Fated (Chapter Forty-Seven)
Saturday, October 24th, 2015 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveBut, of course, some of it is immediately bad.
Chapter 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 Forty-Seven
Kingdom of Traz’madar, Minecraftia. October 25, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
As Tarsen climbed out of the minecart, he silently swore to never ride in such a thing again. He had to resist his body’s instinct to throw up as he swayed slightly, leaning against the wall for support. He had never moved that fast in his life and he never wanted to ever again. The others looked pretty dazed as well, even Mitven, who had taken the rail before. Vynx in particular looked confused as Carl coaxed her from the cart she had jumped into without prompting earlier. The panther swiped at it once she had left it, clearly displeased with the traitorous moving box.
They shook it off quickly, though, exiting the rail station and going up the last minute or so walk out of the tunnel. The skettisren guards looked very worried as they opened the tunnel entrance, revealing the nighttime sky. Iirkolav held out his hand to one of them. “Give me your sword.” He growled. “I don’t have a weapon and I’m one of the ones fighting this thing.” The skettisren handed it to him without hesitation, even taking a cautious step back.
Iirkolav led the descendants outside, not really noticing as the guards inside the tunnel shut and hid the entrance once more. He motioned for them to be silent, standing tense in the silence of the night. He looked at the sky above, clearly expecting a flying creature of some sort to appear any second.
“When did they say it would get here?” He hissed to Mitven.
“Soon.”
They waited in silence for almost a minute before Samuel clicked his fingers and pointed.
A translucent green shape was flying past them, just visible through the trees at the other side of the clearing. He didn’t seem to notice them and continued flying, turning slightly away from his parallel course and deeper into the forest.
Carl urged Vynx forward, following the Hostile quickly into the trees. Iirkolav barked for him to come back but he ignored him, leaning low on Vynx’s back and drawing his sword. He looked over the figure he was chasing, who still seemed oddly unaware of his presence.
He was a pale green and ghostly, with only his upper body fully formed with arms with clawed hands, wings, and a head with horns. His lower body was a ghostly tail, but he was scaly all over. The Hostile paused, looking slightly to the side as if something had caught his attention. Vynx continued for a few more feet before leaping at the Hostile, roaring with her claws extended.
More than meets the eye.
Vynx’s roar cut off suddenly into a kitten-like shriek of surprise and terror as she passed right through her prey, slamming into the ground at an odd angle. Carl was thrown off of her back as she rolled down a slight dip in the ground. He groaned and got to his feet, picking his sword up and turning around quickly. He charged towards the Hostile, who was only now beginning to react in surprise to the attack against him. Carl jumped a little to get more even with his target, bringing his sword across the Hostile’s neck as his momentum took him right past it.
Carl landed and dropped to a kneel, breathing heavily and feeling triumphant. Vynx missing the initial hit had been weird but he had certainly gotten him now.
His victory was short-lived, however.
He felt the most pain he had ever felt in his life and he screamed as the Hostile drove his hand, now corporeal, through his back and into his chest. He felt the claws of the monster wrap around something and rip it out.
He collapsed, but he was dead before he hit the ground.
The descendant of Chad had fallen.
Altair dug his claws into Carl’s heart briefly before becoming incorporeal once more, letting it slip to the ground as he turned and flew back towards the main group. The moment he was visible, Iirkolav began shouting orders.
“Everyone, split up into partners! Stay away from each other but still in range! Only use ranged attacks against him and do your damn best to avoid his melee ones! If he gets too close you can flank him but this fucker can go incorporeal! Tarsen, don’t even think of going into those woods and looking for Carl, he’s undoubtedly dead by now. If he goes for you or your partner, hit him while he’s in mid-swing, but be careful becau-”
Altair had started to swoop forward at the familiar, if shocking, figure of Iirkolav, but froze when his eyes came across the descendants. They looked so similar to the Mindcrackers, and with Iirkolav amongst them… He hesitated, but the moment he saw Kaen no Mai in the hands of what looked like a female Vechs he made up his mind.
“You should have stayed dead, Iirkolav!” Altair shouted, flying somewhat upwards and ignoring the arrow that passed through his body with no effect. “You and these Mindcracker-wannabes will die, just like that teal-haired fucker that’s lying in a pool of his own blood just back in the trees!” He made a vague motion back towards the trees before swooping south, taking on an almost unrealistic speed as the winds assisted him forward.
A report to deliver.
Iirkolav watched him go and spat a long string of curses. “I told Carl to not go running off, and look what he did!”
Samuel lightly moved forward into the trees to locate Carl’s body, sighing sadly. He shook his head as he watched a dazed Vynx nudging him gently, clearly in some level of disbelief that he was dead.
“Vynx.” He said softly. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do for him.”
Vynx looked up at him and meowed pitifully, pawing gently at Carl.
“Come on.” Samuel turned and walked back towards the group, the panther eventually following him.
Tarsen walked up to Samuel as he entered the clearing once more, but Samuel simply shook his head. Tarsen sighed quietly and moved to walk beside Samuel.
Iirkolav sighed as well. “Try listening to me, alright? Now, let’s get back inside. We need to recover from this and think of a plan.”
As Samuel watched the scarred man turn back towards the entrance to the tunnels, he wondered what kind of horrors he had seen to make him treat death so casually.
With a shudder, he decided that he didn’t want to know.
