Requiem for Themelio: A Dirge for Tartarus (Still Accepting!)

Status
Not open for further replies.
"I have never seen a woman strike true with a blade before."

Welda turned her head to the man, as the grip of her hands around the leather handle tightened, and she smiled at the compliment. "In the country that I come from, skilled female fighters are commonplace. In fact, I was a warlord and had my own unit of twenty thousand men before I died." Welda then returned her attention to the other hounds which approached them. Everything was quiet for a second, and the only sounds she could hear were her own slow breaths and the hounds' steps closing in. The hound growled viciously as it came closer, and then it pounced. It moved with terrifying speed and its ferocious barks became aggressively louder, but as she brought her blade down, silence returned. The longsword's blade had buried itself in the dog's jaw and clamped it close. As she tried to pull her sword back to her side, she realised that her sword was trapped in the hound's jaw and wasn't slipping out. The other hound had seen that she was trapped, and hearing the increasingly loud shrieks and yelps of its accompanying beast, it charged at her. Releasing her right hand's grip from the sword, she stamped on the pinned down hound's head, and clenched her hand into a fist. Swinging it with brute strength, she made a vain attempt to punch the upcoming hound in the head. However, unable to see the hound, her strike came off wide again, and she could feel something sharp snap onto her forearm. She lifted her hand into the air in pain, but the hound hung from her arm and weighed it down.

"Die, foul beast!" Welda shouted, as she tried to remove her longsword from the wounded hound's skull.
 
Iwao had seen the hound latch onto Weldas arm and his training took ahold of his muscles instantly. He brought forth his sword and charged, yelling aloud,
"I tread the Path of Fire!" The warriors sword ignited like a blacksmiths forge as he bolted past the fourth Hound, which in short, it wasn't a good idea.
As Iwao ran forth to protect his friend, the Hellhound was simply faster and leapt onto his back, biting into his shoulder during the process. With flaming sword in hand the Ronin tucked his legs beneath him and pushed with all of his might in order to lift up from under the weight of the canine beast. He slowly struggled to stand with both the Hound's weight and gnashing, he stood on locked legs as he swung behind him and instantaneously cauterized one of the Hounds eyes shut. The beast yelped before the hot blade rippled through its body like air, from snout to tail. It stood on uncertain legs while the head slowly sunk lower to the ground until the body collapsed.
Iwao gripped his shoulder, feeling ragged bite wound and gritting against the pulses of pain that traveled from his shoulder to down his arm and back.
"These hounds are much more challenging than I had originally anticipated, may I hope that they carry no disease." He shakily laughed.
 
Welda pulled the sword from the jaw of the hound, her foot pressing against the hound's neck, and using her foot as a marker, she swiftly decapitated the hound. Clutching onto her wounded arm, she made her way towards the man's voice and subsequent laughter. She couldn't find it in herself to laugh in the situation, regardless of whether they survived it or not, and instead she sheathed her longsword and held onto her bloodied arm with the other. Once she had ensured that she was standing close to the man, she bowed, with her clenched left fist in her open right palm.

"Thank you for saving my life," she said, smiling weakly. "We never did get around to finishing our introductions, friend."
 
"I am afraid that I was unable to reach you in time Lady Welda, and with that I hope you forgive me.." He apologized, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder and patting it.
"I am Iwao Mamoru, Warrior Ronin of Fu Jia; the proud island kingdom. Please call me Ronin for I have read how Mainlanders mispronounce anything foreign. Although I have seen you have properly thanked me in the way my people have."
He bowed back, not that Welda could notice, but it felt nice to do something normal again. On his way up to regular height he saw her arm and immediately asked.
"Oh, is your arm hurting you? may I attempt to heal it?" His culturally tuned mind went into overdrive for the injured blind woman, seeing as a woman was to be treated with utmost respect as were those with disabilities, and injured were to be treated on the spot until someone medically trained comes.
He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a roll of some sort of bandage and a small bowl of light orange paste.
 
Welda nodded, "Yes, please. You will be doing me a massive favour." She rolled up her sleeve in order to reveal the punctured skin of her right arm, and raised it in front of her so that Ronin could see. "Iwao Mamoru," she whispered softly, a failed attempt to pronounce his name correctly. She smirked, he was right. Mainlanders were generally ignorant as a whole, and thus were unable to pronounce foreign words as they were intended to be pronounced. She stored this in the back of her mind - it would be something she was going to work on. "I too also read about the mannerism of various cultures, and I do my best to respect them. However, it is unfortunate that books don't give you correct pronunciations of words. Therefore, as you requested, I will call you Ronin to avoid coming across as disrespectful."
 
