to Marnie, he voiced his wonderings aloud. “What do you think they’re after? Eudicia, I mean… Your officer, did she receive an insignia before she was taken as well?”

Hayden’s mother kept her face pressed against the wall to look though the crack between the shutter and the windowsill as the others conversed. Korvackt shot her a glance, more in assessment, before answering Zahar. “They all do,” he said. “All I know is they’re after humans. That’s all they seem to target. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

“It’s cleared!” Hayden’s mother interjected, and pushed off from the wall to head for the door. It was a blind fixation that carried her, for any calls would be ignored as she turned the knob and swung open the door.

It was true, however. Even as dusk began to settle in Soper, the dim light of night revealed the trees of the woodland and dirt road clearly. There was no more Fog to cloud the exterior giving the worried mother a line for the inn.

So they're only after humans, Zahar repeated to himself, But wh--

Tearing himself from his thoughts at the shout, Zahar acted quickly, following after Hayden's mother as she tore out of her house and towards the inn where her son resided. He unsheathed his borrowed sword and ran through the dusky landscape, searching, sensing, tensing for something that may be laying in wait.

Tags: @Effervescent @Doctor Jax
 
AVELINE EIBHLIN
Aveline quite often carried a sinking feeling with her. It was a constant sense of dread, a constant sense of despair. She did not expect her conversation with Ender to end so abruptly, to have that dread so fully amplified. And as always, she was not quick enough to escape it. So sink she did.

The earth opened to envelop her. It felt like those buried beneath were coming up to drag her, claw at her legs as she wildly thrashed, and the worst part was that she remembered this feeling. She knew it all too well, souls that grabbed at her and pulled her and threatened to suffocate. But the darkness was dirt, as if she had finally been laid in her early grave.

As the last glint of light threatened to fade she opened her mouth to scream. She knew there was no one there, but to scream would be one final cry, one last tribute to the earth that meant she had been here. No sound came out.

Throughout it all, throughout the terror that climbed up her spine, the menacing silence, the swarming loss of air, there was a strange sense of clarity. There was a sharpness to her gaze. Though this clarity only made things just that more terrifying, she knew she was being toyed with. Her strings were being pulled. Because damnit, she wasn’t going to die swallowing dirt.

Aveline had done this before and she could do it again, and she remembered how she had gotten out. The light had gone but Aveline pushed a hand upwards, and knew she had to climb.

So she did.

She fought against her own fear, the fear that threatened to send her to the core of earth, and then she woke. Gasping for breath, swearing that the taste of dirt was still present in her mouth, Aveline steadied herself as she looked around. If a shade had made its way to her and Ender, it had most certainly made its way to the others. Ender couldn’tve gotten far.. But neither could the shadow caster.

She had a choice to make. Going after the caster could certainly bring her some good points.. But what about the fate of her travel companions? They were all terrified of her to begin with. This may be the only way to earn their trust, but did she dare let a caster slip from her fingers?

Letting out a growl, Aveline stood, and began to march towards the fort. And her suspicions were true, as she saw not one, not two, but three bodies writhing on the ground. She was already too deep in this mess to try to do anything except try and make peace with those she had allied herself with. These strangers. Nevermind Ender’s strange disappearance, she had work to do.

Brandishing a knife from her belt, Aveline slashed her palm, reopening one of the many scars. She always hated to use her palm instead of the back of her arm, but in dire cases like these it was her best option. Heading for the annoying farmer first (he was closest, alright?), Aveline kept her boot on his stomach to steady his writhing form as she painted her blood on his chest and allowed a generous amount to drip into his mouth. Hopefully he would forgive the gross scene.

As she reared to begin the ritual, she glanced at the bodies of the other two men. If she spent too much time wrangling the shade out of the farmer, the other two might perish. It was a bit of a risky idea, but.. Three at a time would certainly be more efficient. Aveline stepped off the farmer and repeated the same ritual to the other two. Blood in the mouth, runes on chest. And now.. She could begin.

Muttering the incantation, Aveline tugged. It was a delicate balance, for each person, and this was probably a very stupid idea, but hell, she was trying. It was a sweaty game of tug of war, but watching them writhe in pain was a whole other type of terror. To watch someone struggle like that, trapped in their own worst nightmare.. Well, she could relate.

She could feel the shade’s grip on their souls loosen, and with one final tug, they popped free. With the effort Aveline had been putting in, once the shade finally came out, she fell back on her bottom, gasping from the effort as the darkened silhouettes of the released shades dissipated into nothingness.

@Bears @Shizuochan @Red Thunder @Effervescent
 
Last edited:
Marnia Belhund
squire to Aegis Vallane
“It’s cleared!”