-~-
Chad flinched the moment that Carl passed through Altair, knowing of the Hostile’s power, but it didn’t stop him from crying out as Carl’s heart was torn from his body and the orb shattered. He stared at the bronze dust in his hands and slowly slumped in his seat. Sevadus put an arm around his shoulders, attempting to reassure him that it would be okay even though he knew it wouldn’t be.
One-tenth of the descendants lay dead, and nothing could be done to save them. Chad let the rest of the dust slip through his fingers to the floor before shutting his eyes. He felt someone else, probably Paul, pat his arm, but he didn’t respond.
Eventually he just stood and left the silent room, needing some time alone. He passed Zisteau on the way and the pigman correctly guessed what was bothering him. Having lost his own descendant, Zisteau knew the feeling.
It was odd, he reflected, as they didn’t actually know the descendants. They had never met or spoken to them, but seeing one of their line die, one that they had watched for weeks…it was heartbreaking. Zisteau’s mismatched eyes drifted to the door of the room that Chad had just left, and he found himself wondering how many others had to die before this battle could finally be over.
He swore quietly, wishing it didn’t have to be this way.
~~~
Vechs felt like an asshole.
Guude had eventually cleared him to open the door and let Blame out, and they had found him unconscious next to the door, knocked out from exhaustion. When he had eventually woken up, he informed them of the horrible hallucinations that his mind had conjured up, and continually glared at Vechs when he learned of who the door guard had been.
“I was told not to let you out under any circumstances!”Vechs protested.
“I wish I’d broken more than just your jaw. How’d you get that healed so quickly, anyway?” Blame demanded.
“Golden apple.”
“How’d you eat a golden apple with a broken jaw?”
“Keep asking and you’ll find out.”
“Vechs!” Paul scolded. “Blame’s had a rough time.”
Blame patted the hilts of his swords, glad that they had been returned to him. “You have no idea. Now get me my damn orb. I want to know what Shred and Iirkolav are up to.”
-~-
Niel’s eyes slowly opened and he yawned before attempting to sit up. Bandages around his chest restricted his movement, which he was pretty used to, but the dampness of them confused him. As Mitven leaned over him and pushed him down, he remembered exactly what was going on.
“Did it work?” He asked immediately, resisting the urge to sit up again and remove the bandages to see.
“I think so.” Mitven shrugged slightly. “It’ll take awhile for the wounds to heal over fully. Those bandages have been soaked with healing potion, which both helps the flesh stitch itself back together and numbs the pain. It’s best if you don’t move- you might make it heal incorrectly and we’ll have to do it again.”
Niel smiled at her and took her hand. “Thank you.” He whispered, then looked around. “Where’s Shred? I want to thank her too.”
“She’s resting. It’s very late- everyone’s asleep.” She hesitated. “Carl’s dead.”
Niel sat up, ignoring how the tight bandages rubbed against his chest and irritated it. “What?!”
“The Hostile Altair showed up and killed him before fleeing south. I’m sorry, Niel.”
Niel shook his head slowly in disbelief. Carl had been one of the more competent fighters on the team, and now…
They had lost two team members in as many days. He slowly lay back down with Mitven’s urging, shaking slightly.
“Is everyone else okay?” He whispered. “What about Adrian?”
Concern for the most unstable of his friends.
“Everyone else is fine.” Mitven reassured. “But you need to worry about yourself for now, okay? You need to not do a whole lot of physical activity until your chest heals up and then we can take those bandages off. After that, you probably won’t have nearly as much difficulty with breathing and you should be able to work better than you did when you came in here.” She shook her head slightly. “I can’t believe that Shred was right. From what progress I’ve seen so far, you’ll heal up just like she said you would. Go figure.”
“Well, she did say she’d done it herself, so she knows how it would work.”
Mitven shrugged. “True. Now, you need to get some more sleep. That’ll help the healing process further. I’ll refresh the potion on your bandages in a few hours, okay?”
Niel nodded and shut his eyes, sighing softly in contentment. Soon he would never have to deal with breathing issues and chest pains again. Even with the news of Carl’s death, his mood wasn’t dipping into the negatives. Maybe it was a bit selfish, but as he slowly drifted out of consciousness, Niel couldn’t really be bothered to think about much other than the fact that he would no longer be in pain. He could worry about the loss of Carl in the morning.
And maybe Mitven was right in that the others wouldn’t judge him. After all, Shred had taken it without hesitation, hadn’t she? And if they had problems, he had the funny feeling that Mitven would protect him.
That, if nothing else, made him feel safe enough to sleep once more.
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Date: Saturday, October 24th, 2015 10:30 pm (UTC)-Anon Cami
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Date: Sunday, October 25th, 2015 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, October 24th, 2015 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, October 25th, 2015 12:27 am (UTC)Woops. :P
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Date: Sunday, October 25th, 2015 01:00 pm (UTC)Poor Vynx. And poor Blame and Vechs. And Iirkolav. And everyone. I feel sorry for everyone.
Iirkolav knows so much. I think they can tell that he's seen these creatures before. I think he's a great addition to this story.
Your cookie allotment just went WAY down. (::) (::)
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Sunday, October 25th, 2015 04:16 pm (UTC)I love you guys. XD
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Date: Monday, October 26th, 2015 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, October 26th, 2015 06:48 am (UTC)(Stupid phone submitted the comment too early.)
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Sunday, October 25th, 2015 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, October 25th, 2015 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, October 26th, 2015 06:46 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker