Fated (Chapter Twenty-Three)
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mindcrackloveChapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
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Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kingdom of Illian, Minecraftia. September 28, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
Nia folded up the map, nodding slightly in satisfaction. “We’re here.” She announced. “Some friggin’ town in the middle of nowhere.”
Shred surveyed the town, noticing that it only had a couple dozen buildings and clearly wasn’t very large. It hadn’t even been on the map, so she had no idea as to its name. It appeared to be home to regular humans- one of which had spotted them- and was nothing remarkable in any way.
As the group approached, the man waved to them. “What brings ya here?”
“We need boats for going downriver. We need to get to Ahnrak.” Shred told him immediately. “Is there somewhere that we could buy some?”
“Sure ya can. Just head to the building by the dock. Ol’ Carnek can get ya a couple of rafts.” He seemed a little unnerved by the Skullblade. “Um…don’t hurt ‘im, okay?”
“I probably won’t.” Shred informed him, not reassuring him any. She glanced back at the group. “Let’s find this Carnek, shall we?”
Nia nodded and took the lead, the others following behind. The townsfolk paused to stare at them when they passed- between the Skullblade, the dragon, and the unicorn, they were certainly an odd sight. Mira bounded along behind Shred, straying often to sniff at people and things. She squeaked at one woman but ran from an overexcited child, attempting to climb up Shred’s leg to escape.
Shred gently picked her up, noting that she wouldn’t be able to do so for much longer, and shooed the child away. Mira peered over her shoulder at the people they had passed, flapping her wings a little. “Shruh! Shruh!”
Curious creatures, dragons are.
Once they had reached the building that the man had described, Nia cautiously stepped up to the door and knocked.
An old, grumpy-looking man answered. “What? Who are you? What do you want?”
“We need a couple of rafts to head downriver.” Nia told him.
“Eh? Fine. Twenty-five emerald shards to a raft.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Adrian exclaimed. “Twenty-five?!”
“If you don’t like it, you can make your own.” The man informed him. “And yours won’t be half as durable as mine, let me tell you!”
Nia rummaged through her pockets but turned up nothing, as did Adrian. “All of my emeralds were in that bag I dropped and lost when you came running up yelling about an earth elementalist.” He informed his cousin.
Niel had two, Nessy had none, and Shred had none. Nia sighed. “So we need forty-eight more. We must be the stupidest and poorest team of three.”
“Look. There’s a girl up the street called Flare. She’s in the building with the black sign. You can probably find somethin’ to sell her: she buys anything remotely interestin’. If you can’t turn up the emeralds, though, don’t come back.” The man grumbled something under his breath and shut the door.
“Friendly.” Shred muttered. “Shall we go see Flare?”
“What could we possibly sell her?” Nessy demanded as they walked. “I know I don’t have anything.”
Shred grinned at her, pulling a knife from a hidden sheath in her armor. “From what I’ve heard, merchants go crazy for stuff made by Skullblades, especially made of dragonbone. I can just make another knife when I get home, but this is more important than a damn dragonbone blade.”
Shred set down Mira and knocked on the door, opening it in response to the call of “Come in” from the woman inside. She went inside, Nia following, and set the knife on the counter.
The woman, Flare, started at her, recognizing her as a Skullblade. “Are…are you really…”
“Ashenhorn Skullblade. I need to sell this. I made it myself from a valk’vanor’s bone in Ashwatch. In case you’re not sure what that means, it means a legitimate Skullblade made this knife from the legbone of a dragon that happens to be the child of one of the fourteen creators. It was also made in Ashwatch.”
The merchant stared. “You…you really want to sell this?”
“Yes. We need boats to get downriver and we don’t have the emeralds for it.”
“…You’re serious?” Flare seemed quite shocked. She had not expected a Skullblade to walk in wanting to sell an object straight out of Ashwatch.
“Very. How much will you buy it for?”
“Something like this is…is…ridiculously rare, it’s practically priceless, it’s unheard for an outsider to-“
“How. Much. Will. You. Buy. It. For.” Shred was getting annoyed with this woman.
“I…I can’t afford to buy it for any more than two hundred emerald shards.”
“Sold. We need to get out of here and continue downriver. Hand over the emeralds and the knife is yours.”
The merchant looked caught between joy and shock as she went into the backroom to count out the emeralds. Once Shred was satisfied that she had been paid in full and had handed the sack to Nia, she motioned for Flare to take the knife.
“Thank you!” The merchant squeaked as Shred and Nia left the building. Nia was peering into the bag, quite shocked at the sheer amount of green in there. She had never seen so many emeralds in her life.
Living in the woods does that to you.
Shred took the bag from Nia and shook it, gaining the attention of the others. “Let’s get ourselves some rafts, shall we?”
~~~
“Remind me why we can’t take the river the whole way.” Valkan growled as he and Trymdas struggled to carry the raft down the steep hill south.
“It would add at least a week and a half to our travel time.” Samuel informed him. “We have to head south down this steep area- it’ll take a couple of days- to reach the lake in the center of Illian, then we can take the river south into Variat.”
“It’s a pain in the ass!”
“So am I and everyone loves me.” Tarsen put in, making Valkan snarl at him.
“You and your-“
“Shut up.” Samuel snapped. “Tranpar is listening.” He knew this as he was carrying the kid, worried about him tripping and falling. He couldn’t keep Tranpar on the horse as the other raft was strapped to its back. Tarsen led the horse down the hill, making sure it wouldn’t lose its footing and fall.
Tranpar started to protest but a large log ripped itself from the ground and swung at Tarsen. He yelped and dodged the swing, but a second log slammed into his horse. The animal screamed as the raft on its back was shattered and pieces of wood sliced into its side.
A huge being rose from the earth, made of wood and dead foliage. It was like the god of the trees had arisen from its eternal slumber and wanted them dead. It had a vague humanoid figure and was a good fifteen feet tall at least, with two legs and four arms that ended jaggedly like claws made of wood. The creature had a gaping mouth with sharp wooden teeth and empty eye sockets that glowed viciously red.
Shara, a second Hostile.
“Run, run!” Samuel set off down the hill, holding Tranpar tightly as he ducked under a swing from the monster. He heard Trymdas scream behind him and dared to glance back, seeing wood splinters a foot long sticking out from his back.
Valkan ordered him to run, dropping the raft and setting off after Samuel. He tripped and was immediately targeted by the monster, barely rolling enough to avoid being smashed by the creature, but his leg was hit. He roared in pain but scrambled to his feet, limping towards Samuel.
Noticing a cave, Samuel ducked into it and set Tranpar down. “You stay here- you got that? Stay right here! I’ll get the others!” Not waiting for a response, Samuel raced out, pulling out his spear. He waved Valkan in the direction of the cave and ran between him and the creature’s swinging arm.
He avoided the blow by jumping up onto it, running up the creature’s arm and grabbing on whenever necessary. The monster started to shake its arm and he drove his spear into the dead wood, earning a roar.
Another arm slammed into the ground, missing Tarsen by inches, and a third hit the horse and snapped its back and neck, killing it instantly. Tarsen shouted abuse at the monster, ducking under another hit and racing towards the cave.
The Hostile turned to go after him but screamed when Samuel’s spear drove into its neck, dark green blood pouring out of the wound in the bark. It clawed at him to get him off but he just slid down the arm that he had climbed and jumped the rest of the way, rolling to break his fall. He took Trymdas’s arm and guided him into the cave, racing in the moment that he was sure that everyone was in.
He made sure everyone was back far enough that the creature’s two smaller arms couldn’t reach them, knowing that the larger ones couldn’t fit, before taking stock of the situation. The creature roared and scrabbled at the entrance for a minute or two before shambling away, clearly more worried about its bleeding wounds that finishing off its prey.
Not the most vengeful Hostile.
Samuel led them back into the light, but not outside the entrance, to look over their wounds.
Samuel and Tranpar were both fine, Valkan’s leg was broken, Trymdas had wood shards embedded in his back, and Tarsen was bruised and cut but overall fine.
“We’ll rest here for now.” Samuel decided. “We need to get these wounds treated.” He sighed. “I guess we’ll be making new rafts once we get to the river.”
Tranpar sighed, sitting back down. More time sitting around doing nothing.
-~-
“That was close.” Paul breathed, letting himself relax in his seat. “I really thought we were going to lose one there.”
“I did too.” Seth admitted. “That was a cool stunt that Samuel pulled, though. I don’t think any of us would consider doing that. Hey, Vechs! Which one was that again?”
“Shara.” Vechs muttered. He had looked away from his own orb and had been peering into Paul’s the moment that the group had run into trouble. “Canopy Carnage. She’s not immune to mortal weapons but I don’t know if dragonbone counts as mortal anyway.”
“It doesn’t. I can guarantee that.” Blame patted his sword hilts. “Certainly not the bones of Vallor’roth.”
“If any group is going to take one out, it’s either Nia’s or Samuel’s group.” Nebris noted. “If Nessy were to encounter Shara, she could definitely take her out…she’s likely not immune to fire, after all, and Nessy is a half-dragon…”
“Maybe she’ll wander north.” Aureylian said, shrugging. “I just hope she doesn’t kill anyone…”
“Oh, we’ll lose someone.” Blame grumbled. “Trust me.”
“We didn’t lose any of us.” Sevadus protested.
Blame looked him in the eye. “Trust me when I tell you that at least a third of those kids won’t make it out alive.”
The room fell silent at that, feeling that he spoke the truth.
It was a chilling thought.
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Date: Monday, August 17th, 2015 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 01:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, August 17th, 2015 10:42 pm (UTC)*quietly shuffles away*
Good chapter as always ^^
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Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 12:47 pm (UTC)They don't need to know that xD
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Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 11:13 pm (UTC)FAULT
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Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, August 17th, 2015 10:49 pm (UTC)<3 It's so true <3
Also, Samuel's a total bad ass.
The boat salesman did bring up a thought for me, I'm kinda hoping there's at least 1 descendant who's fairly old, at least as old as Baj is, but preferably older. It'd be quite the interesting toss in to see someone so much more elderly than the rest of the group.
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Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 12:16 am (UTC)G.C. (::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)
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Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 01:21 am (UTC):3
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Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 10:09 am (UTC)adN SEV YOU LOST SEVERAL PEOPLE *GESTURES LOUDLY TO IIRKOLAV* NOT TO MENTION YOU -WOULD- HAVE LOST AUREY, YOU ALMOST DFID.
/#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/
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Date: Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 04:24 am (UTC)