Marnia's eyes widened as she spun around to see Hayden's mother reach for the door, and a sting of fear struck her in the heart. All in the span of a few seconds - the time it takes to snap your fingers - it was as if every single warning and scary story her father had told her about the Fog flashed in her brain, and she realized, in that belated way you do as someone commits a risky venture, she would have no time to stop the woman.

To her acute and desperate relief the Fog had indeed cleared, and the woman disappeared. Marnia followed after her at a quick trot before halting at the door to take a look at Korvackt, before realizing that she was losing time - as well as her traveling companion, who had followed after the woman. She swallowed and said, "You're free ta follow us. Just... don't frighten nobody, right?"

With that, Marnia darted into the street with perhaps more agility than her lanky frame belied. Her sword remained in her palm, and she was beset by a fit of sweats, thinking of what they might encounter at the inn. Pull it all together, Marnie. Stick the manure in a cart and get the thing rollin'. You can't be fallin' ta smithereens right now.

She closed the gap quickly, arriving at the tavern, and before they could protest, she put herself on the vanguard.

"Fer your safety, I got to ask ya to stay behind me," Marnia asked, hoping that they wouldn't press the issue, stepping on the porch towards the door with sword held out before her.

@Effervescent @rissa
 

The Other World

It wasn’t the first time Ender was pulled away from a fight. As soon as he turned, he felt the familiar pull of the Darkness, swallowing him up in an instant and spitting him out in the Other World. His boot splashed against the shore of a creek bed, the waters disturbed and then enveloping the leather when returned to its calm. The fire was gone and the air somewhat cooler in the night. Looking up through the canopy of trees he could see the foreign moon, bright and waxing to half its splendor just a little to his left in the cloudless sky.

“Why did you pull me away?” he asked the nothing around him. The crickets still chirped in resounding chorus as the only noise to cut the answerless void. Ender rolled his eyes and sighed.

There was nothing much for him to do than to wait for the pull back to his own world, and so he sat by the bank casting rocks into the water bitterly. Eudicia had made their move on the group. Shades had been cast to incapacitate them to make their move, and he was stuck by a creek on a completely different world with nothing to do but wait.

Which could be days…

He could hear the low hum of cars on a busy street not too far from where he had landed. Civilization was not too far of a walk for him, but he wasn’t keen on doing so.

“Hello?”

A voice called out, unfamiliar, but growing nearer as the sound of crunching earth below hard soles drew close. Ender tensed and froze, unwilling to answer even as a figure came into view. A woman with wild hair and dark skin halted in her tracks, eyeing him over before chuckling at the sight.

“So it wasn’t wrong,” she said as she held up an object. He didn’t recognize it, and in the dark it didn’t look like much but a stone.

“I’m just passing through,” he said in her language.

“I know,” she replied. “I summoned you here.”

Ender shot up from the bank in a flash of anger, dagger releasing from its sheath. But just as he moved to bring it up to her neck, she countered with a spell of her own, hands flourishing through the air until the earth wrapped around his ankles and halted him in his tracks.

Eyes wide, Ender fought against the magical binds in disbelief. There was no magic in the Other World. They were all humans.

“Let me go,” he demanded.

“No,” she replied simply, and pocketed the object in her jacket. “We need your help.”

“I’m kind of busy at the moment,” he said.

She approached him with severity apparent in her expression as she drew closer, close enough for him to stab her now if he wanted to. But his interest was piqued to the point of irritation in himself, and he lowered his dagger to his side to show compliance.

“I don’t think you understand how hard it is to find one of you,” she said.

“What gives you the right to pull me from my world?” he asked, and she seemed to pick up on the agitation, almost as if she hadn’t considered what situation he might have been in. The woman pulled back, eyeing him over now with more scrutiny under a furrowed brow. It was like she hadn’t fully noticed he was dressed in leather armor and equipped with weapons at the ready.

“Look, something is cutting us off from Estyr,” she began to explain. “We can’t go back. Some of us are getting sick too and we’ve got no answers and no way to figure it out.”

“There’s no magic in Estwynd,” Ender said.

“I know,” she said. “We know that. Y’all never could tell with us anyway.”

“I can’t help you,” he stated. “Let me go. I have more important things to deal with than your connection with the Gate.”

“You need us just as much as we need you,” she challenged. When he didn’t argue, she held up a piece of paper with a pointed flower drawn upon it in dark ink. “This mean anything to you?”

But she already knew the answer by the expression of shock on Ender’s face and watched him expectantly. “Come on, man,” she prompted as she shoved her hands into her pockets. “We’re being hunted down by these guys.”

“How did you know it’s related to my world?” he asked, and she quickly shrugged.

