Fated (Chapter Twenty-Seven)
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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-Seven
Kingdom of Illian, Minecraftia. October 1, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
“It looks like we’re leaving the forest.” Nessy noted, motioning at the quickly thinning trees. They had been going downriver for awhile now, and they were finally passing into the plains.
“We’ll be reaching Dalania soon.” Nia warned. “We’ll only be in the plains for a few hours until we cross the border and reach the burned area.”
“We’ll need to be on guard.” Shred put in. “Shatterbeasts could very well attack us- you know how aggressive they are.” She sounded annoyed at this, as she had previously attempted to argue with Nia about getting off the river and avoiding Dalania altogether. Nia had informed her that it would take too long and they just didn’t have time for that, plus they’d only be in Dalania for about a day. Shred had eventually given in, figuring that arguing with Nia wasn’t worth her time and they could take anything they encountered.
The continued downriver for several more hours before Nessy growled softly. She motioned at the sight of the burned landscape ahead of them, shuddering slightly. Adrian copied the motion, remembering his last time in the ruined kingdom of Dalania. Shred casually unsheathed her weapons and set them on her lap, just in case. She would not drop her guard for even a second while they remained within the borders of Dalania.
Mira whimpered quietly as they passed into the gray, ashen wastes of Dalania, peering into the distance. She shuddered. “No.” She mumbled. “Dorr. No.”
Minutes later, the growl of a shatterbeast was audible. Shred jumped to her feet, almost tipping the boat over. Mira shrieked and clung to Niel, who was the closest at the time. Niel copied her sound and fell from his sitting position, disbalancing the boat further.
Shred leaped from the boat onto the shore as the shatterbeast approached. It was small- about the size of a somewhat large dog- and covered in irregularly sized red scales, with a long tail ending in a spiked ball. It jumped at her, claws extended, but received a bad cut from one of her swords. Its tail lashed around and hit Shred in the knee, creating an audible cracking sound and causing her to howl and collapse. It snarled and recovered from the hit it had taken, attacking her again.
Broken bones.
By now, Nessy had jumped from her boat and slammed her shoulder into the shatterbeast, knocking it from the air. She drew her sword and jumped over a swing from its tail, seeing what it had done to Shred and not wanting to be injured as well.
Nessy struck at it but its harder back scales deflected the blow, letting it claw her legs. She yelped and spat flames, dragon instincts taking over. The shatterbeast ignored them, immune, and was about to strike again when an arrow from Kaen no Mai slammed into its side.
It screamed and fell on its side from the sheer force of the impact. It weakly tried to get to its feet but it had fallen close enough to Shred to allow her to decapitate it.
“Happy birthday, fucker.” Nia growled. “Is everyone alright?”
Nessy started to inform her that her legs were damaged and likely required a healing potion when she was interrupted by a string of curses; Shred had tried to stand but had only managed to fall over onto her side.
“My knee is broken.” She explained, resuming her cursing. Nessy told this to Nia, who hopped out of the boat, carrying the bag of healing potions. She and Adrian had started to stop the boats the moment that Shred had gone jumping out, but Adrian hadn’t had time to rush to her defense.
Nessy downed half the potion that Nia offered her immediately, but Shred decided to complain for a bit before healing herself.
“I’ve never seen a shatterbeast like that before. They’re usually furrier, slower, and bigger.”
“There are several types of the things, clearly.” Nessy rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t-”
“Drink your damn potion and let’s go! I don’t want to sit around waiting for the rest of its pack to show up.” Nia snapped.
Shred drank the potion without any further complaints, sighing in relief as he bones mended themselves. She got to her feet and made sure she had everything before returning to the boat. She hugged Mira close and apologized for scaring her. Niel huffed quietly about not getting an apology as well, but didn’t mention it.
“Next time, just let me shoot it.” Nia shook a finger at Shred. “We don’t have the potions to spare.”
“I’m not stupid. That’s the plan.”
“Uh huh. Right. Was that the plan this time?”
“No. This time was just to kill a shatterbeast. I didn’t expect it to be different.”
“Well, that’s what you get, now, isn’t it?” Adrian rolled his eyes.
Shred glared. “If I was on the same boat as you, I’d throw you into the water.”