"I thank you." Iwao stated as he checked the deep puncture the canine left. He still smirked, as he heard her try to say his name, but kept it to himself.
"The medicine I am applying will sting you.." He warned Welda as he applied the salve to the bite. Small, foamy bubbles began to appear on the treated area and the paste turned from orange to a deep green. He quickly wrapped the soft bandages around the bite mark, and tied it off.
'The container is small, and I only have about three more uses.' He catalogued, he will need to use it sparingly. Against his better judgement he decided to keep his shoulder injury quiet, after all, others may need it more than he.

"Finished, It will heal in a days time, let us hope you do not need it before then." He smiled, giving a small laugh as he rearranged his shoulder plate over his own bite.
 
Catherine scoffed as the others found idle chit chat in the middle of combat. Without word she struck out with her blade, stabbing it in the side. The wound seemed deep, but not lethal. A second beast came at her from her left, a dubious error. She met the leap of the hound with a strong bash with her shield, toppling the creature. She made sure it would not rise again with a swift stab between the ribs. Her blade finding its way easily as if it was guiding itself to the target. She turned her attention back to the one that she had cut into before. It was well outside of her reach now, backing away into the corner injured. She dug the tip of her blade into the soft dirt of the cave floor and lifted her hand. With a quiet few words a crackling rod of electricity formed in her hand. She reeled back and threw it as if it were a spear, and it did indeed find its mark. The corpse of the beast writhed with electricity and a boom echoed slightly through the cave. The spear remained for a moment in the body until fading into nothingness.

"Well, I believe that is that." She began picking her blade from the ground and sliding it into her sheath. "Is anyone injured?"
 
Darius watched as the others dispatched the rest of the hounds, as well as the arrival of the newcomer. He could tell what the new person used was some type of blood magic. Darius didn't think much of blood magic since he wasn't a zealot like the inquisitor or the cleric, but he knew that people that use blood magic are more often than not rather dodgy people, so he wasn't going to let his guard down until he knew this mage's intentions. The giant that Darius heard the cleric's inquisition if anybody was hurt. That was when he noticed that he couldn't quite move his left arm as much as before he used it as a hammer on the hound that attacked him. Darius removed the gauntlet on his left hand with some difficulty, he only saw why after removing it. His fingers were a gnarled, swollen, mess and his lower arm was clearly shattered by how it was now in an acute angle. "It would appear that I have sustained an injury. Seems I shattered my arm by attacking that hound as I did". Darius simply said this as if he were telling someone he just got a cut on his finder. His face showed no signs of pain or agony. "I don't suppose you have a spell that could repair this damage in a short while cleric?"
 
As Iwao applied the thick paste to her wound, she could feel a sharp pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and hissed through the side of her mouth but her arm didn't move, as she held it in place. She looked down at her arm. Blackness. So forgetful. It would take some time to get used to. Twenty-six years with vision, ten minutes without. With her left hand, she could feel foamy bubbles forming and popping in quick succession on her arm. The feel of the bubbles caused Welda to frown, and then smile a little, as the paste began to gradually become less thick. She turned her head back in the direction of Iwao, her eyes still closed, as he started wrapping soft white bandages over her wound.

"Thank you, again," she said, a warm smile on her face as she inspected, with her hand, the job that Iwao had done with the bandages. "When we were fighting, did I hear you correctly when you stated that you tread the path of fire? That sounds like a dangerous road to walk down." She laughed softly at her own joke, knowing full well that there was another meaning to the phrase 'path of fire' than the literal meaning.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The hellhounds had been thoroughly beaten. Most, lay dead or injured. The party of adventurers proving too skilled, despite their recent revelation that they had been killed. The Alpha of the pack retreated, along with the ones that remained alive. Well, they tried to. The lesser imps and other creatures that had been lurking, waiting for an opening for a decent meal finally got their chance. At the end of the day, there wouldn't be a single member of the pack left alive.

That just left the mortals, and the demoness and her newly acquired undead demonic hound. Iris watched them from her little throne, legs crossed. She was still unsure what to make of the mortals, other than perhaps they got either lucky or unlucky enough to have escaped the normal path that a soul took once it was killed. All she really knew, is that they appeared incredibly skilled - but that was just an assumption from the way they handled themselves and they way they moved during the fight. Fighting a pack of hellhounds was one of the least dangerous things someone could do in Tartarus. besides, these were half starved and feral. Facing one of War's or Prides trained packs wouldn't be so easy - she had seem them take down a rogue Incubus without sustaining any injuries at all. Still, she could at least appear a little impressed.

"Well, that was quite the show." She said, her slow clapping cutting through the silence that had befallen the caves. "You mortals are something, aren't you? In the face of the uncertainty that is the abyss you fight, not even knowing why. Curious."
 