“A guess based on them only going after children of the Gate,” she said. “I’d say I had a good hunch.”

He felt like he was going to be sick, like he would wretch all of his insides knowing Eudicia had its hold of the Other World. There would be no escaping their wrath, and he knew it all too well. With a wave of her hands, she released the earth’s grasp on his feet and recoiled slightly as she matched the panic she saw in his eyes.

“That bad,” she murmured. “Are we screwed? Do we have a chance? What’s their motives?”

“I don’t have time for this,” he said quietly.

“Make time.” She had lost her nervousness and uncertainty in an instant as urgency took over. She was afraid not just for herself but for the unspoken others like her; the Children of the Gate as she called it. His only option was to tell her enough to satisfy her into letting him go.

“I know right now if you don’t let me go, people under my care are going to be captured by them,” he said. “Right now. At this very moment.”

“Captured and then what?”

Patience now thin, Ender slammed his fist across her nose, feeling the bone snap with the follow through. She staggered back, completely taken off guard by his move. It gave him the opening for the upper hand and he pulled back her head by her hair and placed his blade at her throat.

“Release me or I kill you,” he threatened.

“Kill me and you’re stranded until you find someone who knows how to work this thing,” she countered. “Tell me what I want to know fast and you get to go back and safe your friends.”

“Fuck you,” he spat as his blade began to slice through her skin. She quickly called for him to halt, ceasing the game of chicken with her hand out of her pocket and holding the device that summoned him.

It was almost as big as her hand, a stone covered in runes and coiled with wire bound to a switch. With a flick of her thumb, the switch was flicked up, and the runes glistened for a moment until darkness enveloped him.

She fell onto the grass and mud as soon as he was gone, hand quickly clasping over the cut he had made on her neck to feel the damage. Blood oozed against her fingertips as she reached in her other pocket for her cell and called the first number.

“Yeah don’t bother coming out here,” she said into it. “He’s gone. He knew what it meant though, so I say we keep tracking him. I’m gonna need another charge on this.”


Hadoume

The heat of the bonfire was once again at his back with the stench of burning flesh and hair thick in the air. Hadoume was before him, dark, quiet, ominous in its black silhouette. Nothing stirred in the darkness or called out in the night. All that spanned the night was the rage of the flames that enveloped the dead.

His feet took off in a sprint as he denied his magic purchase to his soul. It would close the distance quicker, but at the risk of taking him back to whomever had summoned him. He arrived within the storage room just in time to see the Shades pulled from their victims by the pull of a skilled Blood Mage.

Everyone had been afflicted by a Shade, though it was likely the presence of a Blood Mage was not accounted for to its fullest capacity. Or perhaps that was why there were so many casters now possibly lurking about Hadoume. And as they came to, he addressed them with urgency.

“Those of you fit to fight, arm yourselves and come with me,” he said. “There are Casters in Hadoume.”

@CloudyBlueDay @Red Thunder @Bears @Shizuochan


The Soper Tavern and Inn

The door to the tavern and inn was wide open, a smattering of blood ripped across the facade with the body of Hayden sprawled against the stone foundation, eyes wide and mouth agape as his insides were cleaned from his gut. His mother cried out in horror as all words were incomprehensible apart from the name of her son, and she weeped inconsolably as she cradled him to her in regret.

Korvackt growled angrily at the sight, teeth bared as he looked out where the Fog had disappeared into the dark of night. “Filthy Sinner’s Veil,” he snarled. “Keep your eyes peeled for hostiles. Sometimes they like to use the Fog to their advantage.”

Within the tavern and inn, the cries of a sobbing woman only caused Alexander pause. He crept from the room cautiously, looking back at the two women to insure they did not waver from behind him as he took point to explore the halls. One of the doors creaked open, and Danielle peeled through the crack.

“Stay put,” he advised in a whisper. She simply nodded and quietly closed the door once again.

Slowly, he descended the stairs to the tavern, all tables empty, the air stale despite the door being open across the way. As he neared, he unsheathed his sword and called out to the source of the sobbing. “Hello?”

The sudden appearance of a beast-like being caused alarm in the Aegis, one in which brought his shield forward as he marched out of the tavern with purpose. “State your nature!” he commanded, though once past the threshold of the establishment, his allies came into view. Neither Marnia nor Zahar seemed all too concerned with the presence of the Gar.

“Calm your flame, Aegis,” Korvakt grumbled. “Do you know why this kid threw himself to the Fog?”

“He said he had to,” Betta said from inside the door. She clasped her hands to her chest knowing what was outside where the mother sobbed. “He ran out and we couldn’t stop him. The Fog…”

@Doctor Jax @rissa @Elle Joyner @Starlighter