Fated (Chapter Twenty-Four)
Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveChapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/F
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kingdom of Valdrar, Minecraftia. September 29, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
Baltbee groaned as his hoof sank into a puddle of mud. He pulled it out and shook off as much mud as he could, not needing Vorna’s announcement of “We’re here.”
Aldobiva looked closely at the water they had reached and noted that it looked absolutely revolting. “I don’t like swamps.” She decided.
“No one does. Why do you think no one ever tries to take over Valdrar?” Carl muttered, glad to be on Vynx’s back.
“There’s water.” Katrin remarked. “So…there’s that.” She had revealed herself to be relatively outgoing and friendly, if a bit unnerved by the sight of blood or injury. She was quite skilled at doing what she wanted with water and was fast friends with both Carl and Zel.
“Try not to fall in the mud or the water.” Zel advised. “And don’t drink it if you can avoid it. It’s not very clean and Valdrar is home to some nasty swamp monsters.”
“Is that why we had to bottle so much water back at the river yesterday?” Baltbee asked, peering into the water.
“Yes. Drink as little as you can while still remaining healthy.”
“I might be able to get some of the muck out of any water we want to drink.” Katrin told them. “Don’t rely on that, though. I haven’t ever tried it and I’m willing to bet it’s not easy.”
Zel nodded. “Right. We need to find some locals soon, before we run out of water. They probably know how to make it safe to drink. Or, if they don’t, it explains why people from Valdrar are always a little…different. Plus, the creatures of Valdrar are usually at least semi-aquatic and have large teeth. Quite a few are venomous as well.”
Enough to make anyone a bit odd.
Vynx was clearly very uncomfortable with the swamp, disliking the mud and water. Carl was more worried about the mosquitos, slapping quite a few but receiving more bites than he could count. Only Baltbee seemed unbothered by them, his wool protecting him. On the downside, he looked seriously overheated in the muggy air.
“So where is this Battlemaster guy supposed to be?” Aldobiva asked, swatting a mosquito.
“Somewhere in this vague area- the circle I copied from Skera’s map. All we know other than that is that he lives in a huge tree. I was planning to ask the locals, and apparently there’s a town a few hours ahead.” Zel responded, glancing at the map. “Really close to the circle, actually.”
After a couple of hours of walking, about fifteen minutes after the sun had set, Vynx’s ears perked up and she growled, looking around. Carl frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Aldobiva shivered. “I feel like we’re being watched.”
“Well, they can watch us make camp.” Zel moved his hand and a stone platform rose up and formed. Katrin shifted any and all water off of it so that they could set up there.
“You’re just going to let them-“
“They’ve been there for a good ten minutes. I haven’t caught sight of them but I’ve felt them.” Zel said quietly, voice betraying how unnerved he was. “It’s probably a local. They’re very, very suspicious of outsiders. We need to show them that we’re not afraid and we’re not dangerous. Attempting to attack them won’t help anything.”
Carl shuddered. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either. We don’t really have a choice.” Zel grumbled. “Someone help me set up the tents.”
“I’ll take first watch.” Aldobiva told them. “I have good eyes.”
Zel nodded. “Hopefully they don’t intend to attack.”
~~~
Nia sighed happily, closing her eyes and lay back. “I’m awfully comfortable.” She announced. “I’m not tired, I’m ready for anything, and this is so much easier than walking across the world.”
“Yeah! I was getting really tired of walking or riding around on Teramelle everywhere.” Niel put in, smiling and not realizing the subtle jab that Nia had hidden in her statement.
“Drop it, you guys.” Shred grumbled, hugging Mira tighter. The little dragon hissed quietly at Nia before closing her eyes again and snuggling against Shred.
Adrian was seated on the second boat with Teramelle and the supplies to allow Shred to be with Mira. He didn’t mind that much, leaning against Teramelle’s side with his eyes closed. When he was with the unicorn, he didn’t feel those horrible, bizarre urges to destroy everything in sight, or at least they were weaker.
Thinking about it made him shudder. He had no idea what was wrong with him or why he felt this way, but he did, and it worried him. Why did he want to hurt his friends? Why did he want to destroy everything? Why did he feel like he could, and he could do it well?
Teramelle snorted quietly, dragging him out of those dark thoughts. Adrian opened his eyes and smiled. “Thanks, Teramelle…”
And yet, as he fell silent, he felt himself drift back into the darkness again. He knew he couldn’t hold it off much longer. He just hoped that he would be able to get away before he attacked anyone.
Inhuman genes brought to light by Moranaax’s ‘help.’
As the hours passed on the river and the sky darkened, Adrian could feel himself growing more and more restless. The darkness always seemed to do this to him, and as always the forest seemed to draw him to it, like it would protect him and offer him the venting he needed.
It was a small chirp from Mira, a tiny sound betraying her helplessness, that finally set him off. Adrian felt his blood rush like it was on fire, burning him from the inside out. He staggered to his feet and leaped from the boat to the shore, slipping into the river but hauling himself up and rushing into the forest.
He heard his friends shouting his name and presumably coming to find him, and he howled something about staying back, but it was lost as he raced, faster and faster, through the trees, feeling something come over him…
The flames spread outward from his body, enveloping him, changing him…
He roared, fire dissipating from his changed form. Claws easily slashed through the wood of the tree before him, flames from his mouth charring the remains to ash.
Monstrous.