Despite his sudden arrival into the fray, none of the humans had yet made any effort to communicate with Ijani, caught up in the heat of the battle and in their own conversations amongst themselves. From what he could make out from their conversations, it seems like these humans didn't know each other. The one named Welda and the one named Iwao apparently were not even from the same human lands, but he wouldn't have known that if he had not overheard them mentioning it. Political tensions meant that very few humans ever showed up in <...>, and he was not familiar enough with their cultures to tell them apart.

One of the men had sustained a pretty gruesome-looking injury on his hand, but he seemed entirely unfazed by it, casually asking the cleric for aid. Even the most stalwart of warriors would wince at such an injury. "Intriguing," he thought. "Did he perhaps numb the pain somehow?" Ijani searched his mind, trying to recall if there were any spells he had read about that produced such effects.

Ijani thought it rude to ask such a thing without having been properly introduced, but he made a mental note to ask him about it later.

"Well, that was quite the show." Iris called out, finally deciding to show herself, clapping slowly as she did so. "You mortals are something, aren't you? In the face of the uncertainty that is the abyss you fight, not even knowing why. Curious."
"So now you decide to show up? I thought you were going to join me," said Ijani, sounding slightly irritated.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"And who are the two of you?" Iwao spoke up, standing from where he had been tending Welda. These two newcomers were both outlandish, even for his standards and would need to be dealt with extreme prejudice if hostile. He kept both swords in hand for safeties sake.
"You, spell caster, I have seen that magic you use once before, and you, She-Demon, I can feel the taint in which you harbor from here..so state both of your purposes." He ordered, wincing ever so slightly as the concealed bite on his shoulder throbbed.
He had no time for games and mystery, he needed to find a way to Hanna and Akio, and felt that the others would like to seek their way out too.
 
"So now you decide to show up? I thought you were going to join me,"

"Watching you fight those hounds though was much more entertaining though." She replied to Ijani, with a small giggle. "Besides, if you expect a demon to help you out of goodwill...well, your not going to last long here." Her tone was serious, and a bit threatening. It was the truth though - Helping people for free wasn't like her. Or any demon really. Most would have probably either killed all of them when they were fighting the hellhounds, or attempt to overpower them and make them their...prisoner. Depending on the demon, that could be a fate worse than death. She could have helped, but it would only hinder their progress in the future. There was also the reason that she was unsure if she could trust these mortals - two of them were obviously holy warriors from the church of Illya. They weren't likely to be too...friendly, to her.

"You, spell caster, I have seen that magic you use once before, and you, She-Demon, I can feel the taint in which you harbor from here..so state both of your purposes." The Ronin replied, commanding her to state her purpose. She would have laughed at this, had she not found her whose situation rather...sad, since she was in fact lost. She would have liked to reprimand him for talking like that to her, but it wouldn't have gotten her any closer to them, and less likely to help her with her...predicament.

"I, uhm...." She sighed, "Am lost." her shoulders slumped at the mention of this, obviously not to thrilled about admitting it. "I was here, hunting for treasure. I had found a map to the caves and thought I might find some...artifacts. An imp decided the map would make a good snack unfortunately." Her demeanor became much friendlier as she talked, loosing the formality and seriousness it formerly had.
 
"Watching you fight those hounds though was much more entertaining though. Besides, if you expect a demon to help you out of goodwill...well, your not going to last long here."
"Of course not, but you did ask." He sighed, but she had a point. Why get involved unless it was absolutely necessary? He might have saved them a couple of injuries, but they seemed capable enough of dealing with the threat on their own. "Besides," thought Ijani, looking over at Jarick and Catherine, gritting his teeth. "Those two look like they're from the church."
"And who are you?" Ijani turned around to see the white-haired man standing up. "You, spell caster, I have seen that magic you use once before, and you, She-Demon, I can feel the taint in which you harbor from here..so state both of your purposes."

"You need not raise your weapons at me... Iwao, was it?" He found the name no more difficult to pronounce than any other human name, but as the common tongue was not his first language, he spoke with a noticeable accent.
"My name is Ijani Rennsi. I woke up in this place after my... death." he explained, still finding it difficult to come to terms with his own mortality. "I can only assume the rest of you met the same fate. The demon is someone I met on the way here." With that, he turned to Iris and bowed slightly in apology. "Iris, I must apologise for not introducing myself properly earlier on."

"As for my purpose... Figuring out why we ended up here would be a start."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Catherine stared down the demon. Not only was she a demon, she was dressed in nearly nothing. Catherine kept her hand on her blade, but she did not draw it. She looked at Ijani with the same look of disgust. Not because of the man's race, but because he identified himself with the demon. She kept looking between the two and occasionally to the High Inquisitor. She looked at the wounded and then back at the demon. She had to make a decision.