“You’re welcome.”
~~~
Samuel double checked the map and the sun before resuming using the paddle to propel the raft across the lake. He had worried about using only one raft, but he and Tranpar had done the calculations and decided that they could get away with it due to no longer having Tarsen’s horse (something he complained about constantly) as well as having only one making the trip faster and easier as they didn’t have to make two rafts.
He glanced back over the assorted group members, noting that Valkan wouldn’t look at him except to glare. That wasn’t unusual in any way.
Tarsen had a few of his fingers in the water, watching how the water reacted to him and overall just enjoying how it looked. For once, he had nothing to do, nothing to worry about to survive, so he indulged himself a little. Tranpar was quietly explaining why the water was doing what it was doing, and Tarsen seemed to be paying at least half attention, nodding and occasionally making comments. Trymdas was silent, looking out over the lake at the shore to their left. Samuel could tell that the kid was more depressed than usual, and that was saying something.
He sighed softly, wishing that he could help. He shuddered as he glanced back at Valkan before turning forward once again. Valkan gave him a bad feeling, and along with Trymdas’s warning to not get in Valkan’s way adding into the unease, Samuel decided that he needed to keep an eye on him. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Valkan if he could avoid it, but if he had to in order to keep the others safe, he would.
Samuel would have loved to ask Tarsen his opinion on the strange elder brother, but as they were all together on a raft and not walking, this was impossible without Valkan knowing.
Samuel shuddered again, remembering the feeling that he had gotten last night. He wished he had a way to contact the other groups, but without magic, this was impossible. He became so lost in these bad feelings that he didn’t hear Trymdas speaking to him until he tugged on his shirt.
“There’s a boy over there.” Trymdas said softly. “He’s important.” He pointed to a boy dressed completely in black, sitting several yards away from the mouth of the river, fishing.
Samuel frowned. “How do you know?”
“You can feel it, can’t you? He’s important. Like we are.” Trymdas insisted. Samuel had never seen him like this but when he thought about it, he could feel that Trymdas was right. Just like the odd, foreboding feeling from last night, this one seemed to try to desperately tell him that they needed to stop here.
As the river was slow, Samuel easily stopped the boat and hopped out, walking up to the boy. Trymdas didn’t follow, too skittish.
All his bravery for the moment expended.
The boy looked up when Samuel approached, and he noted the odd rust-colored eyes and dark brown hair. “My name is Samuel. I’m-”
“The shadows told me about you.” The boy said simply, reeling in his line and standing up. “I’m supposed to go with you.”
Samuel blinked. “The shadows?”
The boy nodded. “Yes. They’ve been telling me for weeks that my time had come to fulfill my destiny. Or something.” He shrugged a little. “Do you have room on your raft?”
Samuel glanced behind him. “We…should.” He hesitated before pulling out the stone. “Hold this, if you would.”
The boy shrugged and took it, watching it light up. He handed it back quickly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “My name is Onai.”
Samuel took him back to the boat and introduced him to everyone. Trymdas didn’t speak to him, looking away. Valkan grinned when he heard the boy’s explanation.
“Shadow elementalist, eh? I’m familiar with them.” He grinned, an expression that made Samuel uneasy.
“I know.” Onai said simply, climbing aboard and sitting down. Tarsen shot him a look and shifted to be closer to Samuel.
As they set out again, Tarsen whispered something to Samuel. “That kid unnerves me. He’s kinda weird.”
“I’d worry about Valkan before I worry about him.”
“I’m not worried about Valkan. I know I can stab him. I don’t know about Onai.”
Samuel didn’t bother to respond, just focusing on the river ahead.
Soon, all matters of Onai were out of his mind, replaced by worries about Valkan.
Easily forgettable, that one.
~~~
It was dark once again when Marcus showed himself. He seemed to melt out of the shadows, outfit camouflaging him well in the swamp. He carried no shortage of weapons; a sword on each hip, a polearm on his back, a small crossbow attached to his belt in the front, and several daggers and a small mace on his belt in the back.
In the twenty-four or so hours that the group had waited, they had been mostly quiet, silently mourning Vorna and comforting each other, most of all Aldobiva. The sharpshooter seemed very broken by the loss of her girlfriend and didn’t wish to speak, resorting to quiet sobbing occasionally.