He continued to race through the forest, roars scaring away just about everything in his path. A single bear dared to stand up to him. He reared onto his back legs- which he was more suited to anyway- and flared his wings, screaming his defiance of the creature before setting it ablaze. The bear roared in agony but the monster that had replaced Adrian ignored it, clawing its sides before rushing off again to cause more destruction.
It wasn’t until almost dawn that he lost the energy to continue, collapsing and feeling himself change back to his human form. His eyes flickered closed as he lost consciousness, only one thought managing to surface before he was out:
What is wrong with me?
-~-
Vechs and Aureylian looked up at each other, troubled.
“I guess Adrian’s the one with monstrous blood…” Aureylian whispered. “Do you think Nia-“
“No. I think it’s only him.” Vechs shuddered. “I’ve never…I didn’t think…I had no idea that someone could handle the monstrous form that badly…”
He looked at his own hands, shaking slightly. He had never lost control of his monstrous form, not really. But Adrian…
“Poor kid.” He whispered, looking back at Aureylian’s orb. “Poor, poor kid…”
-~-
“Over here!” Nia shouted, catching Niel’s attention. He got the others and they rushed over to Adrian’s unconscious body, who had thankfully been tracked down by Teramelle. Behind and around him was a path of destruction, everything shredded and destroyed by flames and large claws.
Upon close inspection, Adrian looked fine, just unconscious. Nia sighed in relief and positioned him on Teramelle’s back. “Let’s get back to the boats. We’ll…we’ll ask him what happened when he wakes up.” She sounded worried and tired- they had all been up all night, searching for her cousin and finding only destruction and a dead bear.
Once they set off down the river again, they knew that they should sleep but didn’t. Only Nessy and Shred managed to drift off into sleep, leaving Nia and Niel still wide awake.
“What could have caused all of that?” Niel whispered, voice shaking. “That place was completely destroyed, but…”
“…but Adrian was fine.” Nia finished, sighing. “I don’t know. I really, really don’t.” She glanced back at him. “I’m worried. I don’t know why he ran off like he did or…or…or anything!” She shook violently and Niel hugged her briefly.
“I wish I could say that he will be okay but I don’t know.” Niel whimpered. “I’m worried too…”
Adrian shifted slightly in his sleep but didn’t awaken, dreams troubled by darkness and death.
He was going to have a very restless sleep that would feel like an eternity.
Troubled dreams often drag on.
~~~
“We’ll get moving shortly.” Samuel announced to his team. This was met with sarcastic cheers.
They had remained in the cave since their encounter with the tree, resting and healing. Samuel had allowed both Valkan and Trymdas to drink a healing potion, leaving Trymdas with a moderately wounded back and Valkan with a sore, but unbroken, leg.
Samuel had studied the green blood left on his spear but had found out nothing useful other than that it was probably unsafe to ingest. Not wishing to test this, he had washed off his spear of the odd green goop and pushed the matter from his mind. Tranpar had been quiet directly after the attack, scared out of his mind from both the monster and the wounds that had been inflicting on his teammates.
Tarsen was more upset about the loss of his horse and the rafts than anything else.
“I had to steal that horse fair and square.” He complained. “And those rafts took ages to make!”
“Better the horse than us.” Samuel said dryly. “And we can always make more rafts. It only takes a few hours.”
Tarsen groaned. “That’s forever.”
“Would you rather walk to Tirisk?”
“I’d rather not go to Tirisk at all!” Tarsen crossed his arms.
“You have to. Sorry.” Samuel got to his feet, heaving the bag onto his back. “Does everyone have everything?”
The others stood, Valkan grunting as his hurt leg took his weight but held. “Yeah. Guess so.”
“Alright. Let’s get moving. Hopefully we’ll reach the lake by nightfall.” Samuel left the cave and looked around to make sure it was safe before motioning the others out.
“How likely is that?” Valkan demanded.
“Not very.” Samuel admitted. “Especially if you slow us down with unnecessary comments.”
Valkan fell silent at that and followed Samuel south, down the hill, wishing that he had never joined up with this group and its stupid prophecy.
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Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 07:56 pm (UTC)I FUCKING CALLED IT
IM SO PROUD XD
I actually can't believe one of my theories are correct
Great chapter, I love the suspense, its building up quite nicely
Looking forward to the next one ^^
no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 11:15 pm (UTC)G.C. POPTARTS! [::][::][::][::][::][::]
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Date: Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, August 21st, 2015 06:53 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 04:49 am (UTC)-Iirkolav Anon
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Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 06:55 am (UTC)Not enough Mindcrackers in this chapter. Need more.
(::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:26 pm (UTC)Don't worry. We'll see a lot more Mindcrackers soon.
c:
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Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 04:29 pm (UTC)...wait. That means you're going to do more horrible things to them! NO, TANADIN, NO!
Just don't kill any Mindcrackers, okay? I know you're going to kill descendants, so forget that. Just DON'T KILL ANY MINDCRACKERS, GOT IT? They already dealt with the Hostiles!
-TLL
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Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, August 21st, 2015 06:53 am (UTC)-TLL
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Date: Friday, August 21st, 2015 03:01 pm (UTC)I'm not evil, I swear.
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Date: Friday, August 21st, 2015 03:22 pm (UTC)-TLL
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Date: Friday, August 21st, 2015 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 10:22 am (UTC):D :D: :D :D so now we know who has the davion curse :D fun times :D
/#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/
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Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, August 21st, 2015 07:00 am (UTC)