"Look, whore of Tartarus, I am going to treat these wounds, and if you so much as breath in my direction as I do so, I'll cut you down."

Without another word she tended to the two wounded. Whispering into her cupped hands and then spreading a white soothing light over their wounds. SHe repeated this until the wounds had sealed up, leaving little more than scars. "Your wounds healed much better than they should have. Maybe a side effect of being dead?" She pondered aloud.
 
"Look, whore of Tartarus, I am going to treat these wounds, and if you so much as breath in my direction as I do so, I'll cut you down."

"Oh, I bet you're fun at parties." Iris replied under her breath, though it was all she said. Invoking the wrath of the cleric was unlikely to get any of them anywhere. Instead, she turned her attention to Ijani. She stood from her seat, the undead hound giving a displeased whine as its master turned her attention to the mortals and away from petting it, though it remained where it sat at her command. "Well, glad to see someone here is polite at least." She said to the Lleian, giving him a respectful bow in return. "You are of the Lleian race, are you not? I have met a few of your people before. I have always found their innate ability for magic fascinating."

That was just not her being kind and trying to make friends. She truly did find them fascinating, especially their human ancestry. She had always wanted to know where they had branched off from their human ancestors. "And as I said, I am Amentiris. Most know me as Iris, however."
 
"I guess there are more newcomers," Welda smiled as she shuffled closer to Iwao for her own protection.

"You, spell caster, I have seen that magic you use once before, and you, She-Demon, I can feel the taint in which you harbor from here..so state both of your purposes."

Welda paused. A she-demon? The thought of a demon in her vicinity startled her, at first, but then she recalled that there was a highly likely chance that they were definitiely in Tartarus. The idea of demonic humanoid creatures no longer seemed as farfetched as they had once seemed during her childhood when she was taught all the tales of Tartarus by her father. If all she knew of demons were true, she would be dead already. But how much did she know about them? As far back as she could remember, she had disregarded almost everything her parents had pleaded with her so desperately to believe, and there were so many superstitions and omens preached to her that she subconsciously flushed most of them out of her memory. Truth and myth seemed blended into one. She regretted it now.

"I have no solid ground to base any suspicions on," Welda smiled in the direction of the voice of the demon who had introduced herself as Iris, as she sheathed her longsword. "If they share our goal of finding an escape from this hellish underworld, then I am willing to join sides with them if just for a short while, but I have a concern regarding our likelihood of escape. My concern isn't how we got here, but why?"
 
"Oh look, another sensible one! Today's my lucky day." She replied with a friendly, obvious happy tone and turned to Welda, deciding it best not to mention her blindness. "No one escapes Tartarus - not without permission from Lord Denetheos." she replied, in answer to her question, a hint of sadness obvious. "And I doubt he'd let a few mortals just escape. Especially the two holy warriors. He does so love...playing, with their kind." She let that sentence sit for a moment, letting her words sink in. Escape, especially for them would have been nigh impossible.


"As for why you're here...I'm not sure. Perhaps the recent power shift has caused some of Lady Illya's mechanisms to help souls along their way failed." Another possibility, though she elected to not tell them of the other possibility. That they were called here for a purpose, by Death either on the orders of Denetheos or whoever was rebelling against him. No need to cause them alarm for now. "However, I do have an idea on how we could find our way to the gates of Tartarus, if any of you care to listen to a demons suggestion." They probably weren't going to like it either....
 
"What have you got to say then? Well? Spit it out. The longer you waste my time with your ramblings and pauses the more I feel inclined that you are becoming less and less useful every time you do."

Catherine was still staring the demon down but her hand was no longer on the hilt of her sword. At the very least this creature wasn't hostile, for now. It seemed as if it wanted to help them. If not out of the kindness of its heart, out of mutual benefit. Catherine didn't like having to work with Iris, but if it meant she could get out of Hell and to the life that she deserved, so be it.
 
Iwao sheathed his swords while he looked at Catherine in disbelief, 'She has a short fuse it seems..' He thought.
He examined the blue eyed she-inquisitor, he felt terribly sorry for any enemy she had come across to smite.
The Ronin spoke out in a low tone as he sat cross-legged next to her,
"Miss Clearwater, I would like to note that the Demoness you think so useless is the only one with a plan of escape from these caves, I believe she can take all the time she needs, and taking a bit of time to plot things through and gather strength wouldn't kill us, so to speak." He finished the end with a shrug as he busied himself with unpacking everything from the pouches on his belt and armor and laying it out before him.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back