Marcus surveyed them as they got to their feet, preparing to travel once again. “That was more than a few hours.” Baltbee told him.
“I was unavoidably detained.” Marcus said without explanation. “Let’s get going.” He hesitated. “Where are we going, exactly?”
Zel opened the map and tapped a circle drawn on it, near the center. “Just west of Sunspire, near the river.”
“Fantastic.” Marcus rolled his eyes. “Remember that we only travel at night.”
“You’re becoming a pain in the ass already.” Katrin hissed, standing by Zel. “You make us wait a day, you aren’t even sympathetic to losing one of our own, and then you force us to follow your rules. Why?”
Marcus bared his teeth, making her jump. “I have my reasons. Let’s go.” When Zel moved to look at his face, Marcus resumed a neutral expression. He raised an eyebrow and Zel shuddered, orienting them and beginning to walk. He quietly asked Katrin what she had seen a few minutes later, but she shook her head, glancing behind her.
Perhaps not human.
The group was quiet as they walked, shaken from the loss of Vorna. She almost always had a conversation going with Aldobiva as they walked that the others frequently jumped in on, and the lack of that cast a heavy shadow over the group. The silence that followed them was deafening, oppressive, and brought the mood down to an all-time low.
Minutes later, Marcus suddenly yanked Baltbee away from the water’s edge, making the crocodile’s teeth miss him by inches. The beast hissed and slid back into the water, knowing that it couldn’t get him now. Baltbee shuddered and glanced at Marcus. “How-”
“I see well in the dark and it was moving.” Marcus told him. “Watch yourself.” He pushed him away and motioned for them to continue.
Zel shuddered, knowing that they had almost lost a second member of the group.
-~-
“Shred should know better.” Blame grumbled for the twelfth time. Even hours later, he was still annoyed at her underestimating the shatterbeast. “She messes up a lot more than-”
“Blame.” Paul interrupted. “She’s eighteen, not over a hundred like you were when we had to deal with the Hostiles. This is her third time outside of Ashwatch in her life. Let her learn.”
Blame subsided into angry muttering while Mhykol once again remarked how happy he was that fate hadn’t forgotten his line. He was very happy that he wasn’t the last to have his orb activate and constantly watched his creepy, shadowy descendant, despite still not knowing a lot about him.
Thejims, on the other hand, knew quite a bit about Marcus, something that Jsano now knew as well. He exchanged glances with the water elementalist but said nothing, unsure as to how to bring it up to the group.
~~~
Vechs, meanwhile, paced within one of his chunks. He hadn’t been paying much attention when fleeing what he now realized was a hallucination, but judging by the lava, he figured it was Sea of Flame II. He sighed and sat on a rocky outcropping, transforming into his monstrous form so that if he slipped into the lava it wouldn’t be a big deal.
The hallucinations and terrors, which had been starting to recede, had returned with a vengeance ever since he had picked up the orb that allowed him to view the Hostiles. He pulled it out of his toolbelt and looked it over before returning it to its pocket.
He jerked away from a spurt of lava before sighing, knowing that it was just lava and not a Hostile or an enemy. He buried his face in his clawed hands, closing his eyes and wishing that this entire thing was over already.
He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 10:55 am (UTC)Mhykol's line about not being forgotten
New character
Tarsen being amazing, Samuel too. Niel was also pretty great.
Negative:
I think you're using the black text too much tbh. It's supposed to be Vechs talking, right? A lot of this stuff is just random, kinda obvious things. Like "Broken Bones" well no crap, it says her knee was cracked, and like 2 paragraphs later she says "I broke my knee"
The black text is still great, it's just being used for odd things? Though idk, this isn't a big deal, and probably just me being stupid.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, August 28th, 2015 12:58 am (UTC)I did like when he said "Easily forgettable, that one."
no subject
Date: Friday, August 28th, 2015 06:06 am (UTC)I love that Mhykol is glad that his line isn't forgotten. Best part ever.
And nuuuu, chapters less often! Still, I understand. School starts and I become so busy I can't even READ this chapter until today